Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 13 {continued from previous page) Mr. O'Laoghaire proposes that the Government of Eire should set up and finance a national film studio. He believes that such an organisation could turn out between five and ten feature films a year, supported by between twenty and thirty short films. He points out that many continental countries succeeded in making good features for as small an amount as £15,000 (he will like to know that Denmark has a flourishing feature film industry with budgets which scarcely ever exceed £10,000). He thinks that Eire could make good features at £20,000. Provided that such films have novelty and appeal (and we may add, provided they rank for British feature quota) he believes they could bring back their production costs. Eire would, of course, have to rely on her export market to the United Kingdom and elsewhere, since the biggest gross of the most successful film in Eire cannot exceed £5,000, of which presumably, not more than £4,000 reaches the producer. He is on less safe ground when he attempts an estimate of the capital costs involved in setting up a studio and the running costs required for feature production. He would have been wiser to have gone to a better authority than the British Film Institute in the matters of film finance. He wishes to see the studio run by an Irish National Film Board, representative of the arts, the cinema, the film trade and education. He points out that a number of Irishmen have done well in films and he thinks they could be attracted back to Dublin. He hopes to make versions of his films in Gaelic. Mr. O'Laoghaire even has a five-year plan. In the first year he would send trainees to study in English film studios. In the second year he would disperse these trainees to France, Sweden and Hollywood (why Sweden, whose films most people think dull and imitative?). By the third year, the studio and film laboratories would have been built and his trainees would be called back to plan production. In the fourth year he would produce two features (one to be handled by a foreign guest director) and ten short films. In the fifth year he would make five feature films (two to be directed by foreign guest directors) and 20 short films. Mr. OLaoghaire's schemes seem practical. We hope the Government of Eire will act. World of Plenty. Eric Knight and Paul Rotha, with diagrams designed by the Isotype Institute. (Nicholson and Watson. 1945. Is. 6d.) With this new publication Paul Rotha proves himself to be not only a splendid film maker but also an admirable maker of books. Like his films, his book has style, and it illustrates many of the special qualities of his craftsmanship — his skill in selecting an image to express a thought, and his skill in putting one image against another so that each is strengthened by the juxtaposition. World of Plenty is an outstanding film, telling its story with an ease and power which film makers all over the world admire. Its arguments might have been ephemeral moral propaganda: instead, they present proofs of the possibilities of future international relations which people everywhere sense instinctively can and must be achieved if the world is not to be snuffed out. The book from the film crystallises the arguments, and, since it is self-contained, it will be valued not only by those who admired or want to use the film, but by economists and politicians as well, whether they have seen the film or not. basic Films DOCUMENTARY EDUCATIONAL SCIENTIFIC BASIC FILMS LTD. 18 SOHO SQUARE LONDON Wl GERRARD 7015 announce further films completed From, Series " The Technique of Anaesthesia Intravenous Anaesthesia Part 2. Signs and Stages of Anaesthesia. Carbon Dioxide Absorption Technique. Respiratory and Cardiac Arrest. Operative Shock. Handling and Care of the Patient. (Available to approved medical audiences only.) From : " The Health of Dairy Cattle " Series Hygiene on the Farm. From the " Soil Fertility " Series Factors of Soil Fertility. Lime. Lind Drainage. PENICILLIN The story of its discovery and development, and the use of penicillin on war casualties. Other films in production will be announced wheri completed. Applications for the loan of these films should be made to tho Central Film Library, Imperial Institute, London, S.W.7