iritirrrr ^ ot? PICTURE T H EAT R E ADVERTISING EPES WINTHROP SARGENT — The W^rong Girl i Two I'arts -Com- edy). Feb. 10 — Breaking In (Comedy-Drama). Feb. 11 — On the .-Vltar of Love (Drama). Feb. 12- When Greek Meets Greek (Comedy). •Feb. 1-" — Mother's Roses (Broadway Star Feature — Special — Three Parts — Drama). Feb. Feb. Feb. SFeb. ■Feb. Feb. i'eb. 15— The Profesiior's Nightmare (Comedv) ■io~^^^°®^ ^^ Swedish Norrland (Scenic) 16— -OGTarry of the Royal Mounted (Broad- way Star Features— Special— Thre« Parts — Drama). 17— Some White Hope? (Comedy) 1»— The Quality of Mercy (Drama). on i^ Madcap Adventure (Comedy— Dr.) 20— Twice Rescued (Special— Two part»— Drama). oS~"™I^'*''^ Samuel Skidded (Comedy) 2o— The Still, Small Voice ( Special --T^so ^. „, parts—Drama). Mail Who (Com. "Figgered' Figure 8. — Example of pasted calender. Because of its bulk the Moving Picture World runs four volumes to the year ; thirteen issues to the volume. The pages are numbered from the front cover of number 40 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING one to the back cover of number thirteen, in consecutive order. In noting an item it is necessary only to note the page and volume number. Instead of having to write "Page 73, March 27, 1915," you merely write "23/73."' The first number stands for the number of the volume and the second for the page. With one exception this is the basis of all the filing systems. The exception is to file by dates and companies and look up the matter when you know what films you are to have. In the back part of each issue may be found a list of recent films, classified by companies and in the order of their release. These are to be pasted up by companie.^, either on the pages of a cheap blank book or on loose sheets inserted in an arch file or bound in a loose leaf cover. If you use the latter it is best to buy cheap paper and have it cut to size instead of using the high grade stock supplied for the purpose. Each company's releases are kept together. The calendar is changed weekly and the new releases written in. When the releases already pasted up are passed, you cut and paste the next list. Figure 8 shows a section of the Vitagraph calendar. In using this simple form, knowing the company making a subject, you turn to their list, ascertain the date of release and look up your material in advance of that date. A little work every second or third week will keep your list up to date. The rest is merely a matter of looking up the proper papers. This takes time. As a rule you must get out your advertising matter in a hurry and cannot spare the time for an extended search for material. Some scheme that will give you quicker reference is to be preferred. These systems re- quire more time to maintain, but the work can be done when time permits instead of while the printer waits for copy. The simplest generally efficient system is a card cata- olgue scheme. This requires the regular three by five- inch cards and a container that may be a thirty-five cent storage box or a cabinet as elaborate as you can afiford and desire, , TABULATING INFORMATION 41 The essential facts will generally be found under a few heads. These are : S — The synopsis of the story. C — The criticism of the release. A — ^The advertisement of the manufacturer. M — ^The manufacturer's press work. X — Special press matter. Each week you prepare a set of cards for the releases of the week. If you use features, these can be similarly treated. The cards can be used just as they come out of stock; they may be printed up, or rubber stamped by a stamp made for the purpose. On the top line goes the title of the film. For convenience, stories commencing with "A," "An," or "The," have the articles dropped from the commencement of the title, to avoid clogging those divisions of the catalogue. Judgenent Day, The Maker- Social Features Part«-4 Released-5-28-15 Advertisement- 24-946 Synopsis- 24-1123 Criticism- 24- 1849 Special story- 24_1261 Press work- 24-915 24-1327 Remarks: Deals with protection to men in machine shops. Work up with labor unions. Figure 9. — An index card properly entered. Each week the titles are prepared and the cards are filed in their proper places in the catalogue. It is best to use a comparatively small set of guide cards. These are cards with the alphabetical divisions printed on tabs that rise above the cards. Sixty or one hundred guides will be plenty. In filing you not only go by these guides, but in strict alphabetical order. The three stories. 42 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING "Beauty Wins," "Back Home," and "Baby Love," might all go in the division "Ba-Be," but you would file "Baby Love" before "Back Home," and that before "Beauty Wins," being guided by the third letter. Taking the paper, you mark down from the synopsis pages all synopses published, hunting up the cards and leaving a pencil or block in the place from which a caid is taken until it is returned. In the same way you give volume and page number to other information. Figure 9 shows a card properly entered. At a glance the title shows itself to be a Social Feature film in four parts, dealing with protection to men in machine shops. In volume twenty-four the synopsis appears on page 1123, the advertisement on page 946, a special story is to be found on page 1361, press work on pages 915 and 1327, and a criticism on page 1849. You have only to consult those pages to obtain full information as to the subject without loss of time or fear of overlooking anything. Where a printed card is not used, it is handier to use the one-letter abbreviations given in the table earlier in this chapter. A more elaborate scheme is the loose leaf scrap book. Here all of the material is cut out at the time of receipt, two file copies of the paper being required. This matter, along with the manufacturer's material and other infor- mation, is lightly pasted onto large sheets of paper and filed in alphabetical order. W'hen a film program is re- ceived it is necessary only to remove the proper sheets and all the material is ready to hand without search. Variations of this scheme are to use envelopes large enough to contain the material, or vertical folders. These add considerably to the expense and, unless time is a most vital consideration, it will generally be found that the card system is sufficient. Whatever the system employed, provision should be made for keeping down the catalogue. It seldom if ever happens that a subject older than 180 days is needed. It follows then, that a six months' file is sufficient. The best scheme for sorting over the file is the color system. Cards may be had in from eight to a dozen colors, ac- TABULATING INFORMATION 43 cording to the stock. Get cards of various colors and change every three months. Suppose you use this classification: January to March — White. April to June — ^Green. July to September — ^Pink. October to December — Primrose. The first three months you use white cards. For April to June dates set aside the white cards and use green. In July you change to pink, and in October to primrose. The first of October you strip the file of all white cards. The first of January the green cards are taken out, and so on. The work may be done more quickly and more surely by color than where dates have to be read. The same scheme can be used for the other systems. Get a set of stamp pads with various colors, say red, green, blue and black. Get some bottle corks ; champagne corks are just the thing. Shave one end to an even sur- face and use it the same as you would a rubber stamp. For the first three months use one color then change the same as with cards, taking out the first color at the end of the ninth month. For the loose sheets, leave one outside corner blank for the stamp. Stamp the envelopes where a postage stamp would naturally be placed and the same with the folders. Even a small boy can strip the files without going wrong. Some system is absolutely necessary if you would avoid silly and hurtful mistakes. Titles are apt to be mislead- ing in the extreme, and are not to be counted upon. You would have no confidence in a grocer w'ho sold you flour for powdered sugar and who fell back on the lame ex- planation that it should have been sugar. Your patrons will regard you similarly if you announce a drama that proves to be a comedy or vice versa. If you do not even know that much about your offering, you cannot expect your statements to be believed when you say it is a fine drama or an unusually amusing comedy. In addition to tabulating film information, tabulate anything that can be of use to you in your advertising. Have a supplementary index for ideas. Get blank guide 44 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING cards, "third cut" and label these with special subjects such as Souvenirs, Holidays, Matinees, Comfort, Con- venience, Ventilation, Seating, Safety, Features, Pro- gram, Music, etc. Catchlines, as will be explained in a later chapter, will have several subdivisions. Whenever you read of an idea or think of one, write it down ; one idea only to a card, and file it away. When you want information on any subject, turn to that classi- fication and you will have it all to your hand. In time you will be surprised at the mass of material you can acquire. Carry cards with you and jot down ideas the moment they come to you. File them as soon as you come to the theatre. Never let an idea get away from you. Nail it on a card and put the card where you can keep an eye on it. All of this may sound formidable, but you will find that in practise it is a very simple matter to build up a file of information that will be invaluable to you. Keep a scrap book of all your advertising. It is best to have two books, one for your own work and one for the advertisements of your competitors. Invoice books are good, but if you do not want to go to the expense of books, get large sheets of paper and two sticks long enough and three-fourths by one-half inch. Get enough three-inch brass bolts to go one about every six inches. The one-eighth or three-sixteenth bolts will be best. Get ^wo washers and one winged nut for each. Drill holes at proper distances through the two sticks. Put the bolts through one stick with washers between the wood and the heads. Punch the paper to suit and place on the bolts. Then put on the top stick and the other washers and screw the winged nuts home. This will serve as well as bound books and can be used repeatedly. But do not merely paste the books up. When time permits get them down and study them. See where you could have improved the layout. See where your op- position has done so. It will be a liberal education in the long run. And do not merely study other picture theatre advertising. Study all advertising in the daily papers and in the magazines. Be always on the outlook for new CATCHLINES 45 ideas. You'll find them everywhere and perhaps the advertisement of some large department store will prove a more helpful source of inspiration than your opponent's efforts. With information tabulated and ready to hand and with examples of advertising before you, it will soon become a simple matter to write good advertisements in less time than once it took you to frame a four-line reader. CHAPTER VII. CATCHLINES Value of a slogan — slang to be used sparingly — atten- tion attractors — argument lines — the need for collecting catchlines in advance. Catchlines are so important that a chapter supplemental to tabulated information is here offered, though it is recommended that the catalogue of catchlines be made a part ; and an important part, of the general catalogue. Catchlines may be generally divided into two classi- fications : attention attractors and arguments. "Don't be a fool," staring at one from an advertisement challenges interest, but it offers no argument. The familiar "Go where the crowd goes," on the other hand, it is an argu- ment that the crowds indicate the presence of good value. Both forms of catchline have their uses, but they differ in that the argument may stand by itself where generally the attractor runs into the body of the text ; a short, pithy line, incomplete in itself, that leads the reader to follow on to the argument. Sometimes the catchline becomes the house slogan. The "Go where the crowd goes," already referred to, is used by many houses as is "The House of Hits," bor- rowed from a music catalogue. "The Home of Perfect Projection," "Where the Big Shows Play," and similar lines are in general use. Most of these are too general in their appeal. They are unsupported statements. On the other hand "The Little House with the Big Seats," 46 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING suggests coziness and comfort and tell why. Alliteration is not generally advisable, though now and then something similar to the examples in Figure 10 may be empolyed even as a sort of supplemental trade mark. Perfect ftflOSt ictures |U| ^o** roperly IVl '^» rojected Ifloney Figure 10. — Two examples of alliterative catchlines. It is better not to seek to create a slogan at the start. It is seldom that the happiest selection is made deliber- ately. Let it be a matter of growth ; something suggested by the house or its conduct that fits so exactly that every regular patron recognizes its truth and the chance reader feels the appeal. For general advertising the catchline should be changed with each batch of copy. The frequent use of slang should be avoided, and where slang is used, it should be neither too new to be understood nor so old as to be tiresome. Wait until it is generally accepted, but do not wait too long. It is better to coin your own phrases or adapt others than to borrow outright. Carry the cards mentioned in the preceeding chapter and the instant you see a line that can be used in its present form or adapted, write it down and file it away. Your reading, your conversations and your thoughts will all bring suggestions if you are alert and look for them. File these under such general heads as "house," "com- forts," "matinees," "programs," etc., and have a catchall for vagrant phrases. It will simplify the search for material and group the ideas under proper heads. When you are ready to write your advertising look over your stuff. Find something that will fit. Suppose that you have an automobile racing story. From an accident insurance advertisement you have taken the familiar cry of "Car coming!" leading to the argument that you may CATCHLINES 47 not hear the cry some day and will be sorry, up in heaven, that your widow has no insurance to collect. Now you evolve an advertisement something like Figure 11. You have your text and your catchline. You forget the old advertisement in the new. Almost always something in the film will give you a hint for a catchline and the catch- line will either attract the attention that the title will not get or emphasize its value. CAR COMING ! ! If you've ever been to an automobile road race you know how this cry thrills as the speed fiends come hurtling down the course. If you have never seen one you'll get all the excite- ment and the thrills without the dust and discomfort in IN THE LAST HALF MILE ierful romance woven by the famous AJ£ great automobile classic of America THE VANDERBILT CUP RACE The wonderful romance woven by the famous Ajax company around the great automobile classic of America Figure 11. — A catchline that reads into the body of the advertisement. Sometimes the Exhibitor can invent a fictitious char- acter whose observations will be looked for, and will head his copy with something like these: Cy Perkins says: "If your wife talks too much come to the Dream and enjoy the silent drama, or bring her and enjoy her silence." Cy Perkins says: "A stitch in time saves nine, but a ticket to the Dream saves nine dimes." Cy Perkins says : "A man stung by a bee gets as mad as a hornet, but there are no stings at the Dream." The more clever the lines are the better, but they do not have to be extremely clever to attract attention. Writing catchlines is partly trick and partly habir. The more they are studied the greater the proficiency gained. These that follow may be found useful and will suggest others. 48 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING You cannot judge by the title. See the picture. We do not make the pictures, but we get the best made. Yesterday — that's gone. FORGET IT. Tomorrow — doesn't exist. DON'T WORRY. Today — is here. LET IT FIND YOU AT THE GRAND. I could get cheaper pictures, but I won't. I would get better pictures, but I can't. The cool house with the warm welcome. Wouldst have a merry, jolly time? The Crescent beckons, price one dime. In worry would you pound some dents? Go to the Crescent for ten cents. Ten cents : one dime is well expended At the Crescent : troubles ended. Ten little pennies make one dime. The Crescent means a happy time. It's not what you pay, but what you g-et. Two dollar acting for ten cents. Wind up the day right. Miles of smiles. Give us ten cents. If you're sorry we'll give it back. CATCHLINES 49 Glad you came. Do it some more. If you're looking for some one after eight o'clock, look in at the Beauty. He'll be there with the rest of the crowd. All for fun and fun for all. A dollar will buy no more. Every little bit of better added to the best makes our best just a little bit better. Nobody nowhere is getting from anybody anyw'herc better pictures than we are showing everybody here. Just the place to rest a while. Drop, your cares and smile and smile. New York is enjoying the same pictures we are show- ing here tonight. The smile that won't come off is the smile that we put on you. It isn't just the pictures; it's the way we show them. so PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING CHAPTER VIII. ADVERTISING ON THE SCREEN How to make slides — slide ink — use of opaques — the serial slide — business making slides — contest slides — local features. One of the best, cheapest and most direct forms of advertising to patrons whose favor you already enjoy is by means of the screen. The wise Exhibitor will keep this advantage to himself and not permit trade adver- tising to creep in. Trade advertisements are proper enough in a house program where they may be read or ignored, but it is unfair to a patron to anchor him in a seat and then force him either to close his eyes or to watch a seemingly endless projection of advertisements of trades people. He will not mind your talking him, but he will resent it when you invite the butcher, the baker, the grocer and the stationer to come and share your advantage. In the long run it will react against the house. For a time the patron may stand the slides for the sake of the pictuies, but eventually he will decide that he is tired of pictures when it may be merely that he is tired of the slides. The slides may add a few dollars to your revenue, but would you like it if your barber should suddenly leave you with your face unshaved while he stopped to tell you the prices of Schmidt's meat, of Slocum's bread, sing the praises of Denton's shoes and Hummer's sugar? You went in to get a shave. You rather expect to be asked to purchase a bottle of hair tonic and be told that your hair needs cutting, but that is about all you will permit. The two situations are precisely the same. You have your patrons at your mercy and you take advantage of their helplessness. In time they are bound to resent it and ADVERTISING ON THE SCREEN 51 perhaps turn to a house that makes capital of the fact that it treats its patrons with consideration. Perhaps the most familiar forms of slides, additional to the slide prepared by the photographic process, are those formed of opaque paper with the letters cut out by a machine, sheets of geletaine written or typewritten upon, slides treated with opaque and then scratched, slides written with prepared ink and those painted on the glass. The simplest form of the glass slide is that in which the message is written on the face of the glass, dried and exhibited. There are inks prepared for this purpose, but a good ink may be made by mixing two fluid ounces of water with one half ounce of mucilage and adding one half ounce of white oxide of zinc. This will write on the clear glass and can be was'bed ofif. If you want to go to a little trouble, you can outline these slides with black carriage varnish, using a fine brush, and making a simple line or as ornate a frame as your artistic abilities permit. The varnish is waterproof and the part done in this medium will be permanent, the slides being used repeatedly. It is a good plan to keep on hand slides permanently lettered with stock announce- ments and partly lettered with such lines as "Coming soon," "Tomorrow." "Don't miss," and similar phrases which may be amplified by the addition of the title and date in slide ink. Ink slides must be given time to dry down. A form of slide that can be used immediately is prepared in blank by coating the glass with whiting, to which a little gum has been added, photographic marl or opaque, or any similar substance that can be removed wi h a sharp point. The coating should be as thin as possible or the letters will be irregular, due to the caking of the coating and its removal in lumps. In most forms of slide carriers these require to be covered with a second glass. If not intended for regular display it will not be necessary to bind these very securely. A bit of the binding tape on all four sides is sufficient. Some operators make a hinge on one long edge with the binder and merely clip the other side with a small strip of the glued tape. 52 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Old photographic plates make good slide blanks if the deposit of silver is removed. This leaves one surface coated with a fine film of gelatine which can be tinted, if desired, written on to get a black letter on a white ground, or scratched to get a white letter on a dark tint. Local photographers can supply these plates in large sizes, which may be cut down for use. Generally when disposed of they are sold for old glass and the face of the negative is scratched to prevent prints being made. For a small sum he would probably be willing to bleach and perhaps harden the film and turn them over unde- faced. If the slides are to be tinted, dip them in a solution of any package dye (experimenting to ascertain the proper strength), and dry in a rack that permits the surplus dye to drip from one corner, otherwise the dye will be apt to dry down in rings. If these blanks are placed over some design of the proper size, the latter can be sketched in, and where desired, can be tinted with the regular photographic tints; a ten or fifteen cent outfit lasting a season. With some good designs and a little practise really handsome home made slides can be turned out with small expense. Sheets of gelatine, plain or colored, may be written upon in ink or may be put into the typewriter. In the latter case it is better to get the impression with a piece of new carbon paper instead of trusting to the partly worn ribbon. The best grade of carbon for this purpose is the soft or "railroad" carbon, which will leave a heavier deposit The same piece should not be used more than once or wherever a letter on the second .slide comes over one on the first job, there will be a variation in the de- posit of carbon that may show up badly on the screen. If you want to go to the expense of buying a small hand press and a few fonts of type, you can print on these gelatine sheets and get a result every bit as good as a professional job. The type should be in the eight, twelve and eighteen point sizes, a single font of the larger sizes and more of the eight point. If you are handy with the camera, the true photo- ADVERTISING ON THE SCREEN 53 graphic slides can be made if you have a long focus camera that can be worked with a glass plate. A kit must be used to hold the proper size lantern plate. The punched paper slides are neat and may be quickly prepared, but the cost of the machine (about one hun- dred dollars) makes it rather an expensive aid, consider- ing its limited use. Another use of opaque paper is for the preparation of cut-out slides. In this an outline is cut in the paper and the text lettered in the opening. The masks may be made of any opaque paper, but the black "needle" paper used around photographic plates and to back kodack films is just the thing. Any photographer who does de- veloping for amateurs will be glad to give you all you want without charge. The opening may be fanciful, a star, square or diamond, but is better if suited to the subject to be announced; a bottle or demijohn for a temperance film, a star and crescent for a Turkish subject, and so on. The cut-out is pasted onto the glass and this must dry before the lettering is done. The efifect on the screen is that of a shape of light carrying the text. Clock face slides are handy and may now be purchased so cheaply that it scarcely pays to make one. If for any reason it must be done, bore a hole in the centre of a blank, using a rat tail file and keeping the glass wet with a saturated solution of camphor in turpentine. Take a five cent piece of gum camphor, drop a few drops of alcohol upon it and crumble it up almost to a powder, put into a bottle and add a couple of ounces of pure spirits of turpentine. It will not all dissolve, but suf- ficient will be taken up. You will probably break a few glasses, so practise on worthless pieces. The hands can be procured from the jeweler and the clock face can bs lettered on. A more simple scheme is to use the carriage varnish and opaque in combination, lettering the slide "It is now o'clock." The blank represents a patch of opaque, which can be scratched to give the exact time. As soon as the slide has been used, it can be recoated with opaque, 54 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING wet with alcohol instead of water, and will be ready for the next showing. If you have a sense of humor you can make your slides entertaining as well as informative. This does not mean the drawing of more or less humorous pictures, but smart wording. One good trick is the serial slide in which two or more slides, shown in succession, lead to the climax. One set of slides used carried this text: (1) Mme. Nevernue, the famous clairvoy- ant, maintains that good luck comes to the young lady who removes her liat in the theatre. (2) Recently a young lady visited this theatre. She removed her hat as soon as she took her seat. (3) Would you believe it? (4) She married a millionaire the very next day. Running this text on a single slide would have brought only mild amusement. Creating suspense roused interest and the climax was received with roars of laughter. More than that, it got the hats off. Another hat slide reads: (1) Ladies Do you believe in Woman's Rights? If you do (2) Take your hat off Like a man A third hat silde also runs double. The first merely says : "Do not remove your hat." This seems unusual and attracts attention, A moment later the slide is changed and the patron is told : "The last row is reserved for those ladies who do not wish to remove their hats." This is a more courteous form of sign than "Ladies who will not remove their hats must occupy seats in the rear ADVERTISING ON THE SCREEN 55 row reserved for their use." Avoid, wherever possible, the word "must" in connection with house rules. A useful slide where shows are continuous or overlap, is the old standby: "The next subject will be (insert title here). If you have already seen this you have witnessed the complete performance." If this slide is used, throw on the lights a moment and give those who wish to leave an opportunity to do so. The series slide is useful in advertising coming films. Suppose that you have been in the habit of using some- thing like this : The Smugglers A Big Three Reel Lupex Shown here Saturday Try instead a series of short sentence slides, each line of the following being the matter on a single slide: $10,000,000 in diamonds And not a cent of duty paid, but Inspector Davis (Played by Cecil Cayley) Ran the swindlers down. The Smugglers — here Thursday A Lupex three-part thriller. Slides can be used for sniping just as in street work. Flash the title of a coming release several times during the performance, without any explanatory matter. When you are ready to run the explanatory matter, the public will be familiar with the title and ready to absorb the facts. A hidden advertisement is found in this variant to the usual good night slide : This ends our 231st Exhibition Good night Pleasant dreams 56 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Do not try to tell too much on any one slide. Use three or four in series and tell one fact to a slide in reasonably large letters and you will get your message to the patron. It takes no longer to read three short slides than one long one, and slides are not costly. Always use a letter large enough to be read clearly and quickly by a person stand- ing at the back of the house. Do not confine your .slide advertising to your films alone. Your house should be worth a part of the atten- tion. Tell about it. If you have a retiring room for ladies say : "Free hat and hair pins and all the little com- forts of home in our retiring room. Upstairs, to the right." If you have a room for men that is something more than a cubby hole say: "Feel like smoking? Down- stairs, on the left." This is better than : "Gents retiring room on the left." Strive to give snap to these announcements. Be terse and clever, but not familiar or impertinent. Avoid the use of slang on slides. It looks different in cold type and lack the breeziness that spoken words may give it. Tell about improvements. If you order new chairs, tell that they are coming, announce their arrival, com- ment on their installation. If you put in new fans, in- direct lighting, carpets or anything of that sort, rush into print on the screen as well as in the papers. Make them take notice, they probably will, anyway, but take no chances. The notice may be casual and indifferent. Make them realize that you have done it to please them. Frame your slide something like this : Notice the new hangings. We like them, do you ? We'd rather have you pleased than be pleased ourselves. Tell us. Now the patron will appreciate the fact that you are striving to please and, in a way, will accept it as a per- sonal tribute to his own pleasure or comfort. Use slides of the photoplayers. This is a most valu- ADVERTISING ON THE SCREEN 57 able means of screen publicity. Run a slide: "He's here tomorrow. Who? Why ." Next run a slide of the player and then: "Here tomorrow in 'The Hollow of His Hand.' A powerful romantic drama with just the sort of part he likes." The showing of the portrait will always mean more than the mention of a name. H you have slides of others in the same cast, add another slide reading: "Supported by ," and give the others in quick succession. Keep the slides in the office and send them to the projection room numbered in their proper order. When not in use, keep these in grooved boxes, either those made for the purpose or of home manufacture with pasteboard or cigar box septums. Number the slots and keep a card index of names. Where possible, get slides without the company's name. Then if the player changes his connection it saves the trouble of ripping the slide apart and blocking out the name. Another and more novel use of the screen is the local interest slides. If you are clever with a camera or know someone who is, make portrait snapshots of well known people. These should be rear view street scenes. Run a few the early part of the week and change on Thursday for another set. At the same time give the identities of those in the first set. If you work up the interest prop- erly you will not need to give prizes. Keep at this as long as the interest lasts. Then change to something else. Make pictures of points about your town or sec- tion. Take a picture of the vestry door of some church. Anyone would recognize the church building at a glance. Few may be able to locate just this door. Take some other prominent buildings and stores ; just small details. Then change to birdseye views of people, shooting down from second or third-story window. Get some man in the public eye, who appreciates keep- ing there, to pose for a picture. Placard the town with the announcement that on a certain day the screen will show what the Hon. James Johnson was doing last Wed- nesday at ten-o'clock. Hint at a scandal, without saying anything direct, and show a large audience the Honorable James sitting at his desk, kissing his wife good-bye or 58 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING performing any innocent act. It will be good advertising for him as well as for you, and lots of people will come in the hope that he will be "shown up." Get out with your camera on some busy corner in the afternoon. Take a picture of the crowd, then unroll a banner stating that the picture can be seen on your screen the following Friday. Nine-tenths of the crowd will come just to see what they look like on the screen. If you cannot work a camera and cannot arrange with some trustworthy amateur who will not want to tell that he knows all about it, you may be able to arrange with some local photographer to do the work free or at a re- duction in consideration of a slide that reads "all pictures by Hendricks." This is permissible advertising, since it relates to the house. If the photographer is a hustler himself, you can get up a baby show announcing that all photographs will be made free by him. He'll make his profit out of the sales he makes and you'll get the mothers and their friends to see the kiddie on the screen. Don't offer prizes or any decision, or you'll have but one friend among all the mothers in town. Merely offer it as an interesting display. The day of the local animated weekly is not yet here but you can run slides of current happenings and these will interest more than anything that can possibly be brought in from the outside. A picture of a freight wreck on the outskirts of the town will draw more busi- ness than a passenger smashup, with tremendous loss of life, five hundred miles away. Possibly half your patrons will ihave seen the wreck, but they will want to see the pictures. The early success of the Lumiere machine in New York was based on a picture of the corner near which the theatre stood. And at every show run the standard fire slide. This reads: Look around NOW and choose the exit nearest to your seat. In case of fire walk — don't run — to that exit. Do not try to beat your neighbor to the street. LITHOGRAPHS AND BILLBOARDS 59 CHAPTER IX. LITHOGRAPHS AND BILLBOARDS What stock paper Is — unwisdom of stock paper — where to post paper — following lines of travel — proportioning paper — window frames — "A" boards — color combinations. Advertising by means of graphic representation is one of 'the oldest forms of planned advertising. It has this advantage over the use of type, that a picture is more easily and quickly comprehended than the printed word. When motion pictures were new, there were no litho- graphs to be had for the films. The only available material was the "stock" paper of the show printer. Theatrical printers generally obtain an order from a manager for a quantity of paper sufificient for a season. This is held by the printer and shipped weekly to the show points in such quantities as may be required. If the show does not complete its season or does not use up the supply, the paper is put "in stock" and sold to anyone able to use it, by covering over the name of the attraction with some other title. For a time that was all the Exhibitor had to work with, but eventually the A. B. C. Company, of Cleveland, put ;.)ut a line of true-to-the-film paper for the Licensed at- tractions. It was all one-sheet size, and it cost more than double what stock paper did, even though this price represented a loss that was carried by the maker of the film, but it was correct. Probably we shall never know the hurt that was done the business in the early days by the injudicious use of stock paper. Exhibitors thought the most sensational scenes the most attractive, and a clean story of rural life might be advertised by a river scene in which one man was throwing another from a bridge while a second 60 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING pair engaged in a knife fight in the water, and in the fore- ground a black-bearded pirate playfully beat a golden haired heroine over the head with an oar. Naturally a collection of half a dozen such affairs were attention attracting. More persons saw the posters than saw the films and gradually the impression was created that films were vicious. After that the censorship! Today paper may be had for all releases and for features and specials a layout of paper may be had that compares favorably with the best display of theatrical attractions. The use of house paper grows, but there is still too much loaning and hiring of paper, and the same dirty and fly-blown one-sheet may be used in a dozen different houses. This may save the cost of a one-sheet, but there is a second angle to this economy. The picture theatre has not yet recovered from the black eye given it by the mismanagement of early days. It is still re- garded by many with suspicion. Everything possible should be done to allay that suspicion, and put the pic- ture theatres on the same plane as the dramatic houses. This can never be done so long as paper is hired and the whole advertising display suggests the makeshift and im- permanent. For the business in detail and the business as a whole, paper should be bought for the use of a single house. It should be hung or posted as theatrical companies hang and paste their paper. Better ten sheets of paper the property of the house than a hundred loaned that show the effects of hard usage. Certain sorts of stock paper may be used, such as the poster portraits of the players, the frames that make one-sheet posters into three-sheet stands and certain standard readings, but here, too, the "Always a good show" and kindied phrases have crept in. These should be avoided. On the other hand there are now to be had many good streamers, such as "Today," "Coming Thurs- day," and even day and date lines, and these are sold so reasonably that it does not pay to take a paint pot and marking brush and disfigure a thirty-cent poster to save the two cents a strip will cost. Much of the same text LITHOGRAPHS AND BILLBOARDS 61 may be had on metal signs at small cost, that becomes smaller when it is realized that they will serve for months. There is no excuse for makeshift posting. If it cannot be done well it should be left alone, for the negative nothingness of an absent display is better than the positive damnation of poor paper badly posted. The proper place for pictorial paper is away from the house. Your billboards are your messengers. You can appeal to the man who passes your house with other attractions. The posters should be out doing missionary work. One exception to this point is in the case of a fire alley through which the house is dismissed. Here it is proper to paste one or more stands. If the passage is not well lighted, it is a good plan to give direct illumina- tion to the paper by means of incandescent lamps in re- flectors placed above the sheets. In planning a poster campaign the details must be studied with the utmost care. Effective work cannot be done by placing the boards indiscriminately. You cannot afford to make such a showing of paper that you can appeal through mass as a circus does. You must make each sheet more than pay for itself, for you have neither the resources nor the capacity of the circus. Determine first the number of boards, then the area of distribution. Let this guide in selecting locations. To decide the area these four factors should be con- sidered : The territory from which you can actually draw. The competition in that territory. The nearness of that competition to your house. The amount of business it is possible to draw from opposition territory. The territory from which you can actually draw is limited only by the transportation facilities. This may include neighboring towns, other parts of a city, or may be confined to your own town or locality. You are justi- fied in paying as high as nine cents apiece for dimes you cannot buy for eight, but it is foolish to pay eleven cents for a ten-cent piece. If you post a bill at a cost of sixty cents and draw but fifty cents in admissions, you are 62 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING paying more for the money than it is worth. You might post that same paper in some other section at a cost of forty-eight cents and draw the same half dollar and show four per cent, profit; which is better than a twenty per cent. loss. It does not pay to go too far afield save with a most important attraction. You cannot, for example, draw a prospect three miles to your house if there are two houses closer to home with bills of about the equal value. You can do it with an unusual attraction, perhaps, but as a rule the money you spend getting this prospect can be better spent closer to home. On the other hand, in a small town, fed by smaller towns, perhaps paper in those feeders will bring prospects past their smaller home town show and past other places in your town. The paper has attracted them; they are coming to your house and with this definite end in view they will ignore other houses on the way. If the opposition houses are not too close to your own it will be better to limit your posting to a point just inside the opposition territory and direct more of the poster appropriation to parts of the town to which you have a clearer approach. On the other hand, if the other house is run along lines that cause dissatisfaction, it would be well to invade the territory and draw the patronage to your own house. In deciding the placing of the boards, local conditions must govern. Stick to the traveled lines. If your house is in a town in which many go to a larger city to work, post around the railroad station and the electric lines. If the town is self-contained, work to the business streets and the main residence section. In a commuting town one bill at the railroad station may be worth a dozen m the back lots. The schools should be looked after, for the children feel most strongly the appeal of pictorial paper. In the case of a school or factory, post on both sides, to get all who approach the building. If you post along the lines of street car traffic figure where the bills may be seen to the best advantage. This LITHOGRAPHS AND BILLBOARDS 63 is generally facing transfer points where the passengers are required to wait for a connecting car, but if the con- nections are close it will be better to go up or down the line, because then passengers will have no time to read. Before you erect your boards study conditions. See where the boards will reach the greatest number of per- sons and build there. Metal boards are best, even though they are expensive. If wooden boards are used, have them well crossed-braced to prevent warping, and give them a couple of coats of paint, front and back, to the same end. Frame them with moulding that will just permit the bill to set in nicely and at the top have either a gutter or a ledge to carry off the water when it rains. Posters are pasted from the bottom upward, as shingles are put on a roof from eaves to ridge. They will shed water reasonably well except at the top. Once start the top sheet and the rest will quickly soak off. In painting the frames use some neutral color, a dull red, a slate gray or drab. It must be a lifeless color that will not fight the brighter colors of the bill. Make them distinctive. This is best done by displaying the house trade mark above. Then one sees the picture and the mark and knows at once the house. Date the days on your bills. Do not say "Coming Wednesday," but "Wed- nesday, the 13th." This gives you two chances at the prospect. He may remember the day or the date. Bill- boards on vacant lots should be well braced against wind storms and small boys. They should slant forward two or three inches out of plumb. The slant will not be sufficient to prevent the bill from being seen and it will help to keep the water off the paper when it rains. A picture theatre cannot re-post the paper after a storm without reordering. It is better to guard well against a "wash-down." In small towns locations will not cost much. The pic- ture theatre is regarded more or less as a public institu- tion, and generally a couple of seats a week will be suf- ficient. In cities locations are generally controlled by some firm of bill posters and there is a charge of so much a sheet per week or month. 64 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING If you do your own pasting you require a paste bucket, a paste brush, a smoothing brush and knife. There are so many good paste powders to be had that it seldom pays to boil your own paste. Generally it may be had of the paper hanger. Paste the board, not the sheet, and post the lower sheet first, smoothing down with the short, stiff bristled smoothing brush. When the board is pasted run the knife around the edges to trim off the surplus. When the layers of paper become too thick scrape off with a wide bladed putty knife and start over again. If you cannot afford three-sheet boards or larger stands, try first with some one-sheet boards set against buildings in good locations. If the sidewalk space per- mits, the "A" board is good. This is a pair of boards hinged at the top and provided with a cross-brace near the bottom. The boards are set at an angle suggested by the letter for which they are named, and the cross-brace completes the outline. It is best to hinge this cross piece at one end and to set in a cleat at the top of the same thickness. This will permit the boards to be folded flat. If they are hinged at the top without this batten the brace will prevent its closing. If, for any reason, it is not practicable to paste these boards, provide doors covered with coarse mesh chicken netting. This will hold the paper smooth and yet not cover much of the surface. For indoor work a frame is better than merely hanging the poster in the window. As there is no exposure to the elements, soft pine will do for these. Stain reddish brown or grey with dye and wax with the preparation that comes for this purpose. You can do the staining and polishing yourself. For window work aim to get paper that may be quickly seen. Lengthy printed announce- ments will not be studied. Legends must be terse and snappy. Do not forget that many traveling men are confirmed picture fans. Get a frame into the lobbies of the hotels. If you have the weekly program in poster form, use that. If not, use a single attractive lithograph for the Saturday attraction and insert a program for the remainder of LITHOGRAPHS AND BILLBOARDS 65 the week. Do not trust to a permanent general statement. The traveling man wants to know just what he can see on a given night. Tell him what he can see, by day and date, and just how to get to the house. Have a special card printed that explains that the Gem is two blocks south of the hotel and one block east. If your house is removed from the business center of a town, arrange with some druggist or confectioner for a permanent display downtown. If you can get the side wall of some store on an alley, use this space for posters and bulletins. Then advertise that full information as to current shows may be had from the window of Edwards' drug store or on the side of the Busy Bee Confectionery. The advertisement will help the store and the store will help you. In ordering paper it is well to divide it between the shows, but a feature should have more paper than a regular bill and it should be posted further in advance. It has been argued that it does not pay to advertise even features too far in advance, as the knowledge of the coming feature will keep patronage away on other and earlier nights. This sounds like logic but it is not. Few regular fans will be influenced by the feature. They are used to going two or three times a week and they will do so. They are not the ones for whom your bill- board advertising is primarily intended. The man you want to reach is the casual and indifferent patron ; the man who is not familiar with your house and its screen announcements, and who must be coaxed with the un- usual. To him this poster display should be directed. Of course paper does appeal to your regular patronage and serves to hold up interest, but these can be reached in other and more ample ways. The paper gets the man who does not ordinarily feel an interest in current pro- grams. For this reason you should order the most at- tractive paper or the most catchy titles. The permanent painted signs are seldom of value to a picture theatre. They look pretty and enterprishig, but there is no chance to make frequent change and show the variety of your program. 66 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Stretchers, which are wooden frame works covered with cheap musHn, do well enough for one-sheet boards where they will not be subject to rough usage, and may even be used for three-sheets. They are bad around the house, particularly if they are merely leaned against the wall, for they are so light that they are easily blown over and become an annoyance instead of an advertise- ment. If your house has plenty of blank wall space, it might be well to run a few three-sheet stretchers on the front. Have signs permanently affixed to the wall for "Today," "Tomorrow," and "Coming," the "Today" signs being nearest the entrance. Below these affix the galvanized hangers used for full size window fly screens and attach the hooks to the stretchers. Space all hangers exactly the same distance apart and the stretchers will be interchangable and capable of being moved from "Coming" to "Today." Put brass screw eyes in the lower part of the wall and hooks on the frames. This will keep the stretchers from blowing out. By having the stretchers interchangeable, much bother will be avoided and it entails no more work in preparing. Never blank out with white or colored paper a three- sheet board for a one-sheet bill, or an eight-sheet for a three. If you cannot properly cover a board, hide it somewhere until you can. Nothing looks worse than a lonesome three-sheet in an eight-sheet space. It sug- gests that the program advertised is not up to standard since it does not cover the customary space. It may seem that undue stress has been laid upon neat- ness and orderly arrangement, but this is not so. Neat- ness may not be consciously noticed, BUT LACK OF IT WILL BE COMMENTED ON. If you have your own poster printing done, remember that no one is going to take the trouble to hurtle across the street to read it. You must get them where they stand. Have some lines so large that they can be read across the street and the remainder sufficiently prominent to be read across the sidewalk. Let the larger type tell as much of the story as possible and the small letters supplement this. White space is better on a poster than LITHOGRAPHS AND BILLBOARDS 67 a lot of two and three-line stuff that cannot be read. Talk in terse sentences but say something with a meaning. In Figure 12 is shown a suggestion for a poster. It says too much for a poster. To get it in requires a smaller type than is practicable. Summer Is Here But never mind It's always cool at the Picture Play There is ai palm-leaf fan to every scat, but these are never used because the house system of ventilation is so perfect that there is no need for them. Always Cool Always Comfortable Always a good show This week, for instance, we have the pick of current releases. Monday there is a three-reel special that is above the average. Wednesday we have a four-reel thriller and Friday we change to a Mogous Masterpiece. Come and cool off Figure 12. — An overcrowded poster. That might be all right for newspaper advertising or program work, where it will be read, but he who runs must read quickly. Make it easy for him. Compare Figure 12 with Figure 13. Note the strength of the dis- play and the force in the lines. If you have your own printing done get a block for the name of the house and always run this at the top of the bill. If you have a trade mark, work that into the block. Make it something that will tell at a glance that it is advertising for the Palace and not for some com- peting house. As far as possible, keep the display to the upper two-thirds of the poster, with one strong line at or near the bottom to keep it from being top heavy. 