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224 LT. COL. E. COHEN
Another activity of the Service Films Division is the Special Productions Branch. This unit makes special films ordered by, for example, the Secretary of War, who may request a film on the manpower resources of the United States; the Chief Signal Officer, who may wish to present a film report on the activities of the Signal Corps; or the Commanding General of the Army Service Forces, who may order a film made to demonstrate the huge supply problem involved in equipping and transporting America's first AEF to North Africa. These pictures are made within a given time limit, mostly from the extensive resources of the military stock film files of the War Department Central Film Library, also a branch of the Service Films Division.
The Central Film Library maintains a carefully edited file of some ten thousand cross-index cards describing the contents of more than two million feet of training films, film bulletins, special productions, film shot by the Signal Corps cameramen in combat areas, and miscellaneous military footage procured for use in official War Department pictures. These stock shots are used to expedite production, and represent the most extensive collection of indexed military subjects, edited and classified by specific types, available for immediate use. For example, if a piece of film were received by the library showing ninety-millimeter anti-aircraft guns firing at enemy planes in Tunisia, it would be indexed from a master editing sheet ("dope" sheet, which we make up upon viewing the film) as follows :
1. North Africa — Tunisia — Ninety Millimeter A A gun ASF — Ordnance — Ninety Millimeter A A gun AGF — AA Command — Ninety Millimeter AA gun German — Air force — light bomber — Junkers Eighty-eight,
To summarize, the Service Films Division is comprised at present of branches that include the Film Bulletin Branch, which produces technical magazine reels of tests and demonstrations; the Special Productions Branch, which makes what the name implies; and the Central Film Library.
Plans have been made also for the expansion of the Service Films Division to include still further developments in the use of film to disseminate information jointly with other services, such as the Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard. As yet, no details can be given, but it will be an important step in the use of film in the War Effort.