International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1931)

— 1023 to draw the child's attention to important detail. Note. — These two drawbacks may be eliminated to a certain extent by 1) repetition, 2) slowing down, 3) stopping. 3) Cinematographic projections interest and intensely amuse children, but it is to be feared that their interest may be diminished for subjects which cannot be projected in moving pictures. 4) The danger connected with public presentations of the cinema should be borne in mind. The pupil might easily develop an unhealthy passion for such spectacles! Only experience will be able to prove whether it is opportune to use the cinema in primary instruction, but the experience is well worth making. Its use implies an education on the part of the teacher, which in part can ;ilso only be acquired by experience ». To the opinion of psychologists and pedagogues we should like to add that of a doctor. The answer contains an allusion to objections raised against the * inema as harmful to the eyes. Dr. Pietta of Freiburg reassures us oft this subject. According to him, present conditions of film projections are virtually free from this drawback, having lost the jazzy, wobbling effect which formerly made them so disagreable fo the sight! Children with normal eyesight, or wearing suitable glasses, will suffer no harm to their eyes from seeing fixed or moving projections, especially as such projections are not ?oo long or too frequent, and interspaced by the necessary intervals and Mops for the teacher's explanations .ind questions. While long performant es at ordinary cinemas may doubtless present a danger to the eyes of adults who frequent them too assiduously, this danger does not exist for children whose attendance is limited to the school cittema. Care should, however, be taken not to place the children too near the screen, and. not to let the projection last "longer than 20 minutes for children under the age of 12, and not more than thirty minutes for bigger children. (See the Savary pamphlet, already quoted). Technique for the ise of the didactic film (12). A film lesson depends on two principal factors : 1) the master's method (oral comments, personal way of teaching), 2) the didactic value of the film itself. The second point suggests a remark. Teaching films (animated or fixed views) are numerous on the market. But such films are often only documentary and have no special didactic qualities. They are moreover frequently too long and overcrowded with details and scenes with no application to the subject from the didactic point of view. We will quote in this connection the view of M. Eugene Reboul, a specialist in school films, whose remarks arek however, equally applicable to fixed projections. «The cinema lesson », he says, « is only fruitful when it has been carefully prepared. A film lesson cannot be improvised, but requires more preparation than any other. The precision of the images should be equalled by the precision of the text. The preparation demands a good deal of time, a perfect knowledge of the subject and a conscientious study of the film, for the animated, descriptive and demonstrative projection cannot be accompanied by a vague dissertation or mere reading" aloud of the captions as they appear on the screen. The subject, contents and length of the lesson having been previously determined, the master will project the film for himself alone, studying it attentively in order to realise how he may best exploit it for his pupils. If carried out in this way his work will be of real profit to his pupils, and will achieve the best mutual and lasting results : for a previous rehearsal of the film is bound to abbreviate the expla (12) Teacher at St. Etienne and responsible for the School Cinematographic Service of the Loire. He has published a pamphlet, « The School and Educational Cinema ».