Movies for TV - Early Television Foundation

246
THE PROGRAM ANGLE
delegated to him by the film director, but in either case the final
responsibility remains with the latter.
This matter has been gone into with a certain amount of detail
so that the reader may obtain a comprehensive
over-all view of
the responsibilities of his job and what he will need to accomplish
to perform it satisfactorily. Almost 25 per cent of the jobs in tele-
vision stations are concerned with films in one way or another,
and generally speaking there are insufficient people with thorough
understanding of films and their place
in television to fill those
positions adequately. This book is not intended to produce engi-
neers, producers, or even technicians, but after reading and study-
ing it the reader should be well prepared for any job
in the film
department of a television station that does not require specialized
technical knowledge. It should be equally helpful to anyone else
who is concerned with films for television.
Many
times it will fall to the lot of the film director to obtain
and approve films for use on his station. There are numbers of
organizations which specialize in renting motion pictures to television
stations. These consist of independent producers, small and
large independent distributors, and, on a very minor scale, some
of the national distributors. It is not the purpose of this book to
attempt to perform the job of a directory since there are too many
to list without running into literally pages and pages of names,
and even then a number of smaller ones would certainly be omitted
due to their being not listed regularly in the usual directories.
Since it would be manifestly unfair to mention some well-known
ones and omit many others, none will be named. Also, in the time
between writing and publishing this, many new ones will arise
and some of the less solid ones will fall. But for the film or tele-
vision producer or director, there are many trade magazines which
are issued monthly and weekly and contain all the current informa-
tion on the subject. It is most likely that the station or agency
where the reader is employed subscribes to these magazines, but
in case this should not be so, or the reader wishes to obtain per-
sonal copies, the names of the leading publications in this field
are given on page 247 :