Problemas de salud relacionados con la alimentación

In order to explore the current film marketing landscape, we must first look to the past. Contemporary film marketing practices have evolved from earlier methods, styles, and tactics, and thus must be understood in this context. As Lisa Kernan suggests, film marketing materials serve as useful “metatexts where Hollywood history can fruitfully be interrogated— both in the sense of the history of Hollywood and Hollywood's view of history" (2004, p. 25). Looking to the historical evolution of marketing practices is thus useful in exploring how industrial roles and practices have formed, how industrial mythologies about audiences have evolved, and how the industry has responded to past challenges and upheavals. This chapter therefore briefly explores the history of film marketing from the first commercial films until the end of the 20th

century. It maps shifts in the industrial organization of American film marketing practices, discusses key technological developments and their effects on marketing strategies and tactics, and outlines the American film industry’s changing perception of its audience and the effect of these shifting perspectives on its products.

As Lisa Gitelman (2006) and other media historians assert, studying the

continuities as well as moments of disruption in the shifting technological landscape can be a fruitful exercise. In this way, we avoid the pitfalls of seeing the current era in an historical vacuum and treating contemporary issues as entirely new and unprecedented. The film marketing industry has faced problems related to market expansion,

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issues were addressed in the past helps to shed light on current reactions to similar challenges.

Early Cinema (1890-1920s)

Film marketing practices were first adopted with the advent of commercial cinema in the 1890s. The first movie poster was created in 1890 by French painter and lithographer Jules Chéret to promote an 1890 short film program entitled Projections Artistiques. It featured a simple design of a young woman displaying a placard with show times. When the Lumière brothers toured the United States with their films, they

introduced this simple film publicity technique to American audiences, displaying straightforward announcements outside their exhibition venues (Allen & Rebello, 1989). While Georges Méliès reportedly projected moving images clipped from his films on a screen above the entrance to the Théâtre Robert Houdin in Paris as early as 1898 (an early precursor to the film trailer), more basic forms of print-based marketing were the norm (Hamel, 2012). From 1896 until around 1907, film marketing and publicity generally consisted of posters, handbills, newspaper announcements, and perhaps a mechanical piano intended to lure passersby into the theater (Gaines, 1990; Rhodes, 2007).

In this early era of cinema, exhibitors (whether they be traveling showmen, shop owners, or early nickelodeon and theater managers) were responsible for marketing to potential audiences. Films were rented to exhibitors for a flat fee per foot of film, so producers of the films did not have a vested interest in maximizing ticket sales after a

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film was rented. Instead, film producers concerned themselves with marketing their films to potential exhibitors. To reach this group, they peddled their films in trade journals, catalogues, and via door-to-door salesmen (Hamel, 2012). After renting the films, exhibitors took the lead in promoting them to audiences in an effort to maximize their returns.

Exhibitors faced serious challenges in creating marketing materials during this early period of cinema. Prior to 1908, ongoing patent struggles discouraged large-scale, predictable film production and distribution systems (Staiger, 1990). Instead, showmen sold each other films through local and informal networks (Bakker, 2003). Exhibitors therefore had little advanced knowledge of what films they would screen, what they were about, or how long they would be showing the film. Theaters usually rotated six to eight 15-minute films, sometimes with daily changes. These uncertainties and rapid changes made advertising a particular film difficult. Exhibitors could not plan or budget for the creation of these materials ahead of time, and they risked creating misleading marketing materials that advertised the wrong movie or misrepresented its content (Staiger, 1990).

To avoid these risks, exhibitors designed advertisements that did not advertise specific films, but merely announced that moving pictures were being screened at their venue. Posters and newspaper ads utilized general pitches such as “Marvelous Motion Pictures" or "Don't Fail to See the Great Moving Pictures” (Rhodes, 2007, p. 230). Sometimes these generic advertisements would tout the venue’s projection technology, promoting the novelty of the medium rather than the content of the films being screened

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(Rhodes, 2007). Early film posters often showed scenes of the audience enjoying

themselves and socializing in the theater (rather than showing scenes from the film itself), advertising the social practice of attending the cinema rather than touting the merits of a particular film (Allen & Rebello, 1989).

