International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

THE CINEMA IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 79 a book is of value only for the class for which it was prepared, so it is with the film. For the boy who goes to school for the first time, taking with him the living sensation of the country, moving objects, and the life that flows in and from everything with the same restlessness as from his own muscles, the film should be based more on formative than on informative criteria, and should be the reproduction of simple natural scenery ; so that the boy has the sensation that life continues around and before him in the school just as out in the world. A film based on such a conception may be used, except in certain special cases, in both town and country and in different sectors of the same nation. Further, in schools of this grade, where the didactic qualities of the teacher have not even the possibility of being fully utilized, it seems to me that there would be no harm in making use of films that reproduce entire lessons. Films of this kind stimulate the faculty of observation in the pupil, and frequently avoid the difficulties caused by the use of a too scientific language. A child understands the meaning of what it sees reproduced on the film, and although it may not be able to give an exact description of it or make use of the proper expressions, it will at least remember the meaning and succession of the facts that have appeared before its eyes. Educators know that it is better for the pupil to make an effort to find the proper words to express an idea or a concept than for his mind to be filled with terms whose meaning he does not know. On the basis of these considerations, some of the big cinematograph firms and cultural associations, and the numerous State and State subsidized organizations have prepared and continue to prepare daily many series of films, which may render considerable service in teaching if they are properly utilized. The problem becomes more difficult when the teaching reaches a higher grade and the didactic aptitude is of more importance, when in substance, the efficacy of the teaching is closely bound up with the personality of the teacher and the method of teaching he adopts, Now, these personal qualities cannot be revealed in any way when the film reproduces an entire lesson ; and the teaching that is based on rigid lines is empty, cold and lifeless. The lesson that is all ready, cut and dried spoils good teaching, and does not improve bad teaching. A firm which produces didactic cinematograph material recently prepared several series of films which have certain qualities that are worth recording. In the first place, each film is executed in such a way as to constitute a complete lesson on a well defined question. The scenario is prepared with the same care and exactitude as when a model lesson or a school primer is bemg prepared, and each film is entrusted to a specialized director, after the elements composing its have been examined and approved by a rigorous and meticulous technical expert. Each film is also accompanied by a pamphlet of ten or twenty pages describing it scene by scene, indicating the points which should be particularly studied by the master before the projection is given, and suggesting comparisons and questions to be put to the pupils. What object is served by these films, which I have seen highly praised in certain newspapers ? Is it possible that their authors do not realize that they reduce the teacher's function to that of a cameraman, and that by making use of them the master will find himself forced to walk on chalked lines which he dare not leave without risk of disturbing the order and evolution of a lesson which is frequently quite differently arranged from the way he would like to give it, and which more often still is quite unsuited for his pupils and the lines on which he wishes his teaching to proceed. The contents and technique of a didactic film must be changed gradually wth the rising grade of the school, and such films must be a supple adiumentum in the hands of the teacher which he can make use of as the needs of his explanations require. Each film must reproduce detached facts, and phenomena of short duration. Im