68 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING The simplest form of poster is black on white, but the black is rather harsh. Deep blue or green will show as well and not be as hard. Brown on white is not so good, but better than black. Bright red on yellow is striking, and so is black on bright red. Red letters on a black ground is good at close range, but for poster work it is not clear enough to be seen across the street. For two-color printings try red and green on white, or red and black on light yellow. Brown on yellow is a pleasing combination, though not a strong one, and black on a vivid light green is also good. White letters on a black ground should be left to the undertakers. In the United States the standard is the "sheet," which is always 28 by 42 inches. One-sheets may be printed Hot? Why Stay So? It's Cool at the Picture Play We have 500 Useless Fans and a Tame Cyclone Cool off Stay cool Figure 13. — An example of a poster. either the long or short way. Stands of three, four, six, eight, and larger sizes, are that many sheets pasted up the long way. Above three sheets the sheets arc pasted four high by a certain number of units wide, the general sizes being twenty-fours and twenty-eights. LITHOGRAPHS AND BILLBOARDS 69 Half sheets are twenty-eight by twenty-one inches. There are many smaller sizes used but here there are no set sizes, the paper being printed as it cuts to the best advantage. "Snipes" are long narrow strips printed on cheap white or colored paper. Sometimes they carry the name of the house and title of a play, but often they carry nothing but the title. They are pasted on boxes, barrels, dead walls, ash cans or even the curbs, from which they take their name of "gutter snipes." They are not expected to last very long or tell very much, but are useful in supplementing the permanent display by getting the title everywhere for a short time. English sizes are given here for the information of the Exhibitor, though most English subjects are' given American made posters when brought over here. They are, in inches : Crown, 15 X 20. Demy, 17j/^x22^. Royal, 20' x 25. Double Crown, long folio, 10 x 30'. Double Demy, long folio, llVt >^ 35. Double Royal, thirds, 13^ x 25. Double Crown, 20x30'. Two-sheet, Double Crown, 30 x 40. Three-sheet, Double Crown, 30 x GO. Four-sheet, Double Crown, 40'xG0. Six-sheet, Double Crown, 40 x 90. Double Demy, 22i4 x 35. Two-sheet, Double Demy, 35 x 45. Three-sheet, Double Demy, 35 x G73^. Four-sheet, Double Demy, 45 x 70. Six-sheet, Double Demy, 45 x 105. 70 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING CHAPTER X. DOING PRESS WORK Press work most valuable advertising — how to write press notices — how to use daily happenings — how to "plant" stories — to manufacture news — writing to attract — helping the papers. Press work is a most valuable form of advertising ; not because it is free, but because it is accepted as news and is read as news by those who take little or no interest in the frank advertisement. It follows, then, that good press work sounds like news and not like puffery. Doing press work is at once the simplest and most adroit form of the advertising art. There are two classes of men who do it well : those who do not try to and those who have fully mastered the intricacies of the language and have come again to the simplicities of speech. In between there are thousands who try to do press work and who seem to think that the greater the number of superlative adjectives the more valuable will be the product. This is precisely the reverse of true. The real press notice must read enough like news to seem to be news. It must be written in the form of news, with the same sobriety of adjective. We will suppose that. Jim Harrington, a Nebraska small town Exhibitor, goes to his metropolis to close some deals. The press agent, if he has one, might send in something like this : "Genial and popular James Harrington, the able and alert manager and proprietor of the beautiful and highly successful Swank theatre, Blankville's handsomest and most popular Palace of Photoplay, journeyed to the Great Metropolis yesterday in search of new and even more magnificent and spectacular filmic masterpieces of dramatic art with which to regale his large and ever DOING PRESS WORK 71 growing clientele of patrons, drawn from the very highest social circles of Blankville. On his return, via Pullman, last night, he permitted himself to be coaxed into ad- mitting that he had, at an enormous cost, closed contracts for a series of dazzlingly brilliant multiple reel creations of the leading directors of the foremost ataliers of the world. The first tribute to be laid on the altar of loyal patronage will be "Lost in the Desert Snows," the supreme and crowning effort of the world-famous Bunko Beauties Company. This is a five-act drama, in the pro- duction of which over one million dollars were expended In spite of the fact that the daily rental of this stupendous sensation represents a sum in excess of the weekly re- ceipts of the Swank, there will be no advance in prices. Manager Harrington generously and whole heartedly offers this mind-stunning and colossal triumph as a free gift to his loyal friends who have aided him in making the Swank one of the most successful amusement enter- prises in the country. There will' be no advance in prices." Should that get in the paper it might tickle Harrington almost half to death, but unless he owns the local editor body and soul, it will not go in. The editor will probably say a few things under his breath, try to pick the story out of the adjectives with a blue pencil, give up the idea and write something like this : James Harrington, of the Swank theatre, went to Omaha yesterday to book some new attractions for his theatre. The first of these will be "Lost in the Desert Snows." It will be shown at regular prices. This notice will do Harrington more good than the original notice. It states new facts about a person known to the reader and it is not too long to be read. It might have been longer, for that matter, and it probably would have been, had the original notice been written in such a way that it could be run with minor corrections, but where it has to be reconstructed it will be kept as brief as possible. But in spite of its brevity it will do more good than the other, because it is something that is not a palpable lie. If something more like this had been written, it might have been passed in its entirety: n PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Jim Harrington went to Omaha yesterday to get some attractions for his Swank theatie. He has booked up a number of big things, most of which will be shown at regular prices. The first of the new offerings will be the Bunko Beauties' five-part spectacle, "Lost in the Desert Snows." The company announced that they spent a million dollars on the subject, but Jim says he thinks that they may have cheated twenty-five or thirty cents. He saw it run off, though, and says it is filled with thrills. This gives the same facts but in more ample form and with a hint of a smile in the valuation of the production. It is easier stuff to read than the more elaborate first version, and it is easier to write, as well. Any man can do that who can write a letter. Harrington might have written a friend : "I went to Omaha yesterday to look for some new stuff and picked up quite a lot. The first thing I get is 'Lost in the Desert Snows,' a Bunko Beauties. They say it cost a million. That's foolish, but I saw the reels run and it surely does look like a lot of money." If Harrington can write that sort of a letter he can write the proper sort of press notice, but tell him it was a press notice and he would probably swear he could not write one. That Jim Harrington went to Omaha is just as much news as though Ben Brown or Sam Smith had made the trip. That he went after films is just as much a matter of news as that Smith went after a stock of shoes or that Brown went to dispose of some hogs. Persons who saw him at the train and asked where he was going will want to see it in the paper, to be sure that the paper is giving them all the news. The small town paper, the larger town papers, the suburban and section paper, and even the dailies of the smaller cities, realize the value of local news and are anxious to get in as many names as possible. That Jim went to Omaha is news. That he will have "Lost in the Desert Snows" is also news, though less interesting than the trip as a whole. In the same way if Billy Brown, the usher, sprains his wrist, it is news. The fact that he ushers at the Swank DOING PRESS WORK IZ is news in that it identifies him. Mention of the Swank brings the house once more to the attention of the reader. He comes gradually to accept the Swank as a local in- stitution, and the more often he sees the name the more familiar it becomes to him. If Alice Anderson goes to a conservatory of music; it is news. If she was pianist at the Swank; that is news. If new chairs are being put in or the house painted, it is just as much news as that Henry Henjes is repairing his hen house or painting his fence. Get mentioned as often as possible without seeming to seek it. The mention of the house, without mention of a film, will help the house in a different and more permanent way. It is an excellent plan to look out for news for the reporter. Get your people trained to collect news items about your patrons. Tell these- facts to the reporter and when you want a notice he will remember how you have helped him out and he will stretch your mention as much as he can and urge the editor to give it good position. It pays just as well to stand in with the reporters as it does to be solid with the editor himself. He can be used for big stuff and the lesser lights will look after the small items. Watch for items and pass them along. Pay for your own items with similar coin. It is easy to "plant" an occasional story. Borrow a small glass showcase from some store keeper. Borrow a roll of commercial film from your exchange and tumble it loose into the case. Prepare a little card telling about the film and put the case in the lobby with the card well displayed. Then send for the reporter and get him to run an item about it. Give him facts enough about films in general to make a column. Never mind about your own stuff, just talk film. People will read about film in general and think about your film in particular, if your name is mentioned, as it will be. You can probably buy a reel of old commercial for a couple of dollars and after displaying the film for a few days you can cut it up for distribution. If you order a new projection machine, let it stand in the lobby or the foyer for a couple of days and be on 74 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING hand to answer questions, first making certain that you will be able to answer by reading up. Get the reporter to write it up. Offer to borrow a cut of the machine. Tell how superior it is to all others and how the best i? none too good for your projection. You may think a projection machine something not worth more than a two-line mention, but if you go at it right you can make it good for a column of talk. Cul- tivate the instinct for news. One Exhibitor turned a house sign upside down. Then he went in and wrote about the hundreds who had stopped to tell of the mis- take, and of others who had telephoned in. By the time he had the story finished the passersby had already begun to make it true. Many Exhibitors, if their signs were accidentally reversed, would have thanked the first in- formant and have righted the sign, but the born presg agent deliberaely turned it upside down to invite com- ment and anticipated his story. Now and then a story may be manufactured. This takes rather more experience and it is necessary to work with care. If you send out a story of how your box office was broken into by a burglar with a brick, you cannot very well show the burglar, but you can offer the broken glass and the brick in evidence. The glass may have been broken in getting out the lobby signs, but if no one but yourself and the doorman knows this, the fact will do no harm. Sometimes the film itself will supply a news item. One manager noticed that there was a bad fall in a picture. Here is an example of an actual use of such an item : I is not often that an audience at a moving picture show gets to see a real accident happening in the picture, but this is what happens in the picture entitled "Black Snake's Revenge," which is shown for the last time today at the Bijou Dream Theatre. The picture is a story of the West and shows the vengeance of Black Snake, an Indian, on the rest of his tribe, by poisoning the drinking water. He is discovered and the braves of the nation chase him. The chase leads DOING PRESS WORK 75 over mountains and through valleys and just as the riders are coming over the brow of a hill one of the horses is seen to stumble and fall, carrying his rider with him to the ground, where they both lie throughout the picture. Manager Hetterick says he is confident that the ac- cident is a real one and added that it was the only time in his experience as a theatre manager that he had seen anything of the sort. The first time you use this it is good press work. The second time it is a fake. Use it but once and then think up something else for the second time. Read the notes about the players. If it is announced that Harold Hanson was almost killed while making a scene for "His Third Revenge," make a note of the trade paper in which the item appears and get the editor to run a line. Quote from the trade publication to back up your own state- ment, and paste the item itself on your bulletin board, if you have one. Of course if you tab up every accident you'll presently overwork this stunt, but this is just a hint. Another way to get press work is to "copper" other items. If "Pro Bono Publico," or "Constant Reader," writes the paper that film stories are getting poor, come back at him in a nice way. For that matter there is nothing to prevent you from getting a friend to send in the letter making a mild kick on some subject that in- terests you and then getting in yourself with a strong reply. One Exhibitor has done this repeatedly and has presented his points in a way he never could in an ad- vertisement. In writing remember that abuse makes sympathy for the abused, but that only the clown likes being laughed at. You will not only get the free adver- tising, but you will be recognized as a man who respects his business. Many newspapers now run a regular photoplay de- partment. Others would, could they get the material. Offer either to write the department or give some staff writer access to your material. You can get over many items about your house and your films without seeming to advertise. 76 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Press work for the films is necessary and one of the chief reasons for the display advertising is that it is supposed to carry with it some reading mention. Generally you must write these yourself, and it should be your aim to make them as much like reading matter and as little like puffery as possible. Much depends on the opening line. Avoid commence- ments such as : Another splendid program is offered- Manager Brown has exceeded himself Brought to Bay at the Majestic tomorrow These will not serve to attract the attention of the casual reader who is looking for news items, yet he is the man whom you must need to reach. You must get him started before he senses the trap. Lead off with something like this : "Gold dollars for dimes are a poor jjargain against five dollar bills for ten cent pieces, but if the stars to be seen on any one of the programs at the Gem next week were to be presented in the flesh in a single entertainment the management would have to charge five dollars a seat in the large cities to break even en the cost of his com- pany. Take Monday, for instance : Miss June Judd and Harold Housemover, both former stars, head a section of the Victory company in a strongly dramatic story, "Pursued by Fate," in which several sensational scenes occur. Then there are Miss Helen Hawker, John Jen- kins and little Tommy Judd in "Swept by the Cyclone." It cost a dollar a head last season to see Tommy in "Little Lord Faultleroy" at the Opera House. He is the lesser of these three stars. All three are seen in a story based on the cyclone at Kenilworth, which was one of the most disastrous in the history of the Weather Bureau. Some of the scenes were made on the spot the day after, and a miniature reproduction of the town as it was before the storm, was made in the studio and razed in one of the most wonderful mechanical cft'ects ever done in pictures. Two short comedies by the Jester company complete the program. These show Billy Wells and Claude Crazee. Billy is said to be the highest DOING PRESS WORK 11 priced player in pictures and Claude is about the only man who might successfully contradict him. This will appeal to the man who is not a fan but who will read on because he started in to read about ten cent five dollar bills. Get him started and write easily and he will keep along. If you are allowed to run readers for each film, you get more of a chance. Tell about the story but do not tell all of the story, nor do not tell it clumsily. Do not start it like this : . "Caught in a Crime," a Vencedore two-reel, will be at the Opera House tomorrow. It tells the .thrilling tale of a young man who is started on the downward path through a strange freak of circumstances, but is saved at the last by the matchless magic of a woman's love. Johnson Willard, Mabel Powers and Nannie Gote are all in the star cast. That is about as interesting to the general reader as a sore thumb would be to a man who has just had his leg cut oflf. Take the chance reader by the throat in the opening sentence and hold him until you are through. Start in with : Standing in front of his father's safe with $10,000 in bills in his hands would be a terrible position for any man. It was worse in Philip Curley's case, for he could not explain that he had just taken the money from his brother, whom he had caught robbing the safe. He could only accept in silence his father's reproaches and go out into the world — -disowned. That is the main theme of "Caught in a Crirfie," a striking Vencedore three-part story to be shown at the Opera Houre to- morrow evening. How Philip (played by Johnson Wil- lard) fares and how the matter is finally straightened out by his sweetheart, played by Mabel Powers, is strikingly told. Nannie Gote, the pretty little Vencedore ingenue, also appears. If the story is headed, do not say "Great play at the Opera House," but get an attention-compelling line such as "Stole Ten Thousand from Dad." In writing these 78 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING headings study the paper and see about how many letters you can get into a headline. Do not seek to tell the story. Tell something of the story, but hold the climax back for the showing of the film. Here is an example of actual press work done by a Western house : The Majestic has for a program today two features — one a Biograph and the other a Vltagraph. The Bio- graph illustrates the punishment of pride in "Her Awakening," a story of a pretty girl who is ashamed of her old mother, who is poor and has to work in a laundry every day in order to keep her daughter well dressed. A splendid story and one that not only sets a good example for the young folks but a story full of interest from start to finish. Another — the Vitagraph, "A Western Hero- ine," is a thrilling Western story of cowgirl, a band of thieves, a brave miner showing one of the wildest rides for life ever pictured and by the world's greatest cowgirl, Miss Edith Story, who was for a long time lead- ing lady for the Melies company. This is one of the best programs the Majestic has booked for some time. Don't miss it; today and tomorrow only. Change again Saturday. That would interest those eager to know what the Majestic is to have, but it would be passed over by the man not directly interested. On the other hand, some- thing like this might hold general attention long enough to get the reader into the story : Ashamed of Mother! With the scornful laugh of denial still on her lips, pretty Nettie Goodman saw her patient, loving old mother struck down by an automobile, and, forgetful of the false pride that a moment before had led her to deny to her fashionable escort that she knew the shabby, patient toiler, she threw herself upon the pavement beside the sufferer. It was a terrible wakening to her better DOING PRESS WORK 79 self, but it won for her the love of the young man who had before found her only shallow and vain, a pretty little creature of pretense. This powerful moral lesson forms the theme of "Her Awakening," a splendid product of the Biograph studios, which, with the Vitagraph's "Western Heroine," which features dashing little Edith Storey, until recently with the Melies company, comprises the Majestic headlines today and tomorrow. A Biograph and a Yitagraph on the same bill is a treat to picture lovers and you want to make sure you visit the Majestic before the bill is changed on Saturday. Indirect press work can be done by working in with the papers or public organizations. If a paper starts an agitation, offer to run slides and distribute printed matter. Make allusion to it in your own advertising. If a society starts a fund, be on hand with a subscription and the promise of your support. If a mass meeting is needed and the matter is really of great importance, abandon your performance for one evening and run a couple of the films as a part of the meeting to draw the crowd. If there is a live minister in your town, work in with him. Get up non-sectarian Sunday afternoon services with a film that will serve as a text. If Sunday perform- ances are not allowed, this may pave the way for them. If there are Sunday performances, time this special service between the regular matinee and night, or give it in the morning. Take up a collection and -ive it to the church, and remember to tell the papers what the collection amounted to and what was done with it. Give educational matinees Saturday mornings. With about five dollars worth of commercial educationals you can get ten times as much approbation. If you can, get the teachers interested. If you cannot, go after some minister or a welfare society or some citizen who wants to be a welfare society. Give several reels of educational and a good and clean comedy. Do not look for too much return from the first matinee. Keep it up until the idea takes root and presently you will find that many 80 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING mothers have a new idea of "those horrid movies." Be always on the job. One small town Exhibitor closes his house Chautauqua week, so as not to conflict. Another takes his machine and chairs to the grove, runs the slides for the course lecturers and gets his money back on the brief show he is permitted to give after the regular exercises. One gets credit for having public spirit. The other gets the credit and the cash, too. Melvin G. Winstock did something good in the way of press work when he wrote a film on the parole of State prisoners, then a burning question in Oregon. The story was written "in collaboration" with the Governor of the State and produced by Edison. When it came to Oregon the Governor lectured the film and the profits ; the immediate takings, went to charity, but the credit went to the house. It was something in those days to obtain official recognition. In a letter about that time Mr. Winstock wrote: "We have offered our suburban theatres for the use of the public, civic, and municipal bodies to use them from ten to twelve for neighborhood purposes, and arrange- ments are being made on the part of the local societies to make good use of the offer. "We are also attempting to help the Baby Home here in the foHowing manner: Saturday, October 10th, is RED PENCIL DAY, when they sell pencils at 10' cents each to help the baby home. We are running slides in our different theatres advertising this, and are permitting distinguished people to come into our theatres and give a two or three minute talk on the support of this great local charity. On the list are the governor, senators, legislators, and other citizens of prominence. Of course this does not directly put any money in our pockets, but it helps to establish the fact that we are a local institu- tion and in the creation of a public sentiment in our favor, it cannot help doing some good. "We have also formed the habit of occasionally inviting either the Rotary, Ad, Press, Commercial, or Royal Rosarian clubs to a private exhibition of big special features as they come along. Today, Monday the 7th, DOING PRESS WORK 81 we have the Press Club to witness a private exhibition of "Custer's Last Fight." After the last performance about 10':30, at the Star Theatre, we will run off "Custer's Last Fight," then serve refreshments consisting of sandwiches, cigars, etc. We find that this does us no harm, we get some publicity in the newspapers without paying for it, and if the picture is good, it sends out from 150' to 200 people talking about it, which is worth something." If the local paper wants a story about the pictures, give it to them. If you do not know the facts get in touch with the press man of one of the companies whose films you use and ask for photographs and data. Manage to get your name menttioned in the story. Try to get your name mentioned in every story about the films. Be the expert in your town or section. Naturally the expert is able to select the best program. And be an expert. Do not talk about Jim Jones when his name is John. Your patrons know the difference if you do not and they'll know that you are a bluff. Keep posted. And keep on good terms with the papers. If you have anything to tell, tell them. If you have something you do not want told, tell them but ask them to go lightly. They will have to use matters of news and if you deny there was a panic and they find there was, they'll pile it on. If you tell them first they'll make it as easy as pos- sible for you. It is not your advertising, but your atti- tude that counts for most. Keep solid with them and they'll help you get the best advertising that is to be had and plently of it, at that. Keeping solid does not mean buying a drink for every newspaper man every time you see him. It means trying to pay in kindness for kindnesses received. It means giving them news, help- ing their schemes, and playing the game — their game — with them. 82 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING CHAPTER XL NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING The newspaper a bureau of information — advertising rates — space contracts — personality advertising — mystery advertising. It is fashionable to say that newspaper advertising is the most valuable form of publicity. This is not always true. Each form of publicity has its advantage in reach- ing the public and the perambulating advertisement will do work that the printed advertisement cannot while the poster will pull from another direction than either. News- paper advertising is valuable only when enough of it can be used. If a house can afford only ten lines a day. it would be better to omit the daily advertisement and insert a seventy-line advertisement on Sunday. That might bring response of some sort. Advertising is valuable only when it pulls more business for you than the adver- tising costs and it does not always happen that the balance will be in your favor, though almost invariably intelli- gently done newspaper advertising and the free reading notices that go with it will be the most profitable invest- ment you can make in publicity. Each form of advertising has its own function. The poster works through its pictorial appeal and iteration. You may not consciously notice the first poster. You may recognize the fourth or fifth. Handbills go after the chance patron and the house program appeals to the regular attendant. The newspaper is the Bureau of Information. The man who wants entertainment and does not know what he wants, does not run up and down the street reading billboards or theatre fronts. He turns to the daily paper and reads the announcements there. He picks up no certain paper, but the first he NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING 83 sees. The paper is in his home. The house program may be thrown out on receipt and mailed matter con- signed to the waste basket, but the newspaper is always at hand, and therein lies its value. Advertising rates are based on thousands of circulation. The paper with ten thousand circulation has a right to expect higher rates than one with but half that number of readers. In towns of 40,000' or more it may not pay a small house to go into the newspapers because it may be required to pay for several thousand circulation that can do it no good whatever. The paper may legitimately charge for a circulation of twenty thousand, of which but five thousand is in the city proper, and perhaps only one thousand, or one-twentieth of the circulation is in the vicinity of the Exhibitor. He pays for twenty times as much as he gets ; scarcely a profitable investment. On the other hand, there may be some locality paper with a circulation of 1,500, every copy of which is put where it will do the Exhibitor some good and yet the rate may be but a tenth of the other cost. The larger papers, and sometimes the smaller one, generally have a higher rate for theatrical advertising than for merchants. In some cities there is a special rate for picture theatres that is midway between these two prices. Rates are made by the inch or the line. Inch rates are generally charged by the smaller papers and the line rates by the larger ones. The line is the agate line of one-fourteenth of an inch, and to ascertain the inch rate from a line charge it is only necessary to mul- tiply by fourteen. Rates are generally subject to discount for time or space, or both. Time discounts are given where an advertisement is to run for a specified length of time. The discount is greater where the advertise- ment is to run for a year than where the contract runs for three or six months. Space discounts apply to large contracts for space to be used within a specified time. The double discount is given only where an advertise- ment is to occupy a definitely large space every day for a specified time. The second discount is given to encourage the uniform consumption of the space. 84 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Before making a contract it is best to try out the advertising if there is any reason to doubt the income, but no fair trial can be made in a period of less than four weeks, and three months would be a better choice. When a contract is determined upon it is better to make a space contract for a greater number of lines than may be required. If you use fifty lines daily and two hun- dred on Sunday, do not contract on the basis of five hundred lines a week. Add fifty or one hundred lines a week. If you need extra space it then comes under the discount rate. If you do not use it all, you pay on the discount to which you are entitled. On the other hand, it is unwise to contract for space largely in excess of what you might be able to use. Do not contract for a thousand lines on a five hundred basis. The discrepancy would be too great. In figuring your space it is well to estimate the amount of money you can devote to newspaper space. Then use not more than seventy-five per cent, of this for your regular advertising, holding the rest in reserve for extra features or any unexpected advertising. If you adver- tise up to the limit of your appropriation, an emergent condition will require money that might better be ex- pended in some other direction. As in all other forms of advertising, it is useless to spend money unless you have something to say. Com- pare the two advertisements in Figure 14. Is one any worse than the other. Shows are always good when Exhibitors talk. Milk is always white when the dairyman speaks. Gem Theatre Always a g-oocl Show Come Clover Milk Always White Try It Figure 14. — Is one more absurd than the other? The newspaper reader wants to know what he is going to get. He wants to be assured of good entertainment. Film titles may mean nothing whatever to him. For NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING 85 that matter, titles may mean nothing to you. Look at this list : Love in Armor A Japanese Courtship A Fool There Was Would that appeal to the man who was looking for an all-comedy bill? The first suggests a romance of chivalric days, the second a story of the Orient, and the third the play of the same title. The stories are all comedies, re- spectively a Keystone, a Majestic and a Lubin, though the latter title is no longer used. It is better to use a descriptive line. Figure 15'A shows the simplest form: In the Toils of Fate A two-part drama of Alaska Her Sister's Son A true heart-interest story The Man He Made Himself Chance was against him, but he won Figure 15A. — Titles with explanatory lines. The single explanatory line is better than nothing, but the more that is told, within reason, the stronger the appeal. That first title might be given more space and announced as "A thrilling story of adventure 'North of '53,' adapted from a story by Hex Reach." That would suggest a good story well told. But this is the day of the personality of the player. It is well to give names and brands. At the cost of an extra line the appeal may be more than doubled. The Alaskan story may be made to read as in Figure 15'B. In the Toils of Fate A red blooded two-part Vishnu production adapted from the story by Hex Reach. A stirring and fast moving tale of Alaskan wilds with Clyde Francis and Mary Chatterton Figure 15B. — -The expanded announcement. 86 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING The other stories may be similarly treated to give the reader a good idea of the complete offering. But the chief aim of the newspaper advertisement is to appeal to the chance reader ; the man who does not know film? intimately, and it almost always happens that on a pro- gram there is one subject that can be raised above the rest. In this case suppose that we play-up the first story, giving that the major portion of the space and obtaining a result suggested in Figure 16. It is clear that this two- part story done from a well known work of fiction, will have a stronger appeal tlian two one-part stories by un- known writers. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he give up his life for his friend." That is the keynote of In the Toils of Fate One of the strongest, most compelling and gripping stories of the wild life in the North ever put upon the screen. Only two parts, but enoughi action to run six acts of average production. Done from the Alaskan novel of the same title by Hex Reach. JACK HARDY plays the half-breed guide, HARRY STANLEY is the young prospector and JESSIE JUDSON is the inevitable girl. See them shoot the rapids I See the dog sledge race for life ! See the explosion in the shaft! Other good offerings are Her Sister's Son, a heart-interest drama of strong interest and The Man He Made Himself. Figure 16. — An advertisement plaj'ing up a single subject Conventional advertising can do no more than bring conventional results. Here as everywhere in advertising, originality counts. Personality, too, has its appeal, and the man who can do personality advertising along the lines followed by Frank T. Montgomery or George A. Bleich, can make people interested in spite of themselves. When Mr. Montgomery decided to change the scene of his operations from the Mississippit valley to the eastern Gulf States, he started in at Jacksonville. His first advertisement was characteristic. He announced his intention of locating in the town and then launched into a tribute to Miss Mabel Paige and her stock com- NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING 87 pany. It cost him line rates to do it, but it was worth it. Miss Paige was the idol of that section, Mr. Mont- gomery's announcement of his plans was interesting, but his praise of Miss Paige was important, for here was a man who knew — since he endorsed local opinion. His neatly phrased comment marked him a man of judg- ment, therefore he must himself be a man who knew, and therefore worth watching. It gave him a better start than pages of personal praise would have done. Later when the war slump of 1914 came and business grew bad, Mr. Montgomery took his space to preach optimism and hustle. He was hailed by the press as a public benefactor, and even ministers found in his ad- vertising a text for supporting sermons. He paid for perhaps a column of space two or three times. He gained a hundred times as many columns of comment and word of mouth advertising still more valuable. Always the advertising spoke of business in connection with his theatres, but the latter apparently were made subordinate to his appeal to the public. Later, when the Electrical Bureau put down a conduit and dug an especially large and deep hole in front of the entrance to his principal theatre, he did not rage against the city fathers. He made capital of the matter and while regretting the annoyance to which his patrons were put temporarily, he rejoiced in the evident signs of the civic advancement of Jacksonville. He not only reconciled his patrons to literally having to walk the plank, but once more his appeal to local pride gained friends for the house. If he did not complain, they could not well do so. The late W. A. Wesley put personality into his ad- vertising and his "Wesley Says So," became a guarantee. Like Montgomery, he adopted his portrait as a trade mark, and once offered this explanation : "I haven't got this picture on my advertisement to show you that I am a handsome man, because I am not. It is a guarantee that you are going to see just what is advertised and if, after you have seen it all, you are not satisfied, I am going to refund your money." The portrait cut and the catchline gave force to his 88 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING advertising. Like Montgomery, he made seemingly ex- travagant statements, but they were not untruths or misrepresentations. Instead they were truths clothed in extravagant but correct phrase. The personal advertising counts for more in a small town than in the larger cities because in a small town the advertiser becomes known and may more easily be checked up, but a forceful personality will impress itself anywhere if there is sincerity and intelligence behind the work. Another form of personality has been used for years by the Howard Athenaeum, in Boston. It has been widely copied, but seldom successfully, since it requires a breezy and forceful handling of the language and yet with proper restraint. The great danger in the Howard style lies in the fact that its intimacy in unclevcr hands becomes familiarity. It consists of a column-wide space with a proper head and perhaps a portrait cut. The rest is in body type, broken by eighteen-point lines giving names or titles. Its form does not lend itself well to reproduction since it is the effect of the half column or column of almost solid reading that makes it distinctive in appearance. The real appeal, however, is in the text, which may be suggested by the following: Well, we've rounded up another fine bunch of chills and chuckles. First you'll laugh and then you'll cry and then you'll laugh again. First oft" we have Caught by Fate a story by West Eastman that is going to pull you onto the edge of your chairs until the climax comes, when it will shove you against the back of the chairs, faint and dizzy, but mighty glad you had a chance to see some- thing really big. It takes your heart out, squeezes it until you want to yell and think you are going to die but you can't. Then, all of a sudden it makes you so happy that you're glad you suffered so because now you feel so good. Pretty little Mary Maginnis is the heroine and Ben Burton saves her from the dastardly Jack Langdon, who is twice as bad as he looks and looks like the devil NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING 89 incarnate. After all that you'll want to relax a bit, so there's Chased Up a Tree You remember the story of the fox that climbed the tree. He couldn't do it, but he had to because the dogs were after him. Harry Skinks is something of an old fox in this picture, but it did no good. He wasn't quite foxy enough to avoid getting found out, and Fatty would rather have faced a whole pack of Uncle Tom blood- hounds than Friend Wife, but he had to come down. After you get the stitches out of your side we'll show you The Potter's Clay This isn't sensation, but heart interest. It isn't so heavy on your nerves but stronger on the weeps. Bring hvo handkerchiefs and enjoy a good cry. The matter runs along in the same chatty vein, not using slang but replacing this with oddity of expression. It is not well adapted to houses making their chief appeal with single features or seeking those who will best be reached through a more dignified form of appeal, but it works nicely where the clientele is less particular as to exactness of speech. Mystery advertisements sometimes work well, though as a rule they do not pay for the space they occupy, where the subject does not stay long. In the mystery advertisement the curiosity of the reader is roused and fanned for a few days. It is a series of advertisements in series, run one each day until the mystery is explained. The first manifestation may be merely a question mark or perhaps a name, and go on to develop the angles of the story by other questions and comment. In order, the factors might run : Helen ! Why did she leave home? Was she justified in leaving home? Was Harry to blame for her leaving home? What did he think of her leaving home? Why did she leave home? Answer here tomorrow. The following day the explanation comes that the serial, "Why Helen Left Home," will be begun at a 90 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING certain theatre on a stated day. As a general thing the space could be used to better advantage in straight ad- vertisement, since the space must be large to attract attention. It is well to have some distinguishing mark on the advertisement, not the house mark, but some other cipher, to keep some other enterprising advertiser from jumping in and stealing your thunder. The paper might protect you in your rights and not be able to control the bill- boards. More than one national campaign has been lost through the adroit, if unscrupulous action of some out- sider. Reading notices and liners are useful in supplementing the display work. Sometimes a contract carries with it the gift of a certain amount of reading notice, but more often this must be paid for, generally at double the dis- play rates. Reading notices have already been dealt with in the chapter on press work. The liners are used to call attention to a larger advertisement, to "snipe" a coming attraction or to drive home some special release. For the former they might read : Save money. Read the Star's advertisement on page nine. Turn to page nine, top of third column. You'll be glad. You'll be interested in page nine, top of third column. For use in sniping, the title of the film is given and nothing else. This is in some ways a cheaper way of working a mystery advertisement and a better one, since the title is given and cannot be stolen. In its third form the liner merely reads in turn : Coming, Cleopatra, at the Jacklin. Cleopatra at the Jacklin Wednesday, Cleopatra at the Jacklin tomorrow. Cleopatra at the Jacklin today. Whatever their use, they should be turned in with instructions that one or more shall be put on each page or on certain pages. Ten liners on one page will have less value than ten liners on ten pages. It is best to have them set in full face type, even at a small extra cost. NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING 91 Broadly speaking, the larger the advertisement the greater its pulling power; copy being equally good, but so long as the advertisement is large enough to stand out properly and give the message, the requirements has been met. It is well to concentrate on the Sunday issues, not alone because people have more time for reading on that day, but because it is then that many plan their week. Advertise the full week's bill on Sunday and on week days give only the day, if a morning paper, and that day and the next in the afternoon editions. If space permits, underline your big coming attraction each day. If you have a big feature coming on Friday, run at the bottom of each advertisement: "Coming Friday — 'Cleo- patra." This need not be more than a line or two long and in small type. Six or eight point will be plenty large enough. If Friday is a regular feature day, so allot your space that you can take extra space in the morning papers of that day and the evening editions of the day before and that day. It should be borne in mind that while newspaper ad- vertising will help retain the patronage of those already gained, it is primarily intended not for the ardent theatre- goer but for the man who might be coaxed to come. Do not assume that he is possessed of a knowledge of trade talk and customs. Do not talk about first runs. Say that your pictures are always clean and free from defects because they are shown first at your house. Do not say they are shown "on the day of release," for the man who might be pursuaded might not know the meaning of that. He will understand if you explain that he is sure of seeing something new because this is the first day the pictures will be shown anywhere. The less a reader knows about pictures the more you should try to coax him, for you may bring him to your house and make him a profitable regular attendant. Do not feel that the man who does not know that Jim Brown has changed from the Galaxy to the Getemin is a hopeless case. Bring him to a condition of enlightenment. Advertise for and at him until you have landed him, and then get after others. It is an idea of the past that an advertiser is expected 92 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING to lie a little. Even the circus advertising is more tem- perate than it was and the day of "The Greatest Ever," and "Best ever Produced," is back with the stock poster and the dark auditorium. Today the wise Exhibitor seeks to build up a reputation for honest advertising. He has found that circus methods do not pay and that presenting a subject attractively and originally is more profitable than wasting adjectives on every subject. Take a due and proper pride in your program, but temper your enthusiasm to the subject. Keep your outbursts for the really great and do not advertise every offering with the same list of superlatives. Overpraise : lead the reader to expect too much, and his disappointment will be the greater because of his high expectations. 3o frame your advertising that when you announce that something is out of the ordinary people will come because they know that it will be above the average. Not every release is a masterpiece ; not every feature is the greatest ever. You know that — and so does your clien- tele. Since they know it and cannot be deceived, do not try to. Work on the other end of the idea and make your word good as gold. Then when you especially urge a large attendance the response will be prompt and satis- factory. Probably you would try to thrash a man who called you are a liar. Your written advertisement should be as sacred as your spoken word. It is not necessary to say that this or that subject is below the average. It is merely necessary not to say that it is great. Talk of its good points, be silent as to the bad ones, but do not try to create the wrong impression. It is carrying it almost too far to advertise that your program for the day or week is not as strong as usual, but you do not have to announce it as the best you ever offered. TYPE AND TYPESETTING 93 TYPE AND TYPESETTING CHAPTER XII. What type is — the "point" — the "pica" — the "em" — display and body type — type families — upper and lower case — rules and borders — ornaments — proof marks. Before you learned to write words you were taught the form of the letters. Before you can write in type intelligently, it is necessary to know what type is. Most persons know that printing is the imprint of certain characters, cut in metal or wood, on paper or other sur- faces by means of machinery which brings the inked characters into contact with the material. These metal or wooden characters are the types. They may be in- dividual characters or cast in a solid line. But type comprehends in a more general sense the entire printing material. This material may be divided as follows: Types. Spaces. Quads. Leads. Reglets. Furniture. Rules. Borders. Ornaments. Cuts. Tint blocks. Type metal is a composition with a lead base. It is cast in moulds into single types, each carrying on the end a single character in reverse, or it is cast in lines or "slugs" of proper width. Type is all of uniform height 94 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING (known as type high) as is all printing material intended to leave its imprint on the material to be printed. Type has always been of the same height in the forms, but its height on the page has not always been uniform. Type was formerly known by name, such as "agate," "minion," "brevier," "pica," and so on. These names suggested the relative size of the letter, but it seldom happened that brevier from one foundry would match with the brevier of another foundry. It was either a trifle larger or smaller and could not be used interchangeably. To remedy this condition the "point" system was adopted, and now all six-point type, no matter what foundry it comes from, will work in the same line with all other six-point types. The point is 1/72 of an inch in height. Figure 17 shows eighteen pieces of one-point rule, each step indicating one point. A second standard of measurement is the "pica" of twelve points, or one-sixth of an inch. Wherever "line" is referred to in type setting without a point size added, the pica line is referred to, a "three-line letter" for ex- ample, being a letter thirty-six points high. Similarly an "em" is a pica em unless otherwise specified. Figure 17. — Eighteen pieces of one point rule, stepped to show the points. The letter "m" in theory, if not in practise, is exactly square, so the "pica" or pica line becomes the measure- ment up and down the column and the pica em the measurement of width. Each point has its own em as high as it is wide, but this is used as a measurement in that point only. Straight type setting is paid for at so much per thousand ems. Here the em of the type set is used, a two-inch line carrying twelve pica ems or twenty-four six-point ems, but in general practise the line that is so many ems wide is that number of pica ems in width. TYPE AND TYPESETTING 95 "Height" in type generally refers to the height of the letter and not to the height of the piece of metal, but this refers to the "body" of the type, the metal base, rather than to the height of the actiial letter. Some Gothics, for example, come in four or more heights on a six or twelve-point base, permitting the different sizes to be used in combination without disturbing the line. On the other hand some types are referred to as "five-on-six point," or "seven-on-eight point," meaning that while the letter is proportioned to the smaller size mentioned it is cast on the larger base. More than this, not all regular letters are of the same size. Some six-point letters seem to be as large as other eight-point letters. This is because some types have long ascenders and descenders and others are shortened. The ascenders are the tops of such letters as the "b," "d,55 and "f." Descenders are the tails to the "g," "j," "p," "q," and "y." Where these are long, the body of the letter, such as the "m" are shortened to get the letter on the specified base. Some types, having no small letters, take most of the base and seem larger on that account. Generally the ascender is longer than the descender, though some- times the reverse is true. Figure 18 shows a ten-point line with varying styles. daylight daylight daylight daylight Figure 18. — Various types of ten point ascenders and descenders. The advantage of the point system is that it makes for ease in assembling the types and it aids the advertise- ment writer in that, knowing the types he calls for and the probable number of lines of each, he can figure his space accurately. He knows that ten twelve-point lines will be 120 points and that twenty six-point lines will take the same space as will fifteen eight-point lines. Guess work is removed. The "body" of the type is its size in points. The "face" of the type is the style of its letter. Six and twelve-point type may have the same face, though the body of one is twice as large as the other. 