International photographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

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A COMPLETE MEANS OF INSTANTANEOUS PARTICIPATION IN SIGHT AND SOUND HLEVISIOIl Judge Joseph Marchetti and Catherine Sibley considering pictorial composition as appf.ied to television. The illustration being considered is from a recent issue of International Photographer. Judge Marchetti, it will be recalled, performed the first wedding ceremony to take place over television. For introduction to Miss Sibley of the University of California Extension Division read the story on this page. The New Frontier Among the younger artists who are one by one casting their lot with the future of Television, is Catharine Sibley, actress, writer, and former production associate of Max Reinhardt. "My belief in Television," says Miss Sibley, "is that it will become one of the greatest living social forces known. It will equalize opportunity in many fields particularly in education. "I see it becoming the great distributor of the worlds goods both as far as merchandising is concerned, and making new and remunerative enterprises possible. A hint as to the new age of leisure arts in theater, dance, and design, which television might open up is to be seen in the widespread interest and profitable patronage of music that radio has brought about. "My fear for Television," continues \li^ Sibley, "is that during this difficult period of technical perfecting that lies immediately ahead, enough money and enough imagination will not be put back of program experimentation. As a consequence, before Television has had the chance to become the established favorite with the public thai it deserves along its own unique rails, it may have bored ils potential supporters into permanently snapping off the television knobs of their 24 receiving sets, because of banally imitated radio programs or third rate motion picture offerings with which it is providing the home screens in the meantime. "Tell the public of the great possibilities of Television and then show them vvhat to look for is one-half of the answer," insists Miss Sibley. "The other half of the answer is to be found in setting up a program experimentation unit that will develop production ideas for Television usage, and this carries with it the additional responsibility of searching out the principles of a new technique — as Mr. Harry Lubcke puts it 'the to-be-developed technique of Television'." To answer both these needs, Miss Sibley is organizing under the sponsorship of the University of California Extension Division a course called Introduction to Television Production and Acting, and also an advanced group on program experimentation. Both courses will have their initial meetings the first week of March at the University of California Extension Headquarters, 815 South Hill Street. Information may be secured by writing or calling there. The following is quoted from a recent radio broadcast by Miss Sibley: "Television is itself a new frontier to be explored, and television opens the way to many other yet unexplored frontiers. Any unfulfilled wish or desire that a person has is an implicit frontier for someone to develop a scientific invention, or a new production, or a new activity to fulfill that wish or need. Television itself, as a scientific invention, is a new frontier. It is perhaps in the same position today that the invention of the automobile was forty years ago. Forty years ago there were perhaps only a few thousand men employed in the automobile industry, whereas today, six million, by recent figures, were found to be employed in the automobile manufacturing industry, and a million additional in the accompanying oil industry. "You see, there are two types of inventions. One type is a revolutionary idea like the telephone and the automobile, of which we have just spoken, and television itself. These inventions themselves create whole new industries, and bring about new widespread employment. The second kind of inventions merely improve existing processes and products, and in some cases this last type causes deep unemployment. "Well, in this matter of unemployment, would television give unfavorable competition to motion pictures? No, it would not. Because television is not just another motion picture. It is a medium of its own and will be developed along lines peculiar to its own medium. For instance, the outstanding characteristic that makes television is "immediacy." Immediacy is a word that best describes that feeling of suspense and fascination that one has when looking into a television screen and knowing that what one is looking at is actually taking place right at that very moment in some part of the world — whether it be in the television studios, in the down-town area, or a horse race, or an inauguration of a president. "The essence of television might really be defined as — Sight, plus Sound, plus Immediacy. The motion picture, on the other hand, has only sight and sound, but lacks the romance of immediacy. Television, on the other hand, is a great consumer of motion picture film, and therefore a potential customer of motion pictures. Television will never have the high-power glamour appeal of motion pictures, because television will never be able to afford the tremendous sums of money that go into the making of a first-class motion picture. Television is being developed for home use by the family fireside. This is in itself a strength and a good quality, but it will never satisfy the social urge of people to gather together in large groups. That groupsatisfaction that comes when one attends a packed house at the theater, or at the local motion picture. , "In the all-important matter of defense, it is very possible that television will be the 1943 medium of military communication. It is a mechanized warfare. The African tribes used their war drums to gather their tribes for battle — the American Indians sent their smoke-fire warnings. In 1914 — to jump to recent times — it was the telegraph and the crude mud wireless that kept the advance forces in constant contact with army headquarers. Now in his age of airwarfare and mechanized units, we find experiments successfully carried on transmitting airplane views to the officer in command below. "The second new frontier, democracy, the basis on which our American system is built, would be considerably furthered if one could return to the democratic old (lays of the American town