Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

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10 DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS OPEN LETTER FROM A SCHOOLTEACHER dear marjorie: I'm so sorry you weren't able to get up to Manchester in November after all, but at last I'm keeping my promise to let you know all about the Conference on Visual Units organized by the Scientific Film Association. There were plenty of people there — teachers like us, local education authorities, university people, education experts (whatever those are), film producers, people from the Central Office of Information, in fact someone from every organization you can think of. Mr Hughes, the PPS of the Ministry of 1 dacation and Chairman of Committee A, gave the first talk on Friday evening and he explained all about Committees A and B — why they started, what they've done and what they plan to do. He made it all very clear and easy to understand. After that we were meant to see some films but the projector or something wouldn't function so that was all until Saturday morning when Mrs Marcouse (she's the secretary of Committee A) started off the day's proceedings by telling us about the Visual Units that are being made — how the ten now planned are to be experimental and go out to selected LEAs so as to see how they work in different schools. She named and outlined all the Units and then showed us the main film of Houses in History (it also has wall charts and models which we saw). Later on someone in the discussion said that it wasn't a subject which was really suitable for a film and I must say I didn't like it very much — I wouldn't use it because I think my children would find it hard to follow and a bit dull. Next came the Water Supply Unit which hadn't yet been approved by the Ministry of Education but which should be out soon after you get this letter. It was meant for 12 — 14 year children (on the average) and included one main film, 11 silent ones, 2 film strips, wall charts and teacher's notes. We saw the main film — (I'm afraid it would make the children in your area laugh a bit because it didn't even mention all the houses in the country which depend solely on individual rain-water storage tanks for their supply!) However it was a new approach and I think it could be very useful in the schools. There were a lot of criticisms afterwards but I approved of its clarity and its slow commentary — not a word too much. People seemed to think it was rather like a 'mystery tour' — that they ought to have shown where the water went before they showed it leaving the river; others thought that the diagrams were too involved for children, that they were not simple enough and did not give any ideas of proportion in size of pumphouses and tanks, and that the children would ask 'why' over a lot of points which should have been clear. After this we saw some of the silent films of the Unit — I don't think the ones showing how various pumps worked were much use and two other people said it was waste of time to make them. MERLIN FILMS Twelve technicians with a hundred and seventy-five years' experience in films Then we saw the film-strips — I liked them, though later on one of the film people said they were badly made. I still feel they'd be popular with my class. The charts weren't so good — most of them seemed more for older children and the simpler ones were rather dull — I'd rather allow the class to make their own from the rest of the material. That afternoon all the people who had been in on the making of the Unit described what had happened from the first idea in March, 1945, until now. It does seem awful waste of time, money and energy to take three years over one Unit. doesn"t it? And someone said it had cost £16.000! The COI man said he thought £8,000 would be nearer but he wasn't sure. It was quite interesting to hear about all the work, but I did feel it was a lot of fuss over something which will admitted!) be very useful, but not all that essential. Still, it is an experiment and the people who made the Unit seem to think it is going to be successful. The delegates were full of questions and criticisms but didn't get very clear answers. In the evening we saw another Unit meant to be used by the students in training colleges, etc. themselves and not for teaching as such. Near Home was the name of the main film; I thought it was very good and only wish I had the time to get my class going on something like that. I didn't quite get the point of the cine-panorama but the silent film was excellent. In fact. I liked this unit. Local Studies, best of all and think it should go down very well in the training colleges and with older children. It will be useful because of the lack of 'teaching' in it. Next morning we saw the films we should ha\e seen on Friday and then Mr Thorn (Secretary of Committee B) talked about the work of his Committee. He told all about the panels who are working on films for different age groups and then said that every film was to have as Educational Adviser a teacher of the appropriate age group who would be seconded on full pay for a term or longer in order to be in on all the filmmaking and learn a bit about the technicalities — that would be fun to do, wouldn't it? He also mentioned apparatus supply and the Regional Film Libraries which are to be set up so that we can go to see films and Visual Units before actually ordering them for use. That seems a good idea! Again, there was a hot discussion and people aired quite a lot of grievances about the length of time taken on making Units, about difficulties over apparatus, about bad co-operation from LEAs and about the weak points in the films. Unfortunately the Committee people didn't seem really to answer all the questions we asked; lack of time, I suppose. That afternoon we heard Mr Green on the need for research in Visual Education. I felt that he was obsessed by psychological experiments and some of the ones he quoted seemed quite irrelevant. Also, he seemed very exercised over whether children learned best visually or otherwise— I though the only people who could learn wholly visually were the deaf-and-dumb and, after all. we were discussing Visual Aids in Education, not Visual Teaching. Anyhow, the Conference was worth going to and I wish you had been able to get there. I don't imagine I'd ever have the time or the wish to use a whole Visual Unit but I suppose someone might have. Anyhow, it does show thai the powers-thatbe are trying to do something and it's very interesting to see how they do it ! Yours sincerely .