Year book of motion pictures (1947)

^U^'ESCO). l he conference proceedings have been published as No. 25 of the American Council on Education Studies, under the title "Use of Audio-Visual Materials Toward International Understanding." Its resolutions, worked out in the course of two days of earnest discussion, called for the establishnieiit of services and activities by UNESCO for information, i)roduction, evaluation, certification, distribution, utilization, research, and international exchange of personnel in all pertinent film fields. The final decision of the ACE-FC.\ conference was to "go on record as favoring the establishment ot a national vokmtary organization of the field of audio-visual materials" and a recjuest to the two organizations to "endeavor to set up such a body." I ll is recognition of the need for closer integration among the numerous organized au(lio-\ isual groups crops up again and again. The multiplicity of organizations in the relati\el\ small 16mm field often puzzles theatrical film folk. That there are so many Kimm organizations is really a reflection of the many and widely varied types of interests, which the non-theatrical film must serve. Essentially the theatrical film serves one public, though the difficulty of stretching any medium to cover so wide an age and interest spreatl results in notable differentiation e\en there. The non-theatrical film, on the other hand, serves a thousand publics; every group that finds the motion picture serviceable for any phase of its activity or existence automatically creates a separate and distinct public that must be served, and one which tends to organize itself into a special group for the purpose of bettering its own specific film services. Thus such special interest groups as the Educational Film Library Association, the Religious Film Association, the Biological I'hotographers .Association, the National Microfilm Association, etc., are obvious specific bases for bringing together like-minded users of the visual medium. Again, larger social organizations tend to set up special departments to foster their film and other audiovisual activities, e.g., the American Library .\ssociation (.\udio-Visual Committee), the National Education Association (Department of \'isual Instruction), the International Council on Religious Education (Visual Education Fellowship), the American Medical Association (Committee on Motion Pictures), etc. AW these organizational groupings emanate from pressing needs for collaboration in the furtherance of common interest, and not. as is sometimes charged, by just too many people with a yen to be "Deacon." While the appearance of the Film Council of America may apparently add still another to the bewilddering galaxy of I6mm alphabeticals— in fact it represents an effort to bridge the gap now existing between the many legitimate special interest organizations in the 16mm field, and between their respective individual nieirrbers locally. On the national level it strives to coordinate the activities of national bodies that have already had warborn experience in working together. But on the local level the Film Council demonstrates particular worth in banding together all the film users of a given community for tlie extension and improvement of the benefits each derives from such use. THERE is nothing elaborate about the formation or functioning of a local film council. A teacher, a preacher, a film and photo dealer, and maybe a theater manager, too, (if he is on his toes) will meet at lunch and take stock of the extent to which motion pictures are being used locally. The names of others who should be concerned in a local film council venture are noted— the local librarian, editor, service club and veterans' organization heads, YMCA secretary, trade union educational chairmen, women's clubs. Better Films Council, additional educators and business elements, and similar local community activists. .\ larger meeting or luncheon is organized, perhaps with the showing of a film of timely interest, perhaps also with a talk on some particularly vital local use or potential use of motion pictures. This leads to the formation of a permanent local Film Council, chartered by the national body but otherwise autonomous. .\t each meeting current film news is announced, the school librarian tells of new teaching films added, the theater man announces his coming attractions, better pictures or special children's programs, and similar matter of .social interest. If a local conference is to be held on housing, juvenile delincpiency or some similar problem, the Film Council helps procure suitable films to enrich the program— and thus plants the lesson of the indispensability of motion pictures into minds now fallow. It is entirely possible that the Film Council movement may become the common meeting ground of all the special interest groups and their organizations, and that on this ground all I6mm interests (and 35mm interests as well) can really work together for the good of the whole industry antl of the public it serves. One illustration on the national scale is the FC.V Freedom of the Screen Committee. First aroused by efforts on the part of state film censors to invade film fields not even in existence at the time their powers were formulated, the committee cpiickly expanded its attention to the consicleration of, and opposition to, censorship per se, as incom]3atil)le with American civil rights. Another illustration of its potential usefulness is the cooperation extended by its Government Relations Committee to the Library of Congress and to other government agencies, such as the Department of Agriculture and the Office of Education, to broaden and improve the use of social service films. There is no reason whv this grass roots movement cannot embrace the motion picture in all widths, 741