As the technical and social novelty of moving pictures waned, exhibitors looked for new ways to market their films more specifically. As early as 1903, some exhibitors began creating posters advertising a single film (Allen & Rebello, 1989).13

This technique was still logistically challenging and expensive, however, so many exhibitors instead used “stock posters” based on common film genres and themes. For instance, the lithographic firm Hennegan & Co. offered posters entitled “Base Ball,” “Fire Rescue,” and “Prize Fight.” These posters featured generic scenes of a baseball game, a fiery inferno, and a boxing match, respectively, and could be used repeatedly for any film addressing these topics (Rhodes, 2007, p. 231). Other posters offered generic scenes of “torrid embraces, moist-eyed dogs, wild animals, and hair’s breadth escapes” upon which any title could be written and re-written (Allen & Rebello, 1989, p. 23). Recognizing the growing power of stars, still other exhibitors adopted star portraits that could be used multiple times for films featuring the same actor (Rhodes, 2007). In all of these cases recyclability was an important factor, as posters were expensive and film runs were brief.

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One of the earliest examples of this practice is the 1903 poster for The Great Train Robbery.

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Early motion picture exhibitors sometimes hired local artists to create custom- made marketing materials. Few could afford to maintain a staff of artists or pay for custom advertisements for each film, but they would hire freelance artists to make materials as needed. Quality control was difficult under these conditions, as these handmade materials ran the risk of misrepresenting the film (if the artist exercised too much creative license or hadn’t seen the film) or including spelling errors (Rhodes, 2007). As time progressed, one-of-a-kind handmade posters fell from favor as exhibitors began to recognize the appeal of (what is known today as) saturation advertising. As one 1905 trade press article explained, it’s better to have 500 identical posters than 100 unique ones. After casually seeing the same poster multiple times, the viewer was assumed to be tempted to stop and read it (“A Lesson in Advertising,” 1905). Therefore, while handmade marketing materials were used through the 1910s, this practice became increasingly rare.

Instead of hiring local artists to create posters and handbills, exhibitors turned to lithographic companies who offered generic, genre-based, and film-specific materials. Film manufacturers contracted with these lithographic companies to develop posters for their films rather than create these materials in-house. Experienced in “show printing” for traditional theater, “wild west” shows, carnivals, circuses, and vaudeville, designs created by these lithographic companies resembled these existing poster types (Allen & Rebello, 1989; Rhodes, 2007). Early movie posters were visually striking and colorful, often emphasizing the larger-than-life stars, genre, realism, spectacle, or emotion of the film.

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As a 1915 issue of Moving Picture News describes, "The first moving picture posters were obviously inspired by the old fashioned circus posters, and they were handled in much the same manner—they were striking and lurid, and had a color scheme consisting of about twenty-eight different shades of red" (Petigor, 1915). These early posters were thus marked by their flash, clutter, and hyperbole.14

As motion pictures became a viable business and cinemas became permanent fixtures rather than traveling shows, the American film industry began to solidify. Replacing earlier haphazard systems, formal distribution networks (called “film

exchanges”) took shape by 1909 to ensure a steady supply of film product to exhibitors (Bakker, 2003; Rhodes, 2007). While these exchanges were prominent only in big cities, they provided a central point where both films and their marketing materials could be purchased by exhibitors.

While some exhibitors continued to order marketing materials via catalog from lithographic companies, film production companies started providing their own materials

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Movie marketing’s roots in vaudeville and circus promotion carried over into later trailer production. As discussed by Lisa Kernan, even modern trailers still exhibit a “vaudeville” or “circus mode” (2004, p. 18). Trailers in the vaudeville tradition showcase a range of spectacles meant to demonstrate that the film has “something for everyone.” Borrowing directly from the vaudeville tradition, early trailers often featured a star standing in front of a curtain directly addressing an audience, utilized introductory titles that acted like vaudeville placards, or provided a vaudeville-like sampling of the film’s various features. Borrowing from the circus tradition (originated by P.T. Barnum), early trailers frequently adopted a “hyperbole discourse” characterized by blatant exaggeration, spectacle, and promises of event-status experiences (p. 20-21).

