COUNTY TRIES TO SNUFF OUT MOVIE SMOKE.Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County wants to take on Julia Roberts, or at least Julianne Potter, the chain-smoking food critic The terms food critic, food writer, and restaurant critic can all be used to describe a writer who analyses food or restaurants and then publishes the results of their findings. she portrays in the hit movie ``My Best Friend's Wedding.'' The county's Department of Health is exploring ways to place anti-smoking ads in movie theaters and has been cleared by the Board of Supervisors to spend up to $2 million on the effort by mid-1998. The money, if used, will come from the 25-cent-per-pack cigarette tax revenues generated under Proposition 99, approved by California voters in 1988. The goal is to combat the image of coolness that smoking still carries when performed on the silver screen by a major star like Roberts in a successful movie like ``My Best Friend's Wedding'' or by Tommy Lee Jones For the musician, see . Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an Academy Award-winning American actor and director. Biography Early life Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Clyde C. as K in ``Men In Black.'' There will be many hurdles in the task of slamming smoking, such as deciding whether to create new ads or use available ones; persuading theater chains to run the ads as public-service announcements or paying extra for screen time; and pushing studios such as Walt Disney Noun 1. Walt Disney - United States film maker who pioneered animated cartoons and created such characters as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck; founded Disneyland (1901-1966) Disney, Walter Elias Disney Co. and Warner Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) . to allow advertising before their films are shown, something neither Burbank-based studio has been willing to do in the past. Chains resisting Mary Ann Grasso, executive director of the National Association of Theater Owners, said chains generally are resisting placing more advertising or public-service announcements in the period before trailers for coming attractions Noun 1. coming attraction - a movie that is advertised to draw customers motion picture, motion-picture show, movie, moving picture, moving-picture show, pic, film, picture show, flick, picture - a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence . ``Many of them have stopped playing PSAs because the audience reaction is not very good,'' she said. ``When people come to theaters, they want to escape and not be reminded of problems.'' Many theaters offer a slide show of movie trivia and information, along with ads, before the auditorium lights go down but resist showing ads after the slides stop and the projector comes on. ``Studios want us to show four or five trailers before a movie, so there's just not that much time for another 30- or 60-second spot,'' Grasso said. Grasso said chains may include a single public-service announcement per show, such as the Earth Communications Office campaign in support of saving coral reefs coral reefs, limestone formations produced by living organisms, found in shallow, tropical marine waters. In most reefs, the predominant organisms are stony corals, colonial cnidarians that secrete an exoskeleton of calcium carbonate (limestone). . Los Angeles officials are studying a Massachusetts campaign that ended last week. The state paid about $45,000 to more than 80 theaters to run ads over a four-month period before movies including ``Jerry Maguire'' and ``Private Parts private parts n. men or women's genitalia, excluding a woman's breasts, usually referred to in prosecutions for "indecent exposure" or production and/or sale of pornography. .'' ``We've got a goal of getting something out by the end of the summer, but we may not be able to make that,'' said Ingrid Lamirault, director of the county's Tobacco Control Program, operated as part of the Department of Health. ``We'd certainly like to have something out during the Christmas season.'' Gregory Connolly, director of tobacco control in Massachusetts, said the ads were well received by moviegoers during the three months they screened in Boston. ``The spots really destroy the glamorization glam·or·ize also glam·our·ize tr.v. glam·or·ized, glam·or·iz·ing, glam·or·iz·es 1. To make glamorous: tried to glamorize the bathroom with expensive fixtures. 2. of smoking,'' Connolly said. ``Showing them before movies is far more effective than advertising on television because you have a captive audience.'' But Connolly said most theater chains and studios resisted the campaign. ``The Sony chain did us a huge favor by letting us in,'' he said. ``I would be very surprised if anyone runs these kinds of ads as public-service announcements.'' Different tacks The Massachusetts campaign, created by Boston agency Houston Herstek Favat, involved three ads: a satire of Marlboro ads with a cowboy lighting up, fumbling fum·ble v. fum·bled, fum·bling, fum·bles v.intr. 1. To touch or handle nervously or idly: fumble with a necktie. 2. the cigarette and setting his pants on fire; an ad with a John Travolta look-alike delivering the message that it is cool not to smoke; and a spot focused on Pam Laffin, a cancer victim in her 20s who began smoking when she was 10 and needed to have a lung removed. Connolly said the cowboy and Travolta ads were better received than the other ad. ``People don't want to be preached at; they want to be entertained,'' he said. Lamirault said her staff is trying to determine how effective the ads were and is working with the Los Angeles-based Asher/Gould Advertising agency and Rogers and Associates public-relations firm on the mechanics of a campaign. Lamirault noted that a recent study by Connie Pechmann, a marketing professor at the University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). at Irvine, found that anti-smoking ads were effective in changing teen-agers' attitudes. Pechmann's study of ninth-graders found that teens approved of smoking after watching Wynona Ryder smoke in the film ``Reality Bites,'' but found smoking less exciting after watching a California Department of Health ad in which a teen-age boy wears a gas mask gas mask, face covering or device used to protect the wearer from injurious gases and other noxious materials by filtering and purifying inhaled air. In addition to military use (see chemical warfare), gas masks are employed in mining, in industrial chemistry, and by because his girlfriend smokes. The smoker smoker A person who smokes tobacco, almost always understood to be cigarettes Ratio of ♂:♀ smokers Philippines64/19, China61/7, Saudi Arabia53/2, Russia50/12 girlfriend later appears raspy-voiced and unattractive. The Irvine study was a spur in prompting Massachusetts officials to place the ads in theaters as part of a campaign funded by a cigarette tax. Los Angeles County Department of Health spokesman Fred McFarland said county officials hope theaters will show public-service announcements rather than charge for ads. ``Right now, it's not envisioned as a straight-up ad campaign but more of a public-service campaign tied to a theater company, with a lot of emphasis on teen-agers,'' he noted. State at forefront California has been among the leading states in anti-smoking efforts. Proposition 99 funds pay for school-based programs, grants to county health agencies and community programs, and ad campaigns. The state launched a $22 million effort in March, including a TV spot in which a woman who lost her larynx larynx (lâr`ĭngks), organ of voice in mammals. Commonly known as the voice box, the larynx is a tubular chamber about 2 in. (5 cm) high, consisting of walls of cartilage bound by ligaments and membranes, and moved by muscles. to cancer smokes through a hole in her throat and billboards that parody Marlboro ads with one cowboy telling another, ``Bob, I've got emphysema emphysema (ĕmfĭsē`mə), pathological or physiological enlargement or overdistention of the air sacs of the lungs. A major cause of pulmonary insufficiency in chronic cigarette smokers, emphysema is a progressive disease that commonly .'' Hillary Rodham Rodham is an English surname which may refer to a number of persons or places. People Family of Hillary Rodham Clinton
Roberts' character ``smokes when she's upset,'' the first lady complained. ``She smokes when she's tired. She smokes when she's happy. . . . This portrayal of a modern woman so reliant on cigarettes is particularly troubling given that more young women are taking up the deadly habit.'' The first lady called on the movie industry to join the campaign to reduce smoking among young people. |
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