96 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING A "family" of type is a series of faces designed on the same general lines but differing in the heaviness of the line or the width of the letter, or both. Some families have fifteen and twenty members. Type is either "body" or "display." In this case "body" does not mean the size of the letter, as above, but means type in the mass. Strictly speaking, any type is a body type when it is used to set "solid" matter, as in the pages of a book, but generally body type is some form of Roman character and generally runs between five and twelve points. There are two general styles of Roman, "old style" and "modern." The former is more generally used for advertising because it is more angular and therefore more legible. The modern face is more rounded and is supposed to be more elegant, therefore it is more generally used in book and magazine work for the read- ing pages. It is worth remembering that a letter shrinks or en- larges both ways if in the same face but a different point. Using six-point instead of an eight-point letter not only gives you more lines to a given space, but also more words to those lines. This is shown in Figure 19. The Exhibitor who trusts to but a single form of advertising is like the automobilist who runs on a single cylinder of an eight-cylinder car and then complains that he is not making the guaranteed speed. The proper way is to use all of these forms The Exhibitor who trusts to but a single form of advertising is like the automobilist who runs on ;i single cylinder of an eight-cylinder car and then com- plains that he is not making the guaranteed speed. Figure 19. — Showing the gain in a change from an eight to a six point type. Body type is given emphasis by the use of italic letters, SMALL CAPITALS, LARGE CAPITALS, full face, and full face italic. Many Roman faces no longer carry the small capitals and where these must be used it is necessary to use the capital of a small point. With the other factors it is better not to mark for small capitals. TYPE AND TYPESETTING 97 For italic a line is drawn under the words to be so set. For small capitals (or "small caps") two lines are drawn, one below the other. Three lines are used to designate large capitals. A waved line calls for full face and a waved line below a single straight line calls for full face italic. Body type is seldom used below six point. The regular faces increase by two points in the smaller sizes, running six, eight, ten, twelve and fourteen point. There is no six- teen point, but an eighteen, and above that type rises by six points to seventy-two points, and by twelve-point increases above that. "Display" type is a bolder and more individual face. All Roman faces look more or less alike. Display types give a surprising variety. Many sorts come in "families," making it possible to make up an advertisement with several faces, all bearing the same general characteristics and therefore more harmonious in appearance than would be an advertisement showing the same number of un- matched faces. As a general rule it is seldom wise to use more than two families in combination. A family consists of the same general style of letter but with a difference in the line and width. Starting from the normal letter for the face we have types wider or more narrow. The wider type is called "extended" and the narrow type "condensed." In some families there is a further condensation or extension and we get the "extra-condensed" or the "extra-extended." In ad- dition, there is the italic character, perhaps in all five widths, and a bold or full face letter. But even this does not exhaust the possibilities of the letter, for we can also have an "inline," "outline" or "s'haded" letter, as well. An "inline" letter is one which seems to have a white line set within the black. An "outline" reverses this and seems to be a white letter with narrow black lines drawn about the edges. A "shaded" letter is one in which the line of the letter is not solid black but crossed by innumerable tiny lines of white. It is not "shaded" in the sense used in speaking of shaded script writing with some lines of the letter heavier than others. Most 98 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING types are made with the latter "shaded" letters. Where they are not ; where all of the lines are equally heavy, the type is called "monotone." "Rugged" type has an uneven outline. The value of the extended and condensed letters lies in the fact that three lines of unequal length can be given about the same width by using a condensed letter for the longest line and an extended letter for the shorter. For advertising the condensed and extra-condensed letters are to be avoided where possible, since they are not as legible as a wide letter and require to be studied out. A glance at Figure 20' will explain the idea. Fought in the Dark Fought in the Dark Fought in the Dark Rought in the Dark Figure 20. — A comparison of widths. In addition to these there are various faces based on the old English "black letter,' such as Old English, Cloister and Flemish Black. Then there is the script family, in imitation of Soencerian writing, and such oddities as Pen Point and other faces suggestive of hand- printed letters, Comstock, Beacon and similar black and whites and other specialties. These should be used sparingly, but can be used effectively. There are also to be had types reproducing the letters of all makes of standard typewriting machines. Printed through silk, these give a close imitation of typewriting, or there is a special ribbon-faced type that is cut to suggest an im- pression through fabric, and there are also reproducing typewriter types in six, eight and ten-point bodies useful in suggesting a reduction of a typewritten letter. A few of the typewriters use a condensed ten-point (Elite) face. Most of them use the twelve-point body. The use of Old English and kindred faces in adver- tising matter is almost a typographical crime. The prime object of advertising is to coax a prospect to read an TYPE AND TYPESETTING 99 argument. A glance at Figure 21 will show that Old English does not give this result. Nor is it at all neces- sary to resort to Old English to simulate copper plate engraving. The gothics, shaded letters and the "Typo" faces all give the same result in clear letters and are more in accordance with modern methods. OUR PROGRAM ?Enbtn$ Week iammrg 10 For Thursday Paramt Harkina WiU For Friday When the road parts The tear that burned For Saturday W\xt at H)p Air irama fia iHuairal (Earprr a (Eomir rnmrbg For Sunday, Sti|plB Soof Party. A (Eomir Comrftg Hoping This Meets Your Approval Figure 21. — An extreme example of the use of Old English, bad composition, and arrangement. The bulk of the type used is made by the American Type Founders Co. They issue a large catalogue that is too expensive to be generally distributed, but it will pay the advertiser to borrow his printer's copy and study it. 100 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Type is kept in shallow trays, divided into compart- ments for each letter. These trays are called "cases." These cases are kept in racks, so arranged that the top will take two of the cases in a slanting position. In body type the metal is kept in two cases, the small letters in one and the capitals in another. In setting from these, the case with the small letters, being most frequently used, is set on the top of the stand and the capitals above and beyond it. It is from this circumstances that the terms "upper case" for capitals and "lower case" for the small letters are derived. Type is sold in "job" and "weight" fonts. Most body type is sold in multiples of twenty-five or one hundred pounds. Display or "job" type is more often sold in the "job" fonts. Job fonts are small quantities of upper or lower case letters and are designated as containing so many capital or lower case "a." The fonts are schemed to a standard rule, containing a proportion of each letters as experience has shown they are generally needed. Both upper and lower case fonts contain the necessary figures and punctuation marks. They do not generally contain special characters, known as "sorts," such as parenthesis marks, brackets, percentage marks and the like. They do contain, where necessary, such "logotypes" as "ff," ".fi," "fl," "ffi," and "fil." Any type containing two or more letters is called a logotype. "Spaces" and "quads" are bits of type metal used to separate the words. Spaces run three, four or five to the em of the body, that is, a three-to-em space is as high as the type body and one-third as wide. A six-point three-to-em space would be six points high and two points wide. The three-to-em is sometimes called the "letter" space, because these are most generally used to separate words. The four and five-to-em are used where more space is needed to be added between words or to make a fit with quads. Quads may be "en," "em" or two or three-em, according to their width. The "en" is half as wide as the "em" and the two or three-em is as wide as two or three em quads set side by side. The em quad is as wide as it is high. If the last line of a paragraph TYPE AND TYPESETTING 101 is short, the quads are used to fill out to the end of the line, a tight fit being had by the use of proper spaces. Spaces are useful to the advertising writer in that they can be used to give prominence to letters. Where an extended letter cannot be had or where even an ex- tended letter will not cover a line, the letters themselves The Grand The Grand Figure 22. — Spacing letters gains prominence without increasing the height. can be spaced out. This spacing seems to give a larger letter without increasing the height. An eight point may be made to look as prominent as a close ten point without using more than an eight point, as is shown in Figure 22. This is often handy working on small matter, such as a vest-pocket program or in a small newspaper space, "Leads" (pronounced leds), are strips of metal, either one-point brass or two-point type metal. They are used to slip between the lines of type to add space or to give prominence. Just as spacing out the letters makes them Using two-point leads between lines gives the appear- ance of greater prominence to the letters and makes them more easily read, a six point will look almost like an eight point, while still giving the greater number of words to the line that the six point afifords. Using two-point leads between lines gives the appear- ance of greater prominence to the letters and makes them more easily read, a six point will look almost like an eight point, while still giving the greater number of words to the line that the six point affords. Figure 23. — The same matter solid and leaded. more prominent so does leading give greater prominence to lines, as is shown in Figure 23. Lines are said to be "opened" with leads. Where instructions are given 102 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING merely to lead, two-point leads are used. Double leading means opening with two two-point leads, or four points of space. In body type it is seldom advisable to use more lead than two-thirds of the height. In display or job work this rule does not apply. "Slugs" are metal strips six or twelve points high. They are used the same as reglet. "Reglet" is a strip of wood used for the same purpose as leads. It is cheaper and lighter than metal. A twelve-point reglet is a pica. Larger than pica the wood becomes "furniture" and comes one, two, three, four, five, and ten lines, or picas. Metal furniture is cast from type metal. In the shape of an "I" bar it is "railroad" furniture. When cast in squares or oblongs it is "quotation" furniture. In length and breadth these last are multiples of two picas. Type must be set in a solid mass "all square" and leads, reglet and furniture are used to take up the space not occupied by type. Rules are strips of brass, type high and of varying faces. "Flush" rule prints the entire face, but a hair line may be cut on a twelve-point body or two or more lines may be cut. If rule is cut into a series of dots or dashes such as are used in program work to connect the name of a character with the name of the player, it is called "leader." Leader is also cast in type metal. Where rule is called for a flush rule of that point is meant. If some other rule is wanted the proper number .s given or a specimen of the rule desired is pasted onto the copy. Rule is "mitred" when cut at an angle to join another piece. An angle of 45 degrees will give the ordinary right angle. Because of the danger of these angled pieces slipping past each other, it is more commcn to use "mitres" or brass cast to a square corner. The strip rule seats against this and cannot slip past. The careful advertiser will insist on mitres being used. Rule is cut "labor saving" when it is supplied in lengths graduated by ems, or by ens in the smaller lengths. This saves stopping to cut the rule needed for a job. Double line or "parallel" rule is used in newspaper TYPE AND TYPESETTING 103 make-up to cut off a column. If a story in column one runs a column and a half and it is desired to run a headed story at the top of column two, the remainder of the first story is placed at the bottom of the second column and a double rule inserted above it. Where the story runs naturally and it is desired to separate it from the next, a long dash is used. Where it is desired to separate small paragraphs under one general heading a short dash is used. "Dashes'' are bits of rule cut away to a more or less fancy shape, just straight lines or ornamental forms cast on type metal slugs. "Border" runs all the way from a straight black line, similar to a rule, to the most intricate and elaborate effects. The simplest form is the three-on-six point Newspaper Border. This is nothing more than a three- point rule face on a six-point body. There are also straight six and twelve-point borders of the same sort They really differ from rule work only in that they are cast in metal and come in lengths, en, em, two and four ems wide, and are provided with square and rounded corners. For ease in making up, most borders are cast on six-point bases or multiples of twelve points. A border may be a single character repeated or may consist of two or more characters worked in combination. The effects vary from a neat ornamental line to a panel of intricate design suggesting specially drawn effects. "Ornaments" and "attractors" are fancy cuts cast in type metal and used to give pictorial effects or to break- ing blank surfaces. There are some printers who are cursed with a desire to stuff their work as full of orna- ments as possible, just as there are some who think Old English "real swell." They should be closely watched. There are times when the introduction of an ornament will relieve too large an expanse of white space, but something better should be found than a naked cupid or a floral horseshoe. The Exhibitor who cares for the appearance of his work will do well to purchase a few fonts of border and per- haps some ornaments, to be used solely for his own ad- 104 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING vertisements. This material should be kept at the theatre and sent to the printer as needed, a receipt being obtained for all material given. This applies also to trade mark cuts. Cuts will be treated in the next chapter. "Tint blocks" are merely surfaces type high, used for giving a tint to the material. A fire scene may be printed in black over red. In this case a tint block of the proper size will be printed from, leaving a red imprint on the paper in the right place. Then the type form will be printed, includ- ing the cut. Tint blocks may also be used with light or "tint" inks where it is desired" to get a colored effect on white paper. The entire front page may be tinted and then printed on in a deeper shade of the same or a con- trasting color. In "setting" a job the printer or "compositor" first figures out the types to be used. If there is much body type this is sent to a typesetting machine. If it is all hand work the compositor takes his "stick," a shallow metal tray with two fixed sides and a third movable side. The top side is permanently open. He adjusts the stick to the measure of the line to be set by moving the sliding side to the proper place. The standard newspaper column is either 13 or ISy^ ems wide, but advertising may be set to any measure, or parts of the advertisement to different measures. It is well to plan to have the body type run to the standard measure. The display type is a matter of less importance. It takes but a moment to adjust the composing stick to a new measure, but changing over the typesetting machine is another matter. The compositor, with his stick set at the proper measure for the first line, goes to his case and gets out the proper type. He places this in the stick, piece by piece, until the first line is complete. If it does not quite fill the line he adds spaces and quads until it does. Then he sets the second line and a third, and so on until his stick is full. Then he "dumps" it onto a galley, a shallow tray of brass or zinc, and so on until he has the matter all set. If the advertisement is broken up into sections of various measures, these parts are kept separated until they TYPE AND TYPESETTING 105 are all ready, when they are assembled in accordance with the "copy" or "layout." The copy is the matter to be set and may be laid out as it is to run, but where there is an intricate design the advertiser generally writes the copy and adds a layout which should show about the way the advertisement should look, all of which will be explained in its proper chapter. Dont KicK ' Don't kick you if cone to the De- light about halfpat eight and ^annot get in. Our preformances start at half past seven and nine o'clock, and it is better to catch the second show. This is precisely the same sn every particular because the operator is never permitted to rush the films through because is in a hurry to get ho'..e. He must take hom 12 to 18 minutes to the reel, Jas the subject dem ands or explain why. But- Jack Easman is not that stort of opera- tor. He takes a prid in his work.and this is why our pictures are Bright Distinct Fiickerless Figure 24. — "Dirty'' proof before being read. Once the advertisement is "justified" so that there is not the least loose space anywhere, it is wedged into the 106 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING galley and a "proof" is "pulled." This is done by inking the face of the type with a roller and setting the galley with the type in a proof press, which is nothing more than a heavy iron tray with sides providing a way for a padded iron roller. The type is covered with a piece of damp paper, to make it take the ink better, and the roller is passed over the type, giving a rough impression of the job. This is sent, with the copy, to the proofreader, who compares the result with the copy, marks all errors T^ L DontKicK © © (£) Don't IdckT^ulj^co/e to the De-^j^!^:^ ^l/ (£) -i^ light about haj^paj^ eight and^annot get sJ ^ @ y^ -i^^yx/ *Uur pr;|tormances start at half past seven and nine o'clock, and it is better jg^atch the second show. This IS precisely the same /i every parlicularj Cmty to U]\ ^e cause the operator is never permilte to rush the films through because is in hurry to get hoXe. He must take'from ^^ Qljxo <|8) minutes to the reel^^s the ^ QD sulsject denTands or explain why^C^ Cl^Ji^ V^ [1® ^ B/t- "^^ '^®^ t) v£^ ^^^^ Eajipan is Tftj^^that stort of opera- /'C^'^'^t/, ^T y^ . '°'^' ^^ '^''" ^ P"<4\i" ^"s workfand ^1^^/ (^0) I ' ^W 's why our pictures are / ' * ^-\ DJ Bright \ \IS^ Um Distinct \ ^t^cu.^ (Q) rfnf[} Flickerless \ ff/ ^^ Figure 25. — The same proof marked for correction. and returns it to the printer, who corrects it and pulls another proof. This proof, called the "revise," is sent to the advertiser, if there is time, for his approval. He makes such corrections as seem necessary and marks the proof "O. K., with corrections," He adds his initials and TYPE AND TYPESETTING 107 returns the proof to the printer. He cannot thereafter complain of any mistake that has been made unless the proof shows that the error was marked for correction. All common errors are caught by the proofreader on the first reading and it is seldom that the Exhibitor will receive such "dirty" proof as is shown in Figure 24. This is purposely set to show as many mistakes as pos- sible. Don't KicK Don't lack if you come to iKe Delight about half past eight and can- not get in. Our performances start at half past seven and nine o'clock, and it is better to come a little later and catch the second show. This is pre- cisely the same in every particular because the operator is never permitted to rush the films through because he is in a hurry to get hcnne. He must take from twelve to eighteen minutes to the reel, as the subject demands, or ex- plain WHY. But" Jack Eastman is not that sort of opera- tor. He takes a pride in his work, and that is why our pictures are Bright Distinct Flickerless Figure 26. — ^The advertisement after correction. Figure 25 shows the same proof after corrections have been marked in. It should be noted that the numbers in 108 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING the circles are not a part of the proof marking but are used here to refer to the various marks. Mark (1) at the top of the page looks like a bracket or a capital "E" with the centre line removed. This indicates that the line is to be brought to the left to where the mark stands. Had the mark been turned the other way and placed to the right of the line, it would mean that the line was to be taken in that direction. Mark (2) is a double mark- ing. To the left is an inverted caret and a comma. But since the caret is inverted it is not a comma but an apos- trophe that is to be inserted. An inverted caret between the last two letters of "don't" shows where the apostrophe is to be inserted. Were the apostrophe merely to be in- serted in the "don't," it might escape notice, so the caret is put there to show where it goes, but the mark is also taken out to the margin where it will surely be seen. Just below are the unmarked letters "tr" standing for "trans- pose." In the first line of the body type is a companion mark showing the words to be transposed, in this case "you" and "if." Mark (8) shows the same sign used to transpose the second and third letters of "performance," though sometimes the letters are marked off and written in the margin in their porper order. Marks (3) and (7) both read "run," but the first tells to "run over" and the second to "run in." It is bad form to split the name of the theatre. In this case the division is very bad. The "run over" tells the printer to take the two letters over to the next line and fill in with spacing. "Run in" means that there is to be no paragraph there. The mark connecting the end of the third line with the commence- ment of the fourth means the same thing. It might have been written "no par." for "no paragraph here." Mark (4) looks like a spiral. It tells the printer that there is a letter upside down. A line has been drawn through the letter to indicate which it is. In this type a reversed letter is very apparent, but in a face in which the space is about evenly divided between the body, the ascender and descender, an "s," or similar letter may get upside down and scarcely be noticed. Mark (5) shows a double cross. It means that space must be used. Looking down TYPE AND TYPESETTING 109 the line you see a caret, that means something is to be put in. It is that space which will make division between "half" and "past. "Mark (6) is the letter "m" followed by the slanting line. In the line you will see a similar mark throught the "n" in "cone." That tells the printer to put an "m" in there and make it spell "come." The same thing is done just below to get the "s" in "past." Mark (9) says "see copy." When the copy is looked up it will be found that where the caret comes the words "come a little later and" have been left out. The words make sense as they stand, but the others must be in- serted. Mark (10') consists of several perpendicualr lines. If you will look at Figure 24 you will notice that here the type bulges out of alignment. The lines tell the printer to get the matter straightened up. If the lines were horizontal instead of perpendicular it would mean that the lines were running up or down instead of bulging out. The lines are repeated on the left. About the same place is a draw line leading to the space between two lines. Above is written "one lead." Reference to Figure 24 will show that two have been used there where the others carry but one. Mark (11) is merely a cross mark, repeated in the line over a battered "m" in "home." The mark tell the printer to get a good letter in there instead. The same mark is repeated on the other side to call atten- tion to the fact that a thin space has come up so high that it prints. In this case the printer merely shoves the space down. Mark (12) looks like () on their side. It shows that "demands" is to be brought together as one word. Mark (13) is merely a circle drawn about the figures in the text. It is a sign that they should be spelled out. It means the same thing when drawn around an abbre- viation. Mark (14) shows the abbreviation, "caps" and three lines below the word "why." In the finished proof this word is capitalized. Mark (15) is merely "w. f." in connection with a line struck through the "u" in "But." The first and last letters are Cheltenham old style. The "u" is from a font of Post Monotone. It is wrong font, and to be changed. Something else is the matter with that "But" for there is a bracket to pull it no PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING over to the left. Mark (16) is a "querry." The proof reader knows that the operator's name is "Eastman" and not "Easman." But he has no authority to change it. It may be that "Easman" has taken "Eastman's" place. He must let it stand, but he makes the correction and a ?. If the "t" should go in, the advertiser crosses off the question mark. If the "t" should remain out, both the question mark and the correction mark are crossed off. In this case the "t" is wanted and only the question mark is crossed. A ring drawn around the query to show that it is not a regular correction but one depending on the advertiser's decision. Save in the case of something to be spelled out, a ring around anything on proof or copy means that it is a note and not something to be set Maik (17) is the abbreviation for "Roman." It means that the italicized word is to be set in Roman instead. Marks (18) and (19) are to be read together. "Stagger" means to set unevenly. The ornaments to the left in- dicate em quads and the number of quads. The first line is to be "indented" two em quads, not pica quads, but ems of the type being used. Four quads are to be put before the second and six before the third. Mark (200 is double. There is a comma and a double cross. It means to put a comma and a space after "work." Just in front of that there is a line and an "e." That letter is to complete the word "pride." A line is drawn after the letter to mark it off from the next correction. Where there is more than one correction to a line the one nearest refers to the first to be taken up if on the right, or to the last if on the left. Just above the quad mark is an un- marked sign that looks like a capital "J." This really is supposed to be the Greek "delta" or "d," the initial of the word "delete ;" to take out. It is one of the most important marks in proof reading, because one most frequently used. If a line is struck through a word or letter and this sign is written in the margin, the word or letter comes out. Another important mark has been left out entirely. This is "stet," which means to keep in something marked to be taken out. If you cross out a line and then decide to leave all or a part of it in, you TYPE AND TYPESETTING 111 write stet in the margin and mark dots under the matter you want to stay in. If you have crossed off four words and want two of them only to stay in, you mark dots under the two that are to remain. These marks will give you about all you need to know of marking proof. Probably at some time you will use them all. The matter of printing and typesetting is more fully taken up here than some might believe to be warranted, but this is not true. Good printing is the basis of good advertising and to get good printing the advertiser must not only know what he wants but be able to tell others what that is. The man who goes into a printing office able to talk intelligently to the printer in his own lan- guage, is bound to get better results than the man who does not know the difference between a ten-point display type and an eight-point Roman. At best it is a constant state of battle between the printer and the advertiser. The printer wants to make a good job. So does the advertiser. The printer's idea of a good job is one in which type is well selected and balanced. The advertiser, on the other hand, wants to have the pulling lines show up. The printer sets his heavy type at proper intervals, keeping the bulk of the display to the top. The adver- tiser may want two forty-eight-point lines close together in the lower half of the advertisement without being able to say so. The advertiser who knows type will not want to do so, because he will know that the two lines will kill each other and be worse than useless (See Figure 30'). At least he will not make these pronounced errors, and to that extent he will have the respect of the compositor. The best way is to get into touch with the man who actually sets your type. Talk each job over with him. Listen to his suggestions. Accept what you can. Ex- plain why you cannot take the rest. Get on a friendly footing. Printers are used to being damned for their own acts and the faults of others, but they do net like it any more than do the rest of us. The man who storms in, blows up and rushes out again will never get the help 112 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING that will be given the man who has a smile on his face and an occasional pass in his pocket. Do not pretend to know more than you do know, but show that you do know something. Keep your eyes open and be willing to ask questions and you will soon know the rest. There are Exhibitors who now run their own small plants with no other experience than that obtained while visiting the printing offices, and some of these do excellent work. Be willing and anxious to learn and the printers will be only too glad to teach you, because it will make their own work easier. Master thoroughly the routine of the printing office. Know when you are given a proper excuse for a delayed job and when you are being held up. Learn not only type sizes but type faces. Select a good printer, a man with plenty of type and a good supply of material that is up to date. It may cost you more to work with such an office than with some small job printer, but the results will generally be in excess of the increased charge. It does not always happen that the biggest shop is the best, for a small man may have a small but good equipment against a large but old fashioned one, and the proprietor may be an artist in his business just starting in for himself. Try them out, but do not stay where you are given bad work. Battered and worn type faces and poor impressions suggest a dirty house and rainy films. Let your printing be characteristic of your house and of yourself. Let it be one of your credentials. HALFTONE AND LINE CUTS 113 CHAPTER XIII. HALFTONE AND LINE CUTS Halftone screen — use of varying screens — how the halftone works — suiting the cut to the paper — preparing cut copy — sizing cuts. Cuts used by Exhibitors fall into two general classes, line and halftone. Most cuts do belong to one or the other of these classes, but it is not necessary to discuss more than the straight line and halftone cuts, for it is seldom, if ever, that the Exhibitor will be called upon to handle other plates. The simplest cut is the line cut. This, as its name implies, reproduces in lines whatever is on the drawing. It is either solid black or solid white, and any intermediate shade is obtained through cross hatching with fine or coarse lines. Copy for line cuts should be in black ink on white, unglazed paper or card to get the best results. A black line on a dark green or red card will not repro- duce (See Figure 107). Line cuts may be used on any grade of paper. Halftones reproduce not alone the blacks and whites but all the intermediate graduations from white to black, known as the "halftones," from which the process takes its name. This is made possible through the use of a screen which cuts the surface of the plate into tiny dots or stipples. A screen consists of very clear glass ruled with a diamond into lines ranging from fifty to two hundred to the inch. Two of these plates of glass form a screen, the lines of one plate crossing at right angles the lines of the other. This breaks up into dots the solid masses in the copy, whether they are white or black or halftones. To get a better idea of just what this means, let us suppose a wall built of tiles one inch square. Suppose 114 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING that every other square was white and the others black. If you could stand far enough away from that wall, it would appear to be not black and white, but gray, because from that distance the black and white would merge into a solid mass of color. If the wall were built with only one-third white squares and the rest in black, the result would be gray, but a much darker gray, because now there would be less white to mix with the black. On the other hand, were the wall all black squares, though set in white cement, it would seem a solid black black, be- cause the fine white lines of cement would be over- shadowed by the greater mass of black. If the builder, discarding any arbitrary arrangement, had set the black and white squares to form a design, having some parts of this design a mass of black squares, other masses of white, and more with varying propor- tions of black and white, he would get a picture, not merely in black and white, but in varying shades of gray, as well, according to the proportions of black and white in those parts. The nearer you came to the wall the more clearly you would distinguish the individual blocks of color, until you would arrive at a point where you could see that there was no graduation of color at all, but merely a mass of white and black blocks. A halftone picture is precisely the same thing. The finer the screen, the finer the graduations of color. The coarser the screen the more evident does it become that it is not shading but a proportion of blocks of color. If a halftone cut worked equally well on all surfaces, screens with not fewer than one hundred lines to the inch should be used. But there are differences in paper and in the inks used for those papers. The cheap news stock is little better than fine blotting paper in its ab- sorbent qualities. The ink, too, is one that dries through absorption. It soaks into the paper. As a result, if a hundred-screen cut is used on news paper with nevv'S ink, the ink from each square or stipple spreads to the lines between, and the result is not a picture but a blot of black ink, save where there are masses of white. To HALFTONE AND LINE CUTS 115 offset this, cuts are made with only fifty or sixty-five lines to the inch on the screen, and now the dots are kept so far apart that the ink from one cannot spread to another dot. The result is an efifect not so good as a hundred and fifty screen on fine plate paper, but it gives a picture instead of a blot, and unless brought too close to the eye it looks well enough. Take a hundred-screen' cut and magnify it so that the dots and intervening dis- tances are just twice as large as the original and you will get precisely the same effect as the fifty screen. Put a reducing glass on the fifty screen and you will get a hundred-screen effect. Generally the cuts supplied by the manufacturer are fifty and sixty-five screen. They are intended for use in newspapers and on programs on cheap stock. They are NOT intended to be used on a fine grade of paper and they should not be used on such a grade any more than the fine screen should be used on news stock. If you are getting out a program or souvenir booklet on fine paper do not use any cuts if you cannot get the proper screen. Either get the proper screen or do with- out. As a general thing correspondence will enable you to obtain cuts in the proper screen or at least cut copy from which you may have your own cuts made. Halftones can be made from any copy, but are best when made from copy that is done in black and white or in color, with a proper knowledge of the photographic value of those colors. It is better to make line cuts of line originals and halftones only where the halftones should be preserved. The two cuts in the chapter on tabulating information are line and halftones. If the date index cut (Figure 8) had been made in line, only the printing would have reproduced. As it stands, the cut shows the white paper pasted on the gray card, which is why a halftone was made. In line it would have resem- bled the catalogue card, and in the case of that cut copy ■1- was necessary to draw a black line around the card to show the edge. Halftone effects can be gotten from line cuts to a cer- tain extent by mechanical stippling which in a way takes 116 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING the place of the screen in cutting the masses into dots. This can be done on a prepared paper which is first printed in stipple and then coated. Removing the coating where desired exposes that part of the stippling. An- other way is to use a Benday machine, which is practically a machine for printing the stipples where needed. It is J. JL -L. ^C-Ace OP //VC^ieS Figure 27. — Sizins: a cut. a sheet of hardened gelatine formed into stipples. These are inked. The machine is laid over a completed line drawing and the sheet pressed down with a stylus on those parts, requiring stipples. The degree of force used determines to some extent the size, and therefore the blackness, of the stipples. HALFTONE AND LINE CUTS 117 Halftones cannot be made from halftones save where the same screen is used and exactly matched to the screen of the halftone cut copy. This can be done, but it is an expensive proceeding. Where it is not done the reproduction suggests that it has been printed on watered silk. It is well to remember that copy reduces better than it enlarges, but if line copy having fine hatching is reduced too much the lines will be brought too close together. In marking for reproduction it must be born in mind that a cut enlarges or reduces in proportion in both dimensions. A drawing that is four inches square can- not be reduced to two inches wide and two and a half inches high. It will reduce, in proportion, to two inches high. Just how to size cuts is shown in Figure 27. A diago- nal line is drawn or formed with any straight edge from the lower left hand corner of the copy to the upper left hand corner. In the example shown the larger square represents a drawing ten by twelve inches, which it is desired to reduce to five inches wide. A point is marked five inches from the lower left hand corner along the lower edge and the distance from the edge to the diagonal is found to be six inches. If the cut were to be reduced to six inches high and it was desired to learn how wide it would be, the mark would be made from the lower left hand corner to a point six inches above on the left hand margin and the horizontal line would be measured, giving five inches in width. In marking cuts it is customary to mark the width or the height, but not both, but if you can cut ofif part of the top and a cut must be a certain measurement each way, then mark it, say: "Three inches wide. Crop to four inches high," and the waste portion will be cut away to the exact proportion. Where you wish only a part of the drawing to show, you need not mark the face of the drawing but mark lines in the margin to show where to trim. Halftones are generally finished with a line around the edge. A vignette efifect is that in which the cut seems 118 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING gradually to fade into the paper. If the base is left square and only the upper part, around the head of a portrait, is vignetted, this is called a vignette with a square base. The background may be made a solid black by burnishing down the background, or may be cut away by routing or cutting away the metal. Where possible, it is best to mark ofif with crosses the parts to be burnished or routed. Cuts are charged for by the "square," which is a square inch. As a rule no charge is made for less than ten inches. This is known as the minimum charge. Line cuts cost about half the price of halftones, and electros cost about half of the price of the original. An electro is a reproduction of a cut by an electrical process. It is practically a duplicate of the original, though the lines are not quite so sharp. Only the original will yield a good electro, and if a cut is to be used much it is better to have an electro made at once and hold the original from which to make other electros as needed. Particular care should be used to preserve the originals from scratches, and if cuts are handled it is a good plan to paint the base of originals red or some other vivid color, that they may not be confounded with the electros. Cuts should be kept in cabinets with shallow drawers and not piled one on another until they topple over. Cut cabinets can be had for about $35, but a case stand (not rack), holding ten printer's cases, can be bought, filled with blank cases, for about half that sum. In a small town perhaps a discarded spool cabinet may be purchased from some dry goods store and the partitions knocked out. Cuts may be stored in piles if they are first wrapped separately. It is well to cut one or two reproductions from the job in which they were used and wrap these with the cuts, to be used in pasting up next time. Where this is not done a sufficiently good impression can be gotten by inking the cut on a rubber stamp pad and stamping on paper with a blotter beneath. Where a hundred or more cuts of one size can be used it may be found cheaper and better to have Adcuts made. These are cast in moulds in type metal and should be PRINTING, PAPER AND INKS 119 ordered em square so that they will make up easily with other type material. A matrix or "mat" is merely a special paper mould for the cut. A "flong" of sheets of pasted tissue is beaten into the cut with heavy brushes and baked under pres- sure. The result is a perfect reproduction of the cut mould, that can be mailed for little or no cost. The local printer puts it in a casting box and pours in molten metal, obtaining an all-metal cut. Matrix does very well for coarse screen halftones and is excellent for line cuts, but before ordering mats be certain that you can get them cast up when received. Any newspaper using a web press can do the work, but few general printers are equipped with a metal pot and casting box. CHAPTER XIV. PRINTING, PAPER AND INKS Getting a job on the press — styles of paper — cutting up stock — suiting the paper to the job — inks must be suited to paper. In an earlier chapter we followed the advertisement to the revised proof or the type as it stood ready to be prepared for the printers. This matter is taken to an "imposing stone," a stone or iron surfaced table on which the type is placed into the "forms" or "chases" of iron or steel. "Form" is generally used where two or more pages are to be printed at one time, though the form is put into a chase. Chase is used if the matter is made up page by page, either to be printed so or to be sent to be electrotyped. A form is a chase with more than one page. The form is the pages assembled in such order that when the printed pages are folded the proper pages face each other. Two forms go to make up a "signature," though sometimes the two forms are spoken of as one, a sixteen-page form being two chases of eight pages each. 120 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING A form, too, may be the two pages of a one-sheet adver- tisement to be printed on both sides. In this case paper twice the size of the finished job is printed with both pages on one side at one time. When half the job is run off, the paper is reversed and again fed into the press so that now the front page prints on the back of what is to be the back page and the other half prints back pages on the already printed fronts. Cutting the paper into two sheets gives the finished job. On a run of a thousand, if printed a page at a time, an imprint on both sides would mean handling the paper two thousand times. By this short cut the paper is handled but a thousand times. This is almost always done on small jobs. In any event the type is put into the chases as it is to appear in print. The different pages are separated by furniture to secure the proper margins and the mass of type is "locked up," by driving wedged-shaped bits of wood or metal (quoins) between the matter and the iron bars of the chase. Properly locked up a form can stand a considerable amount of rough usage without falling apart. These forms are proved up once more to make certain that they are properly placed, then they are sent to the press room to be put on the press and "made ready." Even a type form requires some preparation. The make- ready for a halftone form is much more elaborate. The better the job, the more elaborate are these preparations. Overlays are cut for the parts of the cuts that are to be brought up. These are bits of paper pasted to the platen, on which the paper lies as it is pressed against the type. The overlay corrects cuts low in spots or gives greater contrast where such is needed, in order to get the best effect. Low or slightly worn type is sometimes corrected in the same fashion. On "flat-bed" presses the form is laid on the bed of the press. This bed moves up and down a track, first passing the type under inking rollers and then carrying it under a revolving cylinder carrying a sheet of paper to be printed. This prints only on one side and presently the other half of the form must be printed on the other PRINTING, PAPER AND INKS 121 side to get the complete job. If two or more forms are to be printed for one job each of these sheets, properly folded, is called a signature, and the front page of each carries a signature mark by which the bindery girls may know them. One of each signature is taken in order and the lot bound together. In newspaper work the pages of type are not printed from directly, but stereotype plates are made, as described in the last chapter, the matrix is cast into a curved plate and this is fastened to the cylinder. In this case the cylinders carry the type and the long belt or "web" of paper passes first one and then the other, being printed on both sides in practically one operation. These presses are known as "Webb" presses. Small jobs are usually run off on job presses, where the form is small enough. In these the chase is placed in the press and the paper is forced against the inked type. Whatever the system, the paper has to be pressed against the type in order to cause the ink to leave the type and adhere to the paper. This is called the "impres- sion." If the impression is too light not enough ink will be taken off the paper. If the impression is too heavy the type will slightly emboss the paper. For rapid press work or for work that must be handled soon after it comes from the press, an absorbent paper must be used or the ink will not dry quickly. For hand- bills, throwaways and programs "news" paper should be used. For better jobs a better paper should be used, but time must be allowed for drying the ink. The first grade above fine news paper is "calendered" paper. This is paper smoothed and hardened by being passed between hot rollers. The process is precisely the same as ironing out paper on the kitchen table with a warm flat iron. Heat and pressure combined, flatten the paper and give it a smoother and harder surface. It decreases its absorbent powers, but it better fits it for taking finer screen half tones or giving better results with type faces. Sometimes the paper is both "sized" and calendered. Before going through the rollers it is treated with a solu- 122 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING tion of glue to give it a still harder surface. Super- calendered paper is paper to which more and more fre- quent pressure has been applied in order to get a still better surface. Sometimes on a fancy job with a grained or pebbled cover paper, the surface of which is too rough to take ink from the types, a certain space on the cover is calendered. The effect is good, but the cost is large. "Coated" or "enameled" papers are papers which have been surfaced with kaolin or other clays. The surface is ideal for the finest screen halftones, but the heavy loading with clay makes the paper very liable to crack. Though sold by the "ream" of 500' sheets, paper is charged for by the pound. A twenty-pound paper is one that weighs twenty pounds to the ream. Paper comes in standard sizes that differ slightly with the various parts of the country, or can be ordered in any special size at a small extra cost. If a paper of a special weight has to be made up to order, the manufacturers will not guarantee to produce precisely the amount ordered nor precisely that weight. They come as close to it as they can, but they claim a certain leeway in weight and quantity and within this the purchaser must stand, taking up a few extra pounds or accepting a few pounds less. What this leeway is will be explained at the time the order is ac- cepted. It is well to know not only the paper sizes to be had, but to keep posted on the sizes in stock. Sometimes paper of a slightly larger or smaller size will be sold at a reduced price and the job can be laid out to fit the bargain stock if the fact is known in advance. In working standard sizes, make the job fit. The 17 by 22 inch paper will cut into fours the standard letter size of 8^/2 by H inches or give an eight page of that size folded in fours. If you desire a page eight by ten you must pay for having the paper cut down and also for the paper you do not use. For quick work news must be used. Above that grade of job figure out your paper, suiting it to the work in hand. Do not order a heavy coated paper where a cal- endered paper will do as well, or demand newspaper for a job calling for calendered stock. PRINTING, PAPER AND INKS 123 Card stock comes in sheets and is cut to order. In get- ting stock be careful to get bright colors. The very cheapest stock is dull and lifeless even in the brighter colors, but you can at least avoid sickly greens, grave- yard grays and dismal browns. In the better grades con- ditions are better and it pays to give a larger price for better stock. If you use a red, get a red, and not some- thing that looks like an underdone brick and that will be thrown away unread. If you get a blue or green get a bright color, one that will appeal to the eye and that will be accepted. When you ask a man to read your appeal, at least say "please" by making it appealing in appear- ance. The matter of ink should be no concern of the Ex- hibitor other than a choice of color, but it is well to understand something about inks in order to be able to argue with the printer when necessary. If you will send to the Superintendent of Documents, Government Print- ing Office, Washington, D. C, enclosing ten cents and asking for Circular No. 53 of the Bureau of Standards, on the Composition, Properties and Testing of Printing Inks, you will be given full information. What follows is abridged from that circular. Ink is made today much the same as it was in the earliest days of the art. It consists of a varnish, a pig- ment and perhaps a drier. Varnish in the sense used is not the product of the paint maker but an oil, generally one boiled until it has attained the proper consistency. Once boiled linseed oil was the only varnish, but with the greater speed of the modern press came a demand for a quick drying ink. Linseed varnish dries through oxidization on the surface, and this requires time. Inks made with rosin oil dry by the absorption of the ink into the paper. These inks are more fluid than linseed inks. A rough test is that they leave the type clean or nearly so after an impression. A fluid ink will not be absorbed in a very great measure on calendered or coated papers, and takes longer to dry on such surfaces than would a linseed ink. Linseed ink costs much more than a fluid ink, but if the printer has 124 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING a job on the press requiring a fine grade ink and must wash this off, ink with cheap ink, wash this up and go back to good ink for a third job, he is very apt to run off a rush job with linseed ink that will not be dry by the time it is to be distributed. On the other hand he may try to use a cheap ink on a better job and again the ink does not dry. In spite of the excellence of the paper the job will be smeary and messy. Generally speaking, ink suited to rush jobs on porous paper will drip from a spatula like oil. Short inks, better suited to good grades of paper, will drip like molasses. It is only through a combination of the right sort of paper and ink that a good job will result if the press work is right. CHAPTER XV. PREPARING ADVERTISING COPY Making the layout — the type style sheet — value of various factors — playing up lines — the value of spacing. There are but two ways of preparing material or 'copy" for the printer. One is to write what you have to say and send it to the printer, trusting to luck and his skill and intelligence. The other, and better way, is to 'know what you want and how to ask for it. If you deal with a single printer, get him to fix you up a proof of all the display faces he has. Ask him to show all of the sizes he carries in each face. Sometimes a dis- play letter in ten and eighteen-point of the same face will look very unlike each other. You may like the eighteen point and not the ten, or vice versa, so get both on the sheet and you'll know how each looks. Get him to write in the name of the face and the point size on each. If your dealings are with a newspaper office they will probably have these sheets ready printed. If they PREPARING ADVERTISING COPY 125 have not, they may welcome the suggestion, but get it, if at all possible. It will simplify your work greatly. Ask, too, for specimens of the border and ask for some of the ornaments you are most apt to use. If the printer has no sheets and will not make one up, get copies of the i3 h apu /»' {u. ~n-> i9 I -^-« n IHANII 1 TtlANHOUS[R THEM rth Avenue=Phone H^^l A., l>r< C. TITESEAY, APRIL 20=J6 luint CHARLES CHAPLIM='»8 Point "World's Greatest Comedlan^a ,n a, 000 Feet of Lau«h»=12 A JiTJBY ia,o;i.imT"=(5o ou never luu^jhed as heartily as ^fl^^^^i you will wtiwn you sec this Sssan^ iivT.— ^^ ^^^^ ^j. jjjyjf,^ Imagine Charlie Chaplin as 'Coiuit de Ha H« 1 " If you've iot "the blues* brine them to Xhanlioiwer 'D'.e&tre an^i leave theu* You can't take them home with you. It's Chaplin's greate screen "uccees, and *"' !">*' -ri««^ou^^A C0;UliO,j.APRIL 19'C •Iffi: BLACB. B0i7«=«l»S Point. Ihu newest Universal .