Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1952)

300 TRY THE CHURCH NEWSREEL Rich and rewarding subject matter awaits your camera amid the myriad activities of your local church. And the audio opportunities are intriguing LEROY E. HURTE IF YOU HAVE a hankering to make a newsreel and at the same time do a good public relations job for your church, by all means try the Church Newsreel. You will get plenty of cooperation from your church officers and members, and the ready-made scenes will cut your expenses down to a new low. Certainly your pastor will welcome the project, for he will find in it a means of presenting to his entire congregation the various departments of the church and how they combine to make a successful organization. Naturally, the scope of your church activities will determine the contents of your newsreel. The sequences suggested herewith are some of the activities of my own church (a Seventh-Day Adventist congregation in New York City) which maintains quite a vigorous program. While all the items on this list may not be a part of your church's schedule, they should suggest the possibilities inherent in this type of movie making. 1. With Civilian Defense to the fore these days, many churches are holding first aid classes and running drills to evacuate the church auditorium audience into a basement shelter. Sequences of these activities, liberally spiced with closeups in the case of the first aid instructions, will strike a truly contemporary note in your newsreel. 2. If you have a home missions group which visits and helps the sick, be sure to make this a part of your coverage. The filming operation itself should be good therapy for the indisposed party. Show your group cleaning the house, washing the dishes, preparing food or reading to the patient. 3. The pastor, during the preparation of his sermon, may seek inspiration by walking in the park or driving in the country. Here you and your camera can get next to nature with him, thus adding beautiful pastoral and floral scenes to your production. 4. The choir's annual concert or a recital by an out standing artist-member of your church can give quite a "first-nighter" atmosphere to your news film. The artist unquestionably will be thrilled at the idea. Other members of the church can be pictured as they arrive or in reaction shots to the concert. 5. The Young People's Society in action, the socials and the indoor and outdoor sports, all of these provide the excitement and variety necessary to make a well rounded newsreel. Still other sequences might cover a wedding ceremony, church school activities, graduation exercises, or the pastor's birthday party. With all of the recent advances in easy amateur use of sound, you will want to give careful consideration to this medium as a method of heightening the appeal of your production. Your lead title assembly, for example, might be effectively double exposed over a shot of the choir singing a lively hymn, with their voices recorded on tape or magnetic film and used in accompaniment of this section. During the body of the film you will most likely alternate between passages of music (marches, hymns or other ecclesiastical pieces from available recordings) and a narrative delivered in true newsreel style. With the wealth of musical talent generally found in any church congregation, an effective audio accompaniment should be one of the easiest parts of your production. Depending on your church, the overall treatment of your film can lean more toward the devotional, the recreational or even the educational side. Such a picture will be of outstanding aid to new members of your congregation, acquainting them at once with all of the church's activities and suggesting a line of service which most wins their interest. In fact, so effective is this kind of film that it soon may become an annual event which the whole church will look forward to seeing. For here is a newsreel that can actually do a good deed, has wonderful entertainment value and performs an excellent public relations job. Better try it! ARTISTS OR ACCOMPANIST, a sequence of each will make a pictorially interesting and audibly effective addition to your church newsreel.