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

AV in the Church Field by William S. Hockman Sound-Column Public Address Our church has a fair reverberation interval. This is good for music. It is bad for speaking. The pulpit is more tlian 35 pews from the back. It takes voice-push to get it back to the last customer. There are dead spots, too. Bouncing off the hard pillars, and other surfaces, the sound waves often cancel out. What to do? We put 8inch speakers in the top round of wrought-iron chandeliers from which hang individual fixtures. We skipped the front pair. The natural voice would cover this area. We put them in the remaining three pairs. We 'pulled' them with a good amplifier and fed it from a mike on the lectern, pulpit, and near the altar-table. How does it work? Good, after we tinkered it as to base-treble, volume on mikes vs volume on the speakers, and the relation of mikes to the ministers. This is distributed sound. No speaker needs to be loud. Echo is cut to zero from the speakers. It's hard for the minister to depend upon the system. He still forgets and puts push into his delivery. But, it's working, the congregation is pleased. Central-sound would have not done the job. Same old echo the minute you push the volume up. What about sound-absorbent material to reduce echo? Fine for voice, but think of what dead music we would have had. Both organ and choirs would have lost their liveness. But, we might have installed two sound-columns up front. A sound-column is a series of speakers moimted in a colunni and having PORTABLE REAR PROJECTION ^^ PIXMOBILE' * Use all your present projectors * Built-in light control when proband Pixmoblle projection tables, jecting from either side of * Big 19V4" X 25V4" Polacoat screen cabinet. Lenscreen.® H: Famous Pixmobile strength and quality. If you have a budget problem, take a look at Rear Projection by Pixmobile. Completely flexible, it permits use of your present equipment with the purchase of only the screen cabinet at $79.95 in many cases. Let your Pixmobile dealer demonstrate the high-quality performance of this effective and reasonably priced teaching aid. ADVANCE PRODUCTS COMPANY 2300 East Douglas Avenue / ^Vichita, Kansas unique characteristics in the way it delivers sound. The pattern is just right for long and narrow churches. Medium volume reaches far. Installed in many European churches, the sound-column is little past its debut here. Three companies will be pleased to tell you all about the merits is their sound-coumns: North American Phillips, 230 Duffy Ave., Hicksville, N.Y.; DuKane Corporation, St. Charles, 111.; American Sound Columns, Bronx 38, N.Y. Had we known about columns earlier, we might have used them. Now you are alerted, at least. Lit-Lit Filmstrip In the 60-frame color filmstrip with printed commentary we have a useful documentation of the delight and power of reading. Ti-Ti is a 12-yearold boy in Hong Kong. His grandfather has two loves: Ti-Ti and learning itself. At last Ti-Ti has a book of his own, with Lit-Lit (shorthand for the Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature, 475 Riverside Dr., N.Y. 27, N.Y.) doing its part. For grades three trhu six. Has excellent photography by Berkeley Studios, Toronto. Highly recommended. From Lit-Kit; $5.00 complete. For Occupational Thinking She was a seventh grader, leaving church school. "What are you going to do with your life?" I asked as I met her in the hallway. "Either a nurse or a teacher; I am undecided." No hesitation; the answer was right there. Why? Already this girl was doing hard thinking about her vocation. So are many fifth, sixth, and seventh graders. Is the church helping? Can it? Ought it to help? How? After this touch-and-go encounter (and there will be others with her), I wondered about the new series, "Foundations For Occupational Planning" by SVE. Could they help? Now after looking these five titles over, I am certain they can. They were designed to help young people do some of the thinking basic to understanding themselves, the work of the world, the skills required, and the personality bents implied. Here are tlie titles: Who Are You?, What Do You Like To Do?, What Is A Job?, M^hat Are Job Families?, What Good Is School? "But, this is for the school,' you will say. So what! Many schools don't do much along these lines. Besides, the school can't give the religious emphasis which the church can, and should, and must do. The 'art' is excellent; the color good; the captions provocative 386 Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — July, 1962