>etectlve Uj-stery serial In 15 episodes. You reaeuiber "Lucille Lovw." ".^w Jias- Hey," "Hrey '0 Keartf," and the heart Interest aod thrlllBr of coui-se, but "The Hack lox" Is tettc ttian any of '^hem. It co*** ' *ond*y and every Monday thereafter. Always Booiethlns ? little better ttnin the ordinary, every day In the yea except Sunday. *y. ».,Ji,l..,ml n,-i. ^m^ iP^^k T,.ms Cabin ,!,s m^^% \k^ n^a»i. ■ ^y 1 .:.- ^M Mia twilli. In ;■ .ill* .-jtli.l) Jrauia turiicd V • ' ';^-';;i':'}^: --:■'': _i!.llli.>t«n4il> J.«- T:' Oa, R.sul.i Kt L-^ Figure 43. — A post card program. One piece of distributed matter that got home in many cases was a manila envelope printed up: "I dare you to take this home to your wife unopened." Within was a card printed as in Figure 44. Most of them did get home, opened or still sealed, and even where the recipient was not married it probably was shown to someone. The actual text of the contained card is comparatively unim- 150 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING portant. It is the idea of the envelope text that carried the idea. Dear Friend Wife: Let's go to the Playhouse this evening. They have an even better than usual bill with a special feature When the Blizzard Blew that is said to show some of the best snow scenes ever pro- duced. It's about time I took you somewhere. Hubby. Figure 44. — Copy for a catch card. Working the same envelope scheme, they may be printed up "Do you get a lucky number?" The hint of a drawing will cause the envelopes to be opened when the "lucky number" will be found to be a particular date when an extra feature will be shown, the number of reels in a SUN. Favorite Players PRE££^TS MAXnsMAN The iftosier School Master. In S Act! MON. GEO. KLEINE The Nalld Truth wIh Lyda sorelli In 5 Acts The Cerebrated Player^^lm Co. PR Annette The Perf( spectacular Neptune's :r^^lr eclSm ar ^^rorii TS llermaA an in the " ai triumph Daughter TUES. HENRY W SAVAGE famous play^^ PR af Bits THE M*LION Edwa^^beles In S Acts Come to the Matinees Neptune'l and enjoy night you able to geT^a seat Matinees 2:15 and 4:15 Figure 45.— A program calendar issued by the month. feature or anything else to carry out the idea. It will help along the scheme to number each slip and envelope with a numbering machine, or even a rubber stamp, in an ink different in color than that used for the letter press. The number does not have to be changed. Calendars are effective, particularly when they carry the program. By this is not meant the yearly calendar, but one for a week or a month, if you know your bill that far ahead. If your printer has no calendar logo- types you can obtain a set for prices from a dollar up- DISTRIBUTED MATTER 151 ward, according to size. Figure 45 shows a part of a monthly calendar. The original is about 12 by 15 inches. The lines and figures are printed in red and the text in black, which shows through the red in the original but not in the reproduction. It is punched to be hung on the wall and because of its large, plain figures it finds a wel- come in homes and offices alike. Calendars on blotters do well for office distribution, but the value of an office distribution for a picture house is to be questioned. There are not enough offices in a town small enough to permit the advertising to be effective in proportion to the cost of preparation and distribution and in the cities there are too many offices to be covered. Blotters in the home are seldom of as much value to the advertiser as to the recipient. One house, however, did very well with blot- ters, by printing a set of pictures of natural curiosities, such as are to be found in some of the magazines. The text explained the cut and drifted into an allusion to the house. Here the cut was of greater value than the blotter as an attractor. Post cards with portraits of the players are always good, particularly when the player shown is to appear in the subject advertised. The advertisement should be printed on the front. Type does well enough, a message in facsimile of handwriting is better, but the best ex- ample is one in which the card is addressed by the same person who wrote the copy for the cut. A carbon ink is used to get the same color in the address as shows in the press impression and the card has to be read to show that it was not the personal message it purports to be. Such a card as that has several times the value of a card in which the message and the address are in different handwritings or inks. A little intelligent thought multi- plied the value of the investment. Cards that will be carried about are good forms of dis- tributed matter. This does not mean a card with "Curi- ous Facts About the Bible," or the language of flowers, but cards with pithy, catchy sentences that can be car- ried around and flashed upon a bore or brought out to point a joke. Cards with such reading as "Buy me a 152 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING drink," "Go to hell," and similar phrases do the house no good, but "Smile, even if it hurts you," "I've heard that before," and kindred stuff will please. "Please buy me a drink" is crude and coarse, but a cut of some objecf, say a frog, and a line: "When you see two frogs, stop drinking" would get a laugh and if distributed only to men will be passed along. It might even be advertised as a valuable souvenir for men only. Cards that are carried because of some clever design also appeal. One of the best of this sort is shown in Figure 46. It is a product of the Vaudette theatre, West Point, Ga., a house that is singularly happy in its pro- duction of novelties. CHAMS DHAdUN THE dUNNIEST WAN IN PICJ-UyES Figure 46. — ^A novelty card that lasted for weeks. One exhibitor uses a throwaway program with some "useful information" run through the copy. The top line, set in a distinctive face, offers, for example, "How to Tell Woolen from Cotton Cloth. Find answer in pro- gram." In each section of the program is a line in the same marked type. Assembled they give the answer. The colons mark each section of the seven daily instal- ments : "Pick out : a thread : from the cloth : if cotton, it burns : to a flame : if wool : it will only singe." Not one reader in a hundred will care in the least how to tell cotton from wool, but it is only human nature to pick out the lines through curiosity and in doing so the rest of the program is absorbed, since the lines appear next to the main titles. Blank books that can be used for memoranda can be titled on the cover "Houses where they have a better show than at the Star," "A list of good films we've failed DISTRIBUTED MATTER 153 to show," "People who do not patronize the Arcade," or anything else that will fit the blank pages. On the same lines are catch books that offer on the cover: "How we lose our patrons," and on the inside explain within a twenty- four-point mourning border that : "They Die," or offer to tell "How Washington Crossed the Delaware," which was the title of an Edison, the answer being, "In a Boat." Fake telegrams are effective in a way, but many per- sons are accustomed to receiving a telegram only in case of a death, and the shock of the receipt nullifies the ad- vertising value. Nothing should be done that will antag- onize patrons or shock them. Black bordered envelopes, fictitious death notices and other suggestions of death come within this class as does any controversial matter. On the other hand, many exhibitors have made busi- ness with pseudo wedding announcements and party in- vitations. The wedding is that of some film character and the imaginary hostess also a screen person. Where this is done it must be done well to be convincing. Good card stock, double envelopes and addressing in a clerky hand are absolute requirements. The printing should be done in imitation of engraving, using a shaded, Typo or Copperplate Gothic letter. The new Copperplate Gothic Shaded is particularly good. Another scheme is to use a Typo or straight Gothic and a "short" ink. This is an ink so thick and heavy that a considerable quantity comes off the type to the card and dries down into the ridges that are supposed to be the mark of an engraved card, where the same ink is used. Care must be taken here to use offset sheets ; sheets of waste paper, between the cards and not to pile them too high until dry, or the ink will offset onto the back of the card above it and spoil the job. This form of advertisement will appeal most strongly to the higher grade of patronage ; people accustomed to receiving such announcements. The real name of the star may be used instead of the play name and "Miss Star Performer begs to announce," reads better than that "The Star Theatre begs to announce." 154 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING A real mystery can be raised if in a ball invitation you do not use the name of the theatre, but give only the street address. An invitation to a reception given by Mrs. George Pomfret Van Alstyne "at 623 Broad street" may puzzle a society woman who knows no such person. She will investigate and when she finds that the number is the address of your house she will guess the rest. What has been said about concerning proper stock for wedding invitations holds good of all classes of distrib- Marple Facts During the past year 3,297,546 people paid admission to the Marple. If this audience stood in a row, they would reach the distance of 3,596 miles. The total number of laughs by these people was 89,924,563. If it were combined in one mammoth laugh it could be heard from Wichita, Kansas, to London, Eng- land, and would last two hours and twenty-seven minutes. If the applause was combined into a single handclap, the concussion would be sufficient to move the Mexican border line one mile, twenty-nine feet, six inches south of its present location. Figure 47. — Fictional facts. uted matter. Suit your material to the work you want done. It would be as foolish to prepare such an announce- ment for distribution in the slums as it would be to send lurid Heralds for crude melodrama to persons who are interested most in the highest class features. You would not try to catch the business man with the statement that a two-reel will show some recent fashion developments any more than you would try to coax a society matron with a film preaching the evils of tobacco. Work in the same way with your material. What may be termed fictional facts sometimes work well. They are best printed on a card that they may be carried about and shown. Figure 47 carries an example. Another good idea, and one that has much back of the seeming joke is contributed by the Haynic theatre, Fair- mount, Minn. Copy will be found in Figure 48. (Front of card) NOW OPEN The Haynic Night School Complete courses NOVELTY ADVERTISEMENTS 155 History Geography Physiology Good morals Botany Gentleness Courage Chivalry Fun Laughter Loyalty Honor Generosity Charity Music Patriotism Self Reliance TUITION— Sixty cents per week, payable in installments of tents each. The entire public is cordially invited to patronize these remarkable educational courses. (Reverse) HAYNIC NIGHT SCHOOL offers a special course in natural history by the eminent French in- structor. Prof. Pathe, on Saturday. March ir)th. THE CHAFFINCH AND HER FAMILY are the subjects of this lesson and the taxing duties of the mother bird in taking care of her little brood are depicted in a series of intimate views that are most interestingly educational. On the same reel we have splendid pictures of the annual manoeuvres of the French navy. In a storm which lasted two days t!ie battleships and smaller craft went through their mimic warfare while even the heaviest vessels were tossed about like chips on the giant waves. You must be sure to attend this session. Sincerely, Hay and Nicholas. Figure 48. — A "night school" announcement. Enough has been shown here to give a general idea as to how to construct distributed matter. Other hints will be found in Chapter seventeen. CHAPTER XVII NOVELTY ADVERTISEMENTS Kellerman tape measure — one-piece coat hanger — pieces of film — small checks — built up ads — tin cans — name passes — badges — balloons — sub- poenas — puzzles. Novelty advertising in the sense in which it is here used comprehends anything out of the ordinary run. Examples have already been given in preceding chapters in explaining general policies. Here are 156 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING offered many ideas that are capable of a sub-classifica- tion but which come under this general head. The promoters of "Neptune's Daughter;" a film in which Annette Kellerman was starred, produced a nov- elty in the form of a tape measure printed on stout paper. On this was printed in black the usual thirty- six-inch graduation, but in addition there was carried, in red, the marks of Miss Kellerman's measurements, her arm, wrist, throat, ankle, calf, bust, thigh, waist, etc. "Neptune's Daughter," being what theatrical managers call "shape stuff," might be supposed to ap- peal principally to men, but it is safe to say that the tape measure interested more women than might be thought possible. They compared the measurements of "the perfect woman" with their own and then went to assure themselves that Miss Kellerman was not so shapely after all. The idea made big business. The Vaudette theatre. West Point, Ga., originated a widely copied idea in their "one-piece coat and gar- ment hanger." It was announced that these would be given to every patron on a certain evening. On enter- ing each person was handed a small envelope printed up with the statement that it contained a one-piece coat and skirt hanger invented by the operator. In- side was a common two-inch wire nail, wrapped in heavy paper to disguise it as long as possible. It was a clever sell and one that lasted well beyond the even- ing of its distribution. Another envelope was printed up: "Look in this glass and smile. If you can't smile, look on the back and find out how." Inside was a small pocket mirror and on the back was lettered "Go to the Grand and smile." Another favorite novelty is a bit of film with read- ing matter. An English Exhibitor was the first to use this, offering a book-mark about two by six inches. The card was double and a window just the size of the "frame" of one picture, and between the two cards a clipping was pasted so that the film formed the il- lustration for a short text. Other methods of working NOVELTY ADVERTISEMENTS 157 the same idea are to cut three or four frames and either staple or tie to a card with baby ribbon, using an upholsterer's needle to thread the ribbon through the card, or to wrap film and description in paper, putting it into a small grocer's bag filled with sawdust or cut paper labeled "A bagfull of information about motion pictures." A good reader to go with the film runs : This is a piece of motion picture film. Each pic- ture or "frame" is only one inch wide and three-fourths of an inch high and 3'et the photography is so excellent that it can be enlarged a thousand times or more. The picture at the ■ is eight feet wide and six feet high. This means that these tiny photographs are enlarged by the projection machine to cover 9,216 times as much surface. The average reel of film is one thousand feet in length, containing 1,600 such pic- tures. We show five thousand feet of film at each performance or 80,000 pictures. These are made and shown at the rate of sixteen to the second, a standard speed which enables us to reproduce the actions of the players at precisely the speed at which they were performed, giving their exact actions. The tiny holes at the side are sprocket holes. These fit toothed wheels which draw the film down past the opening of the projection machine behind the lens, an inter- mittent movement of the wheels halting the film for about four-fifths of one-sixteenth of a second. At such a time a revolving shutter permits the lens to be uncovered twice. If it remained uncovered during entire four-fifths of each one-sixteenth of a second period there would be the flicker that caused so much trouble in the early days and which was largely due to the unequalness of the periods of light and dark- ness. It will be seen that the film does not move con- tinuously, but is jerked past the lens opening. With our present program we show 5,475,000 feet of film a year or 88,500,000 pictures. If something shorter and more poetic is desired, this copy may supply the want. 158 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISIXG CELLULOID SOLILOQUY "I am a moving picture, born of heart, head and hand. I am the offspring of knowledge and Hght, joined into wedlock with art. I speak the language of enchantment. I come from everywhere. I go everywhere. I have been brought out of the skies, out of dreamland, to earth to serve and bless humanity. JMany millions call to see me every day. "I bring joy and gladness to the oppressed, bring smiles to the world-worn faces of the weary. I lay bare the innermost secrets of the heart; be in joy, gladness, laughter, happiness or sadness, grief, despair. "Into each tale I unfold I weave a subtle lesson. "I uplift, inspire, enlighten. I raise the floodgates of laughter and allow the joys to come ajingling. In days of peace or war alike I bring the news to countless num- bers. I lay the world at your feet. "I am to be seen at my best every day at the J A." The film is obtained by purchasing an old reel from some dealer in second hand junk and may be first used (Date here) Regular form of greeting by name — Enclosed please find our check for two cents in payment for the time spent in reading this letter. We wish you to know that we are showing a better class of moving pictures; more REAL feature photoplays, than ever before. Next Sunday, March 9th, and for two days thereafter, we are showing the celebrated two-reel feature, "Born to the Purple." We particularly desire that you will see this subject and favor us vvith your criticism, either in person or by letter. Very trulv. Unique Theatre Co., (Pen signature here) Manaeer. Figure 49. — Copy for a check letter. in the lobby as explained in the chapter on press work. Sending checks to pay for the time spent in reading an advertisement is an old but good idea where it has not already been done. The check is generally for two or five cents and accompanies a circular \vith a mem- orandum to the effect that : "Knowing your time to be valuable, we enclose a check for two cents to pay for NOVELTY ADVERTISEMENTS 159 a few seconds of your time," or perhaps the check is sent to pay for reading the letter. The form in Figure 49 will suggest the style. These letters should be written personally. If many are sent out, a special check should be printed up and the bank notified that these will not be good for a larger sum than that stated. There should be a small line somewhere limiting the validity of the check to three months. This will enable the account to be cleared. The check must be perfectly good bankable paper for a bad check will be a poor advertisement and many of these will be put through the clearing house through curiosity. The built up advertisement is expensive and hardly worth while. In its essential it consists of parts of an advertisement along the lines of a sectional puzzle. The key-piece is held until the last. One piece at a time is sent out from the mail list, one a day or at least one every second day, until the series is complete. Each piece should carry some "teaser" such as "Not many more," "Don't get discouraged," "Be patient," and so on. It must de designed in such a way that the information is held back until the last. Steve Farrar, of Eldorado, 111., originated the scheme of sending out his Christmas program several days in advance and marking it with the usual "Not to be opened until Christmas." The cards were mailed from another town nearby to add to the mystery. Most of them were kept until Christmas morning when the advertisement, on a handsome greeting card, did much to help the holiday business. One theatre announced that on a certain afternoon small boys could obtain admission on the presentation of ten empty tin cans. It was looked upon as a good scheme to make talk, but it cut two ways, for presently every householder found a can on his doorknob with the legend in Figure 50. This was printed on a bag- gage tag affixed by means of the string about two feet long, the other end of which was tied to the can. Some theatres ofifer special matinee prices, children 160 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING three cents apiece or a quarter a dozen, beinsj^ a favor- ite price. Ben Zerr, of Scranton, Pa., qualifies this. His cards read that "any clean child" will be admitted for three cents with the discount ticket. Tie me to your clog's tail and head him for the Opera House That six reel comedy to-night Will make even a dog laugh Figure 50. — A tag for a tin can. Arrange with grocers to advertise that on a certain day they will sell thirteen eggs to the dozen, you pay- ing the wholesale price of the extra eggs. The thir- teenth egg is stamped with a rubber stamp : "This egg may be bad, but the shows at the Grand are always good. Name or characteristic stunts are good for now and then. If some feature film carries a girl's name in the title announce that at a certain day all girls of the same name will be admitted free on presentation of proper identification. If you've always heard a girl called Sadie and she says her middle name is Jane, take her word for it. Don't argue. Red hair, or light or dark may be the essential or the person may have to be short or tall, plump or thin, but keep away from such personal characteristics as crossed eyes or bow legs. It is something that will make talk and talk will advertise the house. If you advertise for thin people set up a gate which they must be thin enough to pass, or widen the entrance and make a man fill the space or better. If height or lack of it is a con- sideration, then put up a bar which must be passed under or under which one must stoop to pass as the case may be. Whatever it is, get a lobby ballyhoo and be sure and tell the reporters or the city editor in plenty of time for arrangements to be made. If they don't come try and write up the story yourself and send it in. Advertise souvenirs for men and make them huge NOVELTY ADVERTISEMENTS 161 neckties of vivid color and paper cambric or crepe paper. Most odium seems to attach a red necktie, so select that- color. Offer to give a pair of seats to any man who will wear his souvenir throughout the per- formance. If you make them big- enough and suffi- ciently uncomfortable )'Ou'll not need to give out many seats and those you do give out will be earned. Then tell the papers — in advance — about your necktie party. Even in the small cities the editor will appreciate a good news story even if it does possess an advertising value for the house, as well. A reversal of this is to print up neat ribbon badges of some star, giving a reproduction of her picture, the name of your house, the date and the name of the film. Send these out with a card that reads similar to Figure 51. Many will come through loyalty to a favorite. Others will come just to be in the fashion. If you are an admirer of Grace Whynotte See her at her best at the Joy House Monday, March 10th in Forgotten. Show your colors. Wear this badge. Figure 51. — Card to go with ribbon badge. Speaking of ribbons ; many exhibitors have found that a card or program bound with a gay ribbon will be kept where precisely the same piece of advertising, if wire stitched, will be thrown away. Curiosity getters in the form of envelopes printed up will almost always work. The idea .is to play up certain lines and keep the others down so that they will require close examination to be read. The re- cipient will see that it is a trick, but his curiosity has been roused and he will want to see just what the deception is. Figure 52 will suggest two displays for such an envelope. These envelopes are the sort gen- erally known as "pay" envelopes, a small manila that may be had cheaply. For the large lines use about an eighteen point and for the small lines the smallest 162 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING size of six-point copperplate i^othic or what is called a box-head gothic, in four-point. FREE INFORMATION VALUABLE INFORMATION Eigure 52. — Catchlines for envelopes. A simple curiosity rouser was the "Telephono- graphical" lectures devised by A. G. Wunderle, of Brooklyn. It was simply a name and a megaphone terminating in a speaking tube through which the lecture was delivered. It made talk and talk roused curiosity which brought business. Even so simple a thing as oiling a baby carriage can be made an advertisement. One house has a stand- ing offer to oil any baby carriage whether brought by a patron or not. All that is necessary is to wheel the vehicle up to the door and the proprietor himself comes out with oil can, rag and wrench, takes off the wheels, removes the gritty, dirty oil and puts on new. Of course he has to talk about something and the talk is about two-thirds about the pretty baby and one-third about his fine show. Fathers as well as mothers appreciate the courtesy, because it saves them trouble, and after such a kindness it would be thank- less indeed to go to another house. Advertising by toy balloons is often done. Orders for two seats are tied to hot air or gas balloons and these are released. If the gas bladders are used they should be sent up in the day time. The hot air balloons show up best in the evening. The feature should be advertised in advance as marking some fictitious or actual celebration and advice should be sent to neighbor- ing towns. Send out a press slip reading something like NOVELTY ADVERTISEMENTS 163 this : "If you see balloons in the air next Thursday watch where they land for each will carry two tickets to the Strand theatre (name location here). In celebration of their first anniversary the management will release twenty^five balloons and if the wind is favorable many of them may drift as far as (name of town). They will be sent up about (name hour). VV^ith the press notice send a pass "similar to those at- tached to the balloons" to get the editor in good humor. It is an item of semi-news and he will probably use it. Sticks of real or pasteboard chewing gum can be wrapped in pink papers with the house advertisement printed on the inside. These can be given out singly or in a package of five with difTfercnt reading to each wrapper and a red and green band urging the receiver to "Chew over this." Supposed subpoenas issued by a "circular" instead of a Circuit Court, if printed in good imitation, will be start- ling and lasting. The outside should be in the usual docket form with the wording changed as slightly as pos- sible, the exhibitor or the theatre company being the plaintifif. Inside the general form of legal document should be adhered to but the command should be to give witness to some special release. Be careful to get advice on the wording. Contempt of court is not always a pleasant charge. A western Exhibitor startled his staid patrons by dis- tributing lurid heralds for one of those bold, bad bandit films that were popular once. It was so unusual a de- parture from his usual good taste that many puzzled over the matter until they looked at the house imprint. This reads, as in Figure 53. The Herald not only advertised the scenic but it em- phasized the contrast between the early days and the better present. Two good points were made. Actually giving away money is different from giving away passes that the money might represent, but now and then an Exhibitor can paste a coin to a card and make people take notice. One card was worded as in Figure 54, and apparently meant good business. The coin was a 164 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING brand new nickel, fresh and shiny. An old coin will not serve the purpose, but your bank can always obtain new money if asked in time. This film will NOT be run at the NATIONAL But we have on Monday, November 10th Something just a little better than usual Seeing America First Figure 53. — Imprint for a sensational herald. On the same lines is an appeal to a select class, sug- gesting that if the recipient of the letter does not care to attend a regular performance the Exhibitor will be glad Try anything once. We are so certain that you will like The Grand Theatre that we are enclosing the price of the experiment. (Coin Try it — -just once, anyway. here) Figure 54. — A card with a real coin. to have him drop in some morning and have a private showing. -If the invitation is not accepted the impression has been made that it might be worth looking into. If Webster defines hibernation as follows: "To pass the winter in close quarters. To be in a torpid or lethargic state." The TURTLE hibernates. It sees no beauty of the winter months and buries itself until the warm sunshine of the spring appears. The approach of winter prompts the management of this theatre to send you this little booklet (or card) with a purpose in view. We fear you might be like the torpid turtle and stay too close to your fireside these winter months: hence the mis- sion of this little booklet — just a reminder lest you fall into the ways of the turtle. Let's not beat around the bush — the point we are striving to make plain is this: We need the money, and if you spend che winter nights at home — well, what's the answer? We are asking for your money. In reurn we will strive to give you all that is good in pictures. We can do it — with your money — if you do not hibernate, so DON'T BE A TURTLE Figure 55. — The "turtle" advertisement. the prospect does come the Exhibitor can run a reel or two and give a light lecture that will be worth pages of NOVELTY ADVERTISEMENTS 165 advertising to that prospect and perhaps his friends. Generally useful, but particularly so in the rural dis- tricts where the country trade is of value is the Turtle advertisement, devised by Fred Wheeler, of Crown Point, Ind. Figure 55 gives the copy. It has been widely used and always to good effect. One really novel advertisement came from an exultant Exhibitor. It read simply: "Celebration week. Admit one, week of March 10th. It's a girl ! ! !" Puzzle advertisements are apt to bore and many will not take the trouble to solve them, but five squares of colored paste board that were to be placed in the form of a square made a lot of talk, for the thing was so clearly a geometrical impossibility. Four of the cards were printed on both sides with house advertisements. The fifth was printed up with the statement of the puzzle and added that the method would be shown on the screen on a date a'bout ten days later. What the screen showed will be seen in Figure 56. Meantime the town had be- come all worked up, and the lesson on the cards had been absorbed while the possessor studied over the puzzle. 1 2 3 4 5 Figure 56. — How to make five squares "four-square." Railroad or theatre ticket advertisements are always good novelties. The theatre ticket is helped along if slipped into a ticket envelope, and it is almost always pos- sible to get some store to pay for the envelopes in return for the store advertisement on the back, and that adver- tisement will help along the deception, since most real ticket envelopes are so printed. The enclosed tickets may be of the "This ticket and ten cents" variety or may 166 PICTURE THEATRl': AIJVliK USING be straight advertising. The railroad ticket is generally in the iorm of a local ticket from the town of issue to the theatre or to "a good time," or similar reading. Some- times the ticket is of the strip or coupon sort witli a stub for general advertising and a different feature on each coupon. The work has been turned out on "safety" paper so cleverly as to deceive even a conductor at first glance. As novelties they will be carried for some time, but both the paper and typesetting are expensive. Cut-out paper or card forms are frequent, a large foot- print stating that all steps should lead to the Gem Theatre. If it is possible to get in touch with a maker of insoles for shoes, the cut-outs can be made without the heavy cost for dies. A cut-out in the shape of an egg was popular for a time. Generally it carried the offer of an absurd prize ; ten thousand dollars or more, for a proved answer to the old minstrel inquiry as to whether the hen or the Qgg came first. Cut-outs usually require a special die, unless your printer knows where to pick up some die-cut paper, but the Exhibitor who can get into touch with others not too close to his own territory can arrange to pro rate such a cost. There is no reason whatever why groups of live wire Exhibitors should not be formed, through personal contact at league meetings or through correspondence, to combine in sharing the cost of novelties that may be purchased more cheaply in quantities. If ten Exhibitors each order a thousand or two of a certain novelty the cost of ten or twenty thousand will be decidedly less than the cost of one or two thousand, and in many jobs, the first printing can be done for all Exhibitors at one time, the second printing being done locally by each Exhibitor. By such co-operation much could be done. HOUSE PROGRAMS 167 CHAPTER XVIII. HOUSE PROGRAMS: FORMS AND ADVERTISING Self-supporting house programs — vest pockets — book- lets — folders — program format — getting outside advertising — stock — ^interest schemes. No form of picture theatre advertising is so valuable to a house as a well printed and smartly edited program. Better still, the program can be made not only self-sup- porting but possibly will show a small profit through use of the advertisements of local tradesmen. Many Exhibitors contend that it is an error to use the advertisements of other concerns, called "foreign" adver- tising in that it is foreign to the house advertisement, but this contention does not appear to be based upon sound logic. Where only a minor share of the space goes to the foreign advertiser, and the house space is not made to suffer through the greed or indifference of the Exhibitor, the foreign advertisement is not only a source of profit but indirectly it is an endorsement of the house and its policies by these advertisers; a guarantee of their faith in the theatre and its patronage. Naturally no advertiser will spend money on a venture that does not deserve to be countenanced or which is not well patronized. In many small towns and the suburbs of the cities the theatre program is the only direct means of reaching a large portion of the immediate population. It has already been shown that the picture theatre advertiser cannot afford to pay for advertising space, the rates for which are based upon a circulation throughout the city and sur- rounding territory. The neighborhood dealer cannot afford to take the newspaper space for precisely the same reason. If he is intelligent he will welcome the chance to advertise in a house organ reaching a majority of the persons to whom he makes his appeal for trade. He 168 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING knows that much of his own direct advertising is cast aside unread. He knows that pictures have their appeal. He will be glad to spend his advertising money with the house organ, where he can be sure of getting into a majority of the homes. The practice of printing advertising in the program is one that is recognized by the management of every dra- matic house and frequently the right to print the house program is sold to some company specializing in that work for sums ranging from five to fifteen thousand dol- lars yearly per house. Surely the picture theatre Ex- hibitor has precedent and common sense on his side. The only danger is that, finding this an unexpected source of profit, he is apt to overdo and give to the tradespeople the space he needs for his own house or should give his pat- rons in reading matter. This does not apply, of course, to the occasional house publication, such as an anniversary program or souvenir of some sort. Here the advertising should be eliminated or held to one or two pages in the rear of the issue, but the weekly program can and should carry advertising mat- ter in reasonable proportion, generally not more than one- fourth of the entire space; sometimes even less. House programs class under three general divisions, the vest pocket, the folder and the booklet. The vest pocket is, as its name indicates, an issue small enough to go into the vest pocket. The folder is a sheet folded in- stead of stitched and is issued either in four, six, eight, ten or twelve pages. The booklet may run from eight pages to as much as business will warrant. If frequently is twenty and twenty-four pages on a regular issue, com- prising picture news, local matter and outside advertis- ing as well as house announcements and the program proper. The chief advantage of the vest pocket form is that it is small enough to be carried in the vest pocket or a woman's shopping bag. Its principle disadvantasfe is that it is too small to carry much copy, though skillful hand- ling wilt enable the Exhibitor to say quite a lot and the program may even be made self-supporting. HOUSE PROGRAMS 169 In form the vest pocket is oblong or square, but the oblong is the better shape and the long measurement, without any exception, should be the length. Generally it is folded once, to get four pages. It may open like a book or the fold or hinge may come at the top, permitting the program to be opened up into one continuous strip of matter. The size should be determined by the stock avail- able, but a sheet three by five inches is about right. The page should not be much wider than three inches nor longer than six. It may be much smaller. The stock may be light card or very heavy paper. Generally card costs ssaea&^KaiiH!* Lake County National Bank | CAPITAL taMM 7 SDBPLOS * PSOmS WlM*- W UBERTYmXEl ILU 1 Vest Pocket Program LYRIC THEATRE J. T. ROBERTSON, Prop. LIBERTYVILLE. ILL. Qitality First MEATS & GROCERIES TRIGGS & TAYLOR Libertyville, III. Phones: 24 & 2S Lake County National Bank Capital $50,000 Surplus & Profits $50,000 Libertyville 111. Vest Pocket Program LYBICTBEflTRE J. T. ROBERTSON, Prop. LIBEBTYYILLE, ILL. Program for week of February 1 to 7 Quality First lyiEATS & GROCERIES TRIGGS & TAYLOR Libertyvilla, 111., Phones: 24 & 25 Figure 57. — The program on the left can carry advertising through the use of white space. That on the right is too crowded. less than paper of the proper weight. For a program three by five the stock should be six by five, if folded in the usual fashion or three by ten if folded at the top. The front page should carry the name of the house, 170 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING the date of the week covered, the city, state, street ad- dress, hours of performance and prices, though these last two items need not be given where there is Httle space. The date should be "March 1 to 7" rather than "Week of March 1." Even on a small page a couple of advertise- ments may be carried if only care is used to cut off the house title from the advertising. Figure 57 shows two programs. The one on the left is a reproduction of an actual house program. The other represents the wrong way. The use of white space and proper sized types makes it possible to use the space for advertising and still have the house announcement prominent and distinct. Where foreign advertising is used on the front, it is better to have two advertisements, top and bottom, with the house in the middle than to have the house head rise to the top and cover either one long or two short adver- tisements. On the other hand, if the space is all taken for the house, it is better to have the house head rise to the top and run the house announcement below, for here the advertisement is a part of the program and not an intrusion, and the proper place for the heading is above all matter. With a three-inch width it is important to pick out a good type for the house name; something at once small and prominent, particularly if the house title is a long one, such as "Pastime"or "Auditorium." Comstock is a useful type for this work, but it is even better to have a cut heading made that will be distinctive. A single draw- ing may be prepared that can be used in many sizes for newspaper work, vest pockets, larger programs and even the letter heads. If the program is given but a single page, this should be the third and not the second page. The right hand, or odd numbered pages are always to be j^ref erred to the left hand pages for matter that is to attract attention. This is the first page seen as the leaves are turned over. If but a single page is used there will be room only for the titles and the dated days, but the days must be dated. Do not trust to the "Week of — " on the front page. Rejieat the days here and date. Each day should be separated HOUSE PROGRAMS 171 from the others, either by a Hght line rule or white space. If the type is solid, a two-point lead will mark the break sufficiently. Where the one-page program is used, the second page should be used for house talk and the back page for the "underline" or coming attractions, or else advertising can go on the back page and the underline on the second. Where the program is made to cover the inside pages and features are used, a good arrangement is that shown in Figure 58. This may also be used to advantages in programs of a larger size. Date. Title Star Maker Monday 1st. Aboard the Betty Grace White Betterton Tuesday 2nd. Fired of Hate Red Star Wednesday 3rd. Power of Love Jack Stanley Special Features Figure 58. — Arrangement for cross page programs. This is useful only where the features are given. If regular releases are used, adhere to the single page pro- gram form and give the stars and brands as in Figure 59. It will be noted that the title comes further to the edge than the other lines. This is what is known as a "hang- ing indentation." It gives the titles slightly more prom- inence. Monday, June 3rd. Caught by a Crab. A screaming seashore comedy with Mary Mace and Harry Harding in the title roles. . Brought to Bay. A two-part VENDOME with Jack Broadman and Olive Masters. Figure 59. — House program announcement. Varying the style, the titles might be printed in capi- tals and the players in italics, the titles and the players in bold face or any similar combination that will throw the names and titles into relief above the body of the announcement. Colored stock is useful here and since you will prob- ably get a reasonably good grade of stock, you will have less trouble about muddy tints. Dark green on light blue, dark blue on light blue, red printed in a glossy 172 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING black, primrose printed in black, French gray printed in black or deep blue, warm light brown printed in black or a good poster red, white printed in deep blue or given rather than black, and salmon printed in brown are all good combinations. For some reason pink looks cheap and unimportant in a vest pocket. If you have to use this because you can get nothing el'se, print in a lake or bronze-red rather than in a vermillion red or black. White works well with many of these colors on a larger sheet, but neither white nor any of the bronze powders 1 2 3 4 Back Front Figure 60. — Layout for a six-page railroad folder. should be used for a vest pocket. The type will be too small to give a good impression with inks so heavily charged with pigment, and the result will be blotches instead of letters. The folder or "railroad" is just what its name indicates, a strip of stout paper folds as in the railroad time table. The folding is done to avoid the delay and expense of having the leaves wire stitched. To olTset this advantage it is awkward to handle in the larger sizes. In- printing, the folder may be double printed as described in Chapter XII, or may be handled as two forms. In imposing a six-page form the pages should be laid out so that the printed impression {not the type form) should give the result shown in Figure 60. In this, taking the printed sheet, page four backs page three, the front is backed by one and the back page by two. Be- tween pages one and two there is set in a piece of rule midway between the two type pages. In folding, the right hand edge of page three is brought over to this rule or folding mark and the crease is made. Then the right hand edge of page four, which the folding has HOUSE PROGRAMS 173 brought to the top, is folded over to the left hand edge of page one. If you will take a slip of paper of proper proportions and mark it front and back, you will see just how this folding is done to get the front and back pages on the outside and the pages in their proper order within. The layouts for eight, ten and twelve pages are shown in Fisfure 61. 3 4 5 6 3 4 5 6 7 Back Front 1 2 8 Back Front 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Back Front Figure 61. — Layouts for eight, ten and twelve-page railroad folders. In folding the eight no folding guide is needed. Page six is brought over to page one and then the sheet is turned over and folded again. This style of folding enables the reader to open the sheet quickly. It is not as convenient for the printer, but he does not pay for his tickets. Cater to those who do. Two folding marks are used for the ten page. These come between pages one and two and six and seven. Bring page three over to the folding mark between six and seven. Bring page seven over to the mark between one and two. Now fold one over on eight. In the twelve-page the folding mark comes between pages seven and eight. Bring page six over on page one and then fold as a six. 174 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISIX'G A unique six-page folder was devised by Ezra Rhodes, of South Bend, Ind. The layout is shown in Figure 02. Pages two and three are treated as a single page, the type lines running the long way of the page, at right angles to the others. In folding, page two is brought over to a folding mark between pages three and four. Then one is folded on four. Pages one and four carry the program. Lifting page one discloses two pages (as a single page) of house talk or gossip. It is a decidedly useful form. Back Front 1 2 3 4 Figure 62. — Layout for Rhodes folder. In selecting stock for the folder get heavy paper rather than card. A cheaper paper than is required for the vest pocket can be used here for it will not have to stand so much rough usage. To carry out the railroad idea, the program can be printed in red and green. White stock is better than colored. If but one printing is given print in black, dark blue, green or brown. If cuts are to be used brown or black are better than blue or green, and blue is better than green ; the inks, of course, being equal. Here, as in all jobs, avoid paper that is em- bossed, however slightly, whether a mere pebble grain or an alligator hide finish. Keep away from marbled papers, watered papers or other enticements of the printer's devil. Get your type where it will print best and show to the best advantage. Folders should be small enough to be handled without the assistance of a second person. Like the vest pocket, it should be longer than it is wide, from three-fifths to twice as long as the width. Opened out it should not extend more than twelve or fourteen inches. The six-pager gives four days for the house program, the eight six or seven. Ten and twelve-page programs HOUSE PROGRAMS 175 will give a page a day to the program and space for other matter. Where advertising is used, it should appear top and bottom and not more than a third of the space on any page should be given the foreign advertiser. Where foreign advertising appears on a program page either box in the advertising or the program. If you use a rule border around each page, use heavier rule around the program than around the advertising. Keep the two distinct and separate, no matter if the advertiser does kick. You are primarily running the program to bring business to your house and not for the purpose of making the butcher feel glad all over. The extreme depth of program depravity is to run two columns to the page, getting about six boxes, and alternating the house program with the foreign advertising in such a way that one cannot tell which is which. This may bring in some advertising that might not otherwise be obtained, but there will be so little interest taken in the program that presently you will have neither advertisements nor pro- gram. Space is worth more to the house than it can pos- sibly be to the outsider and the house should be given all the space it needs and all the advantages possible. Next to your house, your duty is toward your patron. You must pay your readers for being interested in the program or it will not be a good advertising medium either for yourself or your foreign advertisers. A frankly house program or folder of four or six pages does not require any offering beyond the advertising text, but above this you must give the reader some inducement to become interested in what you have to offer. The best thing to use is chat about films and players, and local or neighborhood gossip. Old jokes will not be read with interest, nor will boiler plate matter, lifted from the local papers. The stuff must be live and up to date and able to compete with the newspaper photoplay page where there is one. As much space does not have to be used, but it must be more interesting. For this reason the book program is to be preferred to the vest pocket or folder, though many Exhibitors find that the vest pocket brings more business. Generally 176 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING this is because the larger program is not properly edited.