Movies for TV - Early Television Foundation

viii
INTRODUCTION
picture or Office of War Information epic fails to hold the audience
against the charms of Fred Allen or Charlie McCarthy. The wise
management guards against this by handling film intelligently and
employing people who know enough about the subject so that a
can be done.
reasonably efficient job
For most stations in the situation assumed in the foregoing
paragraph, live production using many actors in the cast may not
be possible on any great scale owing to talent costs. Rehearsal time
alone is often a big factor in the total figure, and perhaps even $500
would be too high for a thirty-minute show on a sustaining basis.
The one-shot nature of television ensures that once the telecast is
over the money is forever gone, and only a log entry exists to show
what was got for it. Kinescoping recording is out, unless there is a
service available, and that is most unlikely in the size of town we
are discussing. Also, the high cost of such equipment precludes the
station's installing it.
The alternative is film recording directly or, in other words,
making a film and using this for the actual and repeat broadcasts
if required. The beauty of this system is that it can be rented out to
other small stations or large ones if it is good enough! and thus
some, or even all, of the initial costs can be recouped.
The studio
lighting equipment is available, the studio is available, and prob-
ably the television cameramen will be able to double in celluloid
or, to be more precise, acetate. The equipment required camera,
recorder, and accessories need not cost very much: $3,000 would
buy everything needed for a modest, double sound system outfit.
The station producer should be capable of producing a reasonable
show if he knows his television production. Even though the mem-
bers of the film department may not be very experienced their
familiarity with the equipment and the uses to which it is put will
go a long way toward creating a creditable program.
The outline of this book is based on the courses "Films for Tele-
vision" which I am teaching at New York University, and previously
The Television Workshop (New York City), and other
television schools. Putting the course into a book necessarily in-
volves writing more than is normally laid down in a class syllabus