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

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June, 1942] THE NAVY'S USE OF MOTION PICTURES 505 own idea of what should be stressed and how things should be done. However persistently the Navy itself may foster standardization, there is a trend away from standards where teaching is done by individuals. Audio-visual aids, however, help to standardize. Since they can be used throughout the naval service and since they will appear identically to all who see them, they have the most helpful effect in standardizing training. Furthermore — and this is extremely important— audio-visual aids can standardize training on a high level rather than on an average level. It can not be denied that there are good teachers and bad teachers. Some men are skillful and others not quite so skillful in training men. If audiovisual aids to training are prepared by the best available experts, and are properly designed to have maximum value for training purposes, then training through them can be standardized on a very high level. It is hoped that as the use of audiovisual aids in the Navy develops, this will be increasingly true; and the Bureau of Navigation is extremely desirous of setting and maintaining a high standard for the visual aids produced for use in naval training. I should like to stress the point that visual aids to training are not entertainment. They are not intended to be entertainment, and they should not be considered as in any way related to entertainment. The mere fact that an audio-visual aid may be a motion picture should not cause it to be confused with motion pictures produced for entertainment purposes. The motion picture is a use of a photographic technic which can serve many purposes. The fact that it has served the purpose of entertainment so greatly should not influence, or better, should not impair its use for training purposes. There is a tendency on the part of some of those who attempt to produce films for training purposes to make these films approximate films for entertainment. They introduce the films with music, and have music arising many times during the course of the film; and introduce elements of incidental comedy, and in other ways try to make the film, as they would say, palatable. This is a gross abuse of the principle of the training film. A training film should be regarded as a text-book. It should be easy to understand, it should be clear, it should be simple, it should introduce no unnecessary complications ; but there is no obligation on the part of a text-book to be amusing or ingratiating. Furthermore, the proper use of a training film will usually involve its being repeated.