Business screen magazine (1940)

NYA VOCATIONAL FILM {Cvnlinuftl from l^af^e 17 I and 24 will gain work experience this year, qualifying them for jobs in ship-buililing. aviation, machine tools and other bottle neck industries. In foundries and forges, wood and sheetmelal. machine and radio shops, boys and girls are learning to work by working. How to present the picture of these job-bent youth in a way to attract and hold the interest of the public was the problem the Illinois NYA solved. Without sacrificing the professional touch, costs were necessarily kept at a minimum by commandeering the staff and youth for a large part of the production work. Tell One Youth's Story In order that the film would not be merely a series of disconnected scenes, a simple story of one typical NYA youths experience was told. Against a background of defense industries needing workers, an inexperienced unemployed youth is introduced. Taking an industrial foreman's suggestion, the boy applies at an NYA work center. Before the camera, he goes through the initial procedures, passes a medical exam and takes the oath of allegiance. As a counsellor explains the program to him and other youth. fades take the audience to actual resident and work experience centers throughout Illinois. With the counsellor's words '". . . You will take your places among the 100,000 who found employment during the past 12 months through NYA experience . . . And in your hands the fate of the nation and of its way of life will be safe", the boy is inspired to start his NY,\ work experience. A Good Commercul Short Youth on the Industrial Front has all the qualities of a good commercial short. Burton Holmes Company of Chicago did all lab work. The Chicago NYA Symphony Orchestra provided special music arranged to fit the action. No "actors," in the professional sense, were used in Youth on the Industrial Front. The "hero" is a 17-year-old boy who worked in the Chicago work experience center machine shop. The role was a "natural" for him because he had turned to the NY.\ for help after his high school graduation when he could not find a job. The counsellor, as well as the supervisor shown, are all members of the NYA administrative staff. Some 1500 youths on the Illinois NYA program worked, ate and played before the camera for this movie. TRAINING FOR DEFENSE Chicago Schools Explain Vocational Training Program in Pictures • I'oRTKAVLNC the Operations of an all-out program of technical training for defense work — involving ten trade and technical schools throughout the city and. in some cases, a 24-hour classroom day — the Chicago Board of Education sponsored motion picture Chicago Trains Men for National Defense, is a highly effective presentation of how one city is helping to meet the nation's need for trained men. The film was produced by the Film Council of the Chicago Public Schools. Through Superintendent \^illiam H. Johnson's Vocational Training Program, supervised by Assistant Superintendent Philip L. McNamee. thus far this year. 22.000 men have been trained for specific defenseindustry jobs under the program. According to Lee R. Robins. Director of the Council, the great majority of these men have already been absorbed by defense industries— 8,000 on the direct recommendation of their teachers, many others through contacts of their own. The courses given are open to all men of workable age. There are no tuition fees or other costs for enrollees. since the entire expense is met by the Federal Government. Classes begin immediately MAN THE MACHINES Recruits in that army of men who operate the machine tools vital to American defense need training as much as our buck privates. Films, like those in production for the Gisholt Machine Company, "Turret Lathes, Their Operation and Use," are doing that job faster. And see what a few exhibitors say about another Kodachrome production, the South Bend Lathe Works "How To Run A Lathe Film Series": "E.xcellent color; every detail is brought out clearly" . . . "Best visual aid pictures we have had" . . . "Excel as a teaching aid" . . . "The finest pictures in this line that I have seen" . . . "Without a doubt the best of its kind in its field." The best equipment plus skilled writing, direction, photography, editing and sound recording — in color and in black and white — bring proof from audiences that BURTON HOLMES FILMS GET RESULTS! 48 Years oi Successful Showmanship BDRTON HOLMES FILMS, INC. PRODUCERS OF MOTION PICTURES AND SLIDEFILMS FOR INDUSTRY 7510 North Ashland Avenue • Chicago • Telephone ROGers Park S056 after the clo.se of the regular school day. continuing throughout the evening and into the night. .Subjects covered include aviation mechanics, automobile mechanics, electricity, foundry work, forge work, machine shop, mechanical drawing, sheet metal work, welding, pattern-making, lead burning (a process taught in no other public vocational school), blueprint reading, and tool and die design. Leakmnc by Doi.nc Training throughout is geared closely to the modern educational theory that the best teaching involves "Learning by Doing." Every operation is planned to duplicate actual industrial practice, avoiding always the waste-motion of purely "classroom practices." \ motor, for example, is never "cut away " to demonstrate its inner workings; rather, it is torn down and rebuilt as it would be in the repair factory. Even the use of scale models is avoided wherever possible. Training films, selected from the "biggest school film library in the world." are used whenever the teacher feels there is real need for them. In Chicago Trains Men for National Defense, the whole story of this training program in Chicago is presented simply, directly, graphically. Done in full color with accompanying narrator sound-track, the film makes especially liberal use of close-up sequences of men at work on a variety of tasks; thus. in the absence of a continuing human-interest narrative, the message is kept immediate and personal. Two Major Uses Planned Two major uses are planned for the film. It is being shown to commercial club, civic club and other business men's groups to stimulate a general interest in the program and to interest business men in employing graduates. In the first week during which the film was offered for bookings, eighty business groups were booked for showings, eighty other groups could not be accommodated. .\ secondary objective — being pursued through showings before student and parent-teacher groups — is to interest prospective enrollees in the benefits of the training. Past enrollments have come from technical workers who have been away from their jobs and grown rusty of skill, from men who desire to rise above recent routine futureless tasks, and from high school and college graduates. Emphasis in the filming was placed on complete coverage of the activities carried out in the ten participating schools. Hence, little 30 BusinesH Screen