Business screen magazine (1944)

BUSINESS SCREEN FEATURE REVIEW OF THE U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION FILM PROGRAM Movies in Overalls irON'IES in overalls are motion pictures to kl train people. They are not made to entertain, not produced for the general audience ^ ages and all interests, not built around dra(f plots based on the lowest common denomiitrs , . . they are not films of play for human i[s at play. Rather, they are motion pictures at DJ, helping to do the work of mankind, helping rito learn more quickly, more easily, and better, tJiings he must know to be a citizen, a wage t\r and bread-winner. In short, they are traingdms — films in overalls. >) gaily lighted inarquee marks the place where tj films are shown, and no searchlights stab the ;y.vhen a new one is born . . . for these films t|Orn in shops, made by shopmen. The "actor" iskilled master of his craft . . . and the films thown by shopmen to men %vho would be shop el No blurbs, no stars, no casual use o£ the s "stupendous," "colossal" — no press agent's r alwut the multi-million dollar cost will these films succeed. They will either train nen more easily and quicl^ly and better than have been trained before, or they won't, and these practical results count. e production of training films takes on the fi isness of this purpose. They work, or they t, and the question becomes, "What makes a ng film work.-' If the answer were obvious, training films worked, an article like this 'o|d never need be written. Prosaic films like are new, some succeed and others don't. I is the purpose of this article to discuss the ing and experience that went into the proUion of 457 training films made by the Office lucation so that ( 1 ) the films themselves will :tter understood, (2) others faced with similar isl of production may have the opportunity of ing from that thinking, and (3) research and tu of the films themselves may be stimulated. 1 e making of a training film involves responsilli -s of the producer that cannot be avoided or B:l of? lightly. The motion picture he produces hi ;)robably be shown to more trainees and leave 1 I irc intlclible imprint on their minds than al>t) any other form of communication. The film liar cannot — it he has any sense of responsibility |rh soever — play footloose and fancy free with the lldiduals who want to learn and who see his lln in order to learn. I "c mere fact that so little was known in I'Hl ibc: the production of a genuinely effective trainngllin only served to double the responsibility of heilm maker. He had the difficult task of proluig an efTcctive film, and the even more difficult as of pioneering in a relatively new field of film '0" i.r. Diviiion (i( Viiual Aidi for War Training. United Slalc* **'••' Fducaiinn. by Floyde E. Brooker* production. .Much of this responsibility remains. Every fact learned and every testimonial reported showing the power of the motion picture in training only adds to and serves to remind all instructional film makers of their responsibility. One of the primary responsibilities of the film maker is the recognition that when he makes a training film he must commit himself, wittingly or unwittingly. He is compelled to make decisions and to commit himself in terms of his audience, his content, and his selected form of communication. All three must be understood, for all three are a part of his final presentation ... he cannot say he does not know. He must end with a picture on the screen of selected content, shown in a given manner, for a specified period of time, and with a selected bit of sound or commentary. The film maker in a sense plays God and must accept his own creation. These three basic phases of all training film production will be discussed in order. Basic As.siiniplMins: Aufli(*n4>(> The audience of the film being planned is the unseen and silent partner of the film maker. No film makes sense save in terms of that audience, for the film is not complete, has not done its job, until it has secured the desired reaction from the audience. What the film maker knows about that audience, becomes the basis for many decisions that will have far-reaching effects not only on his content but on his film form as well. If he does not know, and must depend on estimation, the difficulty is increased, but his decisions whether based on fact or judgment will be equally definite and have equally concrete manifestations in his finished films. It is pertinent therefore to this discussion to consider the basic assumptions that were made in regard to the audience of these particular films. A. We assumed that the trainee tvould want to learn hotv to do the job. This assumption was directly related to others; namely, that students in shop classes training for the job would be the only ones who would be seeing these films. Ours was not a random audience gathered to see a "movie. " It was a training group, and in wartime, a group that as soon as it was trained w^ould start collecting pay checks on the production line. One answer would have been the production of a single motivational film for each series. This has more merit than combining motivational material with each film. During a war period when the essential quality of such productions would necessarily suffer from the speed of production and the short.iges of skilled craftsmen, such films would inevitably become recruiting films. It did not seem desirable to undertake the production of a motivational series of films. In each film there is some slight motivational material growing out of the job, but in the main we assumed that the student saw the film because he wanted to learn, that learning the essential facts of the job was interesting, and that "interest did not have to be added." B. IVe assumed that the trainee teould see each film several times. We assumed this because the film content of instructional material was so compact that no student could hope to achieve mastery of that content without seeing it more than once. It was our hope that the average trainee would see the film three and possibly four times in order to allow full benefit of seeing the job in its entirety, learning the sequence of procedures, learning the vocabulary and terminology presented, noticing and studying the fine points of the physical actions of the operator, and finally permitting full adaptation of the general material presented in the him to the immediate shop conditions of the trainee. The production of a more compact film fitted in better with the existing traditions of film utilization, shop periods, and instructional material. No one has yet written a shop text which the student is expected to master in one reading. C. We assumed that a s/(illed instructor would use the film. It is difficult to see how any other assumption is possible if you assume that the film is to fit into a series of lessons organized into a regular course of study, and dealing with subject matter too difficult to be learned in a single lesson. One of the primary roles of the instructor is to know each student well enough to start him at ►*U;BER THREE • VOLUME SEVEN • 1946 19 kJ