Region II, 1953 (1953)

contact, it is very easy to get lax, and audience receptivity is going to be the text of educational television. We will learn, of course; we will get better. Of the 13 kinescopes done here at the University of North Carolina, the percentage of good ones, he thought was terrific; but those most closely involved knew that many were not as good as they had wanted them to be and that, if they were done over, there would be things that would be done differ¬ ently. This attitude is essential. He was convinced that educational television can be the greatest force in our generation, the greatest force for education since the invention of the print¬ ing press. But every bit of showmanship which can be developed will be needed because people, eager as they are to be challenged, are reluctant to admit that they want to ”be educated." They will be interested in education if we can pro¬ duce something that piques their interest. Even on the elementary level of "The College of Musical Knowledge 1 ’ where no mental calisthenics were called for, there was some challenge to the listener. Although some of the questions were on the level of ’’Who says, ’Lopez speaking?*, on two occasions he had received wrong answers. When people expect entertainment, they do not want to feel that they are being educated. When they expect education and receive it entertainingly, then we have rung the bell. Entertainment in education does not mean dilution, it means interest. Don't think that because people ought to want education, they will. . It must be presented as challengingly and provocatively as possible. A case in point of the failure to understand what showmanship really is was the comment of one educator on the Psychology series mentioned earlier, that •'This was done without one bit of showmanship.” In the first place, the series required that the lecturer boil down his material from 50 minutes to 29 minutes; that meant that he could not wander as he might otherwise; that his material had to be edited carefully; that he had to punch his points to get them across. This is the essence of showmanship; the minute he started edit¬ ing, he was in show business. Any effective communicator is in show business. In his own experience, Mr. Kyser paid tribute to a motion picture director who had him work on the simple problem of going through a door from 9s00 in the morning until 2:00 in the afternoon before they got a take. A lot of little things were involved. It is these little things that will make or break many educational television shows; such things as not dropping your eyes in front of the camera but keeping in contact with the invisible audience. Everyone who touches educational television must try to put all the possible showman¬ ship into it that he can. Educational television is on the soundest ground in the world. In commercial television the problem is "the word” - the plot, the message, what to say, what to do; and ”the word” is getting thinner and thinner. Hut for educational television we have an endless fountain of knowledge. ’’The word” is what we have the most of. Then too, our actors have the essential ingredient of great per¬ formance: conviction. There is no need to worry about how you look on tele¬ vision; if you have the conviction, it will show in your eyes and you will in¬ vite people up through the tube. The future of this great opportunity and challenging responsibility is ours: to take to all the people the storehouse of wisdom and know-how accumulated by our colleagues and their predecessors. There is a great part that the educa¬ tional telecasters can and must play in getting educational TV off the ground. And after that, how high it flies is up to them. They are the pilots.