Reel and Slide (Jan-Sep 1919)

EDFTORlALS Source of the Demand for Slow-Burning Film By A. R. Small (Chairman, Sub-Committee on Motion Picture Films, Committee on Public Information and National Fire Protection Association.) THE manifestation of the laws of the science of physics is the evolution of an all-consuming heat, accompanied by all-devouring flame. Does transposing this example from the realm of physics to that of psychology give us the identical answer? Let us see. Certainly the educational and entertainment value of motion pictures has such an appeal to the public as to constitute an irresistible force. Humanity's progress from the primeval to its present civilization has been made only because of its capacity and desire for absorbing instruction. Another primary instinct possessed by all living things is that of self-preservation — safety first. Who can say but for it the human race would have become extinct ages before the dawn of civilization ? When these two forces have acted concurrently man's development has been rapid. When they have clashed the safety first instinct has prevailed until some compromise has produced a resultant force having definite direction. The motion picture influence will not develop its ultimate value until it is freely available to the home, the school, the church and to commerce and industry, and is as popular as the talking machine. Its impulse to achieve this destined field is felt not only by the industry which it supports, but by the entire people as well. The safety first instinct is manifested in the precautions demanded by various regulatory bodies of our government and by the insurance companies. For professional use in theaters and elsewhere expensive safeguards against the fire and panic hazard are so thoroughly well established as to be taken for granted. Yet they could be largely, if not entirely, eliminated were the film of a non-hazardous character. Neither the public nor the industry seems conscious of the financial and physical burdens and restrictions the instinct for self-preservation has imposed. As the art develops and the spectacular profits disappear through the operation of a basic economic law, these handicaps will be felt more and more seriously. Motion picture film on nitro-cellulose base stock cannot become admitted to common use. Its hazardous properties are known to and are admitted by the industry and by others. To safeguard the projector may secure a great measure of safety in professional establishments. But the development of the art from the professional to the wider circles of our colleges and schools, our churches and homes, our commercial and manufacturing establishments involves the problems of transportation, storage and handling by the general public. The janitor, the expressmen, the postman, the office boy, the servant in the home, all of these and others will be required to handle film as it is distributed and 6 used in its natural field of ultimate development. They may not be expected either to know of nor heed the hazards of exposure to heat and careless handling such as resulted in the Burlington passenger car fire. In this instance two lives were lost because an improperly packed reel of film was in contact with the pipes of the steam heating equipment of a smoking car. How may we expect proper precautions to be taken by such people when employes of exchanges handling professional film ignore the necessary safeguards, as instanced in such horrors as the exchange fire in Pittsburgh last January? Here ten people were killed, a score of others injured, a building wrecked, and the business section of a large city jeopardized because of the carelessness, ignorance or indifference of people handling film as a business and presumably competent to exercise necessary precautions. Resistance to nature's fundamental laws is futile. Recognition of man's limitations is as essential as knowledge of his capacity. Until the motion picture industry sees fit of its own accord or by compulsion is forced to adopt the exclusive use of a non-hazardous stock for film, it will suffer the cost of the burden nowcarried in the professional field and will be very largely held back in its expansion into our private lives. In addition, it must carry and should stagger under the load of its moral responsibility for the deaths, in ever increasing numbers, of innocent people and the mental sufferings of their friends and relatives and for the economic waste of the property losses involved. Complete transfer from the nitro-cellulose base stock to cellulose-acetate base or other form of non-hazardous stock is immediately possible, following which most restrictions imposed by the safety first instinct will be shed as if leaves from trees. Each hour's delay makes more imminent the likelihood of another Iroquois Theater disaster or a Collingwood School horror, following which the opportunity for voluntary change on the industry's part will disappear. Serving the Church VERY shortly, the chief religious bodies of the world will begin raising money on a large scale to secure necessary funds for the maintenance of their missionary and charitable work. Many millions of people, many of them in out-of-the-way places, must be reached effectively in order to realize the aims in view. It will be necessary for the churches to intelligently use very effective means of publicity. And it is quite natural that the motion picture should be suggested as a powerful factor in this worthy enterprise. The question has been raised by Orrin G. Cocks of the National Board of Review, who has addressed the following letter to the secretaries of various denominations: "Our interest in the plans of some of the denomi