The roots of COI Film Division reach back to the late 1920s sparked by John Grierson's film Drifters (1929) followed in the 1930s by the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) who pioneered the concept of using film in the public service. A concept followed by the Post Office who set up the GPO Film Unit who produced a remarkable range of films including the classic Nightmail. The GPO Film Unit was taken over by the war time Ministry of Information (MOI) and and renamed as the Crown Film Unit. The MOI between 1940 to 1945 had been responsible for the formulation of policy for the production of public service films and the organisation of their use through cinemas and cinema vans. The Crown Film Unit had been responsible for the actual production of the films either within its own resources or by contracting out production to documentary film production companies.
When the newly formed COI opened for business on April 1 1946 with a staff of some 1500 under its first Director General Sir Eric Bamford, (succeeded within a few months by Robert Fraser), it included a Film Division led by its first Director R E Tritton (1946-1948) and reported to Bernard Sendall as Chief Films Controlling Officer. Many of the new Film Division staff were, like the rest of the COI staff, former members of MOI who had opted to transfer to COI. The Crown Film Unit had been put under the control of Film Division though existing as a separate entity.
In February 1946 a Films Committee had been set up to make the arrangements for the formation of the COI Film Division. The new Division largely took on the functions exercised by the Film Division of the MOI with the exception of deciding what films should be made and why. That function was now reserved for departments of government such as the Home Office. As with the rest of COI the new Division had no power of initiation of a new film and each proposed film had to be authorised by officials in the Treasury.
Organising a programme of production, supervising its implementation, then organising distribution and liaising with Departments had been substantially the functions of the MOI Film Division now became those of COI Film Division.
The size of the Division at inception in terms of staff numbers, is not known. Its main task was to coordinate requests from departments for films into a coherent programme of production. This also involved gaining a clear understanding of the purpose of each film and any thoughts the department might have about the nature and style of the film based on the departments knowledge of its target audience. A process generally referred to as “taking a brief”. Based on this knowledge recommendations for a suitable production company were made enabling the production process to go forward. This process was handled by one of a group of Production Control Officers: their title caused some confusion with production companies. What were these people, what was their status? In practice they were the COI Producers and over time became known as just that.
Apart from production the Division was also responsible for distribution of films. This activity may sound a little mundane. However over the years, it was always a very important aspect of the work of the Division both in the UK and the work for the overseas departments of the Foreign Office, Commonwealth Relations Office and, for a time, the Colonial Office.
The term distribution suggests a rather passive operation, the term marketing which came into use later from the 1960s and stayed until 2012 more accurately described the activity. For without a marketing operation the films would not have become known about. So obviously enough, they were not likely to have found the target audience.
Finding and reaching audiences in the UK was achieved partly through the Central Film Library together with mobile projection units for non-theatrical screenings. That is for use other than in cinemas. It also attempted until the late 1950s, to place some films for showing in cinemas, known as theatrical releases. An Acquisitions Section screened and acquired rights in both documentary films and some feature films for use overseas as part of the overseas services projection of Britain.
A complicating factor for COI Film Division was that the Crown Film Unit had been put “under the control” of COI but operating as a separate entity. In many ways it was a messy situation, an inevitable product, no doubt, of trying to untangle and reform organisations where loose ends were left hanging. In this case the Crown Film Unit was a loose end. There were political, emotional as well as some practical reasons for it to remain in being, though its presence ran counter to the basic concept of the new COI which was that COI should be a coordinator and supervisor of work put out to contract. It was not supposed to be a film production organisation of itself. In later years as time rolled on and this account will show, reality dictated that substantially it became just that.
However from 1946 until 1952 the two entities: Film Division (together with an element of production, though contracted out) and Crown Film Unit, with films made in house, to an extent replicated the previous MOI/Crown situation.
While from 1940 until 1946 the Crown Film Unit had gained a huge reputation, the majority of films produced for the MOI had been contracted out to commercial production companies. This process was to continue through COI. However there was uncertainty about the future of Crown Film Unit as part of COI. These uncertainties led to a great deal of criticism of COI by commercial interests in the film industry. It also lead to many Crown staff leaving the unit.
As the decade of the 1940s with the first four years of COI Film Division concluded, there were prospects of good and bad news. The good news was the survival of an enquiry into the film operation by Sir Henry French that gave COI a positive report. The less good news was about the future of Crown and the prospects of forthcoming cuts in government expenditure.
