Distribution and Marketing the Overseas Services Finding audiences in faraway places:
The Distribution Section of Film Division provided a crucial part of the whole Film Division operation since without an effective distribution operation and the audiences it would find, the films would have no purpose. The Distribution Services were divided into Home Distribution, that is distribution of films in the United Kingdom and the Overseas Distribution Services that are described here.
The functions of the Overseas Distribution Services were:
physical handling of prints, that is packing and shipping of prints destined for British Embassies, High Commissions and in some cases television stations to over 100 countries.
compiling reports on the usage of films and television material from material supplied by Embassies, High commissions and television stations
production of support material, catalogues, notes to raise awareness of the films and television programmes on offer.
acquisition of overseas distribution rights in documentary and cinema feature films that would assist in the work of projecting a positive image of Britain to the world.
production of foreign language versions of films and television programmes.
The use of film for information purposes overseas the by Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office stretches back in varying degrees to the 1930s. During WW 2 the use of film had increased, particularly in the United States of America, as part of important work to foster the concept of “special relations” driven by the Ministry of Information.
When COI Film Division was set up in 1946 the operation it inherited from the Ministry of Information was to service an existing network of film libraries that were in place, in varying sizes, to over 100 Embassies and High Commissions generally referred to as Posts.
The film libraries varied in size depending on the size and importance of the Post. In the USA the film library was part of a Film and Radio Division well stocked with some 400 or so films servicing a substantial volume of requests from a large number of organisations including schools and universities. In smaller numbers the same was true of Posts elsewhere.
The films provided were made up from those produced by COI or its predecessors together with documentary films made by commercial companies in the UK. In addition a number of entertainment feature films were also supplied. The latter cases involved the acquisition of copyright agreements to screen the films for specific purposes.
An Acquisition Section was devoted to discovering, selecting and acquiring rights in documentary and cinema feature films together with a selection of BBC and later on ITV programmes. These were distributed to selected Posts, again in over 100 countries.
An indication of the level of activity can be seen from the Monthly Film Division report of December 1955 which noted the acquisition of eleven films saying “the most important film was “Calder Hall “ dealing with the construction of Britain’s first atomic power station. Among other films was an interesting and popular film made by the BBC “Here’s Sport" that reviewed British sporting events. The film “Royal Manor” was a pictorial record of life in Richmond made by British Petroleum and “Malaya Speaks” was an account of the radio services in Malaya
The Distribution Service also arranged for the translation and the recording of foreign language versions of both COI produced films and the acquired films. So for example in also December 1955 a film “Farnborough Fly Past” was dubbed into Greek, Serbo-Croat, Siamise and Finnish. A film “A British Trade Union” was dubbed into Latin American Spanish while “Edinburgh Festival" was dubbed into Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.
So how did work of the Overseas Distribution Section translate into actual usage? The following brief extracts are taken from a selection of Film Division monthly reports and give some indication of the spread of activity:
March 1951:
Arrangements were made in London for commercial (cinema) screenings of five COI films in Commonwealth countries together with four in Sweden. An example of COI using commercial distributers to gain audiences for British official information services.
Canada: in 1951 36 COI films were in theatrical (cinema) distribution with to date 315 bookings.
St Lucia: 8 COI films have been shown in cinemas to an average audience of 8,000
Peru: an agreement has been reached with a local agent to distribute 36 films in 1952
USA: During the last quarter some 100 cinemas played COI films. Some 19 films were televised. During the same period over 2,000 non-theatrical (that is organised groups) screenings showed COI films . Copies of some 650 films were sold.
September 1951
Germany: nine COI films were transmitted in Hamburg
Persia: in the first six months of 1951 the non-theatrical audience for film shows in Teheran was 54,000. The largest audiences were in universities and schools. In the provinces the audience was 26,000. The political situation has adversely affected distribution some schools and universities are hesitant in accepting the facilities offered by the information Officer.
Foreign Languages: during the month four films comprising 41 reels were dubbed in ten languages (a reel lasted 10 minutes)
Dispatches: prints of documentary dispatched: - 35mm prints 80 - 16mm prints 419 prints of newsreels: - 35mm prints 384 - 16mm prints378
April 1952:
Finland: cinema audiences in the second half of 1951 were around 150,000
Italy: Non-theatrical audiences in the last half of 1951 reached a total of 2,800,000
Spain: in the second half of 1951 non-theatrical audiences reached nearly 367,000
May 1952
Colombia: the total non-theatrical film audience for 1951 was nearly 6,680,00 an increase of 1,130,000 over the previous year. The Ministry of Agriculture made extensive use of COI films and reached an audience of nearly 200,000.
Yugoslavia: during the second half of 1951 450 non-theatrical shows were held for an audience of over 120,000
March 1953
USA: prints of some 70 films were sold during January. A third were about Civil Defence, a third were about the arts and music the balance were on general subjects. Non-theatrical booking in the month were 1,109.
India: the report for the last quarter of 1952 noted 439 non-theatrical screenings to an audience of 98,000 with 639 further screening given by mobile units (film vans) held by Posts to an audience of 81,400.
Germany: the annual report for 1952 claims a total audience figure of 5.599.000 from 51,500 screenings.
Mauritius: 970 films were issued free of charge during1952. About half went to owners of private projectors and half to the Education Department. Two mobile units take films to schools, social welfare centres and village councils.
This pattern of reporting continued through 1953 and 1954 by June 1955 the style of the reports become more generalised.
June 1955
Cinema distribution: report of two war time films being shown in Kenya, Tanganyika and Zansibar. In Australia cinema distribution was given an issue of “Transatlantic Teleview” – a television series produced largely for the USA and Canada. The programme achieved an audience of 592,000 in six cities. The creeping importance of television was indicated by the transmission of 2 COI films on television.
Non- theatrical use: a summary of 1954 from Germany estimated a total audience of 6,080,000 .
`The final available report for the 1950s is January 1956 that notes:
January 1956
Television: from the USA that there were 36 television transmissions of COI documentary films. The made for television monthly series “Transatlantic Televiews" was being transmitted stations by about 150 stations each month. An indication of the growing importance of television
Libya, Benghazi: noted the arrival of a second mobile van. The Post estimated thatthe whole settled male population had seen at least one the films on offer during the year. More films were asked for by the Post “showing the community of interests within the Commonwealth an the way in which we are enabling our Colonies to progress toward political self-government”.
The Netherlands: reported that in the second half of 1955, 250 films had been shown at 615 screenings.
Considerable importance was attached by the Overseas Information Services to the use of film both in cinemas to screenings by a huge variety of organisations and by television as the relatively new medium increased in size and stature.
The examples given above are only a small sample of the reports provided by Posts to the Foreign Office and passed to COI.