HAVE NO VALUE

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 443, 26 May 1937, Page 6

HAVE NO VALUE

NEWSREELS OF N.Z. World Consumption Press Association —Copyright. Wellington, May 26. “New Zealand, at the present moment, possesses absolutely no “topicai subject of woild interest for sound-film newsreels —just none!” said Mr. H. G. Guinness, Sydney editor of Fox Mov’etone Newt, who passed through Wellington in the course of a world tour. Mr'. Guinness com_ menteid' on international Tastes and appetites for news-films. Mr. Guinness, as editor, supervises the task of “covering” the Ausitral.au news interests with a battery of four cameras. Every week his studi ■> publishes a newsreel of the week’s events in Australia and New Zealand. That is for local consumption. But subjects of international interest are also sent to the Movieton ? centres in Europe and America; two interna. ti a newsreels are produced for evr?y local one T’r iis* Nev; Zealand and Australian subjects and scenes find tjieir way on tc ?inem c . screens all over the world. New Zealand is not, on the whole, r’ch in t-uch suojec f s, which depend not only on the actual news value of the evejit, but also on the particular tastes of the country in which they are to be shoxvn. For newsreels, says Mr. Guinness, are ciarefully edited to please the audiences who a're to see them on each country’s screen. Publicity Value. ‘‘Paris loves soldjerg ami funerals; London prefers soldiers and the King. Italy and Germany must have pictures of Mussolini and Hitler respectively. Both dictators (appreciate their own publicity value; they are never too busy to grant cameramen super facilities, or to pose for the camera,” said Mr. Guinness'. He stated! that entirely difflerenir. aspects of the Coronation, for example, would be circulated in eateh country. Cameramen had been, inr stYucted to try to obtain shot's of Mr. Savage in conversation with the King for New Zealand consumption; □f Mr. Lyons and’ the King for Australian audiences. New Zealand’s most successful newsreel picture for a very long time was of a Wellington happening—the Waihine’s crash into the Pi pi tea wharf last year, when the steamer was more damaged than the wharf and the passengers had t<o land by a rope ladder over the bow. That c/augh't the imagination of overseas audiences. They had seen a surfeit Of wrecks at sea, but never a shipping mishap quite like that;