Reel and Slide (Mar-Dec 1918)

w=^ EDIT^ODIALS (£5 — ^ NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS If you fall to receive your copy of Reel and Slide Magazine promptly please do not tlnink it has been lost or was not sent on time. Remember there Is an unusual pressure on the railroads, moving troops, supplies, food and fuel. The demands on them are enormous; they have more business than they can handle, so delays are inevitable. Everything humanly possible is being done to expedite prompt delivery. the suggestive, crime exploiting photodrama. But do not let us call these productions "educationals." We are going to need that word badly at a later date to designate our standard productions filed in the vaults of our biggest universities and in our high schools. We want to know just what is meant by it. We want to distinguish reels that supplement a standard textbook from reels that entertain and have some instructional value. Spare the Word FOR all practical purposes, it seems, we are called upon to look upon the strictly educational motion picture in the same light as we look upon the schoolbook. It is, in the main, an excellent parallel. Only the film is an adjunct to and not a substitute for, the book. It can only supplement it. But for the purpose in hand, the standardized film library, in the future to become a part of every high school and college equipment, must bear the same relationship to school policy and school funds that is found in regard to textbooks. More has been done in this direction than is generally believed to be the case, but in every case of the notable exceptions, a lenient attitvide toward the shortcomings of the film producer is the dominating element necessary. The less conservative and more progressive state institutions who have acquired limited film libraries are not satisfied with what they have on hand, but believe that they have the best they can get now, which is better than nothing and is a step in the right direction. One thing is certain. The instructor must control, in some measure, what he shows on the screen. The power of the visual example being intensely acute in relation to the young and impressionistic mind, can easily be a bad influence if misguided. Film makers indorse this view ; the educators indorse it. The film man has less desire to become an authority on anthropoid apes than has the man with a doctor's degree to become a studio director. He should not be permitted to try it. He should be used as a tool by the man of learning in the same light as a bookbinder. He should stick closely to his camera crank and "follow the script," as the saying is in the studio. But, if he gets no greater amount of material encouragement than he has in the past, we may continue to expect half-cooked, injurious and spurious reels labeled "educational" and projected before the student body here and there to the great chagrin of the textbook writer. Let us make no mistake here. There is no criticism to be made of the excellent travelogs and industrial pictures which are, happily, finding popular support with our general public. These pictures exert a good influence on the mind ; they indicate a higher standard of public taste since the demand for them points to the decrease of popularity of the obscene comedy and Movie Propaganda UNDER the caption, "Movie Propaganda," the Baltimore Star writes, editorially : "The movies, say various government department heads, are an indispensable channel for wholesome war propaganda. Principles of food production and conservation, it seems, have been inculcated through the medium of the movie film more successfully and more widely than in any other way. "The fact is not surprising. The most alert and intelligent mind, in dealing with concrete subjects, prefers pictures to mere words. In fact, the more brilliant the imaginative faculty the more prone it is to draw pictures for its own education. This tendency to visualize mentally can be led in the right direction most efifectively by that versatile and entertaining educator— the movie film. "Reports of success of the motion picture as a popular educator prompt the hope that as time passes its use will be introduced to a greater extent into the schools. Even now some of the most exclusive and expensive schools of the country use moving picture machines for the illustration of many subjects of classroom study as well as for special travel lectures and addresses on natural history. "Remembering the dull routine and drab monotony of much academic education, one is glad to realize that the rudiments of learning are coming to have more interest and vitality." Churches and Pictures THAT there is a growing interest in the use of motion pictures in connection with religious work is indicated by the recent request for suggestions addressed to the secretary of the National Committee for Better Films by a representative of the Social Service Commission, Federal Council of Churches. It is valuable to consider a larger use of motion pictures in the churches jiist now. Without doubt, the Y. M. C. A. after the war will use them to a great extent in their local work for men and boys. The churches have as their field the family as a unit, which is a normal and natural basis of work. Also the prejudice on the part of some church leaders against the motion picture is rapidly disappearing because of its undoubted value both in this country and in Europe