Trends: The Student Movie Makers

Blood seeped through the student's shirt as he lay writhing on a suburban street in Evanston, Ill.. Sirens screamed as an ambulance rushed to the scene, emergency bandages and tourniquets held at the ready. A policeman ran toward the accident—and then stopped in horror and anger. Glaring at the onlooker with the camera, who made no attempt to help the sufferer, he roared: "What do you think you're doing?" "Making a movie," came the mild reply. Suddenly aware that the blood looked suspiciously like ketchup, the cop sighed: "Everybody's making a movie."

Well, almost everybody. The incident happened a few blocks from Northwestern University; both the cameraman and his ketchup-doused victim were undergraduates at the school. But the scene could have been almost anywhere in the U.S. Students in college, high school—and now in some cases even grade school—are turning to films as a form of artistic self-expression as naturally as Eskimos turn to soapstone carving.

Hammy Classmates. Dozens of U.S. high schools now offer at least a rudimentary course in film appreciation, while more than 100 colleges and universities have moviemaking as an accepted part of their curriculums. Even where no classes are available, students by the hundreds are forming their own film clubs and making movies with handheld 8-mm. cameras, portable tape recorders, and the unpaid acting services of hammy fellow classmates or wary adults.

The reason for this celluloid explosion is the widespread conviction among young people that film is the most vital modern art form. Jean Cocteau believed that movies could never become a true art until the materials to make them were as inexpensive as pencil and paper. The era he predicted is rapidly arriving. Students can now make a short film for as little as $25, and a workable 16-mm. camera can be had for as little as $40. McLuhan-age educators, moreover, welcome this form of creative endeavor. Some foresee the day when film training will be an accepted and universal part of education. Says Father John Culkin, head of Fordham's Center for Communications: "Students ought to be learning the fundamentals in grade school—early high school at the latest—so that when they finally get to college, they have an opportunity to blossom out, without worrying about the mechanics."