Educational film magazine; (January-December 1920)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

standard stock, as is all other federal, slate and municipal film, including the 34,000,000 feet war history pictures mentioned in your article, and all of this is available for instruction purposes to those institutions equipped with standard film projectors. Nor should one forget that the theaters are daily receiving and showing more and more educational film which is also being rented for school use. Dr. Starr points out the logical line of advance when he urges insistent demand for acetate of cellulose (safe) film instead oJ nitrate film. If it is good for safety standard film, it is equally desirable that all film be made on this stock. This is a subject, by the by, on which the Society of Motion Picture Engineers voted unanimously in passing the following resolution: "To the United Stales Government Departments and Bureaus, State Departments and Municipal Governments— "It is the opinion of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers that in the interest of public safety all motion picture films issued in future by the Federal Government, State or Municipal Depart- ments, shall be printed on slow-burning stock and that all film so printed should be so labeled; first, for the purpose of securing safe conditions in the use of these films; and, secondly, to give by this means an example which should be followed as far as practi- cable by all manufacturers and distributors of motion picture film. The motion picture is already the fifth largest industry. It is destined ultimately to be the greatest single industry in the whole world and the most useful. It speaks tlie one universal language, to the old and the young, aiul the learned and illiterate of every tongue. Prof. EUiolt, I think it was, said that the theater use of pictures will be but seven per cent of the total ultimate use of the motion picture just as fiction is but seven per cent of literature. The non-theater use of pictures is. therefore, worthy of our best effort if only because of its future. By A. E. GUNDELACH Sales Manager, De Vry Corpoation, Chicago, HI. (A teeter to the Editor) On the strength of the statement made in the last issue ot Educa- tional Film Magazine that "the pages of your magazine will always be open to those who have an idea to suggest, a plan to propose, a truth to impart and a wrong to right," we are taking tliis oppor- tunity of explaining fully the elements that enter into the raison d'etre that a controversy exists at all relative to the safety element involved in the use of motion picture film in the non-theatrical field. The emphasis you lay upon moral responsibility and civic duty further strengthens our appreciation of taking advantage of this opportunity. I do hope that this is thoroughly understood by all concerned for if we fail in our understanding and appreciation of that one phase of our existence, all else is for naught. Vou state that with the sale of each projection machine using •litro-cellulose film and operated in utter disregard of the vrise rules adopted by fire insurance underwriters and state and municipal fire authorities all over the United States, a new hazard is added to the many already existing, thereby increasing the possibility, if not the probability of another Iroquois Theater disaster. In the first place, so-called wise rules of the underwriters are purely recommendations, as explained later, and as far as municipal authori- ties all over the United States are concerned, there are only the [few of the many that have any regulations whatsoever or who have in any way adopted the so-called wise rules of the insurance under- writers; and today the progressive ones do not agree in many ways v.ith the recommendations of the underwriters not only insofar as al affects moving picture equipment but insbfar as it affects a great many other articles. You will find that insofar as the underwriters and municipal authorities are concerned, that it is a constant see-saw, back and forth, one at the head in one direction, the other at the head in the other direction, one procrastinates here and the other there, and it is a continual see-saw, back and forth, just as is the progress of humanity in all other directions. The statements that you make in your magazine, that are con- tinually made bv the safety standard advocates, is the constant allud- ing to "law evasion" and "violation in the handling and showing of motion pictures." The only places there are any possibilities of law evasion are in those territories where legislation exists pertinent to regulations that only permit the showing of safety standard film. In other places, the "law" is absolutely in favor of the standard hlra with the full understanding that the moral responsibility entirely rests upon the user; litis understanding further elucidated by the user being brought to a full appreciation of what is necessary to handle inflammable film safely. You continue strelcliing the point in order to substantiate your attitude by stating that portable or semi-portable projectors equipped to run standard inflammable film which are used without fireproof booths, expert operators and other prolcclive and preventive devices approved by the underwriters and the fire authorities, are not within the law and, as such, the sellers and buyers of such machines aro liable to prosecution. That statement is absolutely wrong. The manufacturers of portable and semi-portable projectors equipped to run standard inflammable iilm