^ In the book program, run the program on the right hand pages and the text and advertising matter on the left hand. With the larger space many good forms can be used. One is to side-index the films as in Figure 63, which gives the titles at a glance and details on more careful reading. Dr. Dr. Skinnem is flat broke and greatly distressed. Skinnem's Doctor falls asleep and dreams of a wonderful in- Wonderful vention that enriches him and causes the departure Invention. of all his troubles. What the invention accom- — Kalem pHshes and its final results are laughably depicted. A splendid view of Jaffa from the sea greets our The Ancient eyes and, going ashore, we marvel at the wonderful Port of Jaffa street scene near the Custom House. We journey — Kalem on to the auction market and then visit the public fountain on the Jaffa road. Figure 63. — Side indexed program matter. Another form uses the side index for the players" name, the general idea being the same as that in Figure 63 except that the title is used to start the descriptive paragraph and the margin is given to the players' names in italics. A third form uses boxes as in Figure 64. This is particularly good when plenty of space is at command, but it makes for an orderly arrangement wherever it may be used. Lost . in the Canon (Monarch) Preferring to see the woman he loves dead rather than the wife of another, Jack Lanyon 'PHILIP PEYTON) deliberately leads Bess Barrington (MAUDE MULTRAV- ERS) into the recesses of Dead Man's Canycin and deserts her. but she is rescued l>y Dave Stanley (COLEMAN CURTIS). If We But Knew. (Splendide). A grip- ping four-part story, one of the best this company has offered in many months. It shows how differently we might order our lives if we but knew the consequences of our acts. It tells the story of a voung married couple (MABEL MANNERS and CLYDE CARSTAIRS) and how they nearly wrecked their lives through lack of intuition. Figure 64. — Program boxes dated. HOUSE PROGRAMS 177 Where space is limited it is sometimes advisable to run all the stories for a day into a single paragraph. When this is done the titles should be set in full face capitals, the players in full face italic and the brands in straight italic in order to play them up. In this form the text should be chatty and intimate, as though you were telling a friend what tomorrow's bill would be, rather than formal and descriptive. This form can al- ways be used to good effect in a resume of the week pre- ceding the set copy. As in all other forms of advertising, the book pro- gram should tell the day of the month and the month as well as the day of the week. No matter how prom- inently the date may be featured on the cover page or even at the top of the program page, the program for each day should be fully dated to catch the person who may not feel sufficient interest to look the matter up, but who cannot help remembering if he sees the date and title in connection. In a book program the front page should suggest a permanent publication. The heading of any magazine will suggest an arrangement. Figure 65 shows a good layout. It is a good plan to take some title, "The Bijou Bulletin," "Reel Facts," or something similar. This title should be set in a bold, plain face. This is one of the few places where it is permissible to use all capitals. Devoted to photoplay matters and the Gem Theatre Volume III Joytown, N. Y., June 29, 1915 Number 4 Figure 65. — A program heading. The title should rise to the top of the page and should not, as in the vest pocket, be shown in the centre of the page. If desired "ears" may be used in the heading. These are the small rule boxes on either side of the name of the paper, carying special statements. They are useful 178 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING in calling attention to special features or in making refer- ence to special pages in the issue. The rest of the front page may be advertising, but should preferably be either text or a portrait, if one can be had that will suit the paper. It is a grave error to suppose that anything called a cut will do for the front page. The use of a coarse screen cut will spoil much of the impression that might otherwise be made, and in the right sort of program the cover paper should be of a grade to take about a 120'-screen cut and nothing less. If you want type on the front page, the best use is for house talk. Make this a feature of your publication. Have a heart to heart talk with your patrons each week on any subject that may suggest itself. Perhaps there is a tendency to unruliness on the part of some. Write your leader on this. Ask the offenders to quiet down. Explain to them that it is your duty to give a good value to all ticket buyers and that most of them want to enjoy the pictures in peace and quietness. Do not say that you are going to dump some of the offenders out into the alley on the backs of their necks, but let it be inferred in a nice way that something unpleasant is going to happen presently if the trouble persists. This will get you solid with the better patrons and, if you frame the talk right, you'll be friends again with the offenders. Perhaps an opposition starts vaudeville. This will be a good place to explain why you do not offer vaude- ville. A local censorship may threaten. Here is the place to discuss the matter. If you do not run the house matter here, run it on the editorial page, but run it some- where in the program every issue and make it so in- teresting that people will turn to it the first thing. By all means have an editorial head. This is not the same as the front page heading, but a one or two-column heading somewhere in the paper. It may run on page three or page two, or page two may be given over to the heading and house information. If you run your edi- torial on the front page then take your second page for the editorial heading and announcements. The heading HOUSE PROGRAMS 179 proper is shown in Figure G6. The announcements should immediately follow. The Photogram Devoted to the photoplay and the Gem Theatre John Henry Smith, Manager Henry Albert Jones, Editor Issued weekly and accepted as first class matter in every home in Joytown. Joy town, N. Y., June 29, 131 5 Figure 66. — Editorial heading for program. The details may be adapted from these suggestions : The Gem is located at 312 Grand Avenue, between Jay and Piermont streets. It may be reached by the Grand Avenue, Brookland, or Jay street cars or by transfer to those lines. Matinees are given each afternoon at 3:30. These are precisely the same, in every particular, as the evening performances. Prices are ten cents to all parts of the house except the loges. These are five cents additional. Evening performances are given at 7 :30 and 9 o'clock. Evening admission prices are ten and twenty cents. Loges twenty-five cents. Reserved seats are sold for the first evening perform- ance only. They may be ordered by telephone (Pier- mont-3795) and will be held until 7 :15, when they will be placed in the rack again. The program is changed four times a week, on Mon- day, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The current or coming program or times of perform- ance of any special subject may be had by calling Pier- mont-3795. A ladies' retiring room, with all first aids to injured toilettes, will be found upstairs to the right. Men's smoking room to the left of the foyer on the main floor. Physicians or others who may be called suddenly are 180 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING asked to register their names when purchasing tickets. If you wish to be certain of obtaining this program regularly send or leave your address, enclosing postage at the rate of one cent per copy to cover the period of your subscription. This may be changed, added to or reduced to suit conditions, but a full and completely informative bulletin is a valuable feature of a program. Do not give out a formidable list of house rules, bristling with "must's" and "dont's." That will antagonize. Tell the things most persons wish to know or should know. Always print prominently the fire notice found at the close to Chapter VIII. Print it in larger and blacker type than the rest of the announcement. Be careful in the wording of your announcements not to offend. One house program reads : "Children under two years of age not admitted to evening performances. We do not object to your bringing them to the matinees, but in justice to our patrons we must insist th^t you keep them quiet or else leave the theatre. Your money will be cheerfully refunded." That would be all right in a charity clinic, but it is addressed to patrons and should have been toned down. This means the same thing: "For the comfort of the greater number of our patrons we are compelled to refuse admission at the evening performances to children too young to be kept quiet. At matinee performances the kiddies will be welcome and admission will be refunded if their crying necessitates the mother's leaving the house." This means the same thing but it does not sound the same way. Now and then some woman will see most of the show and then pinch the baby and get her money back, but even at that it will pay. Make your announcements harmonize. Do not say on one page that you will never show anything objection- able and on another page announce that a coming feature barely passed the censors. The distribution of the remaining matter is largely a question of what that material is. If you have plenty of space give a page a day to the program, though half HOUSE PROGRAMS 181 of that is plenty enough on a seven by nine page. If your program carries many cuts, find out from the printer how he lays out the forms. You may find that you can get all of the cuts in one form. It will generally cost less to run a straight type form than one in which there are halftones, and by keeping the latter to one form you may cut the expense slightly without losing any of the effect. Where a page is wide, it is a good scheme to set three colums to the page and run reading matter down the centre columns on the advertising pages. This will help the advertiser by making those pages read. If there is not room for more than two columns then run the text on the outside columns and the advertising inside. I. B. COHEN tTKlN BLOCK CLOTHB8 BVtaVTHING FOR IriR. OOODDRE3SES A RIOT Mr. Charles Chaplin "A JITNXT ELOPEHENT" NEW Chaplin Comedies as Released "BLACK BOX Every Monday I Figure 67. — A good arrangement for the inner pages of a four-page program. Where the program is but four pages, it is a good plan to set as one page, running the lines up and down instead of across. Frame the program in heavy rule and run the advertising outside of this. Another good arrangement will be found in Figure 67. 182 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Colored covers add much to the effectiveness of a program and are not very costly if they are purchased ready-printed in quantities. It does not pay to at- tempt the local production of a colored cover, but these may be had from several companies ready printed in color and needing only a single printing in the local office. Ordered in small quantities and for a single run they are expensive, and expressage adds to the cost, but when they are taken in a quantity sufficient to gain an ap- preciable discount they can be sent by freight very cheaply. These companies print up in half-million lots, getting the press ready once and running along on the job without change. It is the making ready and regis- tration of two or more colors that counts for more than the presswork of the paper, and where this cost is ap- portioned to five hundred thousand the percentage per thousand is very small. It is best to get an experimental lot and see how it works. If the experiment is a success send in a wholesale order. In going after foreign advertising, plan your cam- paign. Get up a dummy showing how the issue will look. This may be merely blank sheets ruled to show the spaces or it can be partly printed, with blanks where the advertising is to come. First visit the stores you favor with your own patron- age. Your own merchants are more apt to patronize you than those you do not trade with, but if Jones sees that Smith, who is in the same line, has come in, he will want to be represented, too. Use your own trades people for ice breakers. There will be plenty of ice that will need breaking. Get a good line of talk. Point out that this program will not only go into every house within a radius of ten blocks from your centre but that it will stay there. Point out that the pictures are more widely interesting than meats or flour and that a picture theatre program will be taken inside, where the throwaway of the grocery or butcher shop will be kicked off the steps. Do not state this fact offensively. Tell how many you will get out and how you will distribute them. Don't say you are HOUSE PROGRAMS 183 going to send out ten thousand when the man you are talking to knows there are not that many people in town. Tell the truth. Then if the printer talks there is no comeback at you. Where you cannot talk up advertising cards perhaps you can get them started with a trade directory. Offer two lines of space, or one, as your page seems to require. Take only a page or two. Run an alphabetical list, as in Figure 68. Charge twenty-five cents an issue, but require a contract for two or three months. Before that time is up you'll have had a chance to convert a few to cards and the rest will follow. Bakery — J. H. Henderson, Baker and caterer, 456 Main St. Tel. Main 97. Butter and Eggs — Clover Dairy. Ten delivery routes. Orange Road near Pelham Turnpike. Tel. Orange 956. H. A. Harvey. Best Elgin 36 cents, 732 Main St. Tel. Main 775. Banking — First National Bank. Check and savings accounts solicited. Loans. Main at Myrtle Sts. Tel. Main 663. Figure 68. — Trade directory for program. If you prefer to solicit by mail, try a set of follow-up letters. Get them out at intervals of about a week and each should be accompanied by a copy of the program, sent under letter postage. The first reads : We are circulating about five thousand copies of our weekly program within a radius of ten blocks from your store. Do you want to share with us, at a most moderate price, advertising that stays alive a whole week and is replaced by advertising just as vital? We'll take a few advertisements for the program and put them where they will be seen. We'll do it for a price that wouldn't buy an inch in the daily papers. A daily paper covers the entire city. Every copy we send out stays right in the vicinity of your business. You pay only for what you get. Let's talk it over with you. Tell us when to come and we'll be there. Just mark day and hour on the enclosed postal. You can't afford the cost of newspaper advertising, but you can't afford not to place your ad. with us. Following this up you might write a week later: You haven't told us to come and talk advertising to you, so we suppose you are still thinking it over. Every week you stay out is costing you money — and it's costing us money. Make an appointment. Let us give you a few brief figures and back them up with facts. 184 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING If that didn't bring him into the fold make a last try something like this: We don't want to be a nuisance, and we won't be, but you haven't told us when we can tell you about that 5,000 circula- tion within half a mile of your store. You don't have to ad- vertise, but don't you think it is worth talking it over? We are at your service any time. If he does not reply to this, wait until he fails and get after his successor, but it is best to make your campaign a personal one and not trust to letters. If you have the right sort of confidence in your scheme you can talk more and better in three minutes than you can write in a week. Now and then you may have to prove your point. Perhaps the druggist thinks that advertising in the pro- gram will not pay. Ask him if he will sell soda for three cents a glass. If no one reads the advertising, he is safe in making the promise. Print a free advertise- ment to that effect. That should tell its story. In the same way get the grocer or the butcher to advertise some bargain with you and nowhere else. Don't let your advertisers waste their space. Don't let that druggist, for instance, use the time honored "Drugs and sundries. Prescriptions carefully com- pounded." Tell him you cannot afford to take an ad- vertisement like that. It will be the truth, for presently he will be telling others that he took his advertisement out because it did not pay, and that will get them guess- ing. Make him advertise his bargains and his specialties. Make him give you a chance to make good for him. Work the same way with the others. Be interested in something more than their money. Waste a little time making advertisers out of your advertisers. But do not give time to your advertisers at the expense of your house. That comes first. It may seem like poor advice, but the stock for the inside pages of your program should not be too good. Most of the halftones available will be coarse screen, so get a good news that will work with these. If you have a book paper you'll not be able to work the halftones. Fine news will look well, take ink well and dry quickly HOUSE PROGRAMS 185 and not smear. A better grade of paper will not work so well and will be more apt to be smeary. For the cover you can and should have a better stock and you can dress it up. You can get fine screen halftones for the front or you can purchase photographs and have your own screen cut made. If you use a pictorial front do not use too laige a cut. Instead get the printer to make you up a really nice front. He can do it if he has a proper border stock. Have this electrotyped and then mortised for the cut. If you cannot get a fancy frame you may have one drawn, or perhaps you can steal one of those drawn around a magazine cut. Some of the medium large magazines rake over all the foreign publications in search of frames to steal. They can use these over and over again, getting credit for about twice as much cut as they really show. If they can do it, you certainly can. For the benefit of your program and your advertisers alike, run a series of contests, but remember that it must be a contest of skill and not a lottery. The program must be free to all persons. There must be no hint of entrance fee of any sort, not even an admission to the house, though a good show goes with the ticket. The contest must be absolutely open. Offer a prize for the best advertisement made up of lines taken from the ad- vertisements shown, not more than one line from any one advertisement, and the complete line to be used. When this stales get something else. Have words in some advertisements spelled with one letter from a wrong font. These letters are to form the title of a coming release. Have a full face letter in some ten-point line, a Roman letter in a display, and so on. Don't make it too easy. Make it hard enough to keep the answers down and interest up. Then take the first letter in the third word of the second line of Smith's announcement, the seventh letter in the fifth word of the ninth line in Brown's, and so on. Require these letters to be trans- posed into a film title, the name of some great American, or whatever you will. Get anything that is different from the old missing word and misspelled stuff. Give the winners on the screen, in the program, and 186 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING in front of the house. In the lobby display the winning answers. If you make them difficult enough there will not be too many correct answers. If there are many, state in the terms of the contest that the earliest one will be the winner, the box office stamp or the postmark determining the time. Get a five-dollar time-stamp for the ticket seller and let her stamp the answers handed in, but do not require that the replies be brought to the house, though most of them will be, and you'll get them where they must see your lobby display. Offer prizes of small value, a box of candy, a pair of seats, or something like that. Perhaps some candy store will contribute the candy for the mention, and the drug- gist will give a jar of cold cream of his own make, and so on. It is better to have several small prizes than one big one, and do not give a prize to the same person two weeks in succession. Have that understood. The marked program, the program with lucky num- bers, or any scheme of that sort, is a lottery. You may never be made officially aware of that fact or you may be arrested tomorrow. Don't take chances. Where programs are issued to cover the month some scheme to cause them to be kept alive will help. Some programs have certain features starred. Matinee ad- mission to those so marked is free on presentation of the program. The last star is late in the last week the program has to run. The list will be studied closely and consulted frequently, which is precisely the aim of the Exhibitor. The weekly program may be used in the same way, the program being good for a Friday matinee. It might be well to qualify this and limit the free ad- mission to persons over sixteen. Then the children will be more apt to leave them in desirable hands. Do not make any expensive advertising too attractive to children as personal property or they will get it and it will do little good. The better scheme is to make the program so well worth while that it will be kept for its own sake. It is possible to get out a program that people will not only want but demand, that will be so good an advertising HOUSE PROGRAMS 187 medium that advertisers will beg to be let in, that will do the house so much good that it can afford to get out an even better one. Have that sort of a program CHAPTER XIX. COPY FOR HOUSE PROGRAMS To be read, be interesting — hiring an editor — a letter box — getting out the synopsis — reserving the suspense — copy for general use. Bear always in mind the fact that you are getting^ out your program to make business. To achieve this result your program must be read and read thoroughly. Pay your patrons for reading your program. You can pay them by giving them something they desire to read in return for reading what you desire that they should read. They are interested in motion pictures ; not merely the motion picture subjects you have to offer, but motion pictures in general, the art, the productions and the players. Tell them all you can about these subjects. Do not take your copy from the motion picture magazines. It is likely that they have seen these and are not interested in reading the same matter over again. Turn, instead, to the trade paper and the manufacturer's bulletins and special service. Make up your copy from this. The principal requirements are intelligence and good taste, a pair of shears and some paste. If you have not the time to get up copy or lack confidence in yourself, perhaps some young man or woman, more than usually interested in the pictures and able to write, will do the work for you without charge in return for the privilege of having access to this literature and the theatre in general. It would 188 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING be even better to pay some newspaper writer five or ten dollars to do the work for you. If you pay ten or fifteen dollars to get out a program that is not read, for ten dollars more you can o^et out a program that is not only read but so eagerly sought that you can increase your foreign advertising ten or twelve dollars, the arithematic is simple enough. No patron is going to read the program just to be obliging. It must be made attractive. It must be planned to increase interest in pictures in general. It can be done, and with small effort. If you can, get something that will carry interest over from week to week. Printing conundrums one week and the replies the next will not do it. A serial story is impossible since the installments would be too short. Printing the stories of the film, that one time standby, will not do because it has been found that this kills suspense. It is hard enough to get suspense into a story at best because of certain technical limi- tations. You cannot afford to kill what little there is by telling beforehand just how Jack is saved. Every- one knows that he zvill be saved. The sole remaining element of suspense is the "how." Get something local, if possible. The contests described in the last chapter will help to give interest, but suppose that you ofifer a column or a page to the ever ready letter writers. Writing to the papers is a favorite indoor sport. Cater to it by giving up a page to your readers. Run an announcement something like that given in Figure 69. If the letters are dull, write a couple your- self and start the ball rolling. Criticize some favorite star. Take your coat oflf and pitch right in. Sneer at the way he struts instead of walks. Assert that his nose is twisted to the left and that his longing glance suggests that he has a pair of glass eyes. Sign it "Movie Fan." Then use the best of the letters in reply for a couple of weeks and start something else. Com- plain of peanuts or loud smelling chewing gum. Say what you think. Then as manager-editor add a note to the effect that you think that the correspondent is HOUSE PROGRAMS 189 mistaken or has your house confounded with some other. You will get a hundred alibis. Use ten of the best and a couple of those that are in agreement with the supposed opinions of the first writer. If you pull the wires nicely, with this idea alone you can keep the interest up for months. You'll have a lot of fun into the bargain, but don't get puffed up and proudly ex- plain to a few friends that you wrote the decoy letters yourself. These friends will tell their friends and so on. Don't even tell your wife, if you have one; perhaps her least of all. TO PUBLISH SUGGESTIONS With this issue we throw our columns open to such of the pub- lic as may have suggestions to offer upon any matter connected with the art of the Photo-Play, or the operation of our theatre. Write us and tell us what films or artists you like best, point out errors or inconsistencies in plot, action or costume. If you are curious concerning any of the actors or actresses who pose, write us and we will if possible answer your queries in the issue following the receipt of your communication. In writing, please, if possible, use a typewriter and write on one side only of the paper. We trust that the public will make good use of this offer. We will enelavor, on our part, to make this department of decided interest to the public. Figure 69. — Invitation for a suggestion box. Better still, you will learn a lot about the likes and dis- likes of yom patrons and the reasons for their prefer- ences. You will be able to explain things, to tell why you do this and do not do that. The effect is good, not alone on those who write, but on all who read, if only the page is conducted sympathetically and intelligently. People who hesitate to speak to you will write to the impersonal department. Chapter fifteen has offered suggestions on condensing synopses and leaving out the climax, but this dealt with the short synopsis for newspaper work more than it did with program matter. If you need copy to fill, you can make the story more ample, but there is so much better material to hand that it scarcely pays to run much of the story. Where you do run a synopsis edit it carefully to fit. There is no interest whatever in a story that is cut off wherever the bottom of the column comes. 190 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING If you want to run a synopsis, see if you have the space. If you have not, cut the story before it goes to the printer and not when it comes back. Do not find at the last mo- ment that you have too much stuff and leave off wherever the break must be made. Keep some filler stuff on hand. Filler is short ma- terial that can be used to fill out a short column with. It should be matter that will not grow stale with keeping. Keep on hand a few longer stories of the same non-aging sort. If you are to be an editor you must learn a new set of tricks. When you send an advertisement to the news- paper or a bill to the printer, you lay it out and it comes back set with all the material in place. With a program you must "dummy up," or lay it out after the type has been set. You send in your copy as it comes and wait for it to come back. When it does you will get two sets, one on white and another on colored paper, as a rule, though some printers use white for both sets. One of these will be marked "Revise," or merely "Rev.," which means that it has been already corrected, but waits your further pleasure. Perhaps some additional errors will have been discovered and marked in. On these ships you mark your corrections. The other set you keep. When the copy is all in you start to "dummy." In sending copy to the printer you mark on each piece the measure in which it is to be set. If you have two dif- ferent column widths you mark which measure is to be used. Advertisements must be marked for both width and length and your program boxes must be marked the same way. If you have done this work properly you will find all of the proof of the proper width. Take two old pro- grams and tear them apart. Mark a large X on the back of the sheets and arrange them so that you have a set complete, starting with the front page and ending with the back. Make a ring around the page number. If you use them, change the date, number of the issue and the vol- ume number as well if a new one is to be started. If you use a cut for the front page in place of type stuff, paste HOUSE PROGRAMS 191 down the proof of the new cut to be used. Write the name below. Print out the name. It is best next to put the advertisements in their places, since they must go in. If new copy is supplied, paste that on. If the old is to remain and in the same place mark it "O. K." or "Stet," to show that it is all right. If it is old copy to go in a new position, paste a clipping from another program in the new place. Next paste up the program proper, look over what you have left, decide what you want most to use and what you can best leave out. Start with the most important stuff. Paste that up and then paste in the rest. Wx^rking on actual sheets, you know just how long the page is. It is better to paste a couple of lines short than a line too long, for leads can fill up the holes, but you will have to take out something if you have too much copy. If you have written five lines more than a column and want to make an exact fit, see if you cannot pull out a five-line paragraph without hurting the story. If you cannot, then cut out what you can to make up five lines. Paste all of the proof down and then mark the cuts in the type where you find them. Do not try to actually cut them out with the shears. Use a pencil to cross ofif. If you have cuts, paste in the proof or mark the cut and the space with the same marking, perhaps ''Cut A Page 5" on the cut and merely "A" in the proper place on page five. If you have a caption for the cut, write this into the margin and leave room for it in the column as well as a line or two for white space about the size of the cut and not the size of the proof; which may be different. Send these down to the printer and you will receive "stone proof," which is proof pulled as the type lies on the imposing stone, or, in other words, as it is ready to go to the press. You can still make corrections on this proof, but it will cost you both money and time; particularly if the corrections are many. It is better to let the program go to the press with a letter upside down than to stop the press and hold up the job. Be constantly on the lookout for good program copy. Today with the many photoplay departments in the Sun- 192 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING day papers you need to be more than ever alert. Fight shy of the palpably press story; the story that manifestly is a lie. If you read that Miss Daisy Dare, of the Deeff Film Company fell over a hundred and fifty- foot cliff and, though badly injured, "pluckily insisted on finishing the scene, the last one needed to complete this magnificent three-reel subject," laugh a little, but do not bore your patrons with it. The press agent is doing the best he can — which is not very good. But if you find in the Scien- tific American a description of a new camera that can be carried by the tourist, run it and credit it to the paper you take it from. Do a little original writing and encourage your patrons to contribute. Tell in the program that you will give tickets for anything you use. Make good. To save an- noyance announce that no manuscript will be returned. Now and then you'll find something you can use that will be of interest on account of local authorship. Name the author. Write some stuff yourself. Tell of the value of pictures and why it pays to come to the theatre. Make fans, and having made them, encourage them in their fan- dom. The best stuff seems to be written by the men in the small towns. Just because you think you cannot write is no reason why you should not try. As samples of average program filler, these examples are given : WHERE TO SIT IN A PICTURE An expert oculist provides the following rules for those who choose their own seats in this theatre: Sit where you can read script on the screen. This is the su- perlative test in moving pictures. Typewriting is often more difficult to read than script, but its use for some reason is not frequent. Children should sit so far up front in the theatre as to make it unnecessary for them to lean out into the aisle or to assume some other unusual attitude in order to see the screen. If you find that your eyes tire, you will do well to refrain from looking at the picture until the tired feeling passes. The subdued light in this theatre will rest the most tired eyes, but care should be taken in going into bright sunlight from the theatre. Permit the eyes to open slowjy as you leave. You will note that there are several degrees of light in the interior, but, of course, this calculation to save your eyes cannot be carried on in the street. As you walk toward the entrance on your way out you unconsciously pass through several varieties of light and shade. HOUSE PROGRAMS 193 A I.ITTLE TAIiK ABOUT OUR THEATRE We don't claim that we have the best, but we do claim that we have one among the best. We get the BEST PICTURES to be obtained, IRRESPECTIVE OF COST. We try to get pictures that will PLEASE EVERYBODY, men, women and children of all classes, and we usually succeed. Correct effects are never accidental. It's no accident that makes our pictures so steady, clear and free from eye strain. It's simply because we have the best operator to be obtained, and the latest and most modern machinery made, and have a curtain made by ourselves after weeks of experimenting, and which we think shows a better pic- ture than the most expensive patent curtain made. Then again we have one among the best pianists in the city, who knows how to play the pictures; our drummer is as good as the best. We have a theatre that could not be more sanitary and better ventil- ated, kept cool at all times with ten large electric fans. Our projection machine is absolutely fireproof, having an automatic fire shutter, thus making you perfectly safe from that stand- point. Now this may sound like an essay on the supremacy of our theatre over all other theatres on earth, but it isn't that really. We talk a whole lot, but we try, always, to back our talk up with actual deeds. We set a splendid standard several years ago and have mainained it. Do you recall who it was gave you the first good picture you ever had in this city? Who, was it put on the first musical accompaniment to the picture that enhanced its value over fifty per cent. ? That never spared pains and expense to give you the best? What's the answer? This is the "excuse" our patrons have for liking our show, and it isn't such a worse "excuse," IS IT? The exits are ample and wide enough to empty the house in less than a minute should fire danger threaten. The electrical apparatus used in the production of the picture, and all the parts of the projection machine are carefully guarded and arranged to reduce fire risk in this theatre to a minimum. The entire operating room is sheet iron lined and nearly air tight, making it absolutely fireproof. The danger of fire from the projection machine is greatly overestimated. The film is of celluloid and of course, inflammable. The light rays, focused upon_ the film when stationary are intense enough to set it on fire in about 15 to 20 seconds. An automatic shutter on the machine, operated by a centrifugal governor, allows the light to strike the film only when at full speed. When the speed is slackened, the shutter drops. An accidental stop would never cause a film fire. In addition to this there is another shutter operated by hand. The machine used is an Edison Underwriters Model, the one approved by the New York Fire Underwriters as being entirely safe in every respect. It meets the most rigid requirements of insurance inspectors. If the light is intention- ally directed upon the film, by shutter being held up by hand, the film, after a short exposure, will burn, but only the small spot exposed to the light will be destroyed. The air-tight metal springs which press the film smoothly while the opening prevents the fire from running along the film. The films, while on the machine, are enclosed in metal cases. When not in use, they are kept in covered tin boxes. The entire reel of film is only 1}4 inches in width, by 10 inches in diameter. Were this to be deliberately burned in this operating room, the chances are no one in the theatre would know it. The room is ventilated to the extreme and the exit is swung outward and self-closing by a strong spring. There is not one chance in a thousand of burn- ing a film and if a film were burned there is no danger of smoke or fire in the theatre. 194 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING CAN YOU BEAT IT? A young man noted for foresight and common sense, and who will no doubt some day be a Bank President, has solved the problem of the High Cost of Living. We submit his figures and invoke your inspection. EXPENSES FOR 10 EVENINGS SPENT IN MY ROOM OBSERVING STRICTEST ECONOMY One-Third Cord Hard Split Wood, 10 nights $1.00 Two Gallons Oil, " " 25 Penny Paper, " " 10 Total for 10 nights $1.35 10 EVENINGS SPENT AT THE OPERA HOUSE In which case I use no fuel and little light in my room, and get a better and more useful entertainment than the evening paper. Heat, Light and Amusement, 10 nights $1.00 Saving for 10 nights $0.35 TO-NJGHT IS A GOOD NIGHT TO BEGIN SAVING THAT 35 CENTS "DO YOU KNOW WHAT 'FIRST BUN' MEANS?" If you are not a dyed-in-the-wool photoplay fan it is probable that you do not. "First run" means that a photoplay is being run for the first time. It means more that that. It means that it comes first to the Savoy and is shown in its photographic perfection before the careless operator in some other house has had a chance to mar the quality with scratches, dirt or breaks. It means, taken in connection with the perfect projection at the theatre The Best to Be Had. And we show three first runs every day for five cents. It's not the price that makes the show' good. It's what you get for your money. You cannot get better than first run. It cannot be done. That's a bit long, but it is a good argument, and it is not too long for a special edition. An advertisement like that means something to the man who may never have seen the term "first run" before. The theatrical manager who makes a dozen productions a year is regarded as one of the leaders of his profession. The men who make as many as this during any theatrical season may be numbered on the fingers without using the same digit twice, but the photoplay producer may make as many in a month and keep it up twelve months a year. Each production is as carefully planned as the three-act dramatic offering, is played by actors who are known to the patrons of the high-priced theatres, are directed by stage managers of national reputation, and yet the bill at White's each night, offers three of these productions, rep- resenting an outlay of anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000 at one- fortieth of the price these same players could command in the "production houses." And there are no "number two com- panies," in photoplay, to present wretchedly inadequate versions of stale successes. There is only one grade in Photoplay — the highest — and the motion picture film makes it possible to show the highest grade of acting for the smallest admission fee. Two dollar acting for five centsi is what explains the remarkable popularity of White's. METHODS OF DISTRIBUTION 195 CHAPTER XX. METHODS OF DISTRIBUTING Value of mailing lists — building up lists of addresses — from telephone book — from advertisers — by direct solicitation — keying distribution. Of all methods of distribution, the Postal Service is the best, and even where other means of distributing are generally employed, the Exhibitor should compile and maintain a special mailing list. This may be large or small according to the house and its clientele, but it should be complete and up to date in any event. The city or town directory will not be sufificient, nor is it enough to copy off the residential portion of the Gel on ttae Free List The Management of the Royal will be glad to mail you this program regularly if you will fill out this blank and hand to tlie doorman on leaving. Name Street address City or Figure 70. — Address slip. Get on the Free List Fill out the Program Coupon and receive it FREE each week Figure 71. — Copy for address slide. telephone book. Make this last the basis of your system if you will, but build up on it and check it. One of the 196 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING best ways is through a mailing list for the program. If you have a house program run a blank similar to Figure 70. If the program is really good and you expect the patrons to supply the postage, then you will lose some names, but if you can mail this out, use also the slide shown in Figure 71. Another and perhaps more simple scheme is to ad- vertise that you will send a postcard of some photo- player Ito any person leaving their name and address at the box office. This will help to use up the odds and ends from souvenir nights. Appealing to the general love for interfering with the business of others, offer free tickets for any idea accepted by the house looking to an improvement of any part of the service. You will get few good ideas, but many ad- dresses. Copy may be something like this: We want you to help us run the Kosey. We cannot think of all the good ideas and perhaps you will have one that will be of value to us. The patrons know best what they want. Give us your ideas. If your suggestion can be acted upon, we shall be glad to mail you two seats. Please write your name and address legibly and mark your envelope "suggestion." After you have compiled your list get the store keepers to help. This will be particularly easy if they advertise, and you explain that you want to be certain that every one of their patrons or those whom they wish to become patrons, will be reached. It may even be possible to reach large stores if you work in with them. For example, come out near the holidays with a card that reads as in Figure 72. Tell them that if they will address the en- velopes to their customers in your section you'll do the rest. If they like the scheme, but are too cautious to pass the addresses over to you, let them send them out and get the benefit of the distribution and perhaps you can pick up some of the addresses as the people come to your house. Automatic addressing machines are now within the reach of almost any Exhibitor, though the stated price does not include the cost of the plates, which may be a METHODS OF DISTRIBUTION 197 cent or two apiece. If possible get a machine that will enable you to make your own stencils. The original cost will be slightly greater, but the eventual saving in postage and time will be in your favor. These stencils are kept in drawers and if they are filed in alphabetical order be- come the equivalent of a card system ; enabling the person in charge to avoid duplications. If the expense of an addresser is too great, then do the work by hand and use the card system proper for keep- ing the addresses. Entering them in a book or on sheets of paper is wasteful of time and opportunity. The dead Do your Christmas Shopping Early At Blank's Big Store Then Visit the Unique And get all rested up Figure 72. — A card to Christmas Shoppers. wood cannot be removed, and presently the book becomes so crossed up that time is wasted in hunting for live ad- dresses. Working from cards, get the pen work done by someone who writes a good hand. A scrawled address is not a good introduction to the person you are greeting with advertising facts. Work from a handful of cards at a time, laying these face up and facing them down as they are copied. When the pack is done, return to the drawer and take out others, keeping a block in the drawer to mark the place. If you do much work with cards it might be well to order from your post office 3 by 5 inch postal cards that are especially made for this purpose. They must be ordered in thousand lots, but they are very handy, par- 198 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING ticularly when you check up your list as should be done every six months or so. The cards are printed up with the house address on the face and on the reverse the form shown in Figure 73. When the cards are returned they do not require to be recopied but are put directly into the file. The same purpose can be attained by printing up private mailing cards, but it must be remembered that some people will soak the stamp off a private mailing card, and a majority of persons are more greatly im- pressed by a government post card than they would be by the private form. Dear Patron: We are revising our program mailing list. Sh(»uld you desire to remain on same, please fill in the blank spaces below. Name Street City or Figure 73. — Checking card for mailing list. If you use the mails much it will be possible to ar- range with your post office to mail under a license. This enables you to mail out, without stamping, lots of letters or circulars in multiples of one hundred, paying for the pieces instead of for the stamps. Unless you mail a thou- sand or more pieces a week it will not pay to use this scheme. If you can work in with the hotel clerks, get the names of arriving guests and send programs to each. The list should be procured daily, or perhaps the clerk will ad- dress the envelopes for you and put them into the guests' boxes. In a resort town where guests remain for a week or more, enclose a complimentary ticket, which should carry on its face or reverse directions how to reach the house from each hotel. New arrivals will find their way first to your place and will become your steady patrons. Some Exhibitors have special lists to work for names. They issue cards similar to that shown in Figure 74. When the blanks are filled in they are classified under the player's name. As soon as it is known what is com- METHODS OF DISTRIBUTION 199 ing these lists are worked and a postal is sent to each name. Figure 75 shows one of these notification cards filled in, the italic matter being that part which is written in. If there is a telephone toll it does not pay to use the telephone, but with unlimited service the telephone num- ber is called. CRESCENT THEATRE Popular Player's Request Card Manager: Please advise me (at your expense), when you are to exhibit photoplays featuring NAME OF PLAYER HERE Name of patron Address Telephone: 9Cr* Please name ONLY ONE player on each card. You may have as many cards as you wish. Figure 74. — Card for player lists. CARD OF THEATRE HERE It affords us great pleasure to be able to present for your approval on Thursday and Friady, June 4:th and 5th "The Heart of the Harem." A two reel masterpiece featuring Lucille Lotts And other features of excellence. Pen (Signature Manager. Figure 75. — Notification card> ^ 200 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Another distributing scheme is through the business houses. In the south the laundries are a favorite. Frank Montogmery has for years supplied shirt bands to be used instead of pins in holding single shirts together after they are folded. Other Exhibitors have circulars slipped into the bundles, but this idea is not so good. People will resent the handbill without excuse, but suppose that you talk with the laundrymen into tightening buttons on clothing. Explain the effect on the customer. Then supply them with small tags provided with loops of thread. One side reads: "This button was put on or tightened by the Excelsior Steam Laundry." The other side reads: "See the comedies at the Grand and burst your buttons off again." The joke takes the curse off the advertising. In the same way the grocer can be supplied with the parafin paper that comes on the butter and lard, the milkman with paper tops for his milk bottles or the butcher with tags reading: "This meat has been in- spected and passed by the U. S. Government." The other side reads: "The entertainment at the Grand has been inspected and approved by the Public." On the other hand, the bill that is thrust into a package without excuse is only one degree less offensive than the program slipped into the pages of the newspapers. If you cannot afford to advertise in the paper, do not seem to be trying to sneak in. It is like tagging a fraternal funeral on the end of a circus parade to save the cost of a band. For house to house distribution it is better to lay out short routes and employ girls. They are more reliable than boys and will take more pride in their work. On the other hand, girls should never be employed to distribute matter that must be handed the passerby. Use boys if you cannot afford to hire men, but the employment of girls will cause criticism. Have regular distribution routes that the work may be done in an orderly and systematic manner. Get the post- master to tell how the carrier routes are laid out and you'll have ^ scherne that will fit the geography of your METHODS OF DISTRIBUTION 201 particular section. In general, a good scheme is to route up one side of the main street and down the other, but each carrier covers the side blocks north of the main street to the next crossing, taking a block of the main street on the north side then up one side of the side street to the next corner and down the other side, then a block of the main street again and another side street to the end of the route, soming down the other side of the main street from the end of the route without detours. In routing, work much the same as with the billboards. Go as far from the house as you can reasonably hope to interest trade. In a neighborhood house in the work about ten blocks in all directions. If you want to see just where the interest lies, try a key system. On some advertising print a coupon good for a post card or some other souvenir if presented at the box office. These may require the name and address of the person presenting it, or it may be keyed by num- ber. Divide your territory into sections. If you can work from a map do so. If not, make one or figure out as nearly as you can from a rough sketch. First divide the territory into four sections by lines running north, east, south and west. This will give you territory to the north-east, north-west, south-east and south-west of the house. Assign each section a number. Suppose that the northeast section is number three. Get a rubber or metal numbering stamp. Set the hundreds band to three. Number all coupons to go within two or three blocks of the house 301. All in the next two block zone are 30'2, and so on up to the limit of the territory. Do the same with the other major sections, using four hun- dred for one, five hundred for the third and six hun- dred for the last. Now make out a tally sheet with the numbers running down the left hand margin; each in its proper order. Mark each coupon on this sheet and when the returns are all in you will know about what proportion of business you should draw from each sec- tion. This sounds rather involved, but if you will study it you will find it simple in the extreme. This key system 202 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING can be adapted in many ways to tabulation and the care- ful Exhibitor will use it, for it will seldom pay to cir- cularize a section from which no returns are received, or else you can fight the spots with particular attention and try to build up business there. Any two forms of distribution are liable to duplicate to a certain extent. The house program that is offered patrons and also mailed out may be taken twice. If the matter is costly this will be something to be watched. Announce that programs will be mailed or will be given out only on a certain day, in the house or at the box office. Rural patrons should be covered by mail where pos- sible, though one Exhibitor in a town where the wagons and automobiles are parked in certain spots, has a special door knob which is tied to the horn or the dashboard and is certain to be seen. Whatever the scheme of distribution, be certain that it is thorough and practical. Check up now and then on your distributors. Go over the route the first time with each new carrier. Do things right. CHAPTER XXI. FORM LETTERS How to prepare — be brief and concise — keeping in contact with the patron — various forms. Much may be done with form letters by the Exhibitor who can write convincingly, but form letters are a pecu- liarly intimate form of contact with the patron and should be most carefully handled. Form letters may be frankly forms, addressed to "Dear Patron," and done in straight printing or typewriter type, with or without silk, or they may be done in almost exact duplicate of a hand-written letter and filed in with the address. Unless the deception is very nearly perfect, it is better FORM LETTERS 203 to let it show plainly that it is a form, for some patrons will resent the receipt of a letter that suggests that they are not sufficiently intelligent to know that it is a fake. To be effective, the personal letter must be filled in on the machine with the same sort of type and a ribbon full inked with the same sort of ink. Most duplicating ma- chines using a ribbon, supply typewriter ribbons to match, but even with this care must be taken that the type- writer ribbon and that of the duplicator are giving the same impression. A letter done with a new ribbon and filled in with a faded machine ribbon, or vice versa, is objectionable. The general form letter may be on any subject of equal interest to all patrons. It may concern coming films, house improvements or anything having to do with the house. It is only slightly more intimate than the printed circular, but there is the suggestion of closer con- tact that can be made effective. The thing most to be avoided in the form letter is overwriting. No one will read through several hundred words. Do not single space. Double space and even then try not to use all of a single page. Do not use the narrow "elite" type and think that you are getting around the trouble that way. You are making the letter less easy to read, but you are not saying less because you use less space. Now and then you can single space for an im- portant subject, but it is better not to. Keep your letter short, sharp and concise. The subject may interest you to the extent of many pages and yet not appeal to the patron with equal force. You are vitally interested. The receiver is not at all interested. The letter must gain his interest. Suppose you want to write about a new ventilating system. You may start ofif with a lengthy paragraph on the dangers of dead air as a culture ground for microbes. Another paragraph can descant on the virtues of fresh air as a disinfectant. Then you can tell of the old sys- tem you had and contrast it with the new, you can tell about the company putting it in and the cost of the ma- chine, describe it and give a lot of statistics. ' All this 204 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING will interest you, but all that interests the patron is the fact that the house is not going to smell as badly as it used to. Tell them that and you have gained their in- terest. Tell more and you'll lose it again. Try some- thing like this: Dear Patron: The poet has written : "Hark from the tombs a musty smell." Maybe that isn't just it, but musty smell and tombs go well together, for musty air is dead air and dead air is death dealing. We are not running a ceme- tery for deceased atmosphere in the Gem theatre. Dur- ing a performance we constantly pour into the house tivo and one-half times as much fresh air as a capacity audi- ence can breathe and at the same time we are pulling out the same quantity of partly used air under the system of the Hail Columbia Sanitation Engineering Co., the last word in such matters. Think of the perils of dead air as a depressant and disease breeder. Then, when you think of pictures, think of the Gem. Yours for ozone. Pen signature. Manager. P. S. — Perfumed air is embalmed air. We do not have to mask smell with odors. Of course, if you do use an atomizer you omit the post script. A new film may be announced in this fashion. If you have not the time to glance over the enclosed Herald, here are the facts about "The Flood of Tears" : It is one of the really big subjects of recent release, done from the play that but lately ran foi six months in New York, It is played by the stars, Miss Grannat, Mr. Fothergill and four other members of the original cast which presented the play at a two dollar admission. In the play many interesting events had to be described to keep within the three acts. These are shown in the film. FORM LETTERS 205 Can you imagine the treat ? Next Wednesday and Thurs- day, May 12th and 13th. Because this subject will appeal most strongly to our best patrons, we are asking you to advise us now how many seats you will require and for what performance. Half the house will be reserved. How many shall you need? Call Main 495. For this sumptuous production the admission will be fifty cents. The form letter has more force used for direct work. If you have one of the numerous films produced at the instance of the National Society for the Study and Pre- vention of Tuberculosis, drop a line to the physicians about a special matinee. Say: Dear Doctor : You may have noticed that we are announcing the com- ing exhibition of "The Ray of Hope," produced by the Jimpson Company, at the instance of the National Society for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis. From the enclosed description of the story you will see that the message is one of hope — and precaution. You know how important it is that this message be given all in the family of a tuberculous patient. We are planning a special matinee for 11 o'clock Thursday morning, Sep- tember 12th. This is a free exhibition, li you will pro- vide us with the names and addresses of your patients who should see this film and the number of tickets to be sent each, we shall be glad to mail them — with your com- pliments if you will send us the cards. There will be a couple of other films to round out the program. We believe that real good can be done in this way and will welcome your co-operation and suggestions. Sinucerely yours, P. S. — ^We might add that the theatre will be cleaned with more than usual thoroughness before the regular performance as a precaution. Always put a "kicker" in the post script. It is to the type written letter what the big display faces are to the set advertisement. 