An Amateur Studio Picture

A Great many people have said recently, and some of them may have believed it, that the artistic future of the motion picture was in the hands of the amateur. They were of course using the word amateur as an antithesis to everything bad in professional practice. The word professional can be used outside of its proper meaning either as a compliment or as an insult, either to designate seriousness of purpose and knowledge of means, or on the other hand, standardization at the expense of feeling, perfunctory haste in production, and callous and inappropriate imitation of known commercial successes. But really there are only three kinds of pictures, good, bad, and medium. Everyone has seen bad films with plenty of the latest professional surface glitter and good films in which every drawback known to photography has not upset the well-conceived plan or the good luck of the director. Certainly what is called the amateur spirit, the desire for sincerity and freshness of treatment, is not incompatible with a professional desire to have your film a success. More good amateur films have been made by professionals or semi-professionals than by strict amateurs, the strict amateurs having only the one slightly disheartening advantage that their films do not have to be cut up and titled by ill-disposed distributing organizations.

Print ISSN

0096-6460

Published

1928-04

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/J08116