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All this is very well, and I do not raise the matter in a spirit of objection. Cinema, if inferior to golf, is as fair and expensive a way as most of spending Saturday afternoons. It is true, however, that many amateurs would welcome an opportunity of turning their film sense to public uses : and it must be the first job of any movement in the 1 6 mm. field to outline these public uses and organise their service. This is the thesis of the present article.
Serving a definite end is, among other things, a very important incentive in the making of films : far more important than the vague and almost always false incentive of "making art." It is a good practical axiom that art is never to be got by direct pursuit. It is a trophy obtained, by the grace of one or other of the gods, in the fervent pursuit of something else. In any case, the definite end is a salutary discipline. It dictates the theme. It dictates the treatment. It dictates lucidity and length. It provides an audience and, generally, a critical audience. For all these gifts the amateur should be grateful.
There are two other very important considerations. The definite end may also supply the cash, as happened with the Preston Film Society, the Glasgow educational group, and, I believe, with one of the efforts of the Edinburgh Film Guild. There are other examples to be found in the technical colleges, research laboratories, and the mines and factories. Amateur work has, in such cases, been put on an economic basis. The second important consideration is that the definite end gives amateur film production a growing point. It ties it up with the life of the community and gives it status as a social activity. It supplies the continuing support necessary to development.
Inspiration (continuing inspiration), regarding theme and treatment are not associates, on the more romantic theories, with the cold-blooded purposes of a public end ; but, on any evidence, you will find it so. Art, or call it creation, generally involves a mastery of raw material and there is nothing like having the raw material forced upon it. It is then that the imagination has to dig in and find things ; and there is no better way of discovering that element of surprise (miracle, call it) which is a necessary quality of art than by taking it from what seems unpromising material.
Anyone knows that birds, trees, hills, lakes, sunsets, etc., are goodlooking, and any moron exposing at five-six with a K2 will say as much as need be said about them. But to dive into a factory, or dive into a slum, is a more adventurous business. And to make a good clean job of a teaching film on the Southern Uplands of Scotland is a more adventurous business still. Just to select those twenty or thirty or fifty shots from all the activities involved which will say your say about it, and make it an analytical or poetic or dramatic say, is something that no one has done before you.
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