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to exhibitors by the 1910s (Staiger, 1990). Because production companies still did not directly financially benefit from increased ticket sales, these materials were sold to exhibitors at an extra cost on top of the flat film rental fee. Production companies generally charged ten cents per poster, with a five-cent rebate when the poster was returned to the film exchange in good condition. In this way, distributors could reuse these materials in subsequent run theaters (Rhodes, 2007).

The largest and most powerful of the early distribution networks was the General Film Company (formed by the Motion Picture Patents Company to distribute member companies’ films), which dominated film distribution from 1909 to 1912. During its monopolistic reign, the General Film Company (representing all the major film production companies) had little incentive to create innovative advertisements.

Advertisements during this period thus adopted a fairly standard format. While each film company within the network had its own distinct style (featuring signature borders, studio logos, and slogans), the standard format became a title treatment over a black-and-white scene photograph or color lithograph, and sometimes a hyperbolic plot summary (Allen & Rebello, 1989). The establishment of industry trade publications helped to further standardize film marketing practices and styles. Epes W. Sargent’s “Selling the Pictures to the Public” became a regular column in Moving Picture World beginning in 1911. He later published Picture Theatre Advertising (1915) and Building Theatre Patronage (1927), helping to further solidify early principles and standards for the burgeoning field of film marketing (Gaines, 1990).

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By 1913, competition from independent film companies served to diminish the monopolistic power of the Motion Picture Patents Company. In this newly competitive marketplace, film advertising entered a profound “expansion period” marked by an increase in quantity and quality of film advertisements (Parsons, 1927). Fifteen-minute (1,000 foot) fictional films became standard during this period, allowing for more advanced planning and budgeting than had the previously dominant news, sports, and travelogue genres (Bakker, 2003). With more time to plan, film-specific posters became the norm, replacing earlier generic formats. A variety of designs and sizes for these film- specific posters became available during this period of innovation, giving exhibitors options for display around their theater and town.

With increased competition and the expansion of film exchanges, film posters and advertisements evolved from being an optional luxury to a perceived necessity.

Exhibitors came to expect the middleman selling the film print to also sell the poster. This precipitated a vast proliferation of movie posters around 1910, sparking some instances of public outrage over the cheap, tawdry appearance of theaters plastered with sensationalistic film posters (Rhodes, 2007).15

While movie notices and ads had appeared in newspapers from the earliest days of cinema, these print ads also became

commonplace by the mid-1910s (Staiger, 1990).

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As a result, some upscale theaters refrained from placing posters in their lobbies in order to avoid the association between garish, brightly-colored posters and cruder forms of entertainment like the circus (Hamel, 2012).

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Advertising designs evolved dramatically during this period of rapid expansion, largely because film production companies (now producing their own marketing

materials) had access to images from their films. In 1909 Edison announced that it would sell lithographed one-sheet posters that were “real pictorial posters made from actual photographs of scenes in the pictures they advertise” (“Advertising the Pictures,” 1909). By 1911, some production companies began taking still photos on set specifically for use in subsequent marketing materials. Most companies, however, continued to use

illustrations for years to come (Staiger, 1990).

The film trailer evolved from practices of early film exhibition. In order to lure customers, these early exhibitors created magic lantern slides announcing another film’s title and featuring an image of a star or plot element. These slides, along with ads for local businesses, were sometimes projected between short films in a program (Kernan, 2004; Staiger, 1990). In 1910, Vitagraph released a “propaganda film” entitled How Vitagraph Films are Made. The film showcased stars, sets, and “behind-the-scenes” shots of the studio that sold an image of the glamorous film industry without focusing on any one film in particular (Hamel, 2012, p. 269-270).

In 1912, the first film-specific trailer was shown. Lou Harris (head of Paramount’s trailer division in the 1960s) recounts this screening:

The first trailer was shown in 1912 at Rye Beach, New York, which was an amusement zone like Coney Island. One of the concessions hung up a white sheet and showed the serial "The Adventures of Kathlyn." At the end of the reel

Kathlyn was thrown in the lion's den. After this "trailed" a piece of film asking Does she escape the lion's pit? See next week's thrilling chapter! Hence, the word "trailer," an advertisement for an upcoming picture (Thomas, 1966, p. 10).

