Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

PROPAGANDA AND THE CINEMA 6 1 composed from old material selected for the purpose, but in either case editing and cutting — the basic factors of film making — are their strength. For the expression of some particular contents, abstract effects and trick photography are employed so as to give an added power to the appeal of the film. It is interesting to note that the abstract film, usually considered as a highbrow article to be left well alone, is in this case harnessed to a purpose and is the better for it. Varying degrees of abstraction expressed in the purely cinematic terms of editing, cutting and pictorial composition are brought into use to put over statistical facts on the public. Such short abstract films are not shown in the ordinary commercial cinemas, but on continuous automatic projectors at exhibitions and scattered in prominent places, such as big stores and railway stations, throughout the country. In brief, the technical aim of these pictures is to attract a passing crowd with every foot of their length. Their full message must be expressed by practically every shot as well as by their sum. They may well be termed posters in movement, and it is obvious that their production calls for as much skill and ingenuity as any theatrical story-film. Although I am confident that we are on the brink of a widespread advertising and propaganda campaign through the powerful medium of the cinema, and that it is probable this movement will evolve some remarkable new forms of technique, not only in fresh uses of the screen image but in new forms of sound and perhaps decorative colour, I would point out that the course of the propagandist film director is far from