Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

20 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE Volume XII, No. 1 possibilities of animated drawings as a significant part of instructional films. Since that time, animated drawings, usually under his direction, have formed an increasingly important part of the content of Britannica’s films. Brodshaug is perhaps one of the best-informed authorities in this country on the subject of animation. When he has a little time to spare, he usually spends it lecturing or teaching in the audiovisual field. His engagements for summer sessions have included Syracuse University and the University of British Columbia. Since Mel’s work occupies him so fully, he has little time for hobbies. One of these, however, is the collection of literature on all phases of motion pictures. With his usual persistence and systematic effort, he has acquired an enviable collection of books in this field. A second hobby is to try out the content of projected films in the primary grades on his daughter, Joan, or later on his other daughter, Karin. Mel exercises a third hobby : while on annual vacation he usually goes to a Maine or New Hampshire beach and does absolutely nothing but lie in the sun and gaze at the rolling sea, which probably reminds him of his waving North Dakota fields of grain. And these, incidentally, are a fourth hobby, characteristic of Mel’s application of system to every activity. One farm lies in the relatively moist Red River Valley, which always provides a crop, but in some years excessive rains cut down the number of bushels per acre, so Mel has a second wheat farm in the dry belt which on these occasions produces a bumper crop. No. 32: James A. Brill According to Jim Brill, Direc James A. Brill tor of Production for Encyclopaedia Britannica Films Inc., the one thing he has never been able to resist is a challenge. “And just when I thought I was conquering this weakness,’’ he says, “along in 1929 came a challenge from my old friend and fellow teacher, V. C. Arnspiger, asking me to help start Erpi’s instructional sound film venture in New York. This was practically the only challenge that could have lured me away from the Southwest, where I was having a wonderful time teaching, mixing in civic affairs and, of course, doing a lot of hunting and fishing.” Once in New York, the challenges came quickly and in great variety. Part of the basis of Brill’s choice for the position was his somewhat unorthodox teaching, his journalistic experience and his vivid imagination. (To these, Arthur Edwin Krows, writing last year in Educational Screen, added “a Will Rogers-like sense of humor.”) Brill claims this latter has been completely worn out by the vicissitudes of the past sixteen years in instructional sound films. It is probable, however, that Arnspiger had another qualification of Brill’s in mind, namely, a great breadth of experience — professional music work, teaching musico-dramatic groups in schools and civic organizations, news reporting and editing, scout executive work, and successful ventures into radio with school talent programs as well as his own professional groups. All these qualities, along with an eagerness to accept challenges, would be needed of staff members developing a classroom motion-picture program from “scratch.” From his original assignment of writing scripts for Fine Arts films. Brill rose to the position of Director of Production for Erpi films in 1939, a position he now holds with Encyclopaedia Britannica Films Inc. Brill was born in Buena Vista, Ohio, January 22, 1891, third son of a Methodist minister who pioneered to Oklahoma in time for Jim to graduate from Logan County High School in Guthrie in 1908. After two years in Epworth University in Oklahoma City, his developing musical talent took him into Lyceum and Chautauqua work for four and a half years, after which he returned to school at the University of Oklahoma. Here he received the degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts, after having been appointed Scholar in Music and Director of the University band. He attended the School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia for a year at the suggestion of the Fine Arts faculty of his Alma Mater in preparation for joining the Fine Arts staff at the University. World War I intervened and Brill served for nearly two years with the Rainbow Division in France, participating in eight engagements and serving with the Army of Occupation. Returning to the University of