If you were running a motion picture theatre a first necessity, naturally, would be to make money. You would at least have to support yourself. You would of course want to do more than that, to get ahead, and lay aside something for a rainy day, and make your fortune. So it would be of no use for you to run pictures unless people came to see them, and paid their admissions to get in. If you showed pictures that only a few people in the community liked, you would soon be playing to an empty house, and be driven out of business. While if you got pictures that were popular, you would have a chance to make money. The more people liked the pictures you showed, the more money you would get.
Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation.
Carrying an Elephant to a “Location.”
Transportation is an item of expense that appears so frequently in motion-picture accounts as to puzzle the uninitiated. This picture gives an idea of the almost inconceivable need for unusual items of transportation when all the varied paraphernalia of a picture company has to be carried miles and miles, day after day.
Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.
An Auto Load of Horses.
When horses are used on distant locations, in motion pictures, they’re usually hauled to the scene in a motor truck, so that they will be fresh when needed.
So here would be your first trouble: How would you tell which pictures would please your audiences most?