Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

DOCUMENTARY FILM'NEWS » For Ye Ministry of Health STAKE, RACK AND BLOCK Thyr use against the Diseases Politick of our Tyme, together with Remedial Action where Applicable. Scrypt and Technical Advysor: j. KETCH For Ye Ministry of Agriculture YE BACON CONTROVERSY From a Treatment by Win, Shakespeare. Scrypt: Francis bacon For Ye Ministry of Education THE QUEEN WE LOVE A Trybute to Hyr Sovran Majestie GLORIANA our Ruler and Royal Mistress. Conceived and Executed by Robert devereaux, EARLE OF ESSEX Given at our Palace of Nonsuch, 1588. John Shearman Second prize War Office Doe Not Let's Be Beastlye to the Spaniards — SHAKESPEARE Admiralty Goe West, Young Man raleigh Board of Trade The Guild Must Goe Fletcher Health Pox 1588 jonson Agriculture Doe Not Fence Me In bacon Education The Worlde is Round hackluyt Nom de Plume: Swiss DFN COMPETITION No. 3 The usual prizes are offered for a letter (not over 200 words) to a kindly but inquisitive aunt who wants to know how documentary films differ from other films. Competitors should remember that the word 'documentary' has been applied to almost every' kind of film from the abstract cartoon to features like The Grapes of Wrath. Entries should reach the Editor before April 1st. Results will appear in the May issue. NEWS FROM UNITED NATIONS \i ihe second Regular Session of the United Nations in 1947 the budget of the UN Department of Public Information for 1948 was drastically cut at the instance of Britain, USA and USSR. It was decided that Visual Information should suffer most in view of the high cost of its material and manufacture and the 1948 films programme was, therefore, completely abandoned. UN are now hoping that governments and private companies will make the necessary films at their own expense UN will willingly assist with information and library material but cannot offer any financial aid. Films from the 1947 programme will be distributed throughout 1948 so that the gap in production will not be felt until next year. The People's Charter is the only UN film available here to date and it is having excellent bookings through ( FL. The next one. Searchlight on the Nations, will shortly be available for theatrical distribution. A Technician at a Conference the professional scientific film-maker who attended the Scientific Film Association's Conference on Films in Agriculture on January 17th, came away feeling about as low as a sheep's stomach worm. He went there hoping to learn something and more or less prepared to be told how to do his job by agricultural experts who would undoubtedly throw him head-first into the midden if he tried to tell them how to run their farms. His expectations were more than fulfilled. He and his colleagues, a decent and hard-working lot on the whole, were accused : (1) of making the changes between scenes too quick (boy, order up a 48 frame cut from scene 127 to scene 128); (2) of choosing commentators with (a) Oxford, (/>) other university, (r) local, (d) non-local, (e) unintelligible, and (/) non-Scottish accents, none of which are acceptable to the farming audience; (3) of panning the camera too little, but (4) of paying too much attention to camera work and general technique; (5) of including (a) too much and (b) too little veterinary detail; and (6) of making films for specialized audiences which are unsuitable for totally different audiences. In addition he was urged to pay more attention to tempo and construction, but to write scripts without any Long Shots, Close Ups or other esoteric camera instructions, and he was adjured to investigate his subjects more closely, to consult more people, to think more carefully about this, to examine that more fully, to give more attention to the other, and simultaneously to reduce both his costs and his production time very considerably or else! All this the professional film maker bore calmly, especially as his self-respect had been judiciously restored by the exhibition of Artificial Insemination, but his patience and good temper finally broke when someone implied that after finishing shooting on Sex in the Sun on a Friday he turns briskly to his unit and says through a Sol Hogwasch megaphone, 'OK boys, Monday we go to town on Parasites of the Uterus in the Ruminant Ovis Aries.' At this point a number of professional film makers very rudely shouted out 'Nonsense!'; they now wish to apologize to the Chairman for a breach of good manners which was only committed under extreme provocation. The professional film-maker again began to utter short sharp yelps of agony at the news that he wastes far too much time on location waiting for perfect lighting conditions. The writer has just (January, 1948) spent two weeks (and expects to spend several more weeks) waiting on location for the right weather conditions to shoot a film sequence. Every day he and his unit leave London far too early in the morning in order to arrive in a part of the country which they heartily dislike by ten o'clock, when the sun might conceivably be shining. As it is not shining they wait, in a rather cold Nissen hut, sitting on hard wooden boxes, with the general noise at a higher level than they can comfortably tolerate, till three thirty, when the -.un can be presumed to have set. Then they return, and do it all over again next day. Occasionally they gel a shot, but only by being all ready to get going as soon as ,, fair cloud-break appears. I hey cannot go far away from the Nissen hut in case of a sudden change in the prevailing gloom. They are browned off. They are not doing this for fun. from perversity, nor to put the costs of the film up artificially. They actively dislike doing it. But they have learned by dire experience that if they shot in the wrong conditions they will not make a satisfactory film. Their sense of professional responsibility keeps them waiting. They would not waste time boringly on location, when they might be doing something interesting elsewhere, without a very good reason, and nor would any other unit. A speaker at the Conference alleged that film could be of little use in agricultural research, since phenomena recorded on film could not be accurately measured. He spoke without the facts. As long ago as 1936 the bouncing qualities of steel ball-bearings were being accurately measured (as part of a routine sampling) by slow motion cinematography and subsequent frame-by-frame analysis. The sideways movement of a railway coach wheel on the rail at various train speeds and at various stages of the life of the wheel were filmed and thus accurately measured and compared at about the same date. In both these cases no other suitable technique presented itself, and the investigations could not have proceeded without the use of cinematography. More recently, and especially during the war. motion picture techniques have been widely adapted to research into physical and engineering problems. There is no reason to suppose that these techniques are inherently unsuited to agricultural research. The view that there is no place for the nonprofessional film-maker is, of course, untenable, but it is interesting to note that when films of a technical or instructional charactei are open to criticism, it is generally found that they fail in one or more of three respects. either they do not say the right things, or the\ try to say unfilmic things, or they fail in clarity of exposition, either b> word or picture V these kinos. of failure are due not to too much professionalism, but rather to insufficient professionalism in investigation and production Edgar Anstey gave .meat satisfaction with his defence of the professional production o\ the kinds of film needed in agriculture Hi cutting room, with moviolas, film bins, strips of film and re-winds was a maMerU piece oi description. A pity, perhaps, that it contained no human occupant; that harassed looking charactei in a pullover, the editoi. had pie sumably crept out for a quiet dig at his allotment. So the professional film-maker, having had a quiet dig at the ( onl'ciciKc. must now back to his location, tust expressing warm thanks to SI \ foi B stimulating and excellent!) provisioned vla>