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

evaluated by the trainee audience. The off-stage voice, on the other hand, is transparent. The audience is free to project physical characteristics, rank, occupation and status into the off-stage voice. His competence as an expert, however, is thoroughly established in the film — that, and no more. Preliminary analysis of audience reaction to this film, under actual classroom conditions, indicates that the off-stage voice is dominant in the film, and that the audience projects more desirable qualities into this unseen character than to Jim, who appears in almost every scene. In developing the story treatment into which the characters of the trainee and the experts are interwoven, two additional principles of instruction were introduced. To be effective as a teaching device, it was essential that the film have a psychological organization rather than a purely logical organization. Experience in projectionist training indicates an impatience on the part of the trainee with postponement of practice in the actual threading and operating of the projector, and lack of readiness for instruction in assembly, inspection, preventive maintenance, nomenclature and disassembly, until the point of operation has been passed. Logical organization of the treatment of the subject, based upon identification and explanation of component parts and on time sequence of operations, would, it was assumed, go contrary to the readiness of the audience for instruction. The law of readiness is an old concept in educational psychology, and a valid one. Deliberately to proceed in film instruction contrary to this law would, at least theoretically, reduce the teaching effectiveness of the film. The problem of logical versus psychological organization of subject presentation was solved, in part, by backing into the subject. This was done by opening the film with Jim, the trainee, preparing to place the full reel of film on the feed arm, and to thread and operate the projector. Another instructional principle introduced into the story treatment was that of interrupted action. An audience has a tendency, amounting to a compulsion, to complete an action once the action has been started. Interruption and suspension of action before completion, or omission of a part of a film obviously included in the original version, tends to create a tension in the audience which can be satisfactorily discharged by completion of the initiated action or exhibition of the omitted part. This tendency is well documented, and is closely related to the well-known psychological phenomenon of closure. The problem in film production is to apply the principle of interrupted action to story treatment so that it operates to increase the involvement of the audience in the subject of the film and thereby increase learning and retention. The off-stage voice was used to accomplish this intent. Actually, the off-stage voice served several purposes. As already indicated, it constituted a transparent model of expert knowledge and competence in operation of the projector set. Second, the off-stage voice, by remaining off-stage, permitted individual visual concentration on Jim, the trainee, and on the projector set. Third, the off-stage voice was used as a device, a gimmick, if you will, for repetition and emphasis of the important teaching points of the film. Finally, the off-stage voice was used as a device for interrupting Jim's progress in threading and operating the projector in order to insure and insist on prethreading and preoperating checks, cleaning and projector adjustment. Preliminary analysis of field evaluations of this film, to which reference has already been made, indicates that, while the interruptions may have annoyed the audience, the teaching effectiveness of the sequences accompanying the interruptions appears to have been strengthened. Two other characters were used — 198 September 1952 Journal of the SMPTE Vol. 59