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THE FILM AND THE PUBLIC
in this series, Film (revised edition 1950), while Grierson's main essays on this important subject have been collected by Forsyth Hardy in the book Grierson on Documentary.
Films concerned with information, fact, or opinion can be of many kinds according to the uses to which they are to be put. First of all there is the film of record for research purposes, part now of the equipment of science in the collection of its data. Then there is the film of record for public use the newsreel, the 'interest5 film which records a public event, or the purely descriptive documentary. Next, there is the instructional film, demonstrating, for example, a mechanical process or some aspect of geography or science, to be used as part of the usual equipment for teaching children or adults or as a part of their general or specialized training. There is also the advertising film intended to sell products. Further, there is the propaganda film designed to awake the interest or stir the emotions of people so that they will be induced to act in some way desired by the Government or the promoters of the film. Lastly, there is the kind of documentary which John Grierson described as 'the creative treatment of actuality'. Here we are in the hands of the artist ; his manner of presentation, his interpretation of his subject as he observes it, become the important factors making his film rhetorical or poetic or intellectual according to the way in which it is conceived by its maker.
The Specialized Use of the Film
The specialized use of the film as a branch of scientific research is not a new development. X-ray motion picture photography was used for medical diagnosis by Dr R. G. Canti during the nineteen-twenties, for example, and the astonishing and beautiful films in slow motion which show the growth of plants and flowers were first developed by Percy Smith in London as early as 1909.
It is the fantastic speeds of modern motion picture cameras which open up new fields of research. One of the most beautiful record films I have ever seen showed in slow
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