Difference between revisions of "Newsreel"

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The newsreel was a short collection of nonfiction stories compiled on a single reel of film produced primarily between 1911 and 1967. A number of countries produced their own domestic newsreels, however this article focuses primarily on American-made productions. Usually included as part of a theatrical program including other shorts and a feature film, the newsreel covered an assortment of events and human interest stories that were directed at a national audience. In peacetime regarded as a form of light entertainment, during World War 2 it gained national significance as the primary source of news images of combat. Produced by motion picture studios, newsreels were not the sole source of news for American audiences, rather they presented a cinematic interpretation of the events of the day.

Multiple factors, including reduced industry competition, censorship, and the increasing popularity of television news, contributed to the decline of the medium, and the last of the major newsreels ceased production in 1967. From the very beginning of its existence through its demise, the newsreel was caught between the impulse to entertain and the impulse to inform.

Origins

Silent

An early form of non-fiction cinema, actualities, recorded unscripted moments, while news films captured events of historical significance or staged reenactments. These early cinematic products of Edison, Muybridge, Lumière, and others created a cinema of attractions that overtly acknowledged the spectator and played to the camera as described by Tom Gunning, professor of cinematic history at University of Chicago. Both genres declined in the United States, along with the nickelodean theater, as the feature length narrative film gained traction. The newsreel remediated the topical journalistic diversity of newspaper and radio news; the camera techniques of the actuality; the narrative devices of the news film; and the abbreviated length of the nickelodeon picture.

"The idea for the newsreel is credited to Leon Franconi, Charles Pathé's American-based confidential interpreter" (Fielding 69). Charles Pathé released French and British newsreels in 1910, with an American edition of Pathé's Weekly premiering on August 8, 1911. The Vitagraph Company, with over a decade of experience producing news films, released its newsreel, The Vitagraph Monthly of Current Events, ten days later on August 18, 1911. Over the next decade a number of companies entered the newsreel market, only to find that the expense of cameras and processing apparatus impeded on profits.

By 1925 two major Hollywood studios--Fox Film Corporation and Universal Studios, in association with Hearst Corporation--and two independent producers--Pathé News and Kinograms, operated by Educational Pictures, Inc. were producing newsreels. Two other Hollywood studios entered the field in 1927, Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in association with Hearst, just as sound pictures were on the rise.

Sound

Fox's Movietone News was the first to release an all-sound newsreel on October 28, 1927, after testing the technology with two sound news films, recording celebrations of Charles Lindbergh's record flights. The addition of the integrated audio design element changed the structure of newsreel, because narration and music could now be used to provide transition between segments. Narrators spoke in voice-over and directly to the audience setting the tone of the story and influencing interpretation. "Such was the initial popularity of the sound film newsreel that, with one notable exception, by 1931 every major producer had converted to sound. The exception was Kinograms" (Fielding 185). That newsreels were sourced from Hollywood Studios and now had the ability to add artificial non-diagetic sound effects complicated the question of the authenticity of the picture and illustrated the slippage between news and fiction.

Production and Technology

Film Technology

To record images, film cameras spool celluloid film 16 millimeters wide (almost 3/4 inch) between two smaller reels, mechanically drawing undeveloped film before an aperture. the camera mechanism allows direct mimetic light impressions through its lens, where these imprint and adhere to the receptive surface of the film. After the reel is 'in the can,' a tin container protecting it from further exposure, the visual impressions are sealed onto the film surface through a chemical development process. The resulting document, a motion picture, is digital, consisting of a serial sequence of photographs, viewed by rapid projection at a rate of 24 frames per second. Film’s motion is only apparent, produced artificially. The flexible nature of the film allows for the severing, splicing, and affixing of film sequences into precise lengths to create a composed sequence.

In the sense proposed by Francois Agaeon in his "Six Books on Optics" of 1613, the medium is transparent to light and requires bright light illumination for its visual output to become perceptible on a viewing surface. In addition to materially, film is also transparent medially. Its encoding of data is directly mimetic, resulting from impressions captured from the object under attention itself; no imposed symbolic protocol is employed. As such it is a "dioptric" medium, in Zielinski's sense, serving as a transparent conduit for its information. Its impressions are animated on the screen by their luminous displacement in rapid sequence (Zielinkski 85).

Newsreels underscore the materially digital nature of film due to the segmentation of the narrative items.