206 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Here is a good letter to run off just after the schools open for the season. Send to all teachers near you. Dear Madam : During the coming school season the management of the Gem theatre wishes to demonstrate as fully as pos- sible the educational advantages of the motion pictures. Frankly, we are mainly interested in the advertising value of the educational picture, but for that very reason we will work along the lines least suggestive of com- mercial interest. We can obtain, with brief delay, pic- tures of all lands, their manners and customs, the physi- cal characteristics of the country and its industries. In literature, we can obtain visualizations of the standard plays and fiction stories. There are also interesting films on many other subjects. We can obtain these as you desire if you will indicate your wants as far in advance as possible, and we will appreciate your co-operation. For a mere direct appeal on a single subject this is good. The original was addressed to the principal of each school. You and your teachers are cordially invited to attend a matinee performance at the Central either Saturday or Sunday, October 3rd and 4th. Tickets are enclosed. If more are needed a call to East 284 will bring them. Each Saturday and Sunday we aim to run at least one reel of some subject with direct or indirect educational value. On these days mentioned above the bill will in- clude not only a series of studies of bird life but a two- reel visualization of Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop," so attractively presented as to increase among the younger a desire to read the better class of literature. We want to show you and your teachers what we show a majority of your pupils, who are our patrons. Propaganda stories may be brought direct to the ones most vitally interested. A New Orleans Exhibitor sent FORM LETTERS 207 this out in connection with an Edison subject on the dangers of the street: Dear Madam: Perhaps you are the mother of a happy family. At least you are acquainted with mothers. On next Thurs- day the Vendome Theatre will run a special picture on the dangers that beset children in the streets. It will be well worth your study. Will you not make a special effort to see it, either at the matinee at 3:10' or 4:15 or in the evening at 7:30', 8:40 or 10:10. These are the times this film will be shown. Another propaganda story was responsible for a letter addressed to the ministers that read : We want you to see the class of pictures we are show- ing to the people of Pocatello, hence we take this oppor- tunity of inviting you to witness the Edison Educational and Dramatic subject entitled "Children Who Labor," which we will run today and tomorrow. This picture is produced in co-operation with the Na- tional Association for the Prevention of Child Labor and we think a production like it deserves the support of every man and woman in the country. We are enclosing two complimentary tickets, which we hope you will find time to use at either the daily Matinee or Night Performance. Form letters are sometimes employed to learn the patrons' tastes. A post card similar to Figure 76 is sent to the mailing list with a note that reads : We are a little uncertain as to the exact tastes of our patrons. Will you not help us to serve you better by checking on the enclosed list your preferences ? Much of this work should be done through special lists of trades and professions. List all physicians and query them on medical stories, or matters of interest to their patients. List trades by branches and work for rail- 208 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING road business on railroad stories, structural workers where such an artisan is a hero in a play, and so on Get lists of the fraternal orders. Much was done with the Knights of Pythias with Damon and Pythias and with the Knights of Columbus on "The Coming of Co- lumbus." Many bodies will not give out addresses, but it may be possible to get the Secretary to send out a list, paying him for the trouble, if the subject is one that will interest the members. I prefer: Society dramas War dramas Indian dramas Civil War dramas Sensational dramas Adventure dramas Farce comedies Polite comedies Comedy-dramas I like best: One-reel plays Big features at advanced prices Lesser features at regular prices My favorite makers are* Figure 76. — Preference post card. The form letter is not to be regarded as taking the place of any other advertising. At best it can only sup- plement the general appeal in certain directions. Unless the form letter will warrant the expense of mailing out under two cent stamps, it should not be used. Where this expense is warranted the matter should be most carefully prepared. You have not the advantage of dis- play type. You may not underscore more than one or two sentences nor may you use all capitals for many words. You must put the punch in the talk and not the type. Books on letter writing will not help you much. They do not teach this sort of forceful phrasing. It is letter writing and nothing but that, but you must first have a message and then tell it in the fewest number of words. The more you study and practise the belter you will become. STREET ADVERTISING 209 CHAPTER XXII. STREET ADVERTISING The float — the lion wagon — bicycle trailers — animal impersonators — "Rubeing the streets" — foot prints — giant rubber stamps. The sandwich man and the sign on a wagon go back to the point "where the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," but these are but the elementary forms of street work. The sandwich man is almost in the discard, but the wagon sign, or float, is still useful. The float is merely a flat dray or cart on which is built a frame structure large enough to hold a twenty-eight sheet bill. There is one for each side of the cart, running length- wise of the vehicle. Generally the framework meets at the top, the sides being angled, though sometimes the sides are upright, being held apart by braces at the top. Where the wagon is owned by the Exhibitor and this form of advertisment is much used, it is best to have a permanent framework made that can be lifted on and off quickly. Sockets should be provided on the sides of the wagon for the supports and the framework, which is covered with muslin or canvas, should be well painted to prevent warping. It should be made in two parts; each side a part, which may be lashed together quickly. It is merely a matter of taking a billboard and parading it through the streets instead of keeping it in a fixed location. The next step higher is to hang a crowbar or other iron rod inside, with a small boy and a hammer. Struck at frequent intervals it gives out an attracting if not an attractive sound. A fifer and drums is the next advance, and a four or five-piece band the last word in this direc- tion. 210 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Improving on this idea, S. A. Arnold invented the lion cage. He had a subject featuring lions. Borrowing some iron bars from the blacksmith (round sticks painted black will do as well), he built a menagerie cage, using the bills to hide the interior. Inside was a small boy with a lion roar. The best grade of lion vocalism is a light tin pail with a small hole in the bottom through which a string or gut is passed and knotted. The bail of the pail is placed under the instep and the string drawn through a rosined cloth or a leather glove pow- dered with the same substance. The noise, with a little practise, will sound like the roar of a wild beast to un- ' trained ears, and there are few ears trained to these sounds. The suggested idea is that the lion used in the film is inside, but the main point is that the noise and the cleverness of the idea combine to get the attention. Even without the iron bars, the idea of the roar in com- bination with an animal film is good, but the cage idea heightens the effect so greatly that it is worth while to take a little trouble. In the same way, effective use can be made of animal dresses. They may be had of city costumers. Build a den in a corner of the lobby and let the "lion" pace up and down or sit on his haunches, and tell the crowd what a good picture "The Lion's Prey" is. This can be worked for a couple of days in advance. On the day of showing let the lion be led through the streets by a trainer, the latter armed to the teeth. The lion should still chant the praises of the film. Where it is not done objectionably, even stores and offices may be invaded. Not only lion masks but those for tigers, leopards, other animals and birds may be had. Find out what is to be had and where it may be obtained and keep the list against the time of need. If you make a lobby den have the bars, or some of them, of old rubber garden hose, that the lion may push out unexpectedly and take a stroll when he is tired of his cramped quarters. Get a boy with some sense of humor and a good voice. Write him his "spiel" that he may speak effectively. Getting back to the cage idea, get two or three lions STREET ADVERTISING 211 and send them out in the cage, with a pretty girl riding with them in fancy costume as their trainer. Halt the wagon at the curb now and then to let the lions tell about the picture, but do not obstruct traffic too much. Replacing the wagon, frameworks may be built for a bicycle or motorcycle. In its simplest form this is merely a pair of light poles ten or twelve feet long, fastened at both ends and stretched apart in the middle by cross pieces. Banners or one-sheets pasted on muslin, hang from these. The framework is lifted over the head of the rider and hangs from suspenders, the hanger for the left side going over the right shoulder and vice versa. An improvement is a trailer ; a light quarter-inch pipe frame mounted on the axle of an old buggy or even a velocipede. The wheels should be as far apart as pos- sible to give a stable base and the frame should have just a little more weight forward than to the rear. This is lashed to the back of a bicycle or motorcycle and the principal streets can be covered several times where a wagon would be going around once. In all of this work the flat side of the sign should be at right angles to the line of travel, to cut down wind resistance. It is fortunate that the same angle permits the signs to be read more easily. Working along the same lines, a pony cart filled with pretty children and with signs on sides and back will work, as will any animal vehicle, an ox cart, prairie schooner or oddity. F. D. Stanton invented the "Auto- gobile," an ancient buggy with a crude steering wheel and with the horse in shafts behind the outfit. What is technicallv termed Rubeing the streets is ef- fective, if not overdone. A man may be made up as some well known comedian in a distinctive make up and paraded through the streets with a sign "At the Liberty, tonisfht" on his back, or the idea may be worked more elaborately. Almost every town has one or more half-grown bovs who want to be picture actors and who think thev would be just as good as the reigninsf favorite were they only given a chance. Oflfer a prize of five dol- lars, split three ways, for the best impersonation of the 212 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING comedian. Have them meet in the lobby about half an hour before the evening show. Parade them through the streets and into the house. Let them witness the show and then let the audience decide the prizes by the vote of applause. The one who gets the most applause gets the largest prize. For a small investment you can get a big advertisement and the boys will have a lot of fun. A fake fight is an old and tried device. Two men get into a heated argument on a crowded thoroughfare. Words (which should be carefully edited) promise to turn to blows. The crowd gathers. The ultimatum comes. The warriors take off their coats and display to the crowd the backs of their waistcoats lettered "If you want to see a real fight, see 'Brother Against Brother' at the Lyceum tonight." As the crowd drifts away, laugh- ing, the coats are resumed and the comedy is repeated as soon as a safe distance is reached. The original of the street fight happened years ago when the late Will McConnell, in advance of a dramatic attraction, had a terrific fight with a dummy on the roof of a tall Chicago building. Finally the victim was thrown to the street and a huge sign unrolled telling about the show. This sort of thing is rather too risky. Someone may be ihurt by the dummy or damage suits may be brought — and collected — for shock. A dummy run down by an auto may be a good advertisement, but not if a verdict for five thousand is had by some nervous woman or pros- pective mother. Look beyond the immediate effect of any stunt. See if the aftermath will be all for good. Adapting an idea used by Barnum, send a man out onto the business streets with an armful of bricks and a pocket .filled with cards. Let him put down a card and cover it with a brick, then go on half a block and repeat the performance. When he has used up all the bricks but one let him go back and put that brick in place of the one first put down. This brick is carried on to the next station, and so on. Each time the space should be brushed off with a whisk broom. The cards are printed up with the announcement of the day's attraction and a STREET ADVERTISING 213 line begs the reader to "Please replace this card and catch someone else." Many persons will read the card, which shows under the edges of the brick. It sounds like a foolish stunt, but it makes for advertisement. Footprints leading to the theatre is an idea often used. Sometimes the footprint is painted on the walk, but generally it is cut out of paper, normal or enormous size. The toes should always point in the direction of the house and the prints be close enough together to be fol- lowed. If used close to the house, merely forms of un- printed paper may be used. Painted signs should be in water color and not in oils. It is easier to let the kalso- mine wash off or be worn off than to go around with some turpentine and a policeman. Some stores use bronze footprints set into the concrete sidewalks as a permanent advertisement, and this can be used by picture theatres as well. Stamps may be made for footprints or other sidewalk advertising very simply, if the plan suggested by Harry De Subers is followed, using printer's roller composition instead of rubber. Procure a sheet of glass of the size the finished sign is to be ; then make a frame of laths or light wood one- half inch high which fits exactly around the sheet of glass. Place the glass on a flat surface and cover it to the thickness of one-fourth inch with putty, smoothing it down until it is perfectly level all over the plate. Then with a small, sharp-pointed knife cut out the letters which you wish to appear on the sign, cutting entirely through the putty and exposing the glass. If the glass is wet with clean water before the putty is placed on it, the letters will be easy to remove after cutting out. Hiaving thus cut out the sign in the putty, place the frame of lath around the glass and fill level with printer's roller composition, made as follows : Melt three pounds common brown sugar and eight pounds glue together, stirring constantly. Then add one- half pint of glycerine and stir well. The glue is softened 214 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING before melting by soaking in water, using about one-balf pint to the pound of glue. After the glue is softened, place on the fire ; stir until melted ; then add the sugar, and, when this is dissolved add the glycerine. Let the composition remain on the mold for from 10 to 24 hours, or until it sets. Then remove, being careful not to tear it in the process. You will have what resembles a mammoth rubber stamp, and something which will answer the same purposes, except that it will not last as long. Now make a roller by cutting a round stick of the proper diameter that the stamp will exactly cover it to the proper length, and fasten the stamp around it with glue. Drive a nail in the center of each end, and fit a stifif wire handle, and the stamp is ready for use. In using, either printer's ink or some similar compo- sition is distributed smoothly on a slate or piece of glass, the roller is passed over it until well covered with the mixture, and then rolled once over the surface where the sign is to appear. It will print on almost any surface, such as fence, cement walks, walls, side of buildings, or practically anywhere that space large enough for a sign can be found. If done in oil, they will last indefinitely. By the use of this simple process a boy can put up several hundred sign ads In a day. Live animals make good attractors, and sheep, pigs, geese and even chickens may be worked. "The Goose Girl," for instance, may be promoted by a pretty girl in costume, driving her charges through the street by rib- bons, each goose wearing a blanket with the name of the picture and the house. In the same way Little Bo Peep may herd her sheep. Put a pair of overalls on a horse's front legs and drive him through the streets, the over- alls and a blanket being lettered. A straw hat helps to make the costume complete. Around Christmas not many reindeer are available, but paper horns can be put on donkevs or carefully matched branches may be fastened to the head stalls. Two mules, driven tandem, will serve as well as a four- in-hand. STREET ADVERTISING 215 Dressing men as children or children as men, is ef- fective. A two-hundred-pound "child" toddling down the street will attract attention. His pinafore is filled wity toy blocks, proportioned to his size. Now and then he stops to play with his toys and arranges his blocks so that the last half dozen, quickly put into place, will spell out the theatre and attraction. A little experiment- ing will tell which are the most essential letters. These may be painted light blue while the other blocks are green, yellow and red. The blue blocks are held back to the last. If a three-foot policeman comes along to chase the six-foot child on to the next location, the effect is better yet. To give life to the sandwich sign it should be carried upside down. The letters should be plain enough to be read in that manner. If anyone calls attention to the mistake the sign is whirled into its proper place and the trap is reset. The sign rests on a false frame, being held in place by a bolt in the centre, enabling it to be turned around. There will be attention at all times and a laugh when the correction is made. An awkward countryman having trouble with a huge umbrella will attract attention until he suddenly opens it to display a sign painted on, or a well-dressed couple may halt some passer-by in the crowd, the man asking the location of the theatre in a clear voice and adding that he understands that there is a particularly good bill there for the day. The town crier has passed but he may be revived. He is provided with a bell which he rings every little while until the crowd is gathered. Then he announces a bit of news and tells about the theatre. Local improvements that a city cannot afford are some- times available to the theatre. One town felt that it could not afford to provide receptacles for waste. The theatre supplied a dozen in return for a small advertise- ment lettered on each that was worth many times the cost each week in addition to the advertisement that came through the appreciation of public spirit. If you can get a sign painter who can do really artistic 216 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING work, let him spend a litttle time in the early summer painting over bar and drug store mirrors. Since the painting is supposed to be more or less lasting, use some serial rather than a single day attraction. The best way to work the idea is to invent some soft drink and a mixed drink that may be dispensed. These are named after the serial. For the cocktail any fruit liquer added to a light martini will do. The fountain drink may be almost anything. In spite of its antiquity the "Raffles" scheme seems to be holding its own. Raffles is supposed to be on the streets each day during an announced period. Anyone recognizing him and demanding a prize in some such set form as "You are Raffles of the Glory Theatre. I de- mand one hundred dollars," is given that sum. Where the prize is small a chance is taken on the Raffles being discovered, but where the sum is large it is more usual to send someone else out in his stead. This person notes happenings and records them as happening to Raffles, though, of course, he is not connected with the scheme, since his personality does not in the least conform to the published description of the person sought. Of course Raffles is supposed to visit the theatre each day. This is the only place he does visit regularly. To avoid a crowd around the entrance waiting for him to come, it is announced that he will be admitted to the house secretly and will not enter or leave through the front. This will bring the crowd inside instead of keep- ing them in the lobby, where they will not purchase tickets. It is a good plan to work the scheme with a daily paper, where possible, in order to spread as widely as possible the daily story of his exploits. At the proper time he is sent on the street, recognized, and the money turned over. Too often the money is paid to someone who gives It back. It is better to announce a smaller prize and pay it to an outsider. Sometimes a "Miss Raffles" is used, but generally with disastrous results, for this is a license to every young loafer to address any woman he thinks may respond to his flirtatious advances. GETTING NEW BUSINESS 217 Like the above, the buried money scheme originated in England. The buried money scheme in its original form is a story in which locations are described. In these locations tokens worth five dollars or more are hidden. Adapting the idea to the picture, and keeping clear of the lottery law, advertise the locations in the daily ad- vertisement. They should be places that do not require digging, such as the corner of a certain street car, on the pedestal of a statue, not definitely specified, and so on. The statue might be one more generally regarded as a fountain and the street car one in the barn. The idea of all of these schemes is to make talk rather than to reach the particular person approached. Get the theatre so thoroughly talked about that one thinks of the theatre when pictures are thought of. Let someone tell someone else of that clever stunt he saw and several persons are reached and the belief inculcated that the theatre is up to date in all its methods, which is the best advertisement a house can have. CHAPTER XXIII GETTING MATINEE BUSINESS Getting them coining — special attractions — free tick- ets vs. premium tickets — working with merchants. Matinee business is at once the joy and despair of the Exhibitor; a joy if he can make the business, and a despair if he cannot. Matinee business should be at least eighty per cent, profit. The film rental is charged by the day, house rent has been paid, paper and advertising are covered. There are only the house employees and the current bills to be paid. 218 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING In many sections the matinee habit is still one to be acquired. People must be educated to the idea. In the chapters following many schemes are suggested that may be adapted to promoting the matinee habit, but this section treats of the schemes peculiarly ap- plicable to matinee work. Perhaps the best scheme for building matinee busi- ness is to get patrons in the habit of coming. Get them coming and they will keep on coming if the show is right, but too often visiting the matinees onl}^ serves to drive the patrons still further away from the idea. The subjects are run through at top speed; the three- reel taking half an hour or even less, the music is slovenly, the house people are inattentive, fans are not run and there is a general air of indifference that com- pletes the evil commenced by bad projection. SPECIAL NOTICE In addition to the regular program, which is shown twice each evening, starting at 7:30 and 9, there will be two additional reels shown in the afternoon and ONLY in the afternoon. They will not be shown at the evening performances. We want to make the matinees especially attractive to the ladies and we offer these extra reels, with our compliments, as an inducement to attend. Figure 77. — Matinee notice. The first thing, therefore, is to widely and fully establish the fact that the shows offered in the after- noon are precisely the same as those given in the evening. Advertise that fact in your program, in your newspaper work, in front of the house, on the screen and by special cards. Then make gooff Hold the watch on your operator. If he tries to run off the reels at eight-minute intervals, warn him. If he persists, fire him and get one with some pride in his work. Make your house people understand that they must give as much attention to their work in the afternoon as in the evening. Look after the music. Insist that everything be done exactly right. GETTING NEW BUSINESS 219- Some exhibitors go even further. They add to the show for the matinees giving one or two reels more than they do at night. There is more time, because it is not possible to get more than part of one house, and a couple of commercials cost but little. But have it clearly understood that these reels are shown only in the afternoon. Run something like the notice in Figure 77 that there may be no error. A business builder that bears none of the earmarks of forcing business is the coupon given in the evening good for a matinee admission the next day. Generally they are given out to all men but sometimes only to men entering without ladies. The ticket reads as shown in Figure 78. It may be enclosed in an en- velope, if desired, but this is not really necessary. Give this to "Her" We want the ladies to know that our matinee performances are just as complete in every way, as the evening shows. This ticket will admit two ladies or one lady and a child If Presented Before 2.30 (Room for date stamp here) Not good for two children unaccompanied Figure 78. — Matinee ticket. The ticket should be dated with a large rubber stamp for the day following the performance at which it is presented, except that the Friday and Saturday evening tickets should be dated for Monday instead of Saturday or Sunday. If the house opens early the limiting hour should be changed to one o'clock or half past one. If they are enveloped and marked "For Men Only," they will attract more attention. In a suburban house it is possible to work with the merchants. Select one store in each line. Prepare a joint advertisement. Use one side to frame your 220 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING own announcement and on the other reproduce Figure 79. Stay at Home Don't go downtown to do your shopping. You can get prices and quality right. here in Bliss Park. To encourage local shopping we have arranged with the Dreamland to honor our passes. A FREE TICKET to the matinee performance for any day of the week in which the purchase is made, except Saturday, will be given with every purchase of one dollar or over. Stay at Home to Shop Figure 79. — Merchant's announcement. This should be signed by all the merchants making the offer. Tickets may be given them or sold very cheaply in quantity. If all the merchants have the style of cash register that prints the merchant's name and date of sale as well as the price on the slip, these may be used in place of coupons and they may be made cumulative ; a sixty-cent sale by the grocer and a forty-cent purchase from the butcher having the same value, taken together, as a dollar check from the druggist. Tickets are given out for any dollar's worth of checks and these being turned back to the firms as vouchers. This leads to another and perhaps the most genuine- ly successful matinee scheme for all concerned that has been devised. This is the Merchant's Matinee. The house is sold out for a flat price to the merchants in the scheme, each man getting his share of tickets, either printed especially for him or rubber stamped by him. This matinee is for the same day each week and only that day and the tickets are sent to rural patrons in the effort to get them .into town on a dull GETTING NEW BUSINESS 221 day and to take the pressure from the Saturday shop- ping business. The Exhibitor plays to a profitable cer- tainty and gets his house known to the rural trade. The merchant gets business on a dull day when the clerks are less busy than on Saturday and the rural patrons get good entertainment without charge. Each merchant distributes his own tickets by mail or de- livery as he elects. The tickets may be worded to suit, but a good form would be similar to that shown in Figure 80. Care should be taken to make the job an attractive one for it is not only a ticket to the per- formance but an advertisement for the merchant and the house and generally the fixed income is sufficiently ample to warrant the use of good stock. ^be 361UC jfront Store Invites you to be its guest at the Merchant's Matinee On Friday afternoon, May 2d, at the dosmos theatre Commencing at 3:30 POSITIVELY NO EXTRA CHARGE OF ANY SORT IN CONNECTION WITH THIS TICKET. Figure 80. — Merchant's Matinee Ticket. The merchant's matinee is good for only one day a week and not helpful to a business that is being built up, but the merchants can help in building up daily attendance by distributing the tickets. If you can sell them, so much the better, but at least they can dis- tribute for you and give you some advertising. It is always a bad habit to give away free tickets. No one ever gives away that which is of value without some reason and the free ticket not only suggests something of no value but it confirms the recipient in 222 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING the deadhead habit and for a chronic case of this there is no cure. It will be necessary to give away tickets for a time, but try to do it in such a way that they will get the matinee habit and not the deadhead habit. If merchants will not pay for matinee tickets, make them at least give you plenty of advertising. Get them to phrase their advertising to suggest that they have to pay well for the tickets. Get them to show your lithographs and matinee announcements. Have a board neatly lettered "This is one of the splendid plays at the Comedy that you may see as our guest." Have a large Today at the bottom. Then put out a new one-sheet each day. Ezra Rhodes has a novel scheme for matinee busi- ness in the downtown section. The house runs through the noon hour. He plays up this line: "We want our regular noonday patrons who have not time to see the full show to ask for a return check good for later in the day." This sounds simple, but there is thought back of that sentence. Not many of those who have half or three-quarters of an hour for lunch and rest will pay to see a reel or two. They tell themselves that they will drop in after hours. When that time comes they may have forgotten or something else may have presented itself. But if they can drop in for the half-hour and come back later on they will buy a ticket and enter. Mr. Rhodes has the money for a night admission whether the ticket is used again or not, and he has a good business at an hour usually dull, which in itself is good advertising. These return tickets may be along the lines of the daily school ticket to be described later, the date being put in with a large rubber stamp. There was a time when it was possible to do busi- ness with the local paper, exchanging tickets for ad- vertising, but of late the newspaper coupon scheme has become such a menace that it is better to keep out entirely. If, after a time, you make your matinee business and want to stop, you can take your tickets away from the merchants, but taking the offer away from a newspaper that finds the scheme helps circula- GETTING NEW BUSINESS 223 tion is quite another thing. It is best to keep out of trouble than to trust to being able to get out. You can perhaps do business with coupon books direct to the patron, selling these matinee books for half or one-third value and limiting the time in which they are to be valid. If you want to raise the price and find it possible, drop the sale of the books and later restore it "at the earnest solicitation of our pa- trons," at a new price if the scheme has worked or at the old price if business has dropped. Work personal correspondence to a select list, using a form letter rather than a printed advertisement. Run this off in the odd moments of your own or your stenographer's time. Figure 81 gives you the form. Have it a real letter and not a reproduction. The copy is not long and a personal letter is a personal appeal. Mrs. J. B. Blank, Somewhere, N. Y. Dear Mrs. Blank: Do you know about the Minaret's Matinees? Do you know that we give the same program as at the evening performance with the same care and then add a couple of reels shown only in the afternoon? We want yoti to get the matinee habit. We want you for a regular patron. We want you to come in the afternoons when there is plenty of room. It will give you greater pleasure and comfort and still give us more room for the night crowds. Be our guest some afternoon this week. Figure 81. — Matinee letter. Send a pass for two with this and tell the doorman to be extra nice when these tickets come to the door. Do not exclude Saturday or Sunday. Make it "week of" just for this once. If you have an obliging exchange, you can work up some extra matinee business very nicely. Get in with some literary club and offer them your theatre for morning meetings. They can go to the home of some member for lunch later if they wish, but ofifer them a home and try and get for them visualizations of the 224 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING literature they study. Get them to study what you can obtain. Dig down into the commercials for old but good titles. Run a reel or two and then put on the lights and let them talk. Have it clearly under- stood that the house must be empty by a certain hour, well in advance of the regular afternoon opening. The novelty of meeting in a theatre will please the club and they will feel that they must come some afternoon just to show they appreciate the courtesy. Get them used to coming to your house in daylight and they will come to the matinees. It is their literary temple. They will talk it up to others. It may cost you a couple of dollars, but no more than you would pay for half that much advertising in some other direction if you select the right sort of club to ap- proach. If there is an orphan asylum or other institution near, give them a treat now and then. You cannot win trade from them but others will appreciate what you are doing and the bread will come back buttered. Many theatres are now built with assembly rooms. This may be used evenings for dances. Let it work afternoons. Be willing to loan it to the clubs and so- cieties that are worth while. Make your house a social centre daytimes as well as evenings. To sum up, to do a matinee business you must give as good or better performance as you do in the even- ing. To make the fact known you must offer inducements in the shape of disguised free admissions. When the habit is acquired, stop the free tickets and run on the business you have created, which may only be done by keeping the show up to standard. PRIZE AND CONTEST SCHEMES 225 CHAPTER XXIV PRIZE AND CONTEST SCHEMES Avoid all lotteries — what the law is — Prize contests and schemes create jealousy and disappointment — safer ideas. Before the subject of prize schemes is elaborately gone into the Exhibitor should get a close and definite idea as to what a lottery is, and an understanding of the difference between the State and Federal laws on this matter. It is seldom that a court is very strict with an unintentional offender, but there may be a fine and there will be in any event much unpleasant notoriety. There are three divisions of the law; the city, the State and the Federal. The city ordinance may pre- scribe no penalty whatever for a lottery and the State law may regard leniently the definition of a lottery. If you comply with both city and State law you are safe so long as you do not use the mails, but the mo- ment you mail, or cause to be mailed, any advertise- ment of a lottery, however innocent, you become a Federal offender. If you mail your advertisement by inserting it in the newspapers then both yourself and the publisher are offenders. There is no uncertainty about the Federal statutes. Any scheme of any sort or nature whatsoever wherein the awarding of anything of value is determined by chance is a lottery in the letter of the law if a "valuable consideration" is given in return for the chance. It is in the definition of valuable consideration that the trouble lies. If you give to your patrons a num- bered program and tell them that on Friday night you are going to draw three numbers from a box and award 226 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING prizes to those numbers, you may feel that you have not asked any "valuable consideration." It is true that the people have to be in the house to receive the prize, but they would come anyhow and for the ad- mission price you give precisely the same thing that on other nights they pay for without a prize feature. You give away the programs, there is no extra charge of any sort. You cannot see where the patron buys a lottery ticket from you. Perhaps you cannot, but you will probably find that even if you made no charge for admission ; if you gave them the show free and merely required that the winners should be in the house, you will have exacted a "valuable consideration" and are running a lottery. The Universal offered fifty dollars for the best title for an unnamed play. Before the issue of the Universal Weekly containing the advertisement of this ofifer could be released in the mails, a full synopsis of the play had to be printed and inserted in each copy. To see the play at some theatre would have been a valu- able consideration. To avoid the impounding of the edition, it was necessary to tell the story so that any person might compete for the prize. Tests of skill are not matters of chance, but a charge to compete makes it a lottery and so, though there was no actual entrance fee, the scheme was adjudged a lottery until even this slight requirement was avoided. To get attention, an Exhibitor printed on the out- side of some envelopes the announcement that some might contain a ticket. Tickets were put into about a quarter of the run and the rest contained merely the advertising matter. It was unofificially ruled that the effort of opening the envelope was a valuable consider- ation and that therefore the scheme was a lottery. Many schemes may be perfectly legal within the State. The best legal authority may so advise you and the highest State court may uphold him, but the moment your advertisement goes into the mails you come under the Federal statutes. You may offend with impunity for years, but on the other hand the PRIZE AND CONTEST SCHEMES 227 Post Office Inspectors may visit you tomorrow, and once you have been warned you will be watched very closely. There seems to be no objection to offering a prize for the person who discovers an intentional error in your program. That depends upon skill and not chance. But if you add that the persons competing must be in the theatre a certain night to obtain the prize then you have a lottery on your hands. Again, if you avoid this but announce that in, the event of a tie the winning solution will be decided by drawing names from a hat, then you are once more running a lottery. From another angle there is objection to the prize scheme in that there are so few winners and always some disgruntled losers. Still there are contests that can be used to build up matinee business or dull nights, and they are not objectionable if the law is strictly complied with. Prize schemes for programs 'have been explained in Chapter XVIII, and baby contests have been alluded to as good things to keep away from, but there can be no objection to the baby contest where the decision is made by the public and may be influenced by the efforts of the mothers. Then the decision no longer lies with you and the mother who loses has only her- self to blame. There are two ways of working the scheme. One is merely to flash the pictures of the babies at each performance. The tickets carry voting coupons and at the door there is a box labeled with the name of each child. The votes are dropped into these boxes. At the end of a specified time the contest is closed and the award is made in accordance with the vote. The vote may be blind or open; announced each day or kept secret until the end of the contest. Each way has its advantage. With the closed vote the mothers are always afraid of a dark horse and keep hustling. The open vote stimulates general interest. If the contest runs for any length of time it is a 228 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING good plan to run series votes, insisting that all these votes be polled at a proper time. This prevents the "dumping" of votes at the finish. One block of a thousand votes cast at an opportune moment may discourage the rest and put a damper on the affair when interest should be at its height. For this reason have the votes lettered or numbered. Announce that all "A" votes, which are printed on green paper, must be deposited before noon of the following Tuesday. The next week the "B" votes must be similarly cast. These are on red paper and no green votes are counted. This scheme has an advantage in that the votes are counted by weeks and do not come in to swamp the tellers at the last moment. A second form of the scheme is to divide the bailies into groups. Perhaps six are shown the first week. The two having the highest number of votes compete for the finals. In the same way other sets are shown until the last week when the winners compete for the larger prizes. The eliminations should not run more than four or five weeks. It will probably be found that Mrs. Jones, whose baby was defeated by the odious Smith child the first week, will not sulk on the contest but stay in and devote her energies to helping some other likely candidate defeat the Smith infant. Do not try to run the contest single handed. Get for tellers the most solid citizens you can induce to serve. Have everything so fair and open that there is not the least possible opening for the charge that you have been unfair or have helped this person or that to win the prize. Keep the standing of the competitors posted on a blackboard in the lobby, advertise the daily changes in the papers if you use them. Keep the interest up. Popularity schemes are run on precisely the same lines save that with sufficiently attractive prizes the contest may be run for as long as three months. An automobile is an attractive prize and can be had with the discounts off if the make is properly boomed. There should be some lesser prizes. PRIZE ANiD CONTEST SCHEMES 229 Require all contestants to enter their names in the first week. Print up a coupon similar to Figure 82. This holds out the dark horses and simplifies the situa- tion. It also avoids the withdrawal of names entered without the knowledge of the person. Manager, Joyland Theatre. Blissville. N. Y. You are hereby authorized to enter my name as a contestant in the Popularity Contest now being conducted by you. Signature. Address. Figure 82. — Entrance coupon. Have coupon books printed up good for one and five dollars worth of admissions. These should be good for three or four months. The books should carry an extra leaf in the form of a coupon good for votes the amount of the ticket or perhaps a little more. Have the votes based on a five cent admission no matter what the charge may be, giving two votes with a ten- cent ticket, five with a twenty-five-cent ticket and so on. The dollar books may give twenty-five instead of twenty votes and the five-dollar books one hundred and fifty. The five-cent basis not only makes it pos- sible to handle mixed admission and advanced price days, but it gives a greater number of votes and makes the contest seem more important. If you are in a small town you can better this scheme by letting the merchants in. Offer a dozen big prizes; a railroad trip, an automobile. Get merchants in all lines interested. Sell them votes in bulk at a price that will enable them to give votes to purchasers in the same proportion that you do, but pick men who will not sell the votes to their friends. Now you will have the merchants working for you and the contest has assumed the proportions of an event. All mer- chants will display your advertising matter in their 230 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Stores and windows, but the tickets must be voted in the theatre lobby and their patrons must come to your house. Get the merchants to serve as tellers or let them appoint representatives. Have a legal contract drawn up stating clearly just what you must do and what they must do. Provide for the withdrawal of the vote from any merchant who issues votes out of proportion to the purchase or who sells the votes for a price instead of giving them with purchases. State in your advertising that merchants are pledged to this and it will give your contestants confidence. You can run the contest for as long as three months and help all concerned. For the decision, give a morn- ing to the final voting and have the house open to the public that all may be present. Work a church contest. Every church has one or more societies. And each society has some aim. One denomination wants a recessed chancel, another a new organ and a third perhaps wants to build an iron fence around the property. Announce a cash prize to be given the society getting the greatest number of votes. Make it worth hustling for. Give votes as in the popularity contest and let the members of the so- cieties sell the books. Let each society hold all the votes until the deciding day, to be cast in bulk. Have them brought to the theatre and start counting on the stage or before the screen. Have this open to the public or else give each society its share of the tickets to be distributed among their friends. You can make it an evening afifair, but the morning would be better. Get the orchestra out and have plenty of screen slides lettered with the name of the society and a blank for the number of votes. Have two or three for each society. As the votes are counted send word to the operator or use the 'house telephone if you have one. Announce a certain vote for this church, then give the standing of another and so on. As the tellers do their work you can get the result and flash it. Keep the house lights on in the interval but darken and flash PRIZE AND CONTEST SCHEMES 231 the results often enough to keep the excitement up. As soon as a slide has been used it is repainted with opaque and alcohol to be used again. When the result of the finals is known put on all the lights and hand the president of the winning so- ciety the prize in brand new five-dollar bills. If a second church is but a few votes behind the first, make a second award, though none was promised. You will get your money back on these little things in a hun- dred dififerent ways, but do not give a second prize unless the second society is so far ahead of the third that the third has no reason for thinking that they should have been noticed, too. Schools or school societies or fraternal orders may be worked on the same lines, but the church proposi- tion is the best because it gives you greater prestige. You need to reach the church people and be friends with them. Merchants may be admitted to this contest as well as in the popularity scheme, selling them votes in bulk instead of pro-rating the cost, but the church plan is best held to your own house unless you ofifer a thou- sand dollars in money. In working in with the merchants do not try to make money ofif them. You need their good will and you may need their co-operation again. It is better to sell the votes for a flat price and then, if you find that four or five times the number of votes estimated has been needed you can pro-rate a rebate. Swat the Fly crusades can be worked as prize schemes in the early Summer. Start in during April to book the contest and run the contest during May and June. Get hold of one of the old Selig fly pictures if you can and run this and some comedies at a Satur- day morning performance for the children.. Charge no admission. Let someone lecture on the danger of the fly and then make your own talk. Tell the chil- dren that you want them to help rid the town of flies. Explain that a fly killed in May means the destruc- tion of many flies in June. Tell them that prizes will 232 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING be given in proportion to the number killed. Have a unit value. The first week in May the unit can be one ounce of flies. The second week two ounces will be required, three the third and four the fourth. After that the standard unit can be five ounces of flies for there will be more than five times as many. Get the loan of a pair of druggists' scales and weigh by ounce, and decimals. Have prepared a neat membership card. Make it as important looking as the heart of a small boy can desire. Have someone who writes a neat hand to take the entries and write the name of the child on the card. Do not get a card that does not require names to be written in. It has a value all its own if the child sees his or her own name written in. The text for this is given in Figure 83. Iwsilt Tlh© Fly Owib of the Cirescemitt Tlheattre This is to certify that is ail active member in good standing for 1916. Printed fac-simile signature, President. Figure 83. — Membership Card. The signature of the President (generally the man- ager) should be printed in fac-simile. The President may be some minister or other well known person, perhaps the Health Ofiicer. Have weekly, monthly and season prizes. The weekly prize can be a couple of dollars. The monthly prize for the largest number of units can be five dol- lars, and a prize of ten dollars given at the end of PRIZE AND CONTEST SCHEMES 233 the season for the grand total. Keep a ledger ac- count of each name, working it on a card catalogue, and keep the standing of the leaders posted in the lobby. Require the flies to be brought to the theatre in bags. Get special weights cut for tenths of an ounce, Troy (48 grains to each tenth). Weigh the flies carefully and credit by units and tenths. Have a glass case and put all the flies in the case. Keep the case in the lobby and keep it locked. Take his member- ship from any small boy who tries to work in sticks or gravel. And all the time keep talking of the fly crusade on your screen, in your advertisements and in the lobby. Give cheap fly swatters for matinee souvenirs. Have weekly talks about the fly pest, and keep the interest up. Some night, after the collection of flies has be- come important looking, take them out, fasten a cigar box to the. bottom, covering it with flies. As the col- lection proceeds you can add a cigar box from time to time. Catch the Rat is a newer crusade, but .it is well to keep away from this. Women will not want to come to the theatre if small boys with their pockets full of dead rats are