The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

Page 56 TRAINING FILMS Featured at Vocational Meeting XXTT Operations seen in the U. S. Office of Education films. (Top to bottom) "Scraping Flat Surfaces" and "Reaming with Straight Hand Reamers" (from Bench Work series); "Drilling Hole in Pin" (Operations on the Sensitive Drill). (Distributed by Castle Films) The Educational Screen IS no longer a matter of convenience or a question of whether or not we have time to show training fihns in America today. Rather, the question is whether we can afford not to?" Thus, did Floyde E. Brooker, director of war train- ing fihns for the United States Office of Education, summarize discussions at the conclusion of the inaugural "Vocational Visual Aids Section Meeting" at the an- nual conference of the American Vocational Associa- tion in Toledo. December 2-5. In describing the great strides made in the production and utilization of films for instruction, Brooker pointed out that the American Army and Navy have the great- est program of training film production under way in the history of the world. The Navy has appro.ximately 1,0(X) training films under production and the Army is working on an equally impressive program. The United States Office of Education is producing from 120 to 150 motion pictures and approximately 150 film strips to help speed vocational training of war production workers. This, in addition to the forty-eight subjects produced by the Office of Education since the late months of 1941. "Mass production demands mass in- struction, and motion pictures and slidefilms are prov- ing that they are without equal in the task of imparting new skills to large numbers of people," said Brooker. "The Army, the Navy, and our vocational schools are being forced into the use of visual aids to meet our present demands for mass instruction." Plans for the first training films produced by the United States Office of Education for instruction of war production workers were laid in January 1941, almost a year before Pearl Harbor. When the Japanese launched their sneak attack upon the great American naval base in the South Pacific, eighteen of these sound motion pictures were available for distribution to classes for vocational training of war production workers both in the public schools and industry. These films carried the brunt of the vocational visual aids program during the first months of the war when mushrooming war factories needed millions of trained workers to man the machines on the production front. "At the outset of the war, Germany had a head start on the rest of the world in training films as well as in airplanes and tanks and guns," said Brooker. "In 1940, the Nazis had five times as many 16mm motion picture projectors per capita as did we in the United States. They had produced twenty times as many training films and they were making fifty times as much use of them. There is no doubt that films played a major role in imparting skills to civilians and soldiers during Germany's amazing rise to power in the years when she was preparing for her present conquests." Accelerated production of training films does not of itself guarantee that America will outstrip her enemies in utilization of visual aids for mass training. The Nation faces a shortage of men skilled in efficient use of training films and these men are sorely needed to help train other instructors. The films which are being produced today by the Office of Education are tested by essentially the same criteria that was developed before Pearl Harbor, Brooker explained. In order to pass this test, the film must be practical, it must be highly specific, and it must