Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

Not Born A brief history of the use of AV in the churches. "DiBLICAL subjects are alwayi JD difficult to photograph, since theologians are quick to detect flaws in text matter and misinterpretations of commonly accepted versions of Biblical events, varied according to denomination and personal opinion." This quotation might have come from the new 4th Edition of the Audio-Visual Resources Guide, just off the press. It is taken, instead, from the laudatory evaluation of a new motion picture, "Creation," in the magazine Reel and Slide, July, 1919. The debate between strict Scriptural adherence and interpolation apparently was not born yesterday. In this three-reeler produced by Atlas Educational Film Company, of Oak Park, Illinois, for Lutheran Churches of America (sic), a compromise was apparently sought. In his scenario, the Rev. O. Hagedorn, Milwaukee clergyman, embellished the story "taken almost literally from the first two chapters of Genesis" with some highly dramatic episodes not found in the Bible. Abel's "devotion to one of his younger sisters" sets in motion a chain of envy that contributes materially to the murder. He makes the mistake of giving one sister a necklace he has made of shells; the other steals it from her and "with feline cleverness the guilty one confides to Cain that Abel is unkind to her. . ." thus fanning "the already burning flame of hatred he bears his brother." "The hate which fills his heart acted as a bar to his sacrifice being accepted by the Lord" we are told. Special interest in early developments of audiovisuals for church use was stimulated by preparations for the observance of the centennary of the Church Federation of Greater Chicago. The city's leading status as a center of manufacture, production and distribution of projection equipment and materials was established at a very early date. Looking backward, the Audio-Visual Committee of the Federation's Department of Christian Education found historical background of considerable interest. Looking forward, it has won support for its proposal for a survey of present and potential AV activities of the numerous federation departments with a view to the establishment of a central audiovisual agency, with adequate professional personnel, that would serve the total work of the Federation in all its ramifications, very much as is done in such bodies as the National Education Association, and the medical and similar professional organizations. Until just before the turn of the century it seems evident that Chicago area churches, like the schools, made use of flat pictures, stereographs and "Magic Lantern" slide projection. This was just about the extent of visualization then. These glass slides came in many sizes, they were often hand-colored, and in some cases involved ingenious tricks to create an illusion of motion. Actually today's motion picture is itself an illusion of motion, each frame stationary on the screen, but shown in such rapid sequence that the eye cannot erase one image before it is modified by the next. A* far back as 1870 "moving" pictures of acrobats and dancers were shown in a church Men's Club by means of glass slides projected in rapid sequence. At least as far back as 1902 central slide sets began to be established; the Methodists', under Dr. S. Earl Taylor, numbering over 60,000. The glass slide developed to the point where it was shown outdoors on a screen 100 feet wide (at the Methodist Centennary Convention in 1919). Slide lanterns used lime-light, kerosene, carbon-arcs and finally incandescent lamps as illuminants. The "Optigraph," one of the earliest motion picture projectors, manufactured in Chicago, was frankly an attachment to a "Magic Lantern" lamphouse. The 1898 Sears-Roebuck catalog devotes an entire page to the idea that by investing §35 for the machine ($20 extra if with lamphouse) and a modest sum for 50-foot film subjects run at 40-frames-a-second, an "operator" could earn from $20 to $50 every evening. The films were silent, so each was accompanied by a complete descriptive script "interspersed with witty jokes and funny sayings." Motion pictures were originally all short incidents with novelty as their chief appeal. Among the first to break through the short reel barrier were five different "Passion Play" productions made respectively in Bohemia, Manhattan, Philadelphia, and in the Holy Land. Chicago at the time was second to none in film production and distribution, as well as in projector and camera manufacture. The leading nontheatrical field magazines. Reel and Slide (1918), Motion Picture Age (1919), Visual Education (1920), and The Educational Screen (1922) were all published here. Their files disclose some very interesting religious film production ventures, such as the one detailed at the start. Another example seen in the ■ first missionary film produced (1919) by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 1813 Stevens Building, Chicago, is described by 76 EdScreen & AV Guide — February, 1959