We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
12
NEWSREELS
The makers of newsreels are the cinema's equivalent of journalists and reporters. Twice weekly they produce a pictorial presentation of current events and send it out on time. The material must be slick, interesting, and represent a balanced selection of the news ; more than that, the newsreel must entertain.
News events which make big headlines in the morning papers do not necessarily make good newsreel material. The abdication of a king, a political speech, or a murder case do not make a good visual story : they are interesting to read about in the newspapers because they are " news," because the reader is hearing about them for the fiist time. The newsreel does not have this advantage : the events shown will, by the time they reach the cinema, be stale news. They must therefore present subjects which do not primarily depend for their appeal on the element of surprise. Newsreel material must be visually interesting and must be presented with that touch of showmanship which can make even slightly stale news appear rather exciting.
Sidelights on the news and personal details of the events already reported in the press, rather than facts alone, make for a good newsreel. In presenting an international conference of statesmen, for instance, it may interest the public to see the smiles on the diplomats' faces as they shake hands ; it will probably interest them less to hear what the diplomats have said, and anyway, those interested will have read it in the papers. A newsreel of Ascot may devote as much footage to the fashions as to the race itself, because the audience, if at all interested, will know the winner of the race but may not have seen the ladies wearing the latest creations. It is in this selection of significant details — " the human angle " — that the newsreel producer's skill lies.
The newsreel producer's first job is to select from the week's news those events which he considers most interesting and most suitable for visual presentation. Anything from one to ten different items
184