International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1930)

— 11 duction of the sound (The Film Daily, New York F. 21/532). Further afield — in the South Sea Islands — a group of scene directors, experts and actors, who had travelled out there to take a « Movietone » film, in view of the great difficulty of transporting apparatus of such extreme delicacy so far, decided on the following plan: namely, while filming the scenes locally in Fiji, to register sound and speech in their Hollywood studios by radio-telephony, synchronising perfectly with the cinematographic process (El Impartial, Madrid F. 30/59). Among technical inventions, we learn of one with an eminently humane purpose (Cinema Italiano, Rome F. 12/453). It appears that in a number of cinema halls across the Atlantic apparatus closely resembling telephone receivers have been installed, which enable spectators suffering from deafness, and who in ordinary circumstances could enjoy merely the visual part of the show, to enjoy also the musical and spoken features of the film. The practical applications of sound and talking films keeps pace with technical improvements. The French Academy (see Kinematograph of Berlin F. 10/251) has decided to set up an archive of sound films in preference to the usual disc archives, which it would seem have had their day in registering the voice of the immortals. The Philadelphia Police, according to the Daily Telegraph (F. 10/247), have installed talking films to register the preliminary examination of criminals. The film offers endless possibilities in this field. While cinematographic films, hidden from the prisoner's sight, can register his thoughts as reflected in his expression while he is being interrogated, thus affording valuable psychological clues to the judges, the actual record taken of the dialogue between him and his accusers eliminates all chance of retracting or emending his first statements which are always characterised by greater spontaniety, and does away with the time-honoured claim of criminals that their confessions are valueless because they were extorted by bullying and ill-treatment and that they were forced to sign them by coercion. Thus the cinema is becoming an instrument in the hands of justice, a factor in psychological enquiry, and the completest document that could be devised for the definite and indisputable registration of the several phases of oral examination. Television — distance cinematography — the completest artistic means for giving an impression of life in its tangible reality, is also passing from the realm of theory into that of fact. While studies are in progress for perfecting the systems at present in use, the latest information assures us that what was but a dream yesterday is about to become a reality. It may well be that in the near future lovers of the screen will no longer be forced to gather together in stuffy and dark halls in promiscuous crowds. Everyone should be able to set up a small screen in his own room, which, being attached to the radio, will afford him a vision of all that is going on in the world together with the latest creations of the purveyors of novelty and amusement. At Culver City, William Sistrom, Director of the «P. C. D. Television Review » is busy constructing his new apparatus (see the Daily Film Renter of London -F. 30/58); while the United States Federal Radio Commission is hard at work experimenting a new system of television at their « Mikrovisor » transmission station (The Film Daily New York, F. 30/60). Thus a whole world of technical experts and inventors is at work on the future of the cinema, which has no limitations except the limitations of the human mind itself.