Reel and Slide (Mar-Dec 1918)

18 REEL and SLIDE ter is unable to improve materially on the film programs of the commercial shows. By a great effort the community center director may secure a proportion of distinctly educational subjects, but he will usually be unable to get the educational subject, which is also a dramatic and thrilling one ; such a film will be already pre-empted by the commercial show houses which are the privileged customers of the exchange. The inert and banal scenic films, the comics which fail to be humorous, the historical films which are not dramatic — these the community center may have for its program, provided they belong to the output of films for the past six months. Or the community center may go to the educational department of the General Film Company and obtain a more or less scarred and frayed program ; among whose numbers there may be some admirable educational-dramatic subjects. The whole situation may be emphasized by a comparison of motion pictures to the printed book. Let us suppose — 1. That each book is written and published with a view to being read by the whole American public, not by any special class of that public. 2. That all books are destroyed after they have been before the public for six months, and that new editions are not printed. 3. That the reading public gets its books by a contract through which, without reference to individual taste, every reader reads every book, and must surrender each book after one hasty reading because it is scheduled to be in the hands of another reader tomorrow. Under these conditions, how useful would be the printed word for specific educational or civic purposes? The Solution Is at Hand All the above facts have been repeatedly stated by The People's Institute ; they have been true for at least half a decade. They are fully outlined in the chapter on motion pictures, in Mr. Edward J. Ward's volume called, "The Social Center." The analogy to the public library will be clear to every one. But there is more need for a public library of films than there ever was for a public library of books, and for the following reason ; The book is an individual property. It can be read in solitude ; the individual can purchase it if he wants it. But the motion picture is essentially a collective commodity. The individual can have a desired motion picture only on condition that a large number of other people want the same picture at the same time. This fact makes it peculiarly out of question to leave motion pictures to the exploitation of unlimited commercialism. The public film library would differ from public book libraries in a very important particular. The book library is a free library, maintained at the cost of philanthropists or tax-payers. The public motion-picture library would be a self-supporting enterprise; probably it would be in time a lucrative business. The public film library, dealing with a sufficiently large number of schools, churches and other agencies, would be able to draw on the world's supply for whatever film it wanted, and to ransack the film output of the past ten years. Most of the negatives (the original copies) of good films, no matter when or where made, have been preserved, and fresh copies can always be prepared. The public film librarian would encourage, not discourage, the selection of programs ; he would study the problem of making film programs positively, consecutively educational, and at the same time magnetic, dramatic, popular. At present the community centers pay a daily rental of from one to two dollars for each reel shown. (A reel takes about fifteen minutes to show, and three or four reels constitute a program.) If the community center paid only 75 cents each night for a reel, forty nights would liquidate the capital investment on a reel. Sixty nights' use would liberally cover the overhead cost of maintaining a really enterprising, vigorously conducted educational exchange. It may be assumed that each existing community center or lecture center would use a given film on at least two separate days, which means that the already existing market, or consuming public, in the public schools, would use each film frequently enough to at least pay the cost price of the film. As soon as a business-like, well-stocked public film library was created, the use of educational films would develop rapidly. Churches, as well as schools, public libraries, playgrounds in the evenings, would patronize the library. Commercial showhouses would patronize it, to obtain the programs for such children's matinees as are now given in two theaters in co-operation with the Horace Mann School. The present immediate market for educational films is no index to the real demand. The public book libraries would not be popular unless they had books on their shelves, nor would people form reading habits if they were unable to secure the books they wanted. And this is exactly the situation in motion pictures, merely with a translation of terms. (Reprinted by permission from a pamphlet, "Motion Pictures: A Problem to Be Co-operatively Solved," distributed by the Social Center Committee of the People's Institute, New York, March 22, 1915). Department of Labor Asks Schools for Screen Information THE United States Department of Labor is engaged in the production of moving pictures designed to illustrate the government's war work activities. The chief mission of these films has been to keep the workman on his job and to aid the government in apportioning the labor supply of the country. David K. Niles, chief of the Motion Picture Section, has asked the co-operation of schools and colleges throughout the country. A questionnaire is being despatched to school superintendents throughout the country with the following letter: "Dear Sir : You have heretofore indicated your active interest in the work of the Bureau of NaturaUzation of the United States Department of Labor by organizing citizenship classes for the instructi6n of applicants for naturalization. "Educational motion picture films, as selected and edited by the Motion Picture Section and the Bureau of Naturahzation of the Department of Labor, will visualize the activities of the Federal Government described in the 'Student's Textbook,' compiled by Mr. Raymond F. Crist, Deputy Commissioner of Naturalization, and are intended as an aid to the public school teacher in the preparation of candidates for the responsibilities of citizenship. "While motion pictures can be used successfully in school work to supplement the work of the school teacher and textbook, they cannot be used to supplant either. "This attempt to develop the educational possibilities of the motion picture in classroom work is under the supervision of your government. Too long has this valuable aid in the field of Amercanization been neglected. The motion picture industry is ready. The next step is up to you. Will you, therefore, please answer the enclosed questions? "Cordially yours, "David K. Niles, "Chief, Motion Picture Section.'" The questionnaire reads as follows : 1. Have you an appropriation for motion pictures? 2. Has your school department motion picture projectors? 3. Give name and age of projector. 4. How long have you been showing motion pictures in your schools? 5. How soon could you begin using the films of this department? 6. How many hours a week will you devote to this purpose? 7. Can you pay anything toward the cost of handling motior pictures for your schools ? 8. Name some motion picture theaters near the schools inwhich you believe it would be desirable to show motion pictures,, if you have no motion picture projector and have no immediate appropriation for the purchase of one ; and state whether youi would be willing and able to make some arrangement with such' theaters to present educational motion pictures. This co-operationwould mean probably that you would use the motion picture theater as a classroom at such hours as the theater is not used for its regular business. Joseph De Frenes, of Bos-Morth, De Frenes &• Felton, directing, a picture in the Willys Overland plant, at Toledo.