British Kinematography (1949)

157 THE PURPOSE OF THE EDUCATIONAL FILM Read to the B.K.S. Sub-Standard Film Division on December 8, 1948. Frank Wells* THE making of educational films is a highly skilled task. The technicians required for this type of film have to be expert in a large number of specialised fields, and we are fortunate in this country to have the technicians able to produce animated diagram, for example, of such high quality. Photomicrography, high-speed photography, stop-motion work, X-ray kinematography, and so on, are all available to the producer and the teacher. Each technique can play its part in giving the learner exciting and interesting material that could not otherwise be made available. Nevertheless, to the teacher the use of film in the classroom is an inconvenience. Black-out has to be carried out, the projector and screen fitted up, and the film threaded (preferably the right way round), and so on. It is a sad but inescapable fact that many of the comparatively few projectors already in schools are hardly used at all. Too many of them live, or just lie, in the great hall and never get into classrooms. The Class-room Projector The educational film needs projection equipment that is really portable and easy to use, and schoolrooms in which it can be used. We cannot do anything about the latter, but we can do something about the former. Too many sound projectors now made are magnificent machines, able to project a picture on a full-sized kinema screen before an audience of twelve hundred. The equipment consists of several heavy pieces and rolls of cable. We need machines on prams, that will pass easily through doors, that are completely self-contained, and that need have no capabilities beyond the scope of the classroom. If we do that then we can quite confidently expect the schools to deal with the far simpler problems of black-out and ventilation. We should be able to eliminate these and provide daylight projection. Standard of Films To the class the film may be a welcome relaxation or a bore. The best type of educational film is neither ; it requires from the class a very high degree of concentration. A great deal of learning material is compressed into 10 or 20 minutes — and the class is unable to take notes. It is clear, therefore, that we must provide something that the teacher cannot better provide by other methods, or cannot provide at all, and we must make our statement to the class with absolute clarity and in a manner which cannot easily be forgotten. Thus it is necessary to provide films of such a quality that both class and teacher will willingly suffer any inconveniences. Every bad educational film will harm the whole idea of using educational film— and in that term " bad " we must include, possibly as the most dangerous type, the ill-chosen subjects. For as soon as teacher or class sees a film and then thinks afterwards " I would rather have taught or learned that in some other way," then the destruction of the film idea has begun. Experience of Teachers Earlier this year there was published in the United States a very detailed " Report to Educators on Teaching Films Survey," made by a committee of seven publishers of school books and visual material. To many of its readers the most remarkable of the conclusions in the Report are these : — *G.-B. Instructional, Ltd.