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These early trailers were only crude assemblages of scenes cut from the film and fused by outside companies. Trailers had not yet assumed a place of import in studios’ marketing strategies. As Jack Atlas (advertiser for MGM and Columbia from the 1950 to the 1970s) explains, the real purpose of these early trailers was “to get people bored enough to leave the theater and make room for someone else” (Hamel, 2012, p. 270).

After the company’s founding in 1919, early trailers were largely the products of the National Screen Service (NSS). At first without the explicit permission of studios, NSS used discarded film stills to assemble crude 35mm ads to sell to exhibitors. Soon realizing the value of this marketing format, studios began supplying NSS with footage from their extra cameras and from edited outtakes in order to create more sophisticated ads that suited their marketing vision (Kernan, 2004; Staiger, 1990).

This move toward studio involvement in trailer production is symptomatic of a more general trend toward increased studio investment in and control over film marketing during this period. In 1914, Universal contracted with the Morgan Lithographic Company to "establish a separate art department for our special benefit" (Brandt, 1914). The

arrangement allocated ten Morgan Lithographic Company artists to work exclusively on Universal posters. These artists were housed in a building adjacent to the studio, ensuring a great deal of studio oversight (Rhodes, 2007). While still relying on a third-party lithographic company rather than producing these materials in-house, Universal gained significant control over design elements through this restructuring and relocation.

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Other studios adopted an even more hands-on approach to film marketing during this period. The 1910s and 1920s were times of increasing consolidation of the film industry, marked by a move toward a hierarchical, divided labor system with multiple specialized departments and routinized work procedures. Amidst this shift, several major film companies established advertising departments tasked specifically with preparing posters, ad campaigns, pictures, plot synopses, publicity releases, and gimmicks to exploit the studio’s film slate. In 1914, Mutual Company announced the establishment of a special in-house poster department, and Metro made a similar move the following year. By 1915, the film company Kleine was creating “press books” for each of their films and making them available to exhibitors. These press books (precursors to “electronic press kits” used in studio public relations departments today) included samples of all the electrotypes available for the film, a list of characters and actors, pre-made

advertisements, press announcements of various lengths, and suggestions for local stunts, giveaways, contests, and parades (Staiger, 1990).

Armed with newly formed in-house marketing departments, some production companies started experimenting with national direct-to-consumer campaigns during this period (Staiger, 1990). Rather than rely on local exhibitors to represent their products accurately and effectively, these studios directed their own marketing efforts. This shift occurred for two main reasons. First, changes to distribution deals during this period meant that theatrical box office revenue was increasingly shared with producers and distributors (Bakker, 2003). No longer renting their films to exhibitors for an up-front flat

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rate, studios now had an incentive to draw more people to theaters by producing popular films and ensuring audience awareness. Secondly, studios and exhibitors faced harsh public criticism during this period for the immoral, shocking, violent, and sensationalistic nature of the films and advertisements they created. They were also criticized for

displaying misleading advertisements. Theater owners often used exaggerated images, did not change their advertisements when the film changed, or deliberately advertised the wrong (more popular) film in order to lure audiences. In order to protect their public image, studios had a vested interest in controlling the ways in which their pictures were presented to the public (Rhodes, 2007).

In 1915, Paramount launched a nationwide campaign to promote the studio as a brand name and product line, and bolster their threatened public image. The company started a department of “exploitation” tasked with helping exhibitors advertise, creating lobby displays, organizing street stunts, initiating merchandise tie-ins, promoting newly minted stars, and financing national advertising campaigns (Gaines, 1990; Staiger, 1990). The department worked diligently to keep a pulse on audience opinions and bolster Paramount’s public image. They hired an advertising agency to send questionnaires to exhibitors asking which family members chose films and which magazines they thought these individuals read (Bakker, 2003). With this second-hand market research in hand, Paramount placed ads in over 11 million copies of various publications. They focused primarily on fan magazines and women’s weeklies, as women were determined to be the primary movie decision-makers at this time (Bakker, 2003; Staiger, 1990). These ads

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highlighted the directors, stars, and films in the Paramount lineup, and promoted specific theaters allied with Paramount as reliable venues that would provide consistent, quality entertainment (Staiger, 1990). While Paramount was a pioneer in implementing