Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER JANUARY AND FEBRUARY 1944 separate topic, to be developed elsewhere. For the moment suffice it to say that traditional logic, as formalised originally by Aristotle, simply codified certain thought processes deemed adequate for minds living in a very different social and physical world from the one we inhabit, but desperately inadequate to-day. To transform our thought processes and bring them into close correspondence with the actual processes around us, a medium is needed which can speak directly to millions — as do the press and radio. The only such medium is the film. The film is a medium of communication, but not merely in the mechanical sense. Radio and the printing press are media of communication but they simply communicate words. The film can communicate not only words but images and visual ideas. These form a language in themselves. It follows that we are all becoming bilingual. However, so rooted are our ways of thought, our social behaviour, our civilisation, in verbal language, that we are not — most of us — mentally ready for what the film has to offer. Hence the need for a deliberate attempt to bring verbal and visual expression into juxtaposition to bridge the gulf and pave the way for a visual-minded generation. Such a change-over would enable the linguistic strangle-hold of traditional stupidity, hatred and ignorance, to be eliminated. It is not so easy to be stupid in pictures. Further we can say things visually which can't be said at all verbally. If the film can say things which verbal language cannot express, or can express only with endless circumlocution, this has an important bearing on the relation between film producer and teacher. We cannot simply suppose that educational film development would proceed smoothly, if only suitable machinery could be devised for bringing the wishes of the teacher to the notice of the film-producers. You have to conceive before you can wish and you conceive mostly in the terms on which your mental training was based. The vast majority of teachers have been trained in the verbal tradition. Their curricula, syllabuses and lessons are accordingly conceived in verbal terms, and they find it difficult to conceive education in any other terms. Consequently, if the production of educational films were made to depend on the wishes of the teachers the result would be doubly unfortunate. On the one hand, many of their wishes, being conceived in verbal terms would be incapable of filmic expression or would raise serious difficulties. On the other hand, a whole realm of visual ideas foreign to the outlook of all teachers trained in the verbal tradition but part of the film-maker's mental stock-in-trade, would go to waste because there would be no demand for it. You cannot demand something of whose existence you are unaware. It is important to emphasise that in the film there has rapidly grown up, not only a new and immensely powerful language, but also a new world of ideas. The teacher may reply to this: "This is all very interesting but it docs not concern me. I have a job to do, a certain amount of educational ground to cover and all I want is a few films to help me cover it. Your 'visual ideas' deal with things outside my curriculum". This brings us to the point at issue, the issue of the old wine and new bottles. You cannot introduce a new and powerful educational technique and go on indefinitely teaching the same old curriculum. The whole history of the Industrial Revolution teaches the same lesson. The railway and aeroplane do not merely do what the stagecoach once did. People travel for new purposes. The power-loom does not only make the old fabrics. The radio does not simply give the orator a wider public, it has given him a new world to talk about. Must education forever sit Canutelike, denying — or defying — the oncoming tide? In short the film provides not only new ways of saying things but new things to say. If this argument is granted, a better, more reciprocal and more dynamical relation between film-producer and teacher becomes possible. Put schematically, it amounts to this: Teacher: "I want you to make a film saying 'a b c' for me." Producer: "I can't easily say 'a' but I can say 'b c' also 'd' which you hadn't thought of, but which is a logical extension of 'be'. So if you will pave the way by saying 'a' in your own way, I will say 'b c d' in a film. Teacher (later): "Your film was useful. It said 'b c' in about 8 minutes. Normally 'b c' takes over an hour of verbal instruction. Now 'd', which you stuck in, was a new one on me (though curiously enough it didn't seem new to some of the children) but I liked it. It gave me ideas. If 'd' helps in teaching 'b c', wouldn't something like it be possible in teaching 'e f ' which is always a rather difficult topic?" Producer: "Let me think a little. I once made a film on 'p q r' which is in some way similar to your 'e V though not much like 'b c'. What you need here is not something like 'd' but something hke'i' to round off 'ef in the way 'r' rounds off 'p q'. Yes, I think I can manage that." Result: The film "e f g" which neither producer nor teacher would have thought of alone, and which could only result from their previous collaborative experience in film-production This is, of course, a much over-simplified picture of the relationship between producer and teacher and we have left out a third party, the subject expert (scientist, historian, etc.), but enough has been said to indicate the pnx If the educational film is to develop systematically and in accordance with the needs ot our present situation, the technique for pooling the brains and experience of the film-expert, the educational expert and the subject-expert must be elaborated and made more explicit. Moreover it is not merely a question of three individuals working together but three groups, or rather three professions. It is not merely a matter of expressing day-to-day needs or individual brain-waves but of giving full-time technical expression to long-term educational policies and of bringing a vast realm of visual ideas into juxtaposition with the current educational ideology, and of being prepared for a substantial transformation. It is not enough merely to state a problem. Steps towards the solution must be indicated The setting up of the Visual Education Centre ai Exeter may contribute. It would be academic in the worst sense of the word to train teachers Lr the use of films without taking any interest in the probable future supply. As Lecturer in Visuai Education I have been much occupied with thi; problem. Plans are now being put in hand for a series of conferences beginning with a conference next Easter at Exeter, mainly for teachers Proposals will be made for permanent machinery for representing the various interests involvec and for co-ordinating supply and demand. I should not be beyond the wit. of man to devist means for harnessing our technological power: and opportunities to our social and educationa needs. it For uour information IN every progressive enterprise there must be leaders and those who follow behind. As artistic and technical progress in kinematography quickens to the tempo and stimulus of war, " KINEMATOGRAPH WEEKLY" is always to be found " up-with-theleaders ", its well-informed pages radiating perception and far-sighted thinking. Kinematography's leaders themselves know this for truth and turn to "K.W." week by week for information and enlightenment. 93 LONG ACRE LONDON W.C.2