Similar situations of prospective financial gloom were to become familiar over the years as the progress of COI and Film Division unfolded. The number of “inquiries” into the work of the Division was remarkable. The names of their chairmen, Newton, Scott, Mac Samples, Melville among others, represented a great deal of time and work that were of little practical value. Sir Ronald Melville’s report on COI in 1972 even concluded with the thought that it would be sensible to let the COI get on with its work, rather than subjecting it to further inquiry.
In 1952 Crown was abolished together with the opportunity to create an integrated public service film production organisation as proposed by John Grierson. The year also brought expenditure cuts leading to four years of substantially reduced film production. Both actions were the consequence of a new Conservative government that came to came to power and for financial reasons not only closed down Crown but swung an axe at the use of public service film for the information services. To be fair it swung the axe on public information services across the media.
While the organisational issues between COI and Crown were being worked through, together with weathering criticism from the documentary film industry, it was nonetheless still true that the new COI Film Division was the largest source of sponsored film production in the UK. It produced with Crown Film Unit, some 145 reels (a “reel” ran for 10 minutes it was, at the time, a common measure of film output rather than a simple number of “films”), completed in the year 1947/48. As important as the volume of films produced was the work of the Film Division Distribution Section run by the Central Film Library(CFL) and its 12 regional offices. Between them, some 80,000 prints were mailed in the same year. It also ran 144 mobile projection vans racking up an audience of some 5 million people through some 45,000 screenings. The non-theatrical screenings, a jargon phrase for audiences found not in cinemas but in schools, in screenings to industry organisations such as adult education and voluntary groups and many others.
COI was able to place some films each year for cinema screenings. In 1947/48 ten films were placed for cinema screenings. By providing access to a substantial audience across this range of options, the amount of activity helped to provide justification for the production of films as an effective means for the government information services to communicate with the public.
A COI booklet published in late 1948 about COI services speaks of the Film Divisions services as follows:
Departments have been quick to seize the opportunities offered. In fact the1947/48 production figure of 145 reels is above average of the full war time level of production. This is evidence enough of the vitality of departmental sponsorship under the new system. Not only the old and tried sponsors such as Health and Labour are today involved but increasingly such Departments as the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research, the Board of Trade, and the new Economic Information Unit. The (COI) national film service is still the best in the world in its supply of films on various vital aspects of social progress. But there is a growing response to the urgencies of national economic themes as well as growing appreciation that the field of social progress must now be seen in relation to the work of special agencies of the United Nations…….”
This upbeat note about the production actually achieved toward the end of 1948 contrasts with the accounts of unhappiness set out earlier. The booklet also notes that the output consisted of one third produced by Crown and two thirds by Film Division that was contracted out to the documentary film industry.
This level of production continued through the rest of the 1940s up to and including 1952. The arrival of a new government in 1951, led not only to the closure of the Crown Film Unit but, as indicated earlier, also to the implementation of a round of expenditure cuts across government that resulted in a steep drop in film production as departmental sponsorship for films was cut back. While films already in the pipeline were completed, productions in financial year 1952/1953 fell by two thirds and remained at that level, mostly sustained by work for the Overseas Information Services who appear to have been protected from cuts.
The Monthly Film Division Report for May 1953 said of 1952/53:
During this year Films Division had experienced a difficult and rather painful transition from a major and widespread operation in conjunction with Crown Film Unit with a principal emphasis on Home publicity to a much smaller though still very important operation carried out without the assistance of a film production unit and with emphasis upon Overseas publicity. The work of Films Division in commissioning and procuring new films was also much hampered in 1952 by the difficulty in obtaining Treasury Authority for expenditure in time for the completion of production schedules during the financial year…..……..apart from several new films produced mostly for the Foreign Office. (NA INF 8/21)
It was not until around 1957 that the levels of output began to creep up.
While this level of production continued the Monthly Division Report of June 1953 also noted, in respect of the Overseas Services, the increasing importance of television, particularly in the United States, as a means of reaching audiences overseas: Once more reports remind us of the growing importance of television as a means of reaching overseas audiences. In the United States the placing of films on television has become, in all probability, a great deal more important than the placing of films by any other means. (NA INF 8/21)
This note forecast a development that was going to continue to grow through the 1950s eventually leading to the establishment of the Overseas Television Services from around 1956 onwards.