Home Movies (Jan-Dec 1941)

mucamnal fim^ SECTION HOME MOVIES FOR OCTOBER • Experience has shown that best results are obtained from the public relations film when it is limited to some special level or phase of school work. S 0 many schools are being added each day to the list of those producing public relations films that it is high time we paused to ask ourselves a question that is already overdue: “Are our public relations films effective as public relations media?” Any evaluation of the school-made public relations film must give serious consideration to the amount and nature of the planning that goes into the production. It is this planning that makes the difference between a screen product that is merely a novelty and one that tells its story effectively and efficiently. Intelligent planning of the schoolmade public relations film demands that two questions be answered before the producer attempts to outline the scenario. (1) For what type of audience is this film primarily intended? (2) What message will the film try to put across? It would be just as absurd to say that any public relations film was suitable for effective use with any audience as it would be to say that any school textbook could be used to advantage anywhere from the primary grades to senior high school. Just as educators have long taken for granted the necessity for building a textbook to suit its “audience,” so must they accept the evident fact that the public relations film is most effective when built for and used with a particular type or level of audience. In planning the public relations film the committee in charge must outline, title, and edit the film in terms of the audience: its educational level, maturity, social status, and familiarity with the work of the school. It must be obvious that a public relations film designed for use with an audience of comparatively low educational level cannot successfully employ the same approach, the same terminology in titles, or even the same type of editing as the film that will be used with a PTA audience in the suburban community of professional workers. A too-frequent fault of the public relations film is the tendency to shoot over the heads of the audience. Educators often overlook the fact that an audience of laymen, however intelligent it may be, is not familiar with educational philosophies and educational jargon. Just as serious is the contrary tendency to produce the same type of school travelogue year in and year out, boring the audience with the familiar and the commonplace. The production committee must avoid each of two extremes in outlining the script for a good public relations film: (1) Don’t underestimate your audience’s intelligence, and (2) Make certain that you are not aiming over the heads of your audience. The terminology used in titling school films needs more attention than it generally receives. Too often the educator forgets that his profession has built up a working vocabulary which uses words and phrases to express ideas and philosophies that are quite apart from the meaning usually conveyed by the same words in their everyday usage by the general public. It is not so much a case of false impression as it is one of no impression at all. Titles in the public relations film must be worded so that they speak the language of the audience for which the film is primarily intended. Is your public relations film “a film in search of an idea,” or is it a film with a purpose? Just as with any other medium of communication between the school and community — the newsstory, platform address, radio program, pamphlet — the public relations film must have a point, a purpose, a theme, a central idea around which the story can be outlined. The film that begins as a by-product of club activity or of some teacher’s personal hobby may reach a point where it can be adjudged such a novelty that it ought to be shown to the public. Such a film, regardless of how novel it may be, still remains largely just that to its audience — a novelty. The typical public relations film — “A • Continued on Page 496 478