Collecting Footage

Employees of the newsreel organizations collected the majority of footage used in the newsreels. Some cameramen were sent out on specific assignments (ball games, visits from royalty, contests, etc.) and others had a specific beat to cover and would collect anything of interest they might encounter. While collecting the material, the cameraman would fill out a "dope sheet," listing the different shots recorded on that reel of film. The amount of commentary and contextual information provided in these dope sheets varied; however related newspaper clippings or other information were attached to assist the editors.

Restrictions to collecting included foreign governmental regulations and inhospitable subjects. Americans were forbidden by Nazi Germany to film in their country, and the Nanking government of China was also known for placing heavy restrictions on newsreel cameramen out of concern for the unregulated future presentation of the recorded material. Domestic events also posed difficulties because “strikers and rioters often singled out newsreelmen for their wrath, since the footage photographed under such circumstances often ended up in the district attorney, who used it for prosecution and the securing of injunctions) (277). Production companies typically never placed restrictions on what could be filmed, but would encourage the filming of all “newsworthy” events. Editors could shape the footage to match company point of view post-filming. It was not uncommon for the studios to pay amateurs for footage they may have collected, particularly to have exclusive access to the material. In one instance a cameraman paid $7,500 cash (almost $117,000 in today's dollars) to a local amateur who had caught about 1000 feet of film of a Japanese earthquake (Scott).

Starting in 1930 despite competing for audiences, American and foreign production companies found sharing footage to be advantageous. “The coverage of scheduled events was carefully preplanned by all five newsreel producers [Kinogram having folded with along with Educational Pictures], sometimes in concert, weeks in advance” leading to “a monotonous similarity of newsreel content crept…to an increasing extent [as] each of the 5 newsreel companies began screening identical footage” (Fielding 270-271). One writer in 1936 noted “’If one of Pathe’s cameras had broken down…probably Fox or Universal would have helped out with an extra print’” (271).

Cameramen unionizing contributed to a communal view toward footage. Normal Alley and Eric Mayell, representing Universal and Fox Movietone, filmed the bombing of the American gunboat Panay in 1937 together. The two cooperated in the filming as well as in follow-up coverage as well as agreeing to “guard each other’s footage in the event of an unforeseen catastrophe” (272). Under the Rota pool-coverage system, introduced in the 1930s, cameramen were guaranteed the opportunity to cover an event under the condition that all footage had to be shared among all newsreel producers. During WWII, the pool system helped distribute footage of battles and war events to all theaters.

Colonel William Mason Wright, head of the Pictorial Branch of the Bureau of Public Relations of the Department of War, described the mechanics of the rota system:

“I propose the idea of pooling our resources for the duration of the war. If each newsreel company will provide us with two cameramen for each theater of operations, I think we can adequately cover all theaters. The work of all cameramen will be censored and processed by the War Department and the Navy Department, and then distributed to the five newsreel organizations, along with all of the work of the Army and Navy cameramen. You will use all the same films, of course, and there will be no more competition among you, but we feel that this is the only way of bringing the war in film to the American people” (274).

The majority of combat footage during WWII was filmed by United States Signal Corps and Navy photographers, many of which were trained by newsreel companies (288).

Editing

Reels of footage were mailed from the field to the editors' offices. Sound and narration was added as the content was juxtaposed with other stories to form a complete reel to be distributed to theaters. The reference materials available to the editors when writing the scripts and assembling the stories were the notes on the dope sheet and any attached documents. Thus the commentary on the events was editorially constructed or reflected the tone or opinions of previously published newspaper accounts. Additionally, the importance of a fast turn around time for newsreels made verifying the facts difficult.

The need for each of the studios to have the freshest, most up-to-date news led to technical innovation to speed up the process. One fascinating example is a "flying picture laboratory," that contained technology to develop and edit both moving picture film and photos for newspaper distribution. Post-production of the material could be completed on the plane and the finished product could be dropped off at various stops along the flight route ("Newsreel is Finished in Monoplane").

Although in the later years it was possible for the cameramen to record sound with the content, the cumbersome nature of bringing along the sound equipment along with the necessity to be accompanied by a sound technician led many cameramen to collect soundless footage. Editors would then use stock sounds to bring the film to life. A newspaper article from 1938 describes how the sound of a waterfall was used along with footage of fire-hoses and sounds of an Italian naval destroyer siren in place of fireboats (Desmond).

Internal Censorship

Newsreel companies exercised self-censorship when constructing the final products. In 1931 Fox ruled “that its theaters and newsreels could not show scenes of a ‘controversial nature…on which reaction might be divided’” (278). In 1938 there was a similar move when Warner Bros. banned their 425 theaters from showing a newsreel pertaining to Nazi Germany claiming it was "not good policy" to show it. This ban, however, was lifted in Chicago, and theaters owned by other studios were free to make their own call ("Warner Theaters Ban Film on Nazis"). Editorial newsreel censorship also favored showing celebrities and political figures in a positive light, such as not portraying President Roosevelt in his wheelchair, or not showing the short King Victor Emanuel of Italy being lifted onto his horse.