are within the "law" in the majority of instances and according to the legal status, the majority constitutes a preponderance of evidence and according to law, your contention is out of order, drops of its own weight. The safety standard advocates continually lie up the underwriters with the law. The underwriters are just like any other business, a commercial organization, are not public benefactors, but are purely an organization to protect the interests of the people whom they serve, not the public but the insurance companies. You further state that the third fact is the safety of the acetate cellulose film as adopted by the Society of Motion Picture Engineers. Buy a safety standard machine and camera and make some )notion pictures and then read what is expressed by the under- writers, that it isn't the danger of the film in the macliine but the liim outside of the machine; and then go and count up the thousands of feet of negative film you have in the house and then put it down in big letters in your memorandum that every foot of it is inflammable I Im and all the time you are under the impression that it is non- flam and will not take the precautions taken by those who are conscious of the fact that they are handling inflammable fiJm when handling the standard film. Is that honest, sincere and conscientious, ot is it law evasion and all those things that the standard advocate is damned for? It is interesting what you state about an operator smoking S cigar over open cans of inflammable film. Why, every cigar or cigarette that is lit is just as potential a fire hazard as any thousana feet of inflammable film produced, if not more so. Last year's fire* of 88,500,000 to cigarette butts alone, is ample evidence of it. Now, tthich was the hazard in the case you mention—the film or the cigar ot the man who is smoking it? The best thing in your article is that you are making a plea for safety, for decency, for moral and civic righteousness. That's what we are for and trying to obtain, but as long as the controversial elements of standard versus safety standard are allowed to dominate the thought that would otherwise assure of honest progress being made toward an adequate solution, it will be a long time before tiie problems will be worked out to the satisfaction ol all concernea. You also state that the market is wide open and that every manu- facturer, distributor, etc, is free to make, sell, use and exploit the safety standard principle in any way he sees fit. You just try to obtain safety standard film from your standard negative. Then try to do it yourself and you will learn a few things of interest to you. All the money in the world will not make it possible for two standards to e.xist. Either we are ultimately cofing to safety standard non-inflammable film for every purpose or standard non-inflammable film. Which is it? To quote from Edison, "I do not think it is within the power of any man to change the existing standard." The article by your projection engineer is erroneous. He starts out by making a flat-footed statement as a "fact" that "in every state in the Union certain very stringent rules and regulations have been drawn up," etc., and, then again, "Read the Law (?); It Is Clear," etc., and then winds up with the impartial statement in favor of the safety standard film as being the real solution for "safety first," insisting that nothing be used but the narrow width slow-burning film not forgetting to add as adopted by the Society of Motion Picture Engineers as the safety standard." In regard to Mr. Pierce's article, he states that the recommendations the underwriters made were laid down long ago. were wise and sound, and that it would be extremely unwise and unsound to modify them in any particular. No. the under^vriters do not modify unless they are forced to by the same pressure of circumstances that force the issues of progress insofar as it concerns the majority of us. We were the first ones to call to the attention of the industry, the installation of standard machines not protected by booths on board the President's ship. Mr. Pierce comes out with the flat-footed statement that the under- writers vfill not approve the use of either inflammable or non-inflam- mable film in standard width unless fireproof booths, expert operators and the other safety provisions, etc., are obsened. Neither the underwriters nor the law can discriminate as to size. Standard non- inflammable film fulfills the letter of the law where legislation exists in the literal sense and as far as the temptations are concerned being impossible to resist, etc., that is becoming his brother's keeper with a vengeance. If he goes that far, why not all the way? He winds up liis statement by saying "the only way to avoid this risk is to make it impossible to take it." We say "How?" We again ask. by narrow width? Then we say again most emphatically, if so "How?" The most interesting statement that Mr. Pierce makes and which we are in full accord with and which the entire industry should have a full realization of is, that "the danger is not so much in the machine itself—many of the portable projectors are safe enough within themselves—but in the handling of nitro-cellulose film out- side of the machine." He further states "I have made this statement hundreds of times but persons witliin and without the film industry do not seem to get the point." No, I guess they do not and will not for sometime to come. It will mean revolutionizing not only the film industry from the standpoint of motion pictures, but also from 14