apt to be hanging around. If the scheme catches hold of your town and you think you can make capital of it, take it up, but specify that the rats must be delivered to some point other than the the- atre, and none whatever may be brought to the house. As a substitute for amateur night, try a prize con- test between the dramatic societies if there are as many as three. If there are none you might form some and then start the contest. On a certain night each week let one of the societies present a one-act play. Next week let another and then another until all have had a chance. Let the audience vote their preference, votes being given with each ticket sold on those nights, but being cast only on the final night. And remember that in any prize scheme it is well first to see a lawyer and ask about both the local and the Federal laws. 234 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING CHAPTER XXV. PREMIUM AND COUPON SCHEMES Series coupons — coupon books — spelling coupons — rummage days — unannounced souvenirs. for lasting results the coupon or premium scheme of some sort is to be preferred to the prize scheme. All may have an equal chance with the coupon. None are disappointed, decidedly sore and slightly suspicious. They know that if they do not get their share it is because they have not done their share of work and are not entitled to it. Coupon schemes roughly divide themselves into two classes ; those in which a certain number of coupons must be collected and those in which the coupons must be in series. The latter form is particularly useful in matinee work. The mass coupon represents merely a certain number of attendances, but the series coupons prove the habit-forming regularity of attendance. Series coupons may be numbered or lettered. They may be numbered by days, by weeks or half weeks, or numbered serially, but given out only on thosei days for which it is desired to make business. It is seldom or never a good plan to offer prizes for a series of daily coupons. Not only it is rarely that a patron can afiford the time to come each afternoon, but if they do they will tire too quickly. It is better to pick out two bad days a week and make the series coupons the issues for those days. Mass coupons may be given out at any time desired. and any coupon is good in connection with the rest. The prizes should be proportioned to the number of coupons required, but it is better to offer a choice PREMIUM AND COUPON SCHEMES 235 of several prizes and to require a sufficient number of coupons to be able to afford an article of good value rather than offer pinchbeck "gold rings" for ten coupons that will be a reproach to the house. One favorite premium is the fifty or hundred-piece set of table china. In the past, theatres offering stock company attractions have given these sets to all wo- men patrons who have attended every week during the forty-week season, or a more costly hundred-piece set is given the woman who collects the greatest num- ber of matinee seat coupons in that time. Here one set costing forty or fifty dollars may be offered for the contestants will not only come themselves but urge all their friends to attend. For picture theatres it is better to cut the cost of the set and confine the offer to a period of three or four months. With this coupon scheme it is a good plan to issue the books referred to in the preceding chapter and to sell these to the women, who dispose of them to their friends. The tickets should be made to show that they are good for matinees only, and should be accepted without the book, since they will be torn out as sold. Working a variation of this scheme, the contest may be held only to these tickets, and prizes given either for the greatest number of or for a specified number of coupons. In this case it amounts to no more than a commission paid the entrants for dis- posing of a certain number of tickets. Figure out the commission you are willing to pay and select prizes on that basis. The solar print finished in oils is a good premium, and can be had from some of the suppliers of adver- tising very reasonably. Almost any article of house- hold use may be used. The so-called "slum" shops, handling novelties and street goods, issue catalogues giving a wide range of articles varying in value from sixty cents a gross to fifty cents each. Pocket mirrors can be had for as little as two cents each from those who make advertising devices and in the larger towns are "king fakirs" who deal in job lots. It is well to 236 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING be fairly generous with your patrons. Trumpery stuff will suggest a trumpery show and it is far better to give fewer souvenirs, and better ones, than to hand out stuff that decent people will not care to take home. Souvenirs should be of a sort to appeal to the clientele. Chromos will not be appreciated by those who prefer etchings on their walls, nor will a volume of poems appeal to the man who prefers to read the exploits of Derringer Dick, the Daredevil Detective. Do not misstate prizes. A tea set to each patron should not be a child's toy set except, perhaps, on the first of April. It is well to give more than is promised rather than less. For that matter it is sometimes a good plan to give unexpected souvenirs. Do not announce any special souvenir day, but some afternoon or evening hand out the presents. Give them as the patron leaves the house, for then interest will not be taken from the program, they will be sent home pleased and the peo- ple coming from your house with gifts in their hands will advertise the theatre to others. Postcards form the cheapest souvenirs, costing as little as three dollars a thousand. They can be used as a series if certain portraits are given certain days and the patrons have to attend regularly to get the complete set. In the same way, by using "open stock" china, you can give the set piecemeal, a plate, a cup or saucer at a time, arranging with the store to get the stuff as you need it. Where the prizes are of good value, requiring a large number of coupons, it is well to let the patron compound for part coupons and part cash. This enables the woman who has not many friends to stand a chance of getting something for the few coupons she is able to collect. The coupons are all valued at the retail price of the goods and as you purchase in quantities you will make a better showing, but do not say that a five dollar article is worth eight. Women know values, perhaps better than you do. The Rummage Souvenir is a good way to work off PREMIUM AND COUPON SCHEMES 237 old stuff. At each souvenir distribution you will have a few articles left over, since you cannot gauge ex- actly the demand. When you have sufficient announce a rummage and distribute these accumulations. Dis- guise the small articles with newspaper to have the bundles all the same size and play no favorites. A coupon scheme that was worked by one house was the usual double roll-ticket. The name of the house was the Star. Ten thousand tickets each were printed up with one of the letters forming the name and admission was had on a set of four that spelled out the name. The tickets were on sale each day ex- cept Saturday and Sunday and there was a different letter, in turn, for each of the days, first an S then a T, an A and an R being sold, the fifth day the S being sold again. This was virtually offering five admis- sions for thq price of four, but the advertising value lay in the fact that not many attended each day and holders of the coupons sought to exchange with others until a set was procured. Cigar stores opened swap- ping annexes as did barber shops and bars. The whole town talked Star theatre and coupons for a time, to the decided benefit of the house. The letter coupon is also worked in a different way by requiring a complete set for some prize. The let- ters may be sold on different days or sold indiscrim- inately. Where it is not desired to give out a prize with each set, the distribution is determined by the number of a certain letter. If the house is the Novelty there may be a thousand of each of the letters but the "1," and but three hundred of these. It follows that while there are 6,300 coupons out there are but three hundred full sets. Here as well as in the straight coupon scheme, it might be well to offer to complete sets for a certain price, but this may emphasize the lack of the key letter. It is better to give out the same number of each letter that all sets may be com- pleted. The talk the exchanging will make will be better advertising if the efforts do not make it plain that you are holding out one of the letters. It may 238 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING be legitimate but it is not easy to explain that to a woman who has all but the key letter. In aclverising coupon schemes make it clear that it is not a lottery. Use such lines as "You can't lose." "All are winners." "No blanks, and all prizes the same." Dwell on the idea at greater length in a para- graph. Educate them away from the lottery schemes. They do you little good even at best. You want to keep all of your patrons pleased and loyal friends and you Look ! Look ! Look ! Slain in the Snows Paul Paris' great success Cloth binding. Printed from the original plates Only 35c a copy Or only 2.5c. and a coupon from the Minaret Theatre Where this splendid story will be shown Monday, March 5tti Coupons at every performance for the asking See the film Read the book Figure 84. — Booksellers announcemeot. cannot do it with a lottery. "Country stores," "pay nights" and similar schemes are positively vicious in their after effects, though they may seem to be money makers at the time. Make it plain, too, that you are giving souvenirs to make business. People will not believe that you are giving out prizes out of goodness of your heart, so do not seek to convince them that j^ou are. Books can be used as souvenirs or better still, you PREMIUM AND COUPON SCHEMES 239 can arrange with some local bookseller to rebate to your patrons. This is best done with the cheap edi- tions of books that have been filmed. By working in conjunction with some store you get a show win- dow free and good will as well. Most publishers will give or sell the paper slip covers used to protect the books before sale. These should be ordered along with a quantity of the books. The covers are put on other books and these are used to dress the window with. Then a sign is painted to read as in Figure 84. The card should be set well down front and draped with bunting or something ap- propriate to the story. At the same time run a slide on your screen adver- tising the coming of the attraction and a second slide worded as in Figure 85. The CLOTH BOUND edition of this famous book may be bought At March's for thirty-five cents. A coupon entitling you to purchase it for only 25c. may be had at the box office FREE on request. Figure 85. — Lantern slide for book sale. In all similar schemes if you can let someone else in on it, you get more advertising, are rid of the trouble and make a friend. If you try) to get all the money you will get yourself disliked and the bookseller or whoever it is will lose no chance to decry your house and your methods. If you are running a theatre do not go into the book business, though the sale of magazines dealing purely with the pictures does not fall in this classification. While it is often advisable to work with the stores in contest schemes, it is not so good a plan to work premium schemes with them. This makes for a trad- ing stamp suggestion and trading stamps should be 240 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING given with merchandise and not with tickets. More- over if you deal with the merchants in the scheme they will insist on giving double and triple stamps now and then and these advances must be met by you with more coupons, for you cannot offer less than the grocer does, and presently you will be so badly tangled up that you will not know where you stand. Share your contests, but keep your coupons to your- self and never permit yourself to be persuaded into handling any of the standard trading" stamps. Stamps were good when they were new and they did influence business. Now they are a vicious habit, bringing no business and representing only an expense. CHAPTER XXVI. VARIOUS SCHEMES School tickets — baseball teams — baseball prizes — church schemes — box parties — stage weddings — giving a baby away. Of publicity schemes there is no end. They are limited only by the inventiveness of the Exhibitor and his quickness to take advantage of the local happen- ings of the moment and his ability to forsee or make celebrations. Much publicity may be gotten through the schools. One of these ways is the educational morning per- formance. Another is working in with the teachers in following the class studies. Special emphasis is laid upon school work because it is through the child that the pictures enter many homes. The child becomes enthused, the mother looks into the subject, though it has been approved by the child's teacher. She be- comes a regular patron and brings the remainder of VARIOUS SCHEMES 241 the family. The parents become aware of the fact that the pictures are not the childish entertainment they supposed them to be, and throug-h the school work four or five regular attendants are won. If your house is in one of these cities where children under sixteen are not admitted without adult escort, you may lose some of the child trade, but the loss is partly made up by the attendance of the grown persons. This rule seems to the Exhibitor to be an unneces- sarily opperssive one and in many ways it is, but the day has been when the conduct of certain houses made the rule imperative, and it is far easier to make a law This certifies that Because of best conduct during the week ending Friday is entitled to become the Guest of the So^ Xlbeatre Saturday afternoon School Grade Class TEACHER Figure 86. — Weekly school ticket. than to repeal one. There is no longer the vital necessity for safeguarding the child, for the houses that were a menace to morality and health have either been abandoned or have passed into other and more intelligent management. If there is merely a city ordi- nance it should be easy to secure a repeal. A state law will require a state wide movement. The law re- quiring a matron to be in charge is a compromise measure that has its good points and should not be too strenuously fought. A matron will be useful in preserving order and it is often a good plan to employ a matron even where none is required. 242 PICTURE THK'VTRE ADVERTISING Whatever the condition may be, make your appeal as strongly as possible to the child. Provide teachers with good conduct tickets to be given out on Fri- day as a reward for good behavior. Limit the number of tickets to two, three or five to a class. The wording is given in Figure 86. The cards are to be filled in with the pupil's name for the moral efifect on the child. Where the law requires, the words "accompanied by an adult" may be added as is shown in the daily ticket in Figure 87. This is one given to all teachers This certifies that for GOOD CONDUCT Is entitled to attend the 4:30 Matinee at the Gem Theatre, this day only, if accompanied by an adult as required by law. not good when O punched here Figure 87. — Daily school ticket. in a school close to the theatre and five were awarded to the members of each class every day. The tickets were printed up in six different colors, the colors being changed each month. They were surcharged with the date by means of figures, large rubber stamps of the sort used to print signs with. A set, including letters and figures may be purchased for half a dollar and put to many other uses. Each noon the sets of tickets were prepared and sent over to the school and addressed to each teacher. These were left with the clerk. Teachers and clerk, very naturally, held season tickets. The tickets were punched and returned to the pupils to be taken home as an evi- dence of good behavior. Children will work harder to earn theatre tickets than for any other form' of prize, and the teachers VARIOUS SCHEMES 243 and parents alike came to approve this aid to good conduct. Go to some little expense to make the card look important. It will suffer hard usage in tiny pockets and you want to get it to the parent still look- ing fairly presentable. Use a shaded type and a neat border. Do not load it down with stock ornaments. It is a certificate; not a picture book.. Use some care in the selection of the type and border and get a reason- ably god stock, not a heavy, enameled card, but good quality. It is better to send the cards each day instead of weekly or monthly lots that there may be no con- fusion. Tickets should be sent all grade schools in the towns and to the nearby schools only in the cities. Do nothing without first consulting the principal. Post yourself on educational subjects before you talk with him and then do not pompously lecture him, but tell your facts interestingly and conversationally. It may be possible to interest him, if your house is close at hand, in sending certain classes down to see films that supplement the course of study. Make a special effort to get this stuff from your exchange and run it without charge, preferably in the morning hours, or so time it that it can be run just before the class is dismissed for the lunch hour. You can imagine the effect of the class filing through the streets to the theatre and what they will tell when they go home to the noon meal. Do not argue that your house is too small to per- mit you to do these things. It is not. If your ca- pacity is limited it is precisely this sort of work that will presently bring you the influence and the capital to enlarge. Show what you have done. Tell what you can do. Capital will be interested. Get estab- lished with the school and the church and your posi- tion is impregnable. Do not confine your connection with the schools to the matters that so intimately relate to your house. Enter into the general atmosphere. If there is an athletic league, offer a trophy for one or more events, 244 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING and give medals each year to those who win the trophy. If the school has a football eleven or a base- ball nine, give them a benefit. Let them sell tickets and either give it all or pay them a percentage, per- haps half. Some towns have found that it worked well to sell the tickets at a slight advance and let the boys merely keep the sum represented by the advance, but it is better to be really generous if you are going to do anything at all. If you want to see a real return for your effort in immediate money, get a baseball outfit or whatever it is that will appeal to the boy at the moment. Put it on exhibition in the window of the store from which The baseball outfit will be given to the class (or school, as desired) having the greatest number of votes at the special matinee Saturday, April 11th. At 11 A. M. Fill out the coupon and present it at the window when you purchase your ticket. Credit one vote to Class School Figure 88. — Class contest vote. it was purchased and back up with a card announcing that this is the prize in the inter-school or inter-class contest. Then get out a circular with a coupon as in Figure 88 at the bottom and distribute to the schools. Get into the limelight apart from the school direct. Advertise a modified marathon, a pushmobile race, a coaster race, relay or any similar scheme and have the finish line in front of your house. Time the event so that it should finish just before the commencement of the matinee. Get the contestants into the house as soon as they come up, and their friends will purchase tickets to follow them in. If they need to wash up. VARIOUS SCHEMES 245 have a dressing room provided that must be reached through the theatre, and do not let them linger out- side. Announce before hand that prizes will be pre- sented during the performance and you'll get the mothers and the little sisters. Give the boys promi- nent seats for the show and then present the prize while the band plays for the winners. You can make it a regular Saturday attraction with a "league" and a point score and all the rest and even in the cities there are some sporting editors who will be glad to print the scores. Get your own ball team. If your stafif is not large enough, you can at least back some clever team named after the house. Let them store their stuff somewhere in the house, provide them with uniforms or at least shirts and caps. Hire the star pitcher as usher. Play the games through summer in the after- noons and, if necessary, close the house and hang out a sign advertising the fact that you have gone to the ball game along with the rest of the crowd. There is comparatively little business in the summer after- noons and one off day a week will help rather than hurt. Book the team so that they will have at least an even chance. A losing team is not so good an ad- vertisement. There is less interest in minor football, but a basket ball five in the winter is a good thing. Keep it strictly amateur. The love of clean sport is inherent. Be a good sportsman. You cannot paste your sportsman- ship on the bill boards, but you can put it into the papers and you can become known as one of the really live wires in your section. They will think of tlie house if they think of you and think well of the house if they think well of you. But let schools and sports be but a part of your activities. Get after the church workers. If you do not care to work the contest scheme for churches, you can let them have books of tickets to sell. They can get into homes with direct appeal that you cannot reach with personal letters. They'll sell their tickets 246 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING and make new patrons for you. The tickets should be limited to three months and the society or church should get at least twenty-five per cent. For a short, sharp campaign of a week or two make it fifty-fifty. If you have a propaganda film, go to the supporting element in your town. This may mean the physicians, the suffragettes, the Red Cross or the mill workers. Whatever it is, get busy with societies or labor unions. Ask them if they want to sell the house for you and take all above a certain sum that will show you your profit. Make your profit. That is what you are rung- ning a theatre for, and you are entitled to it, but if they want to build up with extra advertising and spe- cial efforts, let them get busy. Let them have a rep- resentative in the box office. Put a greeters' com- mittee on the door with sashes or badges or let them serve as ushers. They see only the money they will make. You get your extra return in the number of persons who have not known your house intimately before. You make your small regular profit and you get the endorsement of the right sort of people. Do not limit this or the church scheme to the matinees. Make it cover the night performance as well. They can sell but a limited number of matinee tickets, and so there will be only a half-hearted campaign. Make it for the nights as well and add to your regular night patronage. They will do a thousand dollars worth of press work for you to add a hundred dollars to the church fund. More than half the fight is to get the prospect into the house the first time. If you can do that and have the right sort of house, the rest will be easy. Working from another angle, get after the social trade. Popularize box parties. Get hold of some clever woman who is in with the smart set more be- cause she belongs, than because of her money. Get her to start the ball rolling by giving a couple of parties. If you can reach some of the leaders the rest will follow like sheep. If you can get in touch with the woman who does society for the local paper, VARIOUS SCHEMES 247 she will be just the person. She can write up the affairs in advance and after they have happened and this is what most persons are after. Get some dainty souvenir for the women. If you can get hold of some really nice cover stock let the local printer run these off for you in small quantities with the special card given in Figure 89. Don't buy too much of any one stock. See if you cannot get odds and ends from the printer or paper warehouse. SOUVENIR • OF THE THEATRE PARTY TO MISS JANE SMITH BY MISS MURIEL BROWN AT THE JOYLAND THEATRE MONDAY, MARCH 10. 1916 Figure 89. — Cover for souvenir program. Never repeat the covers in color and material. You will not need much of any one kind and small lots will cost you more, but it will be worth it. Never print these in black ink. Use colors. Slip these on your regular program or a special slip printed for the day. If you know in advance, you can have the type lifted from the regular run when it comes from the press and a few sheets run off on a job press. It will cost something, but look what you get for it. Do not an- nounce these in advance, but send them down to the box or seats after the party is settled. Give one to each member of the party and if there are any left over save one for yourself and send the others around to the hostess the next morning. 248 PICTURE THK\TRE ADVERTISING In some sections where auto busses meet the trains and are not working about theatre time, it might be possible to arrange to use the bus and have it under- stood that a party of a certain number, speaking far enough in advance, w^ill be called for. Make this a matter of advertisement or pass the word privately as seems best. If there is a school of music or of acting in your town, let them have the auditoriums in the mornings at a small rental. Build up on this by letting them appear at a matinee or evening performance to gain familiarity with public performances. If little Birdie Smith is going to play at your house Friday, her family and friends to the tenth remove will all be there on paid tickets. But be certain that Birdie will be able to entertain. If she fails of success and a rude audi- ence laughs at her, it will be you and not Birdie who will be responsible in the opinions of her friends. This proposition should be handled with extreme care, but if it can be worked it will bring in money. With the spread of the topical film and the news weeklies, the locally owned motion picture camera .is getting more common. Try making your own produc- tion. It has been done and with success. Offer ten dollars for the best script. Put the local players in and use as many as you can. Get a script with a couple of scenes showing a crowd. Advertise that at a cer- tain hour Saturday you will make these scenes in some convenient place. There will be a mob there. They cannot act, but all who get into the picture will come and bring their friends. In cutting the film let the mob run well down instead of flashing. Give the volunteer players plenty of time (say 30 feet) to look for themselves. Don't advertise that you'll help authors dispose of their scripts. Some Exhibitors have and always to their sorrow. Be willing to help authors but do not try to create interest by creating authors. Few will make good, even after study, and most of them will stop studying and blame you. VARIOUS SCHEMES 249 Give away a baby. Advertise that on a certain day, well in advance, you will give a baby to a person to be decided upon. Make a big display of the fact in your advertisements. If no one else does, get some friend of yours to write the papers denouncing the inhu- manity of the act. Let them speculate on the ultimate fate of so unfortunate a child. Write the sort of letter that will coax others to come in on the same lines. Offer a brief reply over your own signature to the effect that the baby will not mind and its mother is perfectly indifferent. Assume an injured innocence tone as though giving babies away has been a regular feature with you and you are surprised that any should object. Some may see a joke coming, but many will stay wrought up. If you can have police interference, so much the better. Come out on the stage and let a policeman rise in the audience and threaten you with arrest. Make a speech in your own defense and then bring on the baby — a suckling pig dressed in long clothes. A wedding on the stage is a time honored device because most people like to watch others getting into trouble. Some theatres have a standing offer of five or ten dollars to any couple willing to be married on the stage any Friday night. This is good only for the lesser houses. It cheapens the tone of the theatre, but the motion-pictured wedding of some well known couple is another matter entirely and where a camera is available it can be worked very nicely. Pie-eating contests, melon-eating contests and kin- dred entertainment are sometimes found to work well, but it will not be of permanent advantage in the long run. You will get your patrons demanding a new idea each evening. Starting in with Friday night you will perhaps run an amateur night. Finding that it draws some business you may bolster Thursday with a rag time contest and so on until you reach a point where the greatest novelty you can offer will be a straight showing of pictures. Use schemes away from your house, and make them schemes that will 250 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING attract general interest. Within your house keep the entertainment dignified and in harmony with the bet- ter class of pictures. Do not clown your program with imitation amateurs, battles royal or anything of that sort. Run a picture theatre and run pictures in that theatre. If you run the right sort of pictures and advertise them attractively, you will need nothing more than an appeal to local interest now and then. There is no permanent advantage in clap trap. It may pay for a moment, but it will run the house down, and presently you will find that the novelty hunters have driven away your picture loving clientele and that the intruders have lost interest as well and are staying away because vour ideas are no longer novel. CHAPTER XXVII. ADVERTISING SPECIAL SEASONS The tickler — getting suggestions — St. Valentine's — Lincoln and Washington — Fourth of July — Christmas matinees — Christmas ticket books — larming local celebrations. Every Exhibitor should be alert to take advantage of the local and national holidays. It is not possible to sit down about December 20th and decide what you are going to do for Christmas. It should already have been done and you should be worrying about St. Val- entine's Day and the Lincoln and Washington birth- days. You need a tickler and a file as suggested in an earlier chapter. The best tickler is either a ten-cent calendar of the sort that comes with a week to the page and about three lines to each day or else a book of the same sort. These will be out in November or early Decern- ADVERTISING SPECIAL SEASONS 251 ber. As soon as you get it enter up all of the holi- days and local celebrations you can think of. At least these fixed dates should be entered : St. Val- entine's, Lincoln's and Washington's Birthdays, St. Patrick's, Memorial Day, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and next New Years. St. Valentine's Day comes on February 14th. Mark the date January 14th. Mark it again the 21st. and put a question mark after it. If you forget the first week you'll remember the second. Do the same with the other days. Use the calendar as a general re- minder of things to be done, but make these entries in red ink and the others in black. Then get after the local celebrations. Get these all down. Through the year you'll run across others. Mothers' Day, the day when we are all supposed to eat an apple, an orange or a handful of raisins. Get them all down on the calendar and make copy of them. The more local the celebration, the better. Get a set of large envelopes or one of those paper cabinets of pasteboard covered with black cloth and containing a dozen drawers. You will need two, but if the expense is too great you can do precisely as well with old boxes of uniform size and a place to put them. Have one box for each affair and put into this every- thing that in any way relates to the subject. Along about Christmas you will find in your local papers, the magazines and the trade papers a lot of sugges- tions for Christmas lines. These will generally come too late to be used this year, so cut them out and file them away in your Christmas box. Perhaps it is some- thing you can turn inside out and use for the Fourth of July in its new form. Put it away in both boxes. All through the year be just as watchful for Christ- mas stufif as you are for all of the other celebrations and let nothing get by you. Soon your calendar tells you that Lincoln's Birth- 252 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING day is February 12th, and that two days later St. Val- entine'si comes. Look in the Lincohi box. There is a suggestion that you let the boys declaim the Gettys- burg address; a prize to be given to the boy who does it best, according to the audience. Let one boy be selected from each school or school class. That means a talk with the teachers and a note to the principal. Another note tells you that you have not had the V.itagraph film of the same subject. That is your cue to write your exchange. Another note gives the ad- dress of a firm making tiny statuettes of Lincoln and selling them at a price that will make it possible to give these as souvenirs. There are any quantity of catchlines, Lincoln stories, titles of films showing Lincoln, with the name of the company and date of release, and perhaps a cut you've picked up somewhere. Instead of having to hustle to find something, you have it all there at hand as the result of our leisurely work through the year. Perhaps the Valentine box shows you a prose poem from a comic paper set in the shape of a heart and pinned to this is a synopsis of a charming film romance that would fit nicel}^ You write the exchange and find that you can have the reel on the proper day, so you paste the synopsis on a sheet of paper, pin the poem to it and mark "set like this, three inches wide." Add a note to the foreman that he can take his time and give it to you any time in the next two weeks. Meantime you are looking up some small heart- shaped seals of gummed red paper. Your stationer does not keep them, but you tell him where they can be had, in preference to sending your order direct. You also arrange for some valentine envelopes in bulk, get some card stock and are ready with special adver- tising for your mail list. The printer has his copy so far in advance that the work can be done carefully and when some man is not busy. The envelopes can be addressed without hurr}^ and you have plenty of other material with which to prepare your copy well in advance. ADVERTISING SPECIAL SEASONS 253 Next week you worry about Washington. You find that last year some brother Exhibitor gave prizes for the best essays on Washington. You give the pupils two weeks' notice of your own intention, arrange for a judge and buy some bunting and a print of the patriot with which to decorate the box in which the prize win- ners will sit. You have not been put to the least bother, you have your plans all made without resort to the telegraph to save time. You have only to use it once to realize what a tremendous aid it is. Do not put in a few clippings and feel that you have enough. Put in everything you can find and feel that you never can have enough. Think of ideas of your own to supplement the ideas of others. See if you cannot combine two old ideas into one new one. Make much of small affairs. Perhaps your state has an Arbor Day. Perhaps it is not much observed. Put it on the map again. See the editor and get him to write an article. Start it off, perhaps, with a letter to the paper, to which editorial comment may be added. Then, in your advertisements, address a note to the parents. Ask them to interest the kiddies. An- nounce that you will give ten dollars in three prizes to the registered trees that thrive the best in the com- ing year. If there is a nursery in your town or near you, offer to give them some free slide advertising if they will sell single trees at quantity prices. Get the school principal to hold a celebration in the theatre. If he will not, then hold your own after school hours. Get some minister or lawyer to make a speech. Get some educational stuff showing the logging industry and the big trees of California. Write the Department of Agriculture and the State Forrester, if there is one. They can give you ma- terial and perhaps provide or suggest a speaker. Make a little speech yourself. Tell what trees mean to the country. Ask the children who have planted trees to raise their hands. Then tell them to register the trees as they go out. At the door have blanks and pen and ink or pencil. A blank is suggested in Fig- 254 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Lire 30. This has a stub which is torn off and kept by the child. The stub and ticket are numbered in dupHcate and consecutively. The stub is retained by the child and the ticket is handed in. Have these tickets checked up within a week. Next year, about a week before the celebration, have some competent person look up the trees and prepare a list of the win- ners. Some of the children will forget and let the trees die, but most of them will be watched. Those that are will be permanent advertisements. No No Arbor Arbor Day Day Manager, Gem Theatre: 1915 I have this day planted a tree at Gem Theatre GIVE LOCATION OF TREE CLEARLY Name Address Figure 90. — Arbor Day Registration. Make photographs of some of the best trees and show these in slides at the anniversary and do this each year for a time. Perhaps your town has or should have some purely local celebration. What was the date of its founding? What national character was born or lived there? When was it incorporated? Get the board of trade interested. Make it something more than your own cele- bration. Let the whole town in on it. If it is in the summer have a field day. If it is winter handle an ADVERTISING SPECIAL SEASONS 255 indoor celebration. You can do something to draw the country people into town and make money and get great credit at the asme time, as well as keeping out all the store keepers. The Lenten season should remind you of things that will help business along in Lent, perhaps a series of subjects specially approved by the local ministers. You can make the theatre a place of religious instruc- tion instead of a place of entertainment at least one day a week with problem or sermon stories that are interestingly prepared, perhaps the Kalem Ten Com- mandments, the Gaumont petitions of the Lord's Prayer or similar material. For Holy Week there are several vesions of the Passion Play, but do not do as some Exhibitos have done in the past, and seek to lighten these with the broadest kind of farce comedy. For Memorial Day offer flags to be worn or car- ried, get some patriotic or G. A. R. films and perhaps hold exercises.. For the Fourth of July you can have fire crackers or roman candles for advertising matter. The former are merely advertisements rolled small and provided with a string fuse, then wrapped in red paper. The roman candles are a little more touble. Provide six- inch lengths of half-inch dowel, soaked in oil and wiped off, and strips of any cheap wrapping paper five by ten inches. Paste these with boiled flour paste, made rather thick, and roll them into cyhnders on the dowel. The oil prevents the paste adhering, and if the cylinder has not been tightly rolled the dowel can be slipped out. Do not pile them too high on one another or they will flatten out. When they are dry slip small advertisements into the tubes and covei v^ith cheap covered news. It sounds like a lot of trouble, but four or five boys working under the super- vision of an older person can make several hundred tubes in an afternoon and fill and wrap them in another. They are enough of a novelty to be worth the small trouble. 256 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Souvenirs for Thanksgiving will quickly suggest themselves, but there is the widest range offered around Christmas time and this is a bad period in that busi- ness will be hurt by the Christmas shopping. Establish a branch post office to Santa Claus Land with one of the Claus boys or Mrs. Claus in charge. Let the kiddies write to Santa and tell their wants, giving their name and address, that there may be no mistake. Then address these to the mothers of the children, enclosing a really handsome Christmas card to be added to the otheii gifts. If you cannot find room for a branch office you can at least set up a mail box and announce that reindeer collections are made each night. FREE MATINEE FOB CHrLDBEN CHBIST3IAS In accordance with our usual custom of remembering the chil- dren on Xmas we will this year vary from our former system of giving candy, and will give a Free Matinee for all children under 12 years of age, provided they call and get their Free Admission tickets before that day. They will be on distribution at the box office on Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 23 and 24, and at no other time. None will be given away on Christmas Day. These Free tickets must be secured in advance. They are not good for admission any other day or evening. Figure 91. — Christmas Matinee Announcement. The Christmas matinee is a good idea. This is a free morning performance with all comedies or light but spirited dramas, not much shooting, but plenty of action. One big-hearted Exhibitor g-ives a special per- formance at 11 o'clock on Christmas Day for the chil- dren of the poor. No admissions are required and each child is given a simple toy and some candy on leaving. Another Exhibitor gives a series of matinees the week before Christmas, the admission to which is some candy, an orange or anything that may be given the less fortunate children. Admission to the per- formance for poor children may be by tickets distrib- uted through the police or the aid societies. Admis- sion to the complimentary matinee should be by ticket, ADVERTISING SPECIAL SEASONS 257 and N. E. Chaney shrewdly requires the tickets to be applied for in advance. The advantage of having the children apply in person on days v^hen they are prob- ably not in school is obvious. His announcement forms Figure 91. Business will be good, "after Christmas," but that will not pay for current expenses, and it is a good plan to go after business in the dull time, and at least borrow from the coming boom. Get after the holiday This solves the present problem ! What would be more highly prized for Christmas than a Vaudette Coupon Ticket Book We have them for fifty cents, one and two dollars Ask Santa Claus to bring yon a Coupon Book of Vaudette Tickets Figure 92. — ^Card (upper) and Slide (lower) for Coupon Tickets. business by offering ticket books for presents. Start in early with a card that reads as in Figure 93. A slide for the screen is included in the same figure. They are to be worked together, the card to parents and others and the slide to reach the children direct. Get after the merchants and employers of labor with a form letter, but personally written, that reads : Let us solve your problem for you. You want to give your employees a present, and each year you have to study up something that will be suitable for all, because you cannot "play favorites-" Here is 258 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING something that will appeal to all from the gray haired old bookkeeper to the littliest office boy: A book of coupon tickets for the Vaudette Theutre. Six admis- sion; tickets, good except on feature nights, for fifty cents. Twelve admissions for one dollar or twenty- five in the two-dollar book. The two-dollar books look like five dollars at least, and will be as highly valued. In lots of twenty-five or more we will quote you special prices and put your imprint on the books. Get up an attractive cover and have extra front covers printed that you may send out as samples. Use some such wording as in Figure 93. Get a pretty Not only a Merry Christmas But twenty-five happy visits to Pleasureland From Figure 93. — -Imprint for Christmas Gift Books. holiday border, but be wary of the Christmas decora- tors, not many of which are in good taste. Get out something that looks all it costs. Use bond paper and have but a single ticket to a sheet instead of a slim book with three to six meagre coupons to the page. Have the sheets an inch and a half by three and a half inches, the tickets only three inches long with perforating rule to permit them to be torn out. Then, when there is a request to show the books, bring out the set. The two-dollar book will then look so much fatter and better than the dollar book that you can influence a sale for the higher price because it looks like so much more money. In addition to the merchants and employers, get after the music teachers, and the Sunday Schools. ADVERTISING SPECIAL SEASONS 259 Offer the merchant a special price on books of ten tickets, good at matinees only, to be given his cus- tomers instead of the inevitable calendar. Arrange to run his advertisement on the back if he will buy a hundred or more. Limit the general tickets to three months and the special merchants's tickets to two months. The books of twenty-five tickets should have a longer life. All tickets should expressly and explicitly state that they are not good for feature performances at advanced prices without payment of the difference, or make it two tickets for the features. Whether you have a downtown or a neighborhood house make an effort to get some of the shopping money. Boom the house as a cure for that tired feel- ing. Use something like the copy in Figure 94. Use it in your advertisements and as a special card or circular. Start in in the latter part of November and run it right through to Christmas eve. It may make some business for you that would not otherwise be available and many may thank you for the suggestion. Early Christmas Shopping Late No matter whether you do your Christmas Shopping early or late, it is bound to be fatiguing. You must suit so many varied tastes and plan so hard to make your appropriation go as far as possible that, pleasant as the duty is, it is also an ordeal that is dreaded Shop in the morning before the stores are crowded. Then drop into the comfortable restful atmosphere of the Gem and let your tense nerves relax under the influence of good music, good pictures and quiet You'll go out feeling fine and fit It is a mental tonic that is good the year round, but that is especially appreciated at the busy Christmas time. Figure 94. — Advertisement to Christmas shoppers. One season that is peculiarly local is the annivers- ary. Some Exhibitors have two or three a year, but this is a bad habit to get into. One is best and cer- tainly not more than two should be used. Other names should be found for the others. Generally the anniversary takes the form of a gala week. The bills are strengthened and perhaps the prices are raised. The front of the house is dressed 260 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING vwith bunting and the interior is decorated, flags and potted plants being used. There may be a more or less elaborate souvenir; perhaps an unsunally attrac- tive program with an historical sketch of the house and a half tone of the front or interior. This is the cut and dried routine. It works well and it makes money for the Exhibitor and everyone is pleased, but more may be done to emphasize the permanency of the house, even though . not so much money may be made. One Exhibitor, on his first anniversary, advertised for photographs of all children born the same week the house came into being. Where the birth rate is small, the month may be used instead, but it is well not to get too many babies. The pictures served as the foundation for a souvenir booklet, cuts being made of all the kiddies, and when the photographs were returned to the parents a good quality baby spoon accompanied each. Each year since then the kiddies have been photographed to show their growth as com- pared with the latest and finest baby of them all — the house itself. The scheme is varied, one year a group oicture being made and another lantern slides take the place of cuts, but always there is this feature of cele- bration and a small gift to the children. Being done in a small town the feature attracts attention out of all proportion to the cost. One year a neighborhood manager begged all of his regular patrons to be sure and come to the exact anniversary night. That night he gave the ticket seller and the doorman box seats to see the show, stood on door himself and made all welcome when they tried to spend their money. The next year the ticket seller was on duty and busy, but souvenirs that cost a large part of the admission money, were given without previous announcement. The Ex- hibitor knew that a lot of persons who did not belong would try to get in free, and these were discouraged by the fact that admission was not free. At another house medals were given in the form ADVERTISING SPECIAL SEASONS 261 of pocket pieces with the promise tliat they would be accepted for admission a year later. Few of the coins were presented for redemption, but many were shown with the statement that money could not buy the lucky piece. These were passed in and permitted to retain the coin as well. All of the year these tokens had been working and their work has not yet been finished. One good plan is to issue a coupon ticket good for the entire week. These are sold for the price of four or five admissions. This ensures crowded houses, no matter what the weather, and cuts down the crowd around the window, offering less discourage- ment to those who feel that a crowd at the box office means no seats inside. The tickets should be sold the previous weel<. One day out of anniversary week is the actual an- niversary of the opening and this should be specially marked by souvenir or otherwise and if possible by a few very brief speeches, not long enough to be tiresome, and not long enough to seriously inter- rupt the performance. Perhaps the orchestra can be augumented for this occasion and a very extra fea- ture given at a plain feature price. The underlying idea of the whole thing should be good will and thanksgiving rather than money grab- bing; for 'the anniversary that is made the occasion for raised prices and nothing else does the house but little good, no matter what the takings for the week. Make it an occasion for good will, not graft, and the anniversary will serve its best purpose. 262 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING CHAPTER XXVIII. HANDLING SPECIALS AND SERIALS Sniping — course tickets — free showings — special clubs — building up a failure. Were all lilm subjects of equal value to the Exhibitor, the advertising of films would become a routine and per- functory matter, but so long as films shall vary in length, importance and rental values, it will be necessary to work harder for the most costly subjects and rouse greater interest among the patrons to get their business for those days of showing. Time was when a two-part story was a feature and the three-part story was nearly a sensation. The mere fact that the story was considered to be worth two or three times the usual length was a sufficient commenda- tion. In those days the problem was reasonably simple and cared for itself, the only important question being the state of the weather. This was solved by a midwest Exhibitor who sold tickets at a reduction for the advance sale and at a larger price if purchased the night of show- ing. By this means he had the money in the bank in advance and could write his rental check with a laugh no matter how hard it might rain or snow. Later the course ticket was adopted for the showing of serials and the general advance sale has become more common. The advance ticket is generally a hard stock, good enough to last through the run of the series, and is printed with boxed in numbers at the bottom ; one of these being punched, in its regular order, for each showing. It is thoughtful to enclose these in a stout manila envelope to protect them. This envelope may be HANDLING SPECIALS AND SERIALS 263 supplied by the house advertising or the front may be sold and the back retained by the house or both sides may be sold for more than the cost of the envelopes. There should be a contract as to the use of the ticket and a set of lines on the back for the name and address of the purchaser for safeguard in the event of loss. The names and addresses should be listed by the theatre and a new ticket should be issued should one become lost, the old ticket being taken tip at the door should it be presented. It is best to have a serial number stamped on the ticket for the use of the doorman and this serial number should be entered with the name and address. It is not necessary to start with number one or adhere to a consecutive numbering, but do not run too high or skip too many numbers. Figure 95 shows a good form of ticket. If the ticket is good for the night perform- ance it should be so stated instead. MAPLEWOOD THEATRE SOMEWHERE, N. Y. CouRSETicKET ^^^ HORRORS OF HENRY In consideration of the reduced price at which this ticket is sold, it is expressly understood and agreed by the purchaser that this shall be good only at the Matinee performances at the Maplewood Theatre for twelve consecutive Thursdays, com- mencing Thursday, March 5th, and for no other times or performances. (Cut of signature) Manager. 1 2 3 4 S 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Figure 95.