The Cine Technician (1943 - 1945)

THE CINE-TECHNICIAN January — April. 1944 RALPH BOND POST WAR PLANNING THE tremendous impetus given to documentary, training and instructional films by the requirements of the Ministry of Information, the Services and other official sponsors is a fact familiar to most workers in the film industry. Most of the skilled technicians specialising in this type of film have been reserved and despite certain difficulties of administration their output has been very considerable. The possibilities for the post-war use of the documentary film are equally great, but this needs planning in advance. This necessity was fully comprehended at the A.C.T. Annual Meeting last year when the following resolution was passed : — That the General Council be instructed to approach the Ministry of Information, the Board of Education and other relevant Ministry or official body to ascertain whether consideration is being given to plans for post-war documentary and educational film production. The great increase in the use of such films which has arisen out of the war has fully established their value to the community, and it should be urged that continuance of such film production can be an important factor in social reconstruction when hostilities end. If it be discovered that no planning has taken place, the General Council should press for machinery to be set up as soon as possible under Government auspices to initiate such action." Not satisfied that any Ministry was preparing planned schemes for the post-war use of the documentary film, the Genera] Council appointed a committee to prepare a detailed report. After intensive research the Committee drafted its report, which was accepted by the General Council and is now published as a printed memorandum. It is fair to say that this is the most exhaustive study that has yet been prepared on the subject, and A.C.T. can take pride in having made a valuable practical contribution to a section of the British film industry that is assuming yearly a greater importance in the educational life of the nation. In an introductory section the memorandum emphasises that the documentary film has a part to play in the whole sphere of post-war reconstruction and planning — in agriculture, housing, health, reconstitution of industry, social services, finance, civics and so on — not merely in recording what is being done or is proposed to be done, but in helping to create both an enlightened public opinion which will be receptive to new ideas, and a habit of objective thinking which is essential if democracy is to survive. The position of the documentary approach to film in a modern democracy should here be underlined. A basic assumption of democracy is that the opinion of each individual of the community is important and, at each given moment, contributes something to the organisation and activity of that community. It stands to reason, therefore, that democracy can only be healthy if the opinions of each individual in it are soundly inspired and founded on facts — not illusions. But the basic community to-day is the population of the world — not merely Britain, or even the British Empire. The developments in communications in the last quarter-century have brought all the people of the world into very close touch. Thus individual opinions nowadays, if they are to.be sound, need to take into account this new conception of life, and an enormous new range of facts. Only film, with its immense flexibility of expression, is equal to the task of informing people, by eye and by ear, and in emphatic terms, of what kind of world they live in. Thus informed, each individual's opinion becomes a sound brick in the structure of democracy. A considerable part of the memorandum is concerned with the use of film in educating children. It is recognised that improved educational standards should be one of the first post-war aims. and that the film as a teaching aid must be further developed. Instructional films for schools and technical colleges have as regards presentation of the subject special requirements which have hitherto been denied proper consideration owing to economic limitations. Previous to the war the number of such films produced for the purpose of technical training was small and the number produced for classroom use even smaller. In fact, the films available in the latter category were in the main either out-of-date or produced primarily for other purposes. The reason for this lay in the fact that only a very small proportion of schools possessed projectors, and almost all of these were silent machines incapable of projecting a film with commentary or natural sound. This meant that as a commercial product the teaching film was a poor commodity because the market was too limited to provide a return sufficient to cover production costs. Some producers tried to make their educational films in a way acceptable to the