HOW WE LIVE

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 140, 10 December 1931, Page 5

HOW WE LIVE

SHOWN BY FILM

TO CHILDREN AT HOME

Now Zealand sheep farms and creameries are being brought'right into t.he English class-room. For tho first time school-children all over Britain will be able to see how New'Zealanders work and live on the other side of the world, says a writer from London in the "Marlborough Express."

An Empire film library has boon established by the Empire Marketing Board, and the first catalogue has just been issued of the films which are available, free, to schools up and down tho country. Requests for loans are coming in from all parts of tho country. About DOO schools are already in touch with the board, and.there are probably as many more in possession of projectors.

These. films have been obtained from the publicity organisations of the overseas Governments. There are only eight dealing with New Zealand, and more are badly , wanted. The New Zealand section of the catalogue lists films on forests, wool, meat, honey, and butter. There is one .on lumbering in a kauri forest, one of life on a- sheep station, and one of the history of honey from the hive to London. Others show how New Zealand cheese and butter are made.

■ "The present library is only.a beginning," I was told at the board's; film .unit in Oxford street, London; where a-staff of enthusiastic young men is busy cutting and.editing films of Empire scenes famous and obseui-e, from St. James's Park-in London to bauxite mines in British Guiana, and of every activity from . collecting feathers .for eidordowns to cutting trees in New Zealand. : ,• "We want more material. The demand, is increasing steadily," the film officer said. "Schools are acquiring projectors as, fast as they can', and teachers are unanimously in favour, of the film as a real aid to history and geography lessons. They are used, too, as separate entertainments." ' "

About .one million youngsters, I was assured, have visited the' Imperial Institute cinema, where the Empire Marketing. Board, runs a daily performance of these Empire films. Altogether over two. million people have been admitted to this cinema.

By these means New Zealand is coming alive to the, rising generation in a new way. New Zealand is ceasing to mean just two long red islands on the right-hand side of the map; she is becoming a reality, filled with real hardworking men and women.

The director of these films is Mr. John Grierson, a young Scot, who started life as a lecturer in psychology, went on to journalism in the United States, lived in Hollywood, and has already made his mark as one of the leading British film producers. He was the first to learn from Russian technique, and "Drifters,'' a film of the North Sea fisheries, made -a big hit with the critics and was shown in America. '■- '

He is busy on films of British industry and production which will, he hopes, bo showu^all round the Empire. One on the Port of London is nearly ready. It shows the romance of the greatest port in the world, the arrival of cargoes from the Arctic and the Indies, and the disgorging of produce from every country in the Empire. The "star" is the famous Pool of London, where masts grow as thick as bamboos and the sky iS criss-crossed with mighty cranes. Another film to follow is on British industry. .It will show furnaces and factories of the industrial areas and tho craftsmanship of the potter and the lens-grinder which survives the, great machines. Besides these there are pictures of the Empire's animals— "People of the Sea," a film of fishes, and "Birds of the Air," a glimpse of Empire birds, have just been finished —and one of how children play in many countries. ■

Short research films are also on the way, and these are likely to be of particular interest to farmers overseas. Another piece of pioneer work is the making ofI .", poster" films—short pictures advertising certain Empire products which can be shown on" automatic daylight projectors at exhibitions, on railway platforms, and on other occasions. A "poster"-film dealing with New Zealand butter has been made.

These activities are only a. beginning. But they are the nucleus of a central film bureau for the distribution of Empire propaganda which may one day grow out of the. Empire Marketing Board's fllin unit.