— Form of course ticket. Where seats are reserved it is necessary only to en- close the twelve tickets in an envelope or case. In their very nature they show themselves to be tickets good only for a certain performance. If there are two shows 264 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING nightly use different colors and state in large type the hour at which the performance commences for which this ticket is available. In handling a serial or any large feature it is well to work for an advance sale as far ahead as possible, not alone because the patrons' attendance will be secured for the series, but because there will be less tendency to save money for the ticket purchase. With the ticket paid for, there will be a more liberal investment in amusements on other nights ; a trait of human nature it is well to note and take advantage of. But to sell course tickets you will first need to start your campaign of publicity. As soon as you learn of a serial that you intend to use, make your contract. Do not advertise first and then obtain a contract. Make certain that you and not your competitior will have the attraction. As soon as the contract is secured begin to snipe. Get out a strip that reads merely "The Horrors of Henry." Run the same thing on a slide. Use it after each subject. If people ask you about it, smile know- ingly and beg them to wait. You are not permitted to tell— yet. Get posted on some of the features of the early reels and snipe these on screen and street. Hint at the hor- rors. Ask: Did the snakes bite Henry? Why did Henry kill Mordaunt? Was Henry to blame for Ruth's capture? How did Henry escape the Fatal Five? Get as many more of these as you can use. Put them on the screen to connect your house with the street work. After a few days of sniping, connect your house more definitely with the title. Get some paper if it is ready and strip it "Coming Soon." Get some in the shop windows. Put some on the boards, but do not have too much in the lobby ; not more than a couple of one-sheets or a three. If you run an information bulletin of the sort described in Chapter III, run in a new item each day. Have a small card lettered with the title and pin HANDLING SPECIALS AND SERIALS 265 all notes below this. Date each bulletin and have four or five always on view once you are started, removing the oldest to make room for the new. If you stand in well with the papers get them to run a few news items. Do not attempt to connect the house with the story. Let it come as news. Your own press work and readers will come later on. Get something like this : New York, June 30. — The Blower Film Co. denies the report that one of its leading men, Howard Jennison, was killed while doing a scene for their new serial, "The Horrors of Henry." Mr. Jennison was badly bruised in a fall from a cliff while doing the knife duel in the first instalment, but checked his decent by clutching at shrubs and tree trunks. Camera men waiting to take the later scene, managed to catch the fall and this wll be used in place of the less effective planned scene. If a line is added saying that the picture will be seen at your house, people will cry that it is a fake. Since they know that you have the serial, they will supply this information of their own knowledge. It will be more valuable if done in this way. Now begin to give the full facts and in the lobby erect a sign reading as in Figure 96. This should be about eight to ten days from the start of the campaign. You cannot run too long on hints or interest will wane. Give full information in your program, by form letter or whatever means you think will be more direct. Have your tickets all ready for the sale and have your house people posted as to the picture. Make each one read every detail that they may talk intelligently and inter- estingly to the patron who asks them about it. Have your registration sheets ready for the listing of names Tell the girl to sell consecutive numbers where they are sold together or where two purchasers are in the lobby at the same time, but to skip two or three numbers be- fore the next sale. Later on, when the sale grows healthy, you can take up these skipped numbers if your sheet has been properly kept, but meantime a comparison of numbers will suggest a large sale and bring no joy to an inquisitive competitor. 266 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING If the sale languishes, work your mailinig list. You have a list of purchasers. Mark these off and write the others along these lines : We note you have not yet purchased your course tickets for "The Horrors of Henry." These are now on sale at the box office or will be mailed you on re- ceipt of remittance. The course of twelve two-act in- stallments will be sold for one dollar for unreserved seats at the matinee and two dollars for the evening per- formances. For the reserved seats the charge will be two and three dollars, respectively, and you ahvays have the seat you prefer. In response to the demands of our patrons, seats have already been put on sale for The Horrors of Henry The sensational twelve-part serial (each instalment of two acts complete in itself) made by the Blower Company, with Howard Jennison and Grace Munroe in the leading characters. This newest and most sensational hit will be presented here every hursday. commencing March 5th. Prices Matinee Evening Reserved, $2 Reserved, $3 Unreserved, $1 Unreserved, $2 Our registration system GUARANTEES you against loss of the tickets. Ask about it. Figure 96. — Advertisement of course ticket sale. Enclose with this a Herald or any other advertising matter now supplied by the company, and be alert to get the hints the house bulletin or special instructions offer. Play up the social side. Get the young people to form Henry clubs. Suggest that if they get ten or more seats in a block you'll make a still further reduction. Point out what fun it will be to all to be together in the same seats each week. They can take in the first night show and then adjourn to the home of one of the members to finish off the evening, taking the members in rotation. HANDLING SPECIALS AND SERIALS 267 If you give two showings, this will help to fill the early house, for they will want to get started early on the second section of the fun. Provide a ribbon or button badge. If you can form many clubs get a different badge for each, or at least a different color. Just before the serial comes to a conclusion, you can suggest that they keep the club going for the regular performances, promising to make a similar reduction. By the end of the week or the commencement of the third you should have plenty of paper on the boards. Get the press sheet and work it over to suit your own needs. Work street schemes to rouse interest, adopting where possible some feature of the film story. Dis- tribute heralds, post cards and scenes of the play. Get increasingly active as the time for the first show- ing draws near. If there is a church fair on or some fraternal organization has an entertainment, donate a pair of season tickets. Lose your dog and advertise for him. Offer a big reward and make it palpably a joke. Use copy something like that in Figure 97. $250 Reward r,OST — A brindled daschund, five feet long and seven inches high. Intelligent and affectionate disposition and a fondness for children and soup bones. $250 Reward will be paid to anyone returning him to the undersigned. In ad- dition the finder will be given one reserved seat course ticket to "The Horrors of Henry" for every foot of dog returned. He shrinks from water, so catch him before it rains or he'll shrink a couple of tickets on you. His distinguishing mark is that two back teeth are missing. Let him bite you and examine the marks. No questions asked. I will be up all night, waiting. JOHN DOUGH, Maplewood theatre. Figure 97. — Dodger copy for lost dog. Have several thousand of these printed up and get them all over town. The absolute craziness of the copy will make talk where an argument would not get home. 268 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING For the opening show throw the house open free. Run nothing but the Henry reels, over and over. If you do not want to lose the first money (and it may hurt the course tickets) have a special press view before the opening. In a small town you can go to the station to meet the reels with a decorated automobile and a brass band. Tell people by means of signs to come and see the first reel and you'll give them their money back if they do not want to see the second. After the first reel is run make a two-minute speech and tell what the series is going to be without giving away the story. Then announce that any person who wishes may go to the office and obtain his entrance fee. No one probably will, because they wanted to come or they would not be there, but there is something large and generous in the offer and it will impress a sense of your sincerity. MAPLEWOOD THEATRE JOHN DOUGH. Manager We want to know just what you think of our new feature. Will you be so good as to state your opinion on this card and • hand to any liouse employee as you pass out. Name Address Figure 98. — ^Criticism card for special. At each performance the opening day distribute cards to the patrons as they enter. These may be about four by six and printed up as in Figure 98. If many come back to you, run a few of the best and a few from 'the best known people in an advertisement.' HANDLING SPECIALS AND SERIALS 269 If the series hangs fire, as sometimes they will, get busier still. Use schemes described in earlier chapters, but do not do anything that will give the appearance of trying to bolster up a failure. Take the implied attitude that you are trying to build up on your success. Do not, if the serial really is bad, tell how, great it is, for you will be laughed at and not believed. Tell how much better and stronger the succeeding parts will be. Try and keep them loyal. If you see clearly that you can- not save the film try and cancel, admit error and return the money paid for the tickets less that portion used. Then your patrons will be ready to believe you another time. But if you have something that really is good and is handicapped by a poor start, fight tooth and nail. Make them stick until your judgment has been vindicated. More than one film has been built up after the first sec- tions were released. MAPLEWOOD THEATRE SOMEWHERE N. Y. I am a member of accordingly: the order checked. Please credit my vote A. F. & K. of C Charity \. M. Circle B. K. O. P. O. E. P. E. S. I. O. O. F. Arcanum Red Men [Cr Check the society you wish to vote for Figure 99. — Voting ticket.- Adapt the school vote to the situation and offer a suitable prize to the organization having the most mem- bers in the house. Let each patron be given a vote on entering, arranged as in Figure 99. But with all local orders. Let these be voted on leaving and announce the vote the next day, sending a check to the secretary of the winning organization and letters to the others ex- pressing the hope that they will be more fortunate next time. 270 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Post the results. If it is a second or third wioning mark it so and nurse the club pride along. The prize may be small but the glory will be great. Keep your advertising on the street. Do not merely advertise the day of the performance. Get the wagon or other attractor out the day before or two days before. Don't give them a chance to forget. If the attraction is poor but is being bolstered up, say so frankly. Admit that a change was needed and state that this is being made. At least one big serial was partly saved by work done after a number of instalments had been released, and another was turned into a winner after the tenth episode. If the attraction carries some unknown star, make the player known — and liked. Use plenty of post cards. Get the paper to print a biographical sketch. Use the mailing list and the screen. If he is working for you he must be good, so help him to succeed just as earnestly as though he were a star under your personal manage- ment. It is not so much what you do as the way you do it that counts. Get a special stage setting used only for the series. If you cannot afford a setting, get some new draperies or some potted plants or some flowers or mark the stage in any way so as to set it apart as a special night. Watch to see where you can work an effect. Perhaps a bugle call, or a crash, at some vital moment will "make" the instalment. Perhaps you need a violin solo or a mixed or male quartette. You must make this seriel help you sell the next, so you need to make it as good as you can. Do the same thing for your special features that are complete. If the release is based on a book, work the book scheme. If it is standard literature get signs up in the public libraries. Most librarians will permit a sign to be posted on the bulletin board. Then run a slide giving the library number and tell that it may be had. Public schools may be queried. Perhaps an essay con- test may be run (though if too many essay contests are tried pupils and teachers will go on strike). The clip- HANDLING SPECIALS AND SERIALS 271 ping from a Montgomery circular shown in Figure 100 will give a suggestion as how best to work the idea. "BIP VAN WINKLE" PRIZE ESSAY CONTEST At the suggestion of the Public Library a Prize Essay Contest on "Rip Van Winkle" has been arranged. 1st Prize: A season pass good for two persons every Tues- day at "The Grand." 2nd Prize. A season pass good for one person every Thurs- day at "The Grand." Contest open to everyone. Essay to be of 1,000 words. Contest closes September 10. Any one of the following topics may be chosen as the subject for your essay: The Catskill Mountains and their Legends. Great Actors who have Played "Rip Van Winkle.' The Customs of the People in Rip's Village. American History while Rip Van Winkle Slept. Washington Irving and his Work. At the Public Library may be consulted copies of "Rip Van Winkle," histories, biographies and other works on these subjects. These books will be reserved at the Library during the Contest, so that all contestants will have an equal chance to consult them. Three well-known business men will be the judges. Originality and interest will be the basis in judging the papers. Write on one side of the paper. Do not sign your name to the essay, but enclose it in a sealed envelope, writing your name in the corner of the envelope. The names of contestants will not be known to the judges. Hand essays in Grand theatre ticket office. Figure 100. — Model for prize essay announcement. On a special, run only once, you cannot afford to spend as much money, time or space on it as you can give to a serial that will repeat for from ten to twenty weeks, but you should do what you can afford to do with the same earnestness that you give the best. If a subject is much above the average and your serial is well in hand, let that drop a little to circus the new feature, but do not neglect it. Many Exhibitors have had trouble with their patrons over the increased prices it is necessary to charge for specials and serials. Sometimes it is merely that the patrons think that the price is too high and that the at- traction could be offered for less. In such a case several Exhibitors have called in a committee of business men, have let them audit the bills and have demonstrated clearly that the increased price is necessary if the highest grade features are to be shown. 272 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Then, with these facts certified to, the Exhibitor has gone before his patrons with a request for their decision as to whether they were willing to pay higher prices for better goods or preferred standard features at lower ad- missions. It has worked both ways. Sometimes the patrons are not yet ready for the better grade shows and sometimes, being convinced that the price is fair, they are willing to pay it. In either event the Exhibitor has had a clear understanding with his patrons and confi- dence has been restored. Later on, perhaps, the ques- tion can be reopened with the decision in favor of the big features. All houses must come to it in time, for at least one night a week, for even in the smaller towns there are enough willing to pay the higher price for an occasional treat even where they cannot afford the best regularly. Sometimes it is merelv a question of slowly educating the patrons to an appreciation of the fact that all film does not cost the same and all is not equally good. CHAPTER XXIX. SUMMER ADVERTISING Dressing the house and lobby — catchllnes — lobby attractors — airdome hints — the automobile trade. Summer advertising is the usual advertising with a special effort made to offset the effects of the heat on the business by persuading the patron and the passer by that your house is cooler than any other place in town. If you have an airdome you do not need to worry much. If you are one of those in the favor of the gods, and have two machines and an airdome beside the house, you need worry still less for then you may have your matinee business as well as your evening perform- SUMMER ADVERTISING 273 ance, but if you have only an indoor house, there is much you can do to make business. Get ready for your spring suit as soon as you get out the old panama and send it to the cleaners. Begin with your lobby first. If your box office has velvet hangings take them down and put up cool looking muslin instead. Have two or more sets and pay laundry bills to keep clean and inviting. Use either white or white with a light figure, but use muslin in preference to col- ored china silk or even white. Somehow white china silk in a box office, especially if the latter is painted white, suggests a child's hearse rather than a place of amusement. Get rid of all reds and reddish yellows in your color scheme. Paint over with white or cover up in some way. It looks inviting in winter, but not during the summer months. Some Exhibitors will not even use warm colored bills in their lobbies in the summer. If you have your people uniformed, put them into gray coats and white ducks. See that they have two or more pairs of trousers and know where the laundry is. Insist that they look fresh and cool. Put your box office woman into white with a light blue or soft colored tie instead of red or black. If she has flufTy hair put a fan where the indirect draft will blow it about, not violently, but lightly. Get her to wear light ties that will blow about, too. Tell the entire staff that you'll fire the first person who uses a palm leaf fan or admits that it is a hot day. Put fans to work to avoid the first. For the second, a quiet "We never notice it here," in response to the usual "Is it hot enough for you," will have a wonderful moral effect. Have an electric fan near the entrance on the inside so that the light draperies will blow out and the patron I'eceive an impression of coolness immediately on his entrance. Put a fan in the lobby and over it a sign reading: "Stand here and get cool or come inside and stay cool." It will be worth the current cost. Take the brass signs out of the lobby. Replace them 274 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING with frames of wood painted white and sprinkled with pounded mica or glass before the paint is fully dry. Per- haps you can get some of the glass icicles they use on Christmas trees. You will probably not be permitted to use cotton batting snow, but perhaps asbestos wool can be used if you can get some white enough, though snow is apt to get dusty too quickly. If your lobby is deep have a rockwork in the corner with a waterfall. Light it up with blue and light pink and green bulbs, but no deep reds or greens. The cool splash of water is inviting in the extreme. Tie streamers of blue and white and pink baby ribbon to the fans in the lobby to get motion. Do not use small lengths up at least eighteen-inch lengths. Below the fans put such signs as "There is a fan like this to every twenty patrons. Come in and get your share. Get other signs such as: Freezing is an easy death; come in. Trips to the North Pole, ten cents. Apply inside. Don't stand and swelter. Sit inside and freeze. Cold waves ten cents each. It isn't hot — (and in smaller type) inside. Frostbites for souvenirs. If we couldn't keep our theatre cool — We wouldn't keep it open. If it's hot at home, come here. You'll work better tomorrow. This is the snow storm center. Cool as a cave or a cake of ice. Use almost anything rather than the "Twenty de- grees cooler inside." Eighty per cent, of the summer theatres use this and it becomes so commonplace that people, seeing it, give no heed. They are more apt to mark the absence of the sign than its presence. Put in one of those penny-in-the-slot mineral water fountains, close to the street. If you are in a busy neighborhood the machine will at least break even. Or supply free ice water, with a coin slot machine for paper SUMMER ADVERTISING 275 cups. See that the cups are thrown away after being used once. Have a receptacle alongside into which they may be put. Do not use a waste basket, but something with a hole in the cover large enough to let the cup go through. If a house employee has to put a cup into the barrel, let him crush it as he does so, a silent anticipation of the suggestion that perhaps the cups are used re- peatedly. Get two large spirit thermometers of the sort dis- tributed by advertisers to grocery stores. Have them both alike. Crack the bulb in one and let the spirit run out. Run a colored straw or wire into the tube to about sixty degrees. Mould a new bulb from sealing wax and replace the metal guard. Do not fix the other. Put both on the street, lettering one "Here," and the other "Inside temperature. Come in and see for yourself." Do not permit your lobby to become crowded. Just as you remove heavy rugs and hangings for the summer, remove an excess of frames and boards. Keep the lobby clear and open, suggesting the breeziness of space. Inside the house use light hangings. Screen out the sunlight in such a way that the air may enter. Dress the ushers in white and grey. Get slip covers for the seats if you can afford them. If the walls are dark do not paint them over, but hang up light draperies. It is not necessary that the walls should be dark to show a good picture. No matter how perfect your ventilating system, use some small fans, if for no other reason than the moral effect. If your exit opens into the lobby have one fan to throw a current of air into the faces of those who approach and another, rather lower down, to blow through the door when it opens. If you use colored lights for decoration, replace the hot reds and greens with cool shades of pink and blue and light green. Scent the air to kill the dead, dusty odor of the hot streets. Do not pump it out with an atomizer. Use lilac or violet and get the effect by soak- ing a clotli with the perfume and hanging it in front of the intake fan. Yon do not want a pronounced smell, but just the suggestion of an odor like wind blowing over 276 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING a rose garden. In winter time the use of perfumes is to be discouraged as suggesting that you are trying to cover up something worse, but in summer it is not only permis- sible but wise to freshen the burnt air with just the hint of a perfume. In your newspaper advertising keep away from the suggestions of heat. A cut of a polar bear is better than a line "It's hot." The reader will see the line, groan, agree and look for more pleasant reading, but it is about the time of year that he is interested in polar bears. Frank Montgomery used the advertisement in Figure 101 as part of his first season's campaign in Jacksonville. Of course, there is nothing to prevent collusion, but a sea- son pass generally runs a month and you can afford to give out a lot the first season. 24 Fans— Count Them 24 Now here's a proposition you can't beat. This applies to my lady patrons only. Any afternoon you are in my house look around and see how many ladies are using fans. If you can count six fanning themselves, call the attention of the doorman to this fact. He will at once be seen leaving the theatre. On his return he will hand you and each of the six ladies a season pass to the Grand. Figure 101. — A summer advertisement. Another scheme is to announce that if a patron needs special attention you'll detail an usher to fan the suf- ferer. If some joker decides that he needs to be fanned, tell ofif an usher to fan him. Do not argue or protest. Turn the tables on him and the laugh that comes will be good for a line in the paper, particularly if you know the joker's name. Or dress a small black boy in Oriental costume and provide him with a feather fan. Let him stand or sit beside a sign that reads : "If you can find a seat inside that is not reached by a fan, we'll send the boy in to fan you." One clever fake was worked by a western Exhibitor who induced his orchestra to go on strike "because they were too cold." A night ofT for the men and no music SUMMER ADVERTISING 277 in the house, a splurging quarter page apology in the newspapers the next morning and a column story in- cluding interviews with the men who complained that they were unable to finger the keys or stop the strings with the numbed fingers brought a laugh that lasted all summer. In airdome work the best advertisement you can have is a pleased audience. Instead of hiding them behind a high board fence, that shuts off the breeze as well as the picture, rearrange your lot to throw from the rear, the screen being back of the box office. Then work the low fence and the sight of pleased spectators will attract others, and be worth all the lithographs you could put on the missing fence. To make a low fence boy-proof, have two fences one inside the other, about four feet apart. If you must have a high fence, do not plaster it too heavily with paper. Use the interchangeable boards spoken of in Chapter IX, have permanent signs reading "Today," "Tomorrow," and "Coming." Use movable boards that can be taken in where there is a driving rain or when you need to paste them with fresh paper. They will cost very little more and be a great convenience. In laying out your signs always have your "Today" boards nearest the entrance. Lay out the grounds as nicely as you can. Have a rockwork or a pair of them ; one either side of the screen but not too close. The suggestion will be powerful. You need use only enough water to keep the stones moist. Set in a sheet of ground glass and let the water trickle over that, using fixed or changing lights behind it. Unless some city regulation requires the space to be concreted or boarded, get some turf and flower beds, though slat runs should be used in the seat sections to keep feet ofif the damp ground. Paint the slats and keep them painted and they will not get watersoaked. Frame your screen in growing vines or get some of the trailing plants that bloom at night. This is all advertising just as the auditorium of an in- door house is advertising. Good paint and spar varnish 278 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING cost money, but if it becomes generally known that ten minutes after a storm your seats are dry, afternoon showers will not hurt your business. The seats may pay for themselves in a single night. No matter how clear the night, cover your benches with tarpaulin before the park is closed. Keep them covered until just before the gates open, then have them dusted thoroughly. Provide women in light dresses with a sheet of paper to sit on. Roller wrapping paper of proper width can be given, or paper towels. Your seats may be so clean that this it not needed, but it is a safer plan to give out the paper than to try to argue. Offer rush cushions if you can afford to. In a neighborhood park offer to check the cushions of the patrons. Provide a safe storage and a checking system that will permit them to be given out quickly, and put in charge a smart boy who by the end of the second week will know that the short, dumpy old lady with hair on her upper lip owns the red and blue cushion in 78 and the tall willowy blonde who always comes with the man with the curly hair wants the tan cushion in 36. Get the cushion out before the patron can present the check and there is the suggestion of welcome that clinches trade. It is important, particularly if you have good music, to keep the crowd outside the fence in motion. No one cares to push through a crowd of eager, but rather dirty kiddies, all of them striving to get as close as they can to fairvland. If there is a police force look to them for aid. If there is none, have a special officer appointed. Get a man who likes children and who hates to have to turn them away, but who realizes that he must. It is no sort of an advertisement to have a husky brute charging up and down the sidewalk, shouting and threatening. Serve ice water free and have plenty of it. If you can make an arrangement, possibly with the confectioner, have a booth for soft drinks and ices, but do not permit either drinks or water to be served in the seats. It dis- turbs other patrons and you'll have a lot of glasses broken. For the ice water use paper cups or have glasses washed in running water before being used a second time. Try to make the patrons more comfortable than is SUMMER ADVERTISING 279 strictly necessary. Summer attractions are few and most of the indoor houses are closed. Get after people right and you can get the two dollar stay at homes as well as the ten cent regulars. If you can give parking space or there is a garage near get after the automobile trade with something like Figure 102. You can get the addresses from the license list. If this is not possible, though generally it is, work with the garage. Send a card of admission for the recipient "and party," as in Figure 102. Get them started. If you park in the street, have a responsible man to look after the cars and keep the children away. Have a water supply for the radiators and try and arrange with some garage for a gasoline ma- chine to be sent over evenings. You can make your house a rallying point and instead of letting the autos hurt your business, you make it a help. It is best to provide rain checks for airdomes unless you can move your bill under cover or can cover prop- erly with an awning your seats and entrance. It will bring the crowd out in threatening weather. If the park is not too large it is always possible to cover, but the SAVE TIRE AND TIRES. Plan your auto trips to include a stop at the Sky Parlor, Covington Road. Drop in for a couple of reels and a glass of soda or an ice. You'll like the show and you'll like the soda and the rest of the ride will seem all the better for the diversion. Plenty of parking space, water and air free, gasoline at standard price if you need it. Please use the enclosed card. Figure 102. — Automobile card. awning should have flaps at the sides to protect against a driving rain. If you are asked to fireproof the fabric, point out that the cloth is tightly rolled except when in 280 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING use and will not burn and that a wet awning is seldom inflamable unless it rains gasoline. You can get the summer business if you hustle for it and if summer makes you hustle, be glad it's summer. CHAPTER XXX. RAINY DAY ADVERTISING Checking facilities — loaned umbrellas — catchlines — using slides — getting them in— emergency sou- venirs. Rainy days and good business seldom go together. Most picture lovers stay at home if they can when the skies open, but much can be done to get some of this business if you preach and plan in advance. In the first place be ready to take care of wet coats and dripping umbrellas. Probably your coat room will be too small, and it is a good plan, anyhow, to show the completeness of your preparations. You certainly do not want to take a hundred wet umbrellas into the coat room space. Have a rack ready. If you have one of those long, deep lobbys, you can build this into the wall and never have it show. Have made a shallow box, thirty inches wide and of length to suit the paneling of your lobby. The box should be of galvanized iron or plain iron well painted. It should be about four inches deep and the top should be crossed by wires to form three- inch squares. A rubber tube connects with a drip pan in the cellar or direct with a drain as may be most con- venient. Have this so arranged so the bottom (or under side) of the box forms a part of the lobby paneling, the tray itself folding into the wall space. Just above this have the upper panel arranged to raise up, letting fall a rack of galvanized pipe also divided into three-inch RAINY DAY ADVERTISING 281 squares and so hinged that when it is down the squares are exactly over the squares in the lower pan. Hinged rods that swing down fit into sockets In the outer cor- ners of the lower pan, which in turn is provided with hinged legs that fold into the panel. One or two such panels will take care of all the umbrellas that can be brought into the house. Other upper panels can be made to swing out and up, braced by hinged rods. These have pipe on their under sides to which coat hangers are hung when needed. The hangers should be provided, for to hang up a wet coat on a nail it is to get it all out of shape. Have the hangers and checks in a wheeled truck that can be run out from under a stairway or some con- venient place. In dry weather there is no hint of racks other than that the I panels do not fit snugly. Lithograph or photo- graph frames are in place and the cracks are scarcely noticed. Five minutes after the rain starts the racks are up and in use, and ten minutes after the racks are emptied the appearance of the lobby is restored. If you cannot use so elaborate a system, be as well provided as you can be, and then talk about it. Lay in a stock of umbrellas that may be loaned patrons on rainy days. You can get them for three or four dollars a dozen, require a deposit of fifty cents and be indifferent as to whether they are brought back or not. On the program ofifer this copy: Something for a Rainy Day. We've laid by something for a rainy day. We've laid by umbrellas, umbrella racks and coat racks. We intend that the Cozy, with your co-operation, shall be just as comfortable on a rainy day as on the fairest day in June. You know what rain and theatre going generally means. The floor is soaked and little rivers run down the slant- ing floor to flood the orchestra pit. Each wet umbrella is a spring that adds to these rivulets, and each soaked raincoat helps along. The person next you plants a wet umbrella against your clothes and you sit with a soggy "bombachute" between your knees wondering v/hi ^ in- 282 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING duced you to come. The very air is wet with the evap- oration of the leakage and you are miserable and sneezy. You cannot enjoy the entertainment under such condi- tions. But at the Cozy you are met at the door. Your um- brella is checked and your wet wrap is hung up, not on a nail to get all out of shape, but on a non-rusting hanger and not touching any other garment. Your rubbers can be checked, too, and an attendant will put them on for you when you are ready to go. No fee is charged for any part of the service and you are requested to co- operate with us in enforcing this rule. A rainy day is like any other day — at the Cozy. On the screen run a set of slides with the same argu- ment in tabloid doses. Get such copy as : No rain comes into the Cozy. We check it at the door. No charge and no tips for coat room service. Help us, please, by offering none. If you want to borrow an umbrella, apply at the coat room. If rain comes unexpectedly run a slide. Have one permanently lettered that reads : It has started to rain a little. If you have no umbrella, don't worry. We'll lend you one. Ask at the coat room. A deposit of fifty cents will be returned when you bring the umbrella back. Issue cards as in Figure 103. These may be sent out by mail, filled in with the name and address of the re- cipient or may be given out to regular patrons as they become known for regulars. The Exhibitor explains to the patron, offering a card and fills it in. He also makes a memorandum of 'the name and address to add to the mailing list and a list of members. As the card is a permanent one it should be 'hard stock, or the text in Figure 103 may be slightly changed and a metal token sent that is to be" carried instead of the card. If it can be afforded, this is a better way. It should be of brass or hard metal. Aluminum is too soft. Each token is numbered and the day after the rain the tokens are RAINY DAY ADVERTISING 283 identiiied by their numbers and a boy is sent out to ex- change the tokens for the umbrella. For these known patrons a better grade umbrella should be used. In any case the name of the theatre should be stamped or burned into the wood. Cosy Comfort Club Cozy Theatre Sam Jones, Manager Mrs of Is invited to become a member of the Cozy Comfort Club. If you get caught in the rain, either at the theatre or out shopping, drop in at the theatre, present this card (or "this token" if the latter is used) and obtain the loan of an umbrella. The um- brella will be sent for the next day and the check returned to you to be used in the next emergency. No charge whatever is made and no deposit is required. Figure 103. — Umbrella card. If you are in the traveled section make your lobby work for you. Have a sign handy to be put out as soon as the rain comes on. The sign reads as in Figure 104. Men and women will crowd into the lobby for shelter to wait until the rain ceases. They might enter if they could know when the rain stopped. If you see a woman who looks as though perhaps she has spent her money shopping step up to her and say: "Better step inside. A slide will tell you when the rain is over." Do not pompously tell her that it is on the house, or that it is your treat. As you speak barely touch her arm and get her started and lead her to the door before she can start to explain that she has no money. Have your doorman trained to give her the same respectful greeting that he gives the pay patron. A woman who is given shelter and spared humiliation will be a good advertisement for you for some time to come. 284 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Have a yellow slicker and sou' easter lettered with the facts about the dryness of your house. Have a red and white umbrella to go with the coat and paint this up. Turn a man out on rainy days or for sudden showers and keep him within a couple of blocks of the house except on the days of the steady, soaking rain, when he can carry the message further afield and remind your indoor patrons that it is all right once they reach your house. Come in Out of the Wet A slide will tell When the Rain stops Umbrellas to loan free Fifty cents deposit Figure 104. — Umbrella lobby sign. Make an active campaign during the rainy seasons of the spring and fall. Use the papers, circulars, program and screen. Work harder at these times but through the year make frequent use of such catchlines as : The ideal place on , a rainy day. To spend a rainy afternoon, try the Cozy. It never rains but it pours people into the Cozy. If you can make rain help instead l of hurt, you do not have to fear it. Rainy day souvenirs are i good ideas. The souvenirs are slight, seldom costing as much as one cent each. They are given out, without previous announcement other 1 than a general understanding that this is a custom. They are kept on hand, about a half dozen sets being in the house, and are given out whenever it rains about the time the house is coming in. If you make proper provision for rainy days you will not have to coax them with presents, but these little gifts are appreciated and sometimes help to pull'business. OPENING A HOUSE 285 CHAPTER XXXI. OPENING A HOUSE Waking up a town — announcement of intention — pre- liminary work — the opening. Advertising the opening of a house presents many angles, but in general the plan of campaign depends on the locality and nature of the house and the personality of the Exhibitor. Something depends on the origin as well, for if you have lived in a town all your life, you should be known. If you come in a stranger, you must tell who you are. Here a little modest brag may be excused. If you are a resident you might start in: I don't have to tell you who I am. Many of you know me and more know of me, and I think you'll realize that when I say that I am going to try and give Chester the best show it ever had, I mean what I say, and can come pretty close to doing it. On the other hand, the newcomer would start in more like this: I am a stranger to you, but I do not want to stay a stranger. I want to become one of you and make you realize that Centreville is my home as much as it is that of the oldest inhabitant. To win your confidence and deserve your approval, I am going to try and give you the best show you ever saw, in the most comfortable house you ever had. Large talk, perhaps, but wait and see. I'm going to try and more than make good for that promise. The opening gun in the campaign, whether the house is an old one taken over or a new one yet to be built, is the announcement of intention in the newspaper. Take 286 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING across two or three columns half way down the page if space is cheap enough, and generally the town that can be affected by advance work of this sort is small enough to assure a liberal newspaper rate. Tell briefly but fully what you intend to do. Have it all straight reading, except for the head. Have it set in twelve-point in preference to ten, or lead out, even if it does eat up space. Tell frankly and interestingly and honestly just what you intend to do. Frank T. Montgomery has written some very interest- ing breaking-in advertisements. As one resident of Jacksonville sought to explain: "He made such outlandish promises that we thought he was crazy, so we were in- terested and went to see what he had to offer." Mr, Montgomery explained the other side by saying: "I stick to facts but state them so extravagantly that they feel certain I'm a liar and they come to prove me a liar. But the fact is not extravagant if the method of stating it is, and so I am well within my facts and promises. They find that I speak the truth and I have their confidence. This town needs fixing I'm going" to tix it There isn't a finer city in the State than Centreville, but that makes it seem all the more strange that you have never had a really first-class motion picture show. You're not always going to be contented with old films of the lesser makers. Some day you'll want a comfortable house and the right sort of pictures. Tliat's Wliat I'm liere for I'm going to give you the house and pictures good enough To Sliock you with delight and surprise. Figure 105. — Opening announcement. But unless you do this with Mr. Montgomery's pic- turesque phraseology, it is better to confine yourself to facts and state clearly and briefly what you aim to do, OPENING A HOUSE 287 out tell it smartly. Try something like that shown In Figure 105. Get them talking. Let them call you crazy ,'f they will. A medicine show doctor lets his hair grow long to attract attention to himself. You can see a barber now and then and still be in the public eye. Get one line, at least, in every advertisement that will catch the attention of every reader, and if you do that, in your pre-opening anouncements you can use the rest of the space for solid talking instead of display. You do not need display until you come to advertise your films. In the meantime the reading advertisement is better. Run a series of these about twice a week, about Sun- day or Wednesday, or Wednesday and Saturday if there is no Sunday issue. Get hold of a mailing list if you can and send out announcements. Here is one, rather lengthy, but it may be adapted as desired. The original is by George A. Bleich. TO THE PARENT WHO CARES, SPARE A MOMENT TO READ THIS. My photoplay theatre, now under construction, will soon be ready to open and I desire to say a few words with reference to *he conduct of the place, and the in- fluence it will have on children. There are parents forbidding their children attending picture shows, and other places of cheap amusement of the kind, and you are the ones to whom this is most directed. I want to remove some of the prejudice you may hold against all picture shows possibly, at least I want to tell you how I conduct my picture show, and then after you are satisfied in time that I am telling the truth you ought to assent to a removal of the ban. In my theatre, refinement prevails. This does not mean that I cater only to the highly fashionable patron- age by any means. Respectable people of all degrees are welcome in my house, and I do not discriminate except that the rowdy, the "masher" and the undesirables in general soon give my place a wide berth. 288 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING Young boys are z hard proposition to handle by many, but I have little trouble on that score. Order from them is demanded, and when I find one who disobeys, further admittance is refused. So I warrant you good order, and this brings us to the most important part of all things, what the child sees and hears, and the influence of moving pictures. Now eliminate entirely stage "actin' " and "vodevil" the merits or demerits of which it is unnecessary to dis- cuss, because that kind of entertainment forms no part of my show. Mine is a straight program of motion pic- tures, with the addition of good music. It may be that you disapprove of moving pictures, be- cause you believe they are vicious, too sensational many times, and harmful and unhealthy morally for the young. There are some films of that kind extant and managers utterly unconcerned as to what kind of pictures are of- fered their patrons I'll admit, but fortunately for the business, few in numbers and growing less. The mana- gers with a spoonful of common sense have long ago cleaned out and quit showing any such stuff like "The Jesse James Gang," "Five Years in Sing Sing," "Beulah Binford" and that kind of rot, but at any rate here is one of them that does not show any such pictures, and never will, and I ask you to believe this a fact. I want to extend you this assurance: Your child, if permitted to attend my show will not see or hear any- thing improper in the slightest degree ; never that which is degrading, never the sensational. I do not depend on that kind to attract. You may feel that I am lying to you now, because the show business seems to have a corner on all the liars in the world not in politics, but keep an eye on the Empress and sooner or later you will be satisfied that the entertainment there is wholesome and a perfectly fit place for your boy or girl to attend and I am basing my financial success on your finding this out. But do not draw a conclusion that my aim is that of catering to children alone. Far from it. The Empress is for the grown up. Neither must you imagine that the program will consist of the religious, scientific, or such, OPENING A HOUSE 289 in the entire. Clean comedy, the wild Western, the beautiful heroine, splendid hero, and deep dyed villain, will cavort in the pictures as of old, along with the classic, the artistic, because there is good in everything when properly wrought, and I shall display no toher kind. Respectfully and sincerely yours, GEO. A. BLEICH, Prop. Meantime, get busy with the house. If you are build- ing, build behind a fence and paint announcements on the fence. Have one sign to cover the fence; a nicely painted sign. In this set two panels that can be changed daily. Here the marking brush, for the first and about the last time, can be used. Keep the announcements short, snappy and interesting. Tell just how you are getting along with the building. Say: "Ordered 450 seats today. Mighty comfortable seats, too. No hard- wood stuffing, just hair." Tell all the little details and soon you'll have the public as much interested as you are. But they won't get interested in "On this site will be erected a commodious motion picture palace with a capacity of 350'." They'll know that after one reading. Tell the news. Obstruct traffic as little as possible. Keep building material off the street. If you must shut off the sidewalk, build a false one, and apologize on the fence for the detour ; not an abject apology, but a friendly one. Do nothing to make them feel that your coming is a nuisance to be resented. Be certain of your welcome at all times. If you are not building but are taking over another house, close down "for repairs." Make some changes in the house. Even if the house has been run nicely and needs no real repairing, clean it out and endeavor to change the appearance, particularly the lobby, as much as possible. Sometimes you can make a very pronounced change for very little money. The public will expect the house to look different. They will not believe that any 290 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING changes have been made unless the appearance has been changed. One thing you will need to do is to clean out. If you cannot get enough rubbish from the house, bring some in the back way and set it in barrels on the front sidewalk. Then Smith goes home and tells his wife that he always knew the Gem was pretty dirty, but the new man cleaned up nineteen barrels of dirt, which is more than he thought there was there. Don't say things like that yourself and do not criticize the previous manager. Probably he had some friends and your comment will antagonize these. It is not for you to talk about the nineteen barrels of dirt. It is for you to put them on the sidewalk where they can speak for themselves. Messrs. Vick, Collins and Lawrence reQuest the honor of yoiir presence at a Private Inspection and Performance of the Criterion Theatre the opening of which marks a new epoch in amusement in Southern Bergen County Ames Avenue near Park Rutherford, N. J. Tuesday evening, January tmenty-third Nineteen hundred and twelve at eight-thirty o'clock This invitation will admit yourself and guest Figure 106 — Invitation to an opening. Get ready your announcements for the opening. Here is one place where you must spend money for printing and spend it to the best advantage. A good form will be found in Figure 106, but any formal invitation will do. Use handsome type, use good card stock and get heavy envelopes to match. Pay to have them addressed properly by someone who can write. Don't save a dollar by letting the usher do the work in odd moments. The job, as a whole, represents more than the dollar. Do not risk the loss of a large portion of the investment by send- OPENING A HOUSE 291 ing out envelopes so very evidently covers for alvertising that they will not be read. Be particular even as to the color of the writing fluid used. Another and slightly less formal wording is found in Figure 107, This may either be printed or set out in real typewriting. In the latter case the names should be filled in. With a printed card this is not necessary. It would be better form to drop the "Dear sir." It would be good form to have a "To" and a line in the lower left hand corner on which the name of the guest may be written. November First, Nineteen Eleven Dear Sir: You are invited to the Grand Opening of the Peoples Theatre, West Park and Alder Streets, which event will occur Wednesday Evening, November First, Nineteen Eleven, at Seven P. M. If you will kindly signify your willingness to be our guest on this occasion we shall be pleased to make reservation for you. Respectfully, Peoples Amusement Co, Figure 107. — Another and less formal invitation. Be careful that no one is overlooked. All ministers, physicians, teachers, newspaper men and public officials should be invited, as well as leading politicians who are not engaged in holding office, and other men of note. Be cerain that the chief of police gets one, and his cap- tains, if there are any. Remember that an inspection is not a regular perform- ance and that a regular invitation performance is not an inspection. If you invite your guests to a special per- formance, give one. Give the regular bill plus speeches or whatever other exercises suggest themselves. At an inspection the machine is running, but you do not plant your guests into the seats the moment they enter. You show them the house and all about it. For a small house a performance is better than an in- spection. For a large house with many innovations, an inspection is to be preferred. For a public opening you have a wider choice. The cheaper your location the more noise you want to make. 292 PICTURE THEATRE ADVERTISING but never play down to the poorest. Play up to the better class of clientele, always remembering that the higher up you go the better the crowd you can draw and the more apt they are to have money. It may pay to throw open the house free on the open- ing day, particularly if you have reopened an old house. Curiosity may bring them in to a new house, where the interest will be less in a reopened house. If the house is free, make it plain that the kiddies must come and be out of the way before the evening performances, and make is equally plain that admittance will be refused all children in the evening. THEWBt I UEl-rv NANS6N L.,ta 1. ..-- : I..l.tl„ ■MARCH ' — " 13 i 14 MAkin 1.5 MAKIH MJiTOA'R COMHiy 16 p~;. 11 wcu riUHSOAV MARCH 18 MAKta 19 nci f»^ t c^K* Guntn) ; "AmW«K*» Soar Gu]m«" j •■The Ph»ntotn I Ai-.j^K.^.-c- of Thr Violin" ■^"' ■'■] •Tiir MJM' i/!:;; -i TtoikAbootDiiiDcv;r"fcjR-tJ".' .. "Well, of Pir.> Worth 5< Tswwi. Ad^Juvqn ' \<' "THE BLACK BOX" ^iX.^]. KAV BKf. VVA1U8*; ,i. iwoAd* .! . • ■':T» THF. BLACK WiU.LET. • Vt, ,tf^,k %-j^^' Tt.i. CftHfon i» Wolfa tit. T