FILM PRODUCTION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 230, 29 September 1931, Page 9

FILM PRODUCTION

BRITISH COMPANY’S PROGRESS Some interesting details of the finance of film production were given by Mr John Maxwell, the chairman 01 British International Pictures, at the company’s meeting in London last month. British pictures he declared, were generally meeting with a favourable reception in the cinema theatres. His company’s gross turnover from film productions in the first three months of the current financial year exceeded £250,000, and was thus at the rate of £1,000,000 per annum. This figure excluded dividends on investments, interest on loans and studio, ren tals and represented the actual value of studio employment the company had created, an expenditure which otherwise would have gone abroad in the purchase of foreign films. For the purpose of developing its film production business the company is issuing to shareholders at par the 1,000,000 ordinary shares of 5s at present unissued. It is not proposed to underwrite the issue as the directors and their friends have undertaken to take up any shares not applied for by the shareholders. This indicates a healthy confidence in the ability of the company to make profits out of British talking film productions. It is satisfactory in this iconnection to learn, says the Economist, that the company has completed tho writing-off of all values of silent and part-dialogue films. Some £lOO,OOO was taken from reserve for this purpose in 1929-30, and in the last year an additional and final writing off was provided for out of earnings. Tn other words, British International Pictures has emerged successfully from the revolution of the talking film.