Self-censoring aimed to prevent a public frenzy, such as the Paramount filming of a 1937 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO, a coalition of unions) strike, during which police shot protesters. Paramount’s editor, A.J. Richard, said of his decision to not show the footage: “…whereas newspapers reach individuals in the home, we show a public gathered in groups averaging 1,000 or more, and therefore subject to crowd hysteria while assembled in the theatre” (282). Richard’s decision caused U.S. Senator Robert La Follette Jr., chairman of the Senate Civil Liberties Committee to subpoena the footage, which led to Paramount to releasing it in a newsreel. Banned by Chicago police, the reel was shown elsewhere in the United States.

Distribution and Regulation

During the first year of production, 1911, Charles Pathe issued 95 prints of each newsreel and distributed them through the Keith-Albee and Orpheum circuits (Fielding 75). On June 8, 1914, Pathe had begun to rent its news reels directly to exhibitors and introduced a daily supplement newsreel service. However, this service had a very limited run, only through the outbreak of World War I. Most newsreels including ______, _______, and ________were distributed twice weekly to film theaters for projection before a narrative feature alongside other short segments.

By the 1940's, a standard theatrical package, known as the 'staple program,' typically consisted of a featured attraction preceded by some combination of newsreel, cartoon, travelogue, featurette, serial, singalong, and trailers. (Doherty, 9). Before the Paramount Decree (1948), studios had direct distribution access to their vertically integrated theaters, contributing to the rise of the Hollywood produced reels and the decline of competition from independent producers. After the decision, however, all producers were forced to market to the now independently owned theaters. While most newsreels screened before feature movies, there were other distribution platforms. Newsreel theaters exclusively showed programs of assorted shorts. These programs, usually about an hour long, featured all of the major studio's newsreels, along with other short entertainments such as cartoons and recordings of musical performances (Schallert). Newsreels were also viewed outside the theater environment at various community locations or events. For example, some schools had regular newsreel screenings for students ("Newsreels To Be Shown In Schools").

While almost everything produced ended up in theaters, censorship was not unheard of. For example, in 1935 The censorship of newsreel distribution occurred as early as the 1930s on both national and international levels. Foreign governments commonly banned American newsreels, such as in 1933 when the British government claimed that U.S. newsreels were “’objectionable news pictures’” and threatened to stop airing them, referring to a newsreel that showed the re-enactment of the Brooke Hart murder case. However, during the 1930s, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas, Maryland, and Florida developed censorship committees, which previewed films before allowing them to be screened. They often would recommend edits to newsreels before allowing them to be shown. In 1935, Louisiana passed a censorship act at the persistence of Senator Huey Long after a March of Times newsreel was made criticizing Long’s career, and Ohio censored a newsreel because they feared it was anti-Nazi ("Ohio Censors Newsreel, Claiming It 'Anti-Nazi'"). In 1953, it was estimated “that the newsreel industry could save fifty thousand dollars a year if censor-board review were abolished in the state of Ohio alone” (286).

In response to state-mandated censorship, newsreel companies would boycott certain states in protest. Universal held a camera boycott and refused to film news in Ohio. Around the same time during the 1950s, “public and legislative opinion began to form…against all forms of motion picture censorship” (286). In 1952, soon after the case of Joseph Burtsyn v. Wilson, during which an Italian film distributer, Joseph Burstyn secured a temporary injunction against New York’s license commissioner Edward T. McCaffery and soon after the Supreme Court of New York ruled that McCaffrey, “nor any other municipal official could interfere with the exhibition of a motion picture that had already received an official license from the New York State censors” (Jowett, 263). After the court ruling, newsreels were excluded from censorship laws in Virginia, Maryland, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Reception and Propaganda

Decline and End

References

Doherty, Thomas Patrick. Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Print.

Fielding, Raymond. The American Newsreel. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972. Print.

Hanssen, Eirik Frisvold. "Symptoms of desire: colour, costume, and commodities in fashion newsreels of the 1910s and 1920s." Film History. 21 (2009): 107-121. Project Muse. Web. 4 March 2010.

Roeder, George H., Jr. "The Censored War: American Visual Experience During World War Two." New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Print.

Zielinski, Siegfried. "Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means." Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006. Print.