“The factory in which Shredded Wheat is made represents the last word in cleanliness, and is sanitary in every respect.” She didn’t say these words, but they were to this effect.
“How do you know, dearie?” we asked, dubiously.
“Well, at one of our Sunday-school entertainments a film came on, showing the Shredded Wheat plant at Niagara Falls, and I remember all the details of the picture.”
What better proof can you have than that? A child absorbs everything eagerly, and there is no likelihood of its attention being diverted elsewhere in the darkened hall. He can also understand things better from pictures than from words, because the eye is the magnet and attracts everything that appears on the magic white screen.
Nor is this the only example which has come to my notice lately. I used to conduct the young folks’ department in the Motion Picture Magazine, and in this capacity I recently had the opportunity of judging the numerous entries received in the “What I Have Learned from Motion Pictures” competition. One of the competitors—a girl of fourteen—stated that she has seen how the Ford automobile is put together, the number turned out in a day, and the roads it can be made to go over. Take good note of this fact, too—the film demonstration was produced in Detroit, Michigan, and she saw the picture in Coronado, California.
An effort submitted by a boy of thirteen contained a statement that he knows how many things are manufactured, although he neglected to specify whose ad. films he had witnessed at the theater.
At the present time the schools in various parts of the country are, more or less, adopting the motion picture as part and parcel of their educational course. They are, for the most part, only too glad to receive the free hire of a film depicting how your goods are made, inasmuch as it costs them at least $5 for the day’s rental for a single-reel, anti-ad. industrial picture. Films along these lines blend well, in that they possess educational qualities for school use and general theater consumption besides containing advertising for your goods.
In some cases the mothers are invited to these demonstrations, and, even when they are not, you may rest assured that their offspring will not overlook enthusiastically reciting all they have seen.
The largest publishing organization in England, to boost their morning paper, the London Daily Mail, had a motion picture produced covering all the stages in paper manufacture, from the time the tree was felled until the finished product lay on the breakfast table of the reader.
The direct advertising incidents presented were those of the making of the paper in their own mills in Newfoundland, its arrival at their London wharf, and the spectator was then transferred to the printing-plant, where the complete editions are turned out rapidly by the latest machines. The publishing to catch early trains to all parts of England was, unfortunately, omitted. This is done outside in the wee hours, when it is too dark for filming purposes, so it had, instead, to be done at their Manchester branch, where they print a big northern edition at daylight.