We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
240
A REEL REPORT CARD
Begin a school film this fall. For here's one course your kids will pass with solid A's
DOROTHY M. PEPER
ONE lovely fall morning last September. I watched a grandmother who was visiting in the next block. It was the first day of school, and a real red-letter day in her young grandson's life!
With her light meter aimed toward the young man on the front porch, she remarked about some exciting thing he would be doing at school; then, as his face responded with eager anticipation, she pressed down the button as he swaggered down the steps to the front sidewalk. There he turned and beckoned to his mother to hurry up. Grandma caught the two of them driving off in the car for a sequence ending.
They didn't drive very far, of course, before waiting for Grandma and her camera to catch up. Then, at the gate to the schoolyard, where the young hero stood clutching his mother's hand as he gazed at the big building and the hundreds of strange kids, the grandmother recorded the fleeting emotions in a kindergartner's face, as he struggles between familiar things of the past and strange things of the future.
Then she filmed a few short (but related) scenes about the schoolyard — the greeting of regular acquaintances, the meeting with a few new faces, the "good morning" to his new teacher (whom, we hope, he had already met) and finally his disappearance into the big building with all his young classmates. A perfect climax for this section of film was provided when the boy stopped just at the door and turned to wave and smile, visibly closing the door on a very young past!
That was the beginning of a long and interesting story. They'll be adding to it, part of a reel at a time as the occasion arises, for the next nine months. Spliced together and titled with suitable captions, it will tell the
Lambert from Frederic Lewis
CORNER-TO-CORNER composition, a pleasing down angle and effective side lighting enhance this medium shot of an octet of kindergartners poring over their pictures.
story of an important period in one young man's life. And there'll be other years — and perhaps other children. Perhaps yours is a girl. Then take your camera along the day of the first program for parents. (How I treasure the shot of my sixth grade daughter in the play where she was a princess who "proved her royalty" when she fainted at the sight of a mouse!) The first excitement will hardly die down before it's time for the Halloween party — with colorful costumes and games and refreshments, every part of which you'll find worth a few film feet. It was a Halloween party, with a costume parade, that provided my very first amateur movie set! The picture was overexposed, and I panned too much and too fast; but it never fails to delight my children, as they watch the antics and recall the classmates of their early youth!
All school children make a lot of the Thanksgiving holiday, from Plymouth Rock to the family feast. What a wealth of expression on five-year-old faces as they concentrate on coloring the "bestest" turkey (or pumpkin or church) in kindergarten class! And what a wealth of talent (?) as young dramatists struggle to portray their Pilgrim and Indian parts!
Then there's Christmas — with the making of presents, the presentation of plays and programs, and all the parties so dear to a very young child's heart. Concentrate on catching some of "The Spirit" — the joy of giving and sharing. While your child may look adorable in his sleepers and robe, chatting with Santa by the stage Christmas tree, your really appealing shot will be the expression in his eyes at the school's party for parents, as he hands you the clumsily wrapped present on which he has labored so patiently for two long weeks!
In February there's sure to be a Valentine party, with lots and lots of Valentines and refreshments of heart-shaped cookies or cakes. Film your young hopeful's stuffing of the Valentine Box. If a son, you'll surely get a shy grin, or maybe one bold and brash; if a daughter, a demure smile and perhaps a nice polychrome blush! Shoot the party games and refreshments (focusing on your own young Valentine, of course). And end with a closeup of the Valentine made especially for you "all by myself."
Spring will bring all sorts of interesting affairs in school life: Easter, with arts and crafts and the dyeing of multicolored eggs; May Day, with the making of May Baskets, the winding of a May Pole in lovely pastel colors, or perhaps a whole May Fete! And there'll be the spring epidemics of marbles and yo-yos and jump ropes and jacks. And all kinds of races — dashes and hurdles and high jumps, and even the comic kinds like three-legged, slow bike and gunny sack. [Continued on page 244]