Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1930)

]»aO%'aE ItB>«.li«.EBftS EDITORIAL H OME movie making is like mountain climbing because the further we go the further our hori2;on extends. We start on the level and pleasant ground of recreation and we see only the pleasure of personal filming. Then we learn that the whole world may be brought to our own hearth through prints that we can rent or buy. Next, we discover that our camera will enhance our other recreations, that it will preserve our happy vacations for future enjoyment, that it will analyze and improve our golf, that, through simple animation or other cinematic devices, it will give us vivid lessons in our bridge game. Later we realize that we can make personal movies serve our business and that an "industrial film" of our daily occupation will have both actual and historical value. We may make our personal camera an active agent in our scientific interests, through microcinematography and nature filming. C We have certainly gone far enough with amateur movies for all of us to have learned that here is a broadly cultural avocation and that the apologetic era has passed. We no longer need be self-conscious with our cameras because we have seen the early chaffing of our friends — those merry souls who wanted to know why we did not go to Hollywood, if we were screen-struck — change into genuine interest, not unmixed with envy, about what we can do with our personal films. The intelligent man or woman knows that personal movies are widely used for genuinely cultural purposes by physicians, surgeons, scientists, travelers and explorers, practitioners of the seven older arts and, in some instances, by educators. Their employment by social and civic bodies is to be observed in cities of all sizes. d. Parents have, pretty generally, been more selfish than altruistic m making use of home movies. They have filmed their children for parental enjoyment and they have shared their personal filming and projecting equipment vwth youngsters only to the limited extent of renting juvenile comedies for a "children's evening" that, m the majority of instances, turns out to be, m reality, a parents' evening. They have missed, in most cases, the great service home movies can render in the cultural development of the younger generation. Yet many of these same parents express concern about the effect commercial movies may have on children, frankly reahzing that young people are continually "exposed to the movies" by the circumstances of modern life. C There is probably no better means for parental direction of children's cultural development than personal movies. The Chinese claim that a picture IS worth ten thousand words and children, today, hear so many words, what with the radio and the talkie, that parents may talk "with the tongues of men and angels" and make little impression. But the father can, with his own camera, record those things he would like to impress on the consciousness of his children and the mother can choose from the many available prints just those that she wants her children to see repeatedly. The cultural focus of the home can be registered on the screen with telling effect. CL Of course, those families that confide their children's education entirely to others will miss tliis wonderful opportunity as they have missed every opportunity to keep the family concept, if any, as a part of the picture their children get of the world about them. But the conscientious parent, who is also a movie amateur, will hasten to use this further horizon of his personal filming and projecting. A Word About the Amateur Cinema League THE Amateur Cinema League is the international organization of movie amateurs founded, in 1926, to serve the amateurs of the world and to render effective the amateurs' contribution to cinematography as an art and as a human recreation. The League spreads over fiftv countries of the world. It offers a technical consult ing service; it offers a photoplay consulting service; it offers a club consulting and organizing service; it conducts a film exchange for amateur clubs. Movie Makers is its official publication and is owned by the League. The directors listed below are a sufficient warrant of the high type of our association. Your membership is invited. Amateur Cinema League, Inc., Directors President HIRAM PERCY MAXIM Hartford, Conn. EARLE C. ANTHONY Director of the National Association of Broadcasters ROY D. CHAPIN Chairman, Board of Directors, Hudson Motor Car Company Vice-President STEPHEN F. VOORHEES Architect, of New York City W. E. COTTER 30 E. 42nd St., New York City C. R. DOOLEY Personnel Manager, Standard Oil Co. of N. Y. Managiyig Director ROY W. WINTON, New York City Treasurer A. A. HEBERT 1711 Park St., Hartford, Conn. LEE F. HANMER Director of Recreation, Russell Sage Foundation FLOYD L. VANDERPOEL Scientist, of Litchfield, Conn. Address Inquiries to AMATEUR CINEMA LEAGUE, Inc., 105 West 40th Street, New York, New York =J 13