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

editorial W] Reveal The Facts Paul C. Reed E thought we were joking when we told the representative of one of the leading film producers it was the fault of his company that school systems had inadequate budgets for the purchase of films. You can imagine the height to which his eyebrows raised on that one! But as we discussed the idea, there seemed to be some truth in it. Now after much further thought, we're incUned to believe the idea is also worthy of your consideration. The point is this. By the standards that are applied to textbooks, most of our educational fihn library collections are filled with out-of-date and obsolete materials. A principal cause of this woeful situation is that film producers have insisted— and still insist— upon conceahng the copyright facts of the films they produce. They use the smallest size, most illegible letters available, and conceal the dates in deceptive Roman numerals, hoping that nobody will ever discover when the film was made. Consequently we go on using our educational films until they disintegrate, or at least until they no longer will run through a machine. Let me be more specific. Here's a school system that prides itself on quality education. It beheves it has a fairly good audiovisual program. Yet if you were to examine the films in their film library, we'd wager you would find (if you could discover the copyright) more than half were produced from ten to thirty years ago. This same school system insists upon up-to-date textbooks with copyright dates of not more than five years ago. It provides sufficient funds for an up-to-date textbook program but seems satisfied with an obsolete instructional film program. The fihn copyright facts are concealed. So what's the excuse for hiding the facts? The concealment seems based upon the assumption that people cannot be trusted, especially teachers. It is implied and sometimes even said that people who buy and use films don't know enough to use a copyright fact intelligendy. It is feared that people who use films would think that newer films are always better. With a choice of two films with different copyright dates, they couldn't be trusted to pick up the one that was really better for their purposes. They would blindly rely upon a revealed copyright date. Mind you, these are our teachers they are talking about. These are the teachers we trust with the education of our kids, but they can't be trusted with the copyright fact of a film! How do you like that? We believe that everyone who sees a film, uses one, rents one, or buys it, is as much entitled to the copyright facts of that production as he is for a book. For films they see, students should be taught to inquire when they were produced just as they are taught to know the facts about the books they read. Teachers should demand to know the production date of a film before they make the decision to use it. Purchasers of films should have all the facts about the films they buy and distribute, including the facts of when they were made. We urge that our assumptions about copyright dates on audiovisual productions be completely re-examined. We must assume that people using these materials are knowledgeable and intelligent. They can be trusted with facts. All of us dealing in any way with films, filmstrips, records and other audiovisual materials should do whatever we can to develop the standard practice of hsting copyright dates along with titles and other pertinent facts about a production. If such a program of revealment supersedes concealment, we won't guarantee automatic increases in appropriations for audiovisual materials. But we're pretty confident it will do no harm. Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — June, 1962 305