Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (1929)

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Motio7i Picture in the Army — Prosser 359 see and acquire these pictures. Provision for this has been made, first, by sale of positive prints of our war time negative, and second, by the loan of prints to responsible parties for exhibition according to a definite War Department polic}^ There is a constantly growing demand for the loan service. To meet the demand we have compiled a great many pictures. These pictures not only cover the field of the World War but deal with current military history of our Army. Typical of the military pictures I might cite, ''Flashes of Action", a war time picture which is well described by its title. In addition to this we have pictorial motion picture histories of most of the divisions participating in the World War. Of the domestic pictures the Mississippi Flood of 1927, the Burial of the Unknown Soldier, and the Inauguration of President Hoover as typical of this group have proven popular. I have already mentioned that the Army entered the motion picture instructional field in 1917. It is still in this field. During the war, sixty-two training films were produced in addition to a large number of pictures which were used for instructional purposes other than training soldiers. However, I will devote myself to the training films, as the history of these is better defined than the pictures made for propaganda purposes and for technical use in factories, laboratories, etc. The training films had just been completed and were coming into wide use when the war ended and the demobilization of our huge World War Army and the reorganization of our Regular Army absorbed the complete attention of military authorities. Consequently very little thought was given to the employment of screen educational methods in Army training in the period immediately following the war. However, in the reorganization of the Regular Army, which had been swallowed up in our huge World War Army, there was created a reserve force and provision was made for a large group of Regular Army officers, who were to act as instructors of this reserve. From these officers who were facing a difficult problem, came calls for help in instructing the units under their charge. This demand revived study by the War Department of the motion picture as an instrument of training, so once more the screen began to receive attention as an auxiliary means of training particularly suited to the Army Reserve units. By motion pictures, perhaps better than any other way, was it possible to coordinate Army training and impart unified, systematic instruction to reserve units in an entertaining way.