The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

54 CINE TECHNICIAN April 1956 We are indebted to A. E. Jeakins for the following account of Sir Arthur Elton's lecture FILMING ROUND THE WORLD T^OR its third lecture meeting of •* the current season, the Technical Committee were fortunate in getting Sir Arthur Elton, executive producer of Shell Film Unit, to talk to members about the film-making activities in various parts of the world of Shell and its related companies. Jim Garrett was in the Chair. Sir Arthur Elton introduced the programme of films he was going to show by explaining that, with one exception, all of them were made by the Shell and Iraq Petroleum Companies as part of their information services. BOILING UP They were made in Iraq, Egypt, India and Venezuela and were reflections of a general kind of movement that was taking place; if some people felt that the documentary film was rather static in this country, they might be interested to learn that it was boiling up in other parts of the world. These films were in fact training films for a future film industry. They were distinguished from most other films of the same type in that they were made by the local people. Shell could, of course, have sent out teams of technicians to make these films, but, Sir Arthur said, he felt that a unit descending on a country, staying for a while, and then leaving contributed little of value to the culture of that country. It was Shell's policy, wherever possible, to send out expert technicians to train people to make their own films. He felt it would not lead to the diminution of employment that some people feared. There was a continually growing demand for people who wanted to help in this way. The jobs were well paid and people enjoyed doing this sort of work. This scheme had also led to an exchange of technicians under a plan agreed with A.C.T. Many A.C.T. members were at work all over the world and Bert Hanstra Talk by Sir Arthur Elton had come over here to make the Rival World for the Shell Film Unit. One of the reasons why Sir Arthur favoured this system was that people who had learned to make films about oil could go on to make films about other things and be the instruments of spreading the seeds of learning among their fellows. COMPERED BY IMAM Sir Arthur said he would show an excerpt from the first film made under this system. It was shot in Egypt on 16mm. under great difficulties and he asked the audience not to pay too much attention to the print quality. The film was made by a young Egyptian, to his own script with the aim of training workers to take safety precautions. The Muslim faith often encouraged a fatalistic attitude towards accidents, regarding them as things sent by God and so unavoidable. The film set out to combat that attitude. To strengthen its message it was compered by an Imam. It took the form of a series of personal stories and had as its title an old Arab proverb, ' Tie up your camel and leave the rest to God.' After the extract from the film had been projected Sir Arthur said he hoped that his audience would agree that it was a piece of genuine film-making and that it could have been made in just that way only by someone knowing intimately the ways and thoughts of the people he was describing. Another thing Shell had set out to do in Egypt was to make a staff film magazine for showing to the workers in the oil fields on the western side of the Red Sea. Many of these people had never been far from their homes and often knew little about the outside world and even about Egypt. He would show a sequence from the magazine; shot by a painter from Cairo who had become interested in films. The quality, it would be noticed, was better. This item showed a great Egyptian monument being transported from its original site to where it was going to be set up in Cairo. It was shot on the hop by one man with a Newman Sinclair. INDIAN IMPROVISATION The Burmah Shell Company had recently started a similar scheme in India, which was operating under Jim Beveridge, formerly with the Canadian National Film Board. Before the unit was formed Burmah-Shell had sponsored an advertising film about kerosene. This was the exception, Sir Arthur said, which he had referred to earlier. It was shot in Kodachrome, and was an outstanding example of Indian improvisation. It had an excellent track. Now to the other side of the world, to Venezuela, where there was the biggest Shell Film Unit after London, with Lionel Cole in charge. It had been running for two or three years after overcoming formidable difficulties at the start. Everything, including labs and recording, had to be started from scratch. The unit's programme included films about oil and about Venezuela itself. The excerpt that was to be shown was from a film on malaria. Venezuela had attracted people of all nations and the unit is made up of not only Venezuelans by birth but also of people who had emigrated from other countries. The excerpt from the Venezuelan film was then shown and its mag