Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

78 DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS University Film Centre ? by STANLEY OREANU IT is usual to think of the older universities clinging with the grasp of rigor mortis to ancient times and ways. One believes that behind the up-to-the-minute striving of bright young people, the core of the University lies in cloister courts in shy, melancholy men going up treadworn stairs to their rooms and in the same men planted out in rows at the Senate voting 'non placet' to every new measure. Though it would be unfair to give this vision the total lie, Oxford and Cambridge can sometimes assimilate new ideas with remarkable speed. The cinema in education is scarcely now a new idea, but in the use of films for higher education and research, Cambridge has recently given the lead to other universities and colleges in this country. That is not to say the question mark can be cut from my title or even that films are being made and used on a large scale, but there certainly is a wind on the heath. Film is used A number of departments use films for teaching and research at the present time. The Zoological laboratory has made studies of the movement of fish, invertebrates and ciliates, the Physiology department has produced a film on the technique of perfusing a rabbit's heart that has cut down the number of fiascos in the practical class, while the micro-biological films made at the Strangeways laboratory are already well-known outside Cambridge. Since biology is so much concerned with the study of movement and growth, biologists have been quick to seize on the film as a valuable aid. It is, however, the Engineering laboratory which has made the most extensive use of films as part of the regular academic course. First and second year students in this laboratory have a weekly cinema hour in which they are shown not only films covering many aspects of engineering but also sociological films, such as The City, likely to be of interest to them. The students are asked to grade the films according to quality of presentation and pedagogue value. The great majority of the films shown come from outside sources, but a few have recently been made in the laboratory. It is not possible to give a detailed account here, but in many other branches of science, and also in economics and history films are either being used now or there is interest in their immediate possibilities. More apparatus needed If films are to be made and shown on an increasing scale, more projectors must be made available. It is a fact not always recognized that if you give a man a projector and he has any liking at all for gadgets, he will pretty soon look for something to run through it. A few months ago the University spent quite a large sum on the purchase of film equipment, so that now every department houses or has easy access to a projector. But though we now have the means to show any number of films there are extremely few known to be of the required academic standard. Of many that perhaps exist, we have only the titles and of some not even that. It was the common need for information, for technical advice and for co-operation between different departments that led a number of lecturers, research workers and students to form the Educational Film Council at Cambridge in February of last year. After a good deal of factfinding and propaganda, the Council has been recognized by the University to the extent that a yearly amount is paid as a joint subscription from all departments and the General Board of the Faculties appoints a representative to the executive committee. The Council soon realized that although it could do valuable work at Cambridge, even in the interests of Cambridge a more widespread organization was needed to gather information efficiently and to deal with such matters as training in film technique, the import of foreign films and cooperation in film-making between universities to cut and share out costs. At the invitation of the Council, a conference was convened by the British Film Institute and the Scientific Film Association last November. This resulted in the establishment of a Universities Film Council for the British Isles. Not enough films If all the films at present hidden away in private libraries, laboratory cupboards and professorial safes were made available we should be a little better off than we are now, but there would still be an enormous shortage of films suitable for university teaching and research. And studio-made films today cost the earth. One way of lowering costs is to use 'library material'. For example, historical films of considerable value could probably be made largely from newsreels. This use of material made in the first place for another purpose could also be planned ahead, so that in making say popular scientific or instructional films, extra shots might be taken and a film constructed suitable for academic purposes. Many valuable films could be made cheaply and simply in the University and, as we have said, to some extent this is being done already. But there are shortages of equipment and trained personnel. Cambridge, or indeed any university, is unwilling to spend money on what they regard as non-essentials. Ergo cameras and so on will only be purchased when a loud enough noise is made by departments whose actual projects are held up for want of equipment. The training of research workers in film-making is now under consideration and the national Universities Film Council intends next year to arrange a summer school in cinematograph technique. The Cambridge Council at first decided to advise on matters of film-making only when advice was asked for and not to take a more active and direct part. This was done in order not to offend departments hyper-sensitive to outside interference. It soon became apparent, however, that without active encouragement and suggestion very few films would be made at or for the University within the next few years. After attempts to obtain money from outside sources for academic film-making in general had understandably failed, the Council turned its attention to specific projects. A letter was sent to departments and faculty boards asking for details of films they intended to make or would like to see made. A number of positive replies have already been received. Soon the Council will be in a position to seek financial and other support for concrete propositions and to facilitate joint efforts in filmmaking with other universities. A few months ago a professor at the University of Utrecht wrote to the Council suggesting that some educational films should be made in Britain and Holland in such a way that they could be used in both countries. And if co-operation with Holland, then also with other countries in Europe and beyond. The final aim The 'ultimate aim' of the Council is the 'establishment by the University of a Film Centre with adequate facilities for the production, projection and storage of educational films'. To this end a memorandum was submitted to the General Board of the Faculties outlining the first suggested steps. This memorandum has had useful indirect effects, but no direct action has been taken on the lines laid out. There is not going to be a Film Centre at Cambridge yet awhile, and there will not be one until more lecturers and research workers have taken an active part in making films and have a clearer idea of where and how they are going. But more and more films are going to be made, for people are coming to see both that language is not always the ideal medium for communicating academic ideas and that the cinema will not make an end to books. Indeed the Cambridge University Press has experimented with short film sequences as illustration for text-books and may go farther. In time the University must also sponsor research on films, for while it is relatively easy, given adequate technique, to make a film on biological cell division that all will see alike, different people may gain very different ideas from one that aims to portray the social background to Balkan history and who knows how many lessons are to be learnt from Battleship Pot emkin!