FilmIndia (1940)

For Our Technicians Give Us A Film Institute A Plea For Better Organisation BY THE EDITOR Bulletin of the Association of Cine Technicians of India There has been a fair unanimity of opinion on the part of both people in and out of the Industry, that whereas we have been otherwise stagnant, the only appreciable strides made by us during the last twenty-six years in the Indian Motion Picture Industry, have been of a purely technical character. While Paramounts, for instance, still make the same type of thrillers they specialised in four years ago, and New Theatres still believe in the same sob stuff that earned them a reputation during the good old "Puran Bhakt" days, it is the sound and photography' of both these concerns that show the greatest measure of improvement. We have now adopted a more scientific approach to both these arts, with the result that we can now predict with a greater degree of accuracy the ultimate results we are going to achieve. It does not usually require a hurried rush I print these days to satisfy the director or the star that a particular I close up has come out to satis| faction or that a particular song has | been recorded satisfactorily. A POOR PROGRESS But we cannot get away with the I fact that some doubt still remains, ! a very email amount of doubt it is itrue, but enough to set us thinking I that al'. is not well. And when we actually sit down tu analyse we fin J that a great, deal is wrong — that we have really not made the progress that we should have made in twenty-six years that even this little progress has been by no means regular and that still there is no creative endeavour in our efforts as it should be. Art to-day is but the science of to-morrow and science is after all but a form of systematised study, and there can be no hit and miss methods about it. And when we consider that our work is both art and science we must realise how important to us an initial systematic training must be. Most of our early technicians took to the profession with little or no education behind them and that they succeeded in achieving the results they did, is indeed a tribute to their skill and patience. But gradually as tne industry begar to s-tandardiso and the demand ior more consistent results grew, there set in a gradual elimination of these early pioneers till *.o-day, except for a few, none of these old timers are with us. AND THE STARS CAME Lured by th.? high salaries pa,-d to their early technicians, came a lot of movie struck aspirants to technical fame and it must be said to the credit of these men that they did achieve some measure of success. But these too had little or no education. Meanwhile the talkies had come and v. ith it increased costs of production. Fortunately or unfortunately along with talk;es, America sent us its star system as well, and at once our producers, as uneducated as the technicians, if not more, jumped at this apparently certa'n way to success. The prices of stars went up and there came a fall in the technician's market. With the result that even that meagre level of education in our ranks fell once more to the pretalkie days. Another contributing factor to this general fall v/as nlso the very low standard of education possessed by new apprentices at this stage, who found an entry into the profession because of family relations with the proprietor or an influential manager. FILM INSTITUTE NECESSARY Whatever the cause, when we pause to take an inventory to-day, we are forced to admit that we are scarcely fitted for the great technical strides that the industry must make in the next few years, or its very existence will be threatened. The industry will make this struggle KTSHORE SAHU and ROSE in "Bahurani," India Artists' picture. 57