The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

The News Chat 225 een brought to the point of complete pcuracy regarding flats, channels, sub- lerged rocks, etc. Perhaps the most novel recent use for srial photography is that practiced by a (.rge western lumber company for count- ig logs in river or bay. Previously the rocess of counting the restless mass of lousands of floating logs has been not nly tedious but very inaccurate. An arial photograph now gives a truer count 1 a small fraction of the time. r T IS REPORTED that a Los Angeles experimenter has devised a process >r taking the heat out of the light in inema projection. This makes possible le photography of minute living crea- ires which are ordinarily killed by the itense light needed in microscopic work, uch a process would prove invaluable ) scientists in their study of insects and erms as related to agricultural problems nd human diseases. FAUST is announced for the screen, in authorized screen edition, as it ere. A company under the supervision f the artist, Ferdinand Pinney Earle, has een actively at work upon it for the past :x months or more. Something great ill be done with Faust some day, of ourse, and who knows but this is the ay? Mr. Earle himself is quite certain f it. In Camera! for July 22nd, he shows is enthusiasm and conviction in the fol- >wing ebullient but unmistakable terms: "Exhilerating possibilities unfold themselves to le screen pioneer eager to explore this battle- eld of the human soul. It has taken nearly a undred years for critics and scholars to under- and the undying story values of this greatest f all messages to mankind. "Over seventy thousand photographs and en- ravings illustrating the various phases of the tory have been selected, filed and catalogued, .nd many thousands of pages of literature deal- lg with the subjects have been digested. "We are preparing the first really sychronized core, from Berlioz, Boito, Gounod, Listz, Wag- ner and numerous others who have already writ- ten more Faust music than can be used. Besides this, I spent the best part of twenty years in Europe, visiting and living in many ancient towns and familiarizing myself with Gothic architecture and the customs of primitive peoples, and with the culture of artists and writers of old. And we feel even cocky about it, and are tempted to promise settings and imaginative scenes unlike anything heretofore attempted. "The love story of Faust and Margaret is one of the treasures of the world, and would suffer from a dry-as-dust or a melodramatic rendering. Some mythical renaissance, some inner awakening must lift screen drama out of the rut into which it has fallen, to treat such a story. "Such a drama should become a permanent classic for schools, colleges, clubs, theatres and homes, and be a service to fellow men. "It might exert as much influence as years of a university's activity, and rouse new respect for the screen, proving that it is the prodigious half-brother of the printing press." UflVERSAL'S three serials, "With Stanley in Africa," "In the Days of Buffalo Bill" and "Robinson Cru- soe," will be seen and more or less ab- sorbed by millions who never read or even heard of the 3-inch volume, "In Darkest Africa," who never learned the history of the great West from authorita- tive sources, who never read or have largely forgotten Defoe's masterpiece. Whether these millions get the truth abo.ut these classics of history and fiction, or merely the sensational aspects of them, will depend on what the picture-makers choose to show. The important fact is that they will get whatever is given on the screen and build up their stock of supposed knowledge accordingly. It is informal education at a rate and on a scale undreamed of before the mo- tion picture came. To wish it were bet- ter, to regret its existence, to wait for its passing—are alike utterly futile. It is here now, it will be here always, and formal education must sooner or later take into account the fact that the screen educates wherever it hangs.