Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1934)

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Reverse the emphasis THE AMATEUR CINEMA LEAGUE, INC. whose voice is Movie Makers, is the international organization of movie amateurs, founded in 1926 and now spreading over many countries. The League's consulting services advise amateurs on plan and execution of their films, both as to photographic technique and continuity. It serves the amateur clubs of the world in organization, conduct and program and maintains for them a film exchange. It issues bulletins. It maintains a plot service and title service. The League completely owns and operates Movie Makers. The directors listed below are a sufficient warrant of the high type of our association. Your membership is invited. DIRECTORS OF THE LEAGUE President HIRAM PERCY MAXIM . . . . . Hartford, Conn. Vice President STEPHEN F. VOORHEES New York City Treasurer A. A. HEBERT Hartford, Conn. C. R. DOOLEY New York City MRS. L. S. GALVIN Lima, Ohio LEE F. HANMER New York City W. E. KIDDER Kalamazoo, Mich. FLOYD L. VANDERPOEL .... Litchfield, Conn. T. A. WILLARD Beverly Hills, Calif. Managing Director ROY W. WINTON ....... New York City Address all inquiries to AMATEUR CINEMA LEAGUE, INC. 105 W. 40TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY, U.S.A. IN April of this year will be held in Europe an international conference to discuss the use of movies in education. In a recent discussion with the Honorable George F. Zook, Commissioner of Education of the United States, the Amateur Cinema League has suggested that this conference and others might well devote a generous portion of time to what could be termed the use of education in movies. This suggestion was made not merely to provide a paradox by inversion but was, on the contrary, offered for the soundest of reasons. The use of motion pictures has too long been considered as a thing additive to something else. This has resulted, of course, from the fact that, until the last decade, motion pictures have been provided for and not made by individuals, that they have been products contrived in mystery behind sheltered studio walls and that they have been considered as the special privilege of purely commercial companies, to be dealt with by these companies according to their individual ideas of what was or was not profitable. We have heard continually of the "motion picture industry," and it has not been easy to realize that the days when this industry had a private, high wire fence built about cinematography are ended. Therefore, the world has considered how this private industrial possession, if the industry, in some concept of social service, were to permit it to be used otherwise than for private profit, might serve this or that public cause. The "use of movies in education" has come from this antiquated vision of what the motion picture really is. The interesting and absorbing educational problem having to do with movies is, of course, as every movie amateur knows, not how to use them in educational work but how individuals may educate themselves to greater facility in this new means of human expression. Educators might well consider how they can aid in teaching the world how to film, as they have aided in teaching it how to write, to sing or to paint. We are, in personal movies, dealing with something infinitely broader and of much greater social significance than the commercial films turned out by Hollywood for the purpose of making a profit from public entertainment. The use of education in movies has been the entire concern and business of the Amateur Cinema League since it was established in 1926. This organization was designed specifically as an educational medium for film training. The progress that it has made has come without benefit of professional, pedagogical advice and the League has done its teaching by a very practical method, with little educational theory behind it. Personal movies are now widely enough known and practiced so that it is distinctly in order for the educators of the world to join with the Amateur Cinema League in developing the principles and methods of film pedagogy. Here is a challenge to educators to work out a brand new technique — a challenge not presented since the days of antiquity. The cry goes out from personal filming to the trained teachers of the world, "Come over into Macedonia and help us!" J!