UNIVERSITY MAKES FILMS, RECORDINGS

Hidden away in the basement of the Biological Laboratories, and little known to most students, in the Harvard Film Service. Annually it develops 100,000 feet of film in its laboratory, and now has almost 3,000,000 feet of film which it developed or bought, stored away in a fireproof vault.

The offices, laboratory, and sound studio stretch through nine rooms where a permanent staff of four work under the director of the Service, James R. Brewster '25. Already overcrowded, the offices must now handle additional defense work. Normally the Service provides most of the films used by the Faculty for instruction, operates the motion picture machines, makes recordings, and sells films and records to other schools and colleges.

Among the extensive photographic equipment are splicers, moviolas for editing the film, a drying drum 30 feet indiameter, and developing tanks six feet deep and holding 120 gallons in solution.

An acoustically treated sound studio complete with microphone boom and two turntables provides recordings for the College. These range from the poetry recordings in Widener Library, such as those by Robert Hillyer '17, Theodore Spencer '28, David T. W. McCord '21, and T. S. Eliot '09, to the latest records of the Harvard Defense Group.

The Film Service was founded eight years ago and is a self-supporting service department of the University. The use of films in education has been steadily increasing, and now one of the most important of all modern educational techniques is the sound film.

Voice recording, an important part of the work, is done not only for the Harvard-Radcliffe public speaking course, and the School of Public Health, but also for the Divinity School, where students listen to their own sermons.