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

The articles carried in this issue from, pages 70 to 79 are excerpts of presentations made at a recent Conference On 8mni Sound Film and Education conducted by Teachers College, Columbia University. A paperback book comprising the complete proceedings of the conference will be available shortly. The Dream About 8mm Sound Film by Louts Forsdale Professor of English, Teachers College Columbia University /\. S WITH all media developments, the new 8mm sound film is a gift of our technology. As with most media developments in education, alas, we teachers did not ask for it, not imagining, in fact, that it could or should be done. Neither did teachers ask for tape recorders or television or printed books, but once available we looked, although frequently slowly, to see what gain they offered. We are in a position, then, of technology again being ahead of educational application, but I hasten to add that the gap is narrow this time, for we are considering 8mm at a time when the last bolts are hardly tightened down on the 8mm sound printers in the laboratories and when many new 8mm sound projectors are still sugar plum dreams in the heads of engineers. Indeed, although some bold producers have lists of 8mm sound prints for sale, their number is small. So, I dare say, are their sales. The gap is not large, this time, and we have the opportunity to get some lead time on thinking of how 8mm sound film can serve education before the gap is any larger. Was there a conference three decades ago when we began to entertain the thought of shifting from the 35mm theatrical film size to the smaller, more convenient, less costly 16mm size for non-theatrical uses? I'm not aware of one. But it is well to remind ourselves that the opportunity of moving to the smaller film dimension then brought forth arguments remarkably similar to those which we hear about 8mm today. In 1925— in the very early days of widths smaller than 35mm— one writer recorded in Educational Screen the opinion that the "narrow width precludes the possibility of getting critical definition." In the same jour nal in 1928 another writer, speaking more positively, said "The cost of taking films when the new amateur standard 16 mm film is used is 20 percent less than when a standard (35mm) negative is made and prints made from it." In 1931, in Educational Screen, these words of mixed prophesy appeared: "The new 16mm projector is about to enter and open up a new line of educational method which will include distinct classroom topics more directly, will be operated by many teachers of both sexes more readily, and will not encroach seriously upon the field covered by the 35mm machine, at least for some time. . . " Midst these tuggings and haulings of an earlier day, educational film passed from infancy to childhood. We may now be watching similar growing pains. The period of the earlier shift from 35mm to 16mm may not be wholly analogous to our situation. We are, after all, much further along in the educational film field than they were. And 8mm sound may in the long run not replace 16mm sound in education as they replaced 35mm. Still, when I hear, as I did two weeks ago from Robinson P. Rigg, editor of Industrial Screen in England, that he had attended a meeting in which an 8mm sound film was shown on a twelve foot screen to a crowd of 500 people (using an arc illuminated projector), I'd hate to be the one who predicts that 8mm can't do most of the required jobs in education. But what does 8mm sound film offer education? Why should we even think about it? What is the dream? In the largest sense the dream is that 8mm sound film can help democratize educational motion pictures 70 Educ.4Tional Screen and Audiovisual Guide — February 1962