Educational Film
Created on : October 18, 2023 09:15 | Last updated on : January 17, 2024 13:07
Denotation
A movie or movies with the main objective of educating people are called educational movies. Educational videos have been utilized in classrooms as a substitute for traditional teaching strategies.
Introduction
Educational films have become an increasingly potent instrument in the fields of academia and learning. They are dynamic media that skillfully combine knowledge with visual storytelling. These films, which are meant to entertain and educate, go beyond conventional teaching strategies by utilizing the alluring power of audiovisual storytelling. Educational films cater to a variety of learning styles and help students gain a deeper grasp of a wide range of subjects, from science and history to literature and mathematics, by simplifying complicated concepts. Combining knowledge with images not only improves recall but also piques students' curiosity, making learning fun and efficient. exciting way. Educational films serve as catalysts for knowledge diffusion in this era of multimedia learning, encouraging students of all ages to investigate the huge tapestry of information in an interesting and visually captivating way.
History of Educational Films
While some investigations found that the newsreel in 1913 served as the inspiration for the first instructional films, others contend that St. Petersburg hosted the first educational film screenings in 1897.Still, the growing quantity of instructional films may indicate that these kinds of movies were first made in the early 1900s.
Educational Film during the late 19th and 20th centuries:
The purpose of educational films is to educate certain audiences about certain topics. The study's subject varies. Three primary categories were typically used to categorize educational films: scholastic, instructional, and instructional.
Educational films may be used to increase public awareness and educate people about social concerns. Prejudice (1959), a 1959 instructional video, addressed the prejudice of the white middle class, for instance. The October 1960 novel property and Space to Grow told the tale of a normal young American couple who set out on the grand adventure of purchasing property and constructing their ideal house.
Bringing experiences that students might not be able to have firsthand into the classroom through educational films can be a potent teaching tool that increases instructional effectiveness. For instance, instructional videos may be utilized to provide students with a tour of a building without requiring them to see it in person while teaching architectural courses. Similar to this, a video loop may show pupils a complicated concept—like cell division—as many times as necessary while teaching it. Certain methods can highlight minute details in a process that would otherwise be challenging for a group of students to all observe properly in a live presentation, such as the close-up of particle matter accumulating in a chemical mixture.
One important type of instructional video is the documentary, which is utilized as a teaching tool. They were primarily utilized to introduce kids to a variety of themes while serving as instructional media in schools. But instructors were also trained through films. A Better Tomorrow (1945), Tomorrow's a Wonderful Day (1948), and The Children's Republic (1947) were among the children's documentaries that many prominent educational film institutions, including the Educational Film Library at New York University, Columbia Teachers College, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), felt were appropriate for adult audiences interested in teacher preparation, child care and development, and even the rehabilitation of so-called delinquents.
Types of Educational Films
Social Science and Geography Films:
Film studios have created documentaries on global culture and geography. Throughout the 1960s, they focused on three types of treatment: the travelogue, the ethnological film, and the geographical-industrial film.
The geographically-industrial film discussed foreign industries and customs. Filmmakers frequently described the political, social, and economic composition of the nation in addition to its locations and basic data.
Many explorers, scientists, missionaries, and tourists made travelogues instead of hiring professional cinematographers. They toured the globe, pitching the films to film distributors and studios.
Historical Film:
A white, conservative, Christian viewpoint was usually the default in historical films released prior to the 1960s. Examples of this are Ray Garner's Ancient World: Egypt (1954) and Greece: The Golden Age (1963). The majority of both movies' content consisted of images of ruins and artifacts, accompanied by commentary that contrasted them with then-current American civilization. In other films, non-white actors were put in less desirable parts, if any, while white actors portrayed characters supposed to be perceived as sympathetic or civilized. These filmmakers mostly ignored the contributions of women, Asians, African-Americans, and Latinos, concentrating instead on affluent businessmen and the US Founding Fathers.
Sculpture, architecture, painting, and other "high" arts were frequently included in educational films. Filmmakers started utilizing the movie camera in the 1920s and 1930s to record visual art in novel ways, including panning around a sculpture while recording it. At colleges, this kind of film has come to be recognized as an acceptable part of an artistic education. After World War II, film emerged as the perfect medium for bringing the visual arts into new spaces, including educational institutions (primarily art schools), non-theatrical venues, and, briefly, commercial theaters, in addition to museums, artist's studios, and galleries.
Literature and language Arts films:
Poetry, journalism, and non-narrated short topics are all featured in this kind of cinema. In the 1950s, American educational film firms started importing dramatic content from foreign sources. They were mostly from France, where there were a number of well-known short dramas without narration, such as Albert Lamorisse's The Red Balloon (1956).
A lot of sociodrama movies focused on issues like civic involvement and racial equality. With the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965) and the Civil Rights Act (1964), educators were more interested in showing the world from viewpoints that were more similar to those of their pupils. The films, which dealt with race, age-related, and inter- or intra-cultural concerns, were made by young film directors. They concentrated on the social sciences, literature, and history. Since most of the movies lasted 30 minutes or less, teachers may watch them first and address any questions they may have during an hour-long lecture.
Cultural Importance of Educational Films
A large number of instructional movies that are screened in classrooms are really parts of lengthy series. For instance, films that explain scientific experiments and concepts are often episodic, with each episode focusing on a different experiment or idea.
During their time in primary school, many British students in the late 1980s and early 1990s watched hundreds of episodes of instructional films produced in the country, all of which had a similar style and level of film production. Because of this, any child of the proper generation may easily recognize the delivery style and unique color palette (neutral-blue backdrops that seem "scientific") of these videos.