Year book of motion pictures (1947)

with local exhibitors to make the request for additional copies. The Community Service Department, in cooperation with educational groups and librarians, selects the pictures to receive this treatment. The cultural, social and educational as well as entertainment values of the pictures are the determining factors. The interest in and desire for mutual collaboration on the part of the producer-members of the Association makes this service possible. Exhibitors, where it is known that these materials are not locally used, should feel no hesitancy in approaching school administrators or librarians concerning their value. They are now regularly in use by more than 6,000 high schools and 4,000 libraries. While many schools and libraries have limitations and conventions inherent in the public character of their institutions, once they have realized that these display materials have been designed with a knowledge of their problems, welcome them. Only mutual respect can grow from the realization that many current photoplays have great educational value and that filming of the classics greatly extends the public's reading of them. These materials enhance the value of both and attract the public to those photoplays which, because they contribute constructive ideas and ideals as well as entertain, should be universally seen. • Stills SETS of stills have been assembled, suitably selected for school and library display from about 50 photoplays which are based on standard works of literature and other similarly important productions. These stills are provided at Jl.OO per set on request of librarians and teachers of photoplay appreciation classes. A list of pictures on which sets of stills are available will be mailed on request. A further distribution of stills is effected in many other communities where librarians cooperate with local exhibitors who obtain stills from branch and sales managers. This is a very valuable arrangement both to the exhibitors and to the libraries, since it stimulates circulation of the library books and interests the patrons of the libraries in photoplays before they are shown in local theaters. dion-Current Theatrical Shorts for Classrooms ACTIVITIES of the Motion Picture Association looking toward the use of films in classroom teaching developed coincidentally with the photoplay appreciation movement but antedated it in time. "Developing the educational as well as the entertainment value and the general usefulness of the motion picture" was included in the statement of the purposes for which the Associa tion was formed in 1922. This policy has been consistently pursued. A plan was completed in 1939 by which :ibout 500 non (urrent theatrical short sub jt( 1 selected by a coniniittec of educators out of about 15,000 in the vaults of the member companies, may be used by educational institutions in strictly classroom work for a jjcriod of three years without compensation to the owners of the copyrighted films. These pictures were selected by the advisory committee on the use of motion pictures in education consisting of the following members: James R. Angell, President Emeritus, Yale University; Frederick H. Blair, first Executive Assistant to Commissioner of Education, Albany, N. Y.; Isaiah Bowman, President of Johns Hopkins University; Karl T. Compton, President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Edmund E. Day, President of Cornell University; Royal B. Famum, Executive Vice-President of the Rhode Island School of Design; Willard E. Givens, Executive Sf:-etary of the National Education Assoc :a;. on; Jay B. Nash, Professor of Education in New Y'ork University; Mark A. May (Chairman), Professor of Educational Psychology, and Director of the Institute of Human Relations, Yale University; Francis r. Sjjaulding, Commissioner of Eudcation, State of New York, Albany, N. Y. For the purpose of handling the physical distribution of the films, the educators who are members of this advisory committee formed themselves into a corporation known as Teaching Film Custodians, Inc. This corporation, in turn, appointed three trustees— Dr. James R. Angell, President Emeritus of Yale University; Dr. Willard E. Givens, Executive Secretary of the National Education Association; and Carl E. Milliken, Secretary of the Motion Picture Association. Under the terms and conditions of the contracts with the producing companies, these trustees are permitted to license non-current short subjects to schools for limited periods not to exceed three years with stated limitations as follows: 'Trints will be furnished only to bona fide educational institutions; the exhibitions shall be before classroom or kindred groups composed only of bona fide students or enrolled members of such educational institutions, and such exhibitions shall be an integral factor of class or group study. "Admission fees, directly or indirectly, shall never be charged or permitted to be paid for admission at the door or otherwise in advance or afterwards, for the right to attend either single exhibitions or a series of such exhibitions." Under the contract, these pictures must be projected without change or alteration. The unauthorized copying of these films is a violation of the United States copyright law. Any unauthorized exhibition of these pictures