Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (1930-1949)

Feb., 1935] 16-MM. SOUND-FILM OUTLOOK 179 that the American people prefer to leave their homes and flock into places of amusement. That is not so in Great Britain, where the home libraries have attained a volume of business so greatly surpassing what we find in this country that we are forced to conclude that national characteristics must have much to do with it. MR. LANE : What is the demand for color in 16-mm. sound-films? MR. COOK: So far there has been no demand for sound combined with color. Our library experimented with color in silent pictures a year or more ago, and found that the demand for color in 16-mm. silent pictures was extremely limited. The demand was not encouraged by the fact that the color that was attainable at that time was distinctly inferior, but I believe that the interest shown in inquiring for the prints before they knew of their quality was rather limited. MR. PALMER: Do you believe that a sufficient demand might be created for 16-mm. amusement subjects for the home to warrant producing subjects for that field? MR. COOK: So far as regards the home exclusively, that is open to question. But if other non-theatrical activities were included, institutional and the like, I should say that it was a prospective field. In fact, it is already expanding at a rate that surprises some of our optimistic proponents of the field. The interest is certainly great, and those who see and hear the available productions, as a rule, are enthusiastic in their reactions to them. MR. ROSENBERGER: What proportion of the demand is for theatrical, purely entertainment pictures, and for educational pictures, including semi-scientific, geographical films, biological films, and the like? MR. COOK: So far as the experience of a library founded principally for supplying entertainment is concerned, I can say only that our demand for educational films is almost nil; and for scientific, even less. But it should be remembered that the libraries that have been established have appealed almost entirely to the urge for entertainment. It is rather difficult to know whether an exclusively scientific or educational library would receive a better response than we have. I believe it can be fairly accepted that the schools seem to have a preference for entertainment films. MR. GOLDEN: I do not quite agree that the demand for educational films is practically nil, because my office has received thousands of letters from schools asking for sources of purely educational films. We maintain a bulletin service that is distributed on a subscription basis, listing the names of films of an industrial character. We also attempt to get as many of the educational films as are available. I do know from conversations with Dr. Koon, of the Bureau of Education, U. S. Department of the Interior, that they are very much interested in the strictly educational film for classroom and curriculum use. The main difficulty, according to the Department of the Interior, is that they claim they can not get sufficient educational films, so as to be able to recommend them to the school systems of the country, which in turn hampers the sale of the 16-millimeter sound-film projectors that have been developed in the past two years. I believe that the Bureau of Education is about at the stage at which, if they can be shown that sufficient educational films are available for use in the schools, they can benefit the manufacturers of 16-millimeter sound equipment considerably by endorsing the use of motion pictures in the classroom.