Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER JANUARY AND FEBRUARY 1944 11 FILM GRAMMAR By Arthur Elton After the war the 16mm. film camera and the 16mm. film projector will be mass produced, and it is reasonable to suppose that the prices of these pieces of equipment will fall. This means that everyone who can afford a portable typewriter will also be able to afford a film camera. The film camera and the film projector will become as necessary as the typewriter, the fountain pen and the watch. The day is upon us when films can be printed cheaply, and can be made available to everyone who owns a projector. There will be lending libraries of films in every town, as there are now lending libraries of books. Everyone will have at his disposal a new means of self-expression. If the film is to be used to its best purpose, everyone will have to learn the grammar and syntax of film making. At present, film makinfe is largely confined to the professional. Though the film industry has produced its great and less great novels and poetry, it has not yet produced parish magazines, learned periodicals, local papers, minority pamphlets, and all the other commonplaces of literature and free speech. These are on the way. Illiteracy? Disadvantages as well as benefits arise from the easy acquisition of film cameras and projectors. For centuries, writing and reading were confined to the learned minorities in monasteries and abbeys. Very gradually indeed the common man learnt to read and write. Very gradually he fought for and won freedom of speech. In the case of the film, the common man is going to be presented suddenly with the instruments for self-expression by film. Within two years of the end of the war the market may be flooded with cameras. Is the common man going to take the pains to learn the grammar of film for clear expression in the same way as (he learns the grammar of the written language? •Or is the world for years to come to be filled jwith "illiterate" films? I do not mean that the common man must acquire the intricacies of film grammar and expression in the way in which a professional must do, but I mean that he must become as familiar with the elements of film craft, as writers of letters and pamphlets and parish magazines are familiar with the elements of writing. For I hope the film will be used by everyone who wants to record conditions in their home town or village, or wants to publish an account of an experiment, or a guide to local beauty spots, or an analysis of transport conditions, or an idea for town-planning, or any of the thousand and one things which contribute to the social and personal life of the individual md which are worth sharing with others. The danger of "illiterate" film babel is a real one. For example, many scientists to-day are naking their own films. Though most of them lave mastered the principles of photography, few of them have mastered the grammar of film. Though sometimes literary expression by xientific workers is defective to the point of obscurantism, their films, I fear, are often worse nil, stumbling, inconsequent, incomprehensible, and lacking in context and continuity. They are, not so much vehicles of expression, {is lecture notes, and often bad lecture notes at ihat. (There are, of course, exceptions, such as the beautiful films on surface tension and Brownian Movement, made at the Royal Technical College in Glasgow.) The film is an unmatched method for the mass diffusion of knowledge, but so long as its muddled make-up compels the presence of its maker, or a specially rehearsed lecturer, to explain it before it can be understood, ninetenths of its value is lost. It has even less value than a duplicated memorandum. If the film is to fulfil the valuable purpose of a moving blackboard for teaching purposes, it still must be so shaped as to be useful for any lecturer who wishes to teach by it. Unfortunately, illiterate films pass by unnoticed. The person who cannot read or write is instantly aware of his handicap. He usually cannot get more than a humble labouring job, and he cannot properly take part in democratic government. The person who makes an ungrammatical film does not notice his handicaps. It is society which suffers, and not the individual. Mass education in film grammar is a big task, and no one has yet attended to it. It will be necessary to add instruction in film making to the curriculum of our schools, and to open classes in film making for adults. There are few, or no, simple text books on how to make a film, though there are thousands on how to take a photograph. This gap must be filled. For the day is soon coming when any organisation without a film camera will seem as backward as an organisation without a typewriter. The same will presently be true of the individual. Martyn Wilson, M.M. "Dei-ore the war, Martyn Wilson worked at -"Realist, and before that he worked at Scottish Films in Glasgow. He was a plump, easy going young man, with what is very rare in Scotsmen, the ability to take a joke against himself. One of the jokes happened after he had been in the Army for a couple of years. Walking across the courtyard on a dark winter's morning, with a pint mug of boiling hot shaving water, he slipped and as he jerked backwards the pint of boiling water was shot straight up into the air. As he leant forward to regain his balance the pint of water hit him smack in the back of the neck and he was in bandages for about a week afterwards. But he thought it was funny. Later, Wilson was transferred to the Army Film Unit and became a Sergeant cameraman. His first real operation was the landing in North Africa. He landed with Commandos at Cap Ferrat, but his boat, unfortunately, hit a submerged sandbank and a human chain had to be formed to get the men ashore; Wilson, encumbered as he was with camera and stock, could not go along the chain and had to jump for it; he went to the bottom in ten feet of water. But somehow he managed to get ashore, with his camera which was by then in a fairly bad condition. Whilst looking around for something or someone on which to plant the camera, they were attacked by ambush. The man with Wilson was killed, and Wilson, grabbing his Bren gun, fought his way back to the boat. Wilson was with Major Stewart all through the North African campaign, at Sedjenae, in the Battle at Banana Ridge and with the first American troops to enter Bizerta. For gallant and distinguished service Sergeant Wilson has been awarded the Military Medal. nun ntvniii NEWS LITTER MONTHLY— ONE SHILLING VOLUME 5 NUMBER 1 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER stands for the use of film as a medium of propaganda and instruction in the interests of the people of Great Britain and the Empire and in the interests of common people all over the world. DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER is produced under the auspices of Film Centre, London, in association with American Film Center, New York. EDITORIAL BOARD Edgar Anstey Geoffrey Bell Alexander Shaw Donald Taylor John Taylor Basil Wright Outside contributions will be welcomed but no fees will be paid. We are prepared to deliver from 3 — 50 copies in bulk to Schools, Film Societies and other organisations. Owned and published by FILM CENTRE LTD. 34 SOHO SQUARE LONDON VV.l GERRARD 4253