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DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER
129
FILMS for the ARMY:
THE WORK OF AKC
The Army Kinema Corporation, a civilian organization, was set up last year to continue the work done during the war by the Directorate of Army Kinematography at the War Office by the Army Kinema Service in the field, and by ENSA on the entertainment film side.
Supervision
The AKC is responsible for supervising the production, through civilian trade firms, of all training and instructional films for the army and for distributing and exhibiting the release prints when the films are finally approved. A typical release print order is for, say, 20 x 35 mm and 70 x 16 mm prints, though, of course, this varies with the type of film and the precise audience for whom it is intended. Prints are sent to AKC libraries (there are 13 in the UK and about 25 major libraries overseas, from Japan to West Africa and from Hamburg to East Africa) where they arc held for issue on demand. A small number are earmarked for schools and training centres which have specialized film libraries of their own. Many army units have their own 16 mm. projector and films are issued to them by post or local delivery; in addition, all AKC district libraries have dual mobile 16 mm projection equipments which serve units which for one reason or another have no projector of their own. There are over 120 of these equipments in the United Kingdom and over 300 overseas or in troopships. All AKC libraries have their own technical and administrative staff, and film repair and maintenance workshops.
Distribution
As well as handling training and instructional films for the army, the AKC rents, distributes and exhibits entertainment films. These are shown both in 35 mm (there are about 250 35 mm theatres operated by AKC all over the world) and in 16 mm. These entertainment films are obtained under the terms of the contractual agreements made by the AKC with the major British and American renters. The agreements guard civilian exhibitors' rights, and define what categories of soldiers' friends and relations may attend AKC shows. About 104 feature films are booked annually and are shown to army units large and small, wherever they may be. As the Treasury has now withdrawn the subsidy for entertainment for the Forces, the cost of providing these entertainment films has to be met from the box office receipts, which are fixed in agreement with War Office. The small and isolated units, whose need for entertainment is greatest, are catered for by an elaborate system of 16 mm mobile routings. AKC's aim is to give the soldier the best possible entertainment films at the cheapest prices whether he is in a big city in Germany or guarding a desert outpost.
General Interest
Many of the War Office Instructional films are of wide general interest; some have been reviewed from time to time in the dnl and in other Documentary trade journals. A number have been 'adopted' by the Central Film Library in the same way that the War Office has adopted films from COI and elsewhere, and these are available in the usual way from the CFL. To meet the many requests for copies of their films, the War Office have recently authorized the prints held in AKC libraries to be made available to approved civilian organizations at a hire charge of 5s. a reel a day (16 mm). Among these films are the ABCA Magazine series — 10 minute films on current topics designed to serve as a basis for discussion — Coal, Education,Town and Country Planning, etc.; the Current Affairs Series including Read All About it, a three-reeler about the Press designed to show the difference between
news and views, and to show how a newspaper works; Our Teeth, which shows in an amusing and non-technical way why it is a good idea to keep one's teeth clean ; Best Feet Forward, made for the ATS on the care of the feet ; Technique of Instruction in the Army, already widely known out the army as an effective aid in instructing the instructors; the eleven films of the Map Reading Series which, although dealing primarilv w ith the use of the map from a military point of view, show details, in actuality and diagram, of conventional signs, contours, direction finding and so on. There are also a number of technical films like those on Compression Ignition Engines and on Elementary Principles of MT Vehicles.
Full details of these films can be obtained from the AKC libraries at York, Hounslovv, Edinburgh, Salisbury, Belfast and Chester, or from Curzon Street House, London, Wl.
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