Development of the UNICEF Filmstrip Kit

Robert Tyabji

In the pre-Handicam age the filmstrip was a simple and relatively inexpensive way to transmit visual information to many people at the same time. It was a convenient development communication aid because all the pictures are on one continuous roll of film, instead of individual slides which get easily mixed up, scratched or lost. Filmstrips were popular because personal contact and rapport could be established between the communicator and the audience, especially if the photos dealt with local issues and showed familiar scenes and known faces.

Back in 1972, my supervisor at UNICEF in New Delhi, Ken Nelson, visited a certain medical officer who was known for his success in bringing about positive changes in the health of the people in his district. Seeing the doctor use his 35mm camera to involve his constituents in producing family planning skits which he then presented to the community in a slide show, Ken reasoned that, given the means, other development workers could emulate the doctor’s technique. Ken became intrigued with the possibility of UNICEF providing a hands-on photographic kit for extension workers and awarded me the challenge of designing one.

The question of how photography could be simplified to the extent of becoming a do-it-yourself tool for community level workers in rural India was a riddle that occupied me for nearly two years. After extensive research, experimentation and constructing prototypes I had the answer - a Filmstrip Production Kit that was simple enough for use by people with no prior photographic experience.

Tell your story with a filmstrip - read the article "Producing Your Own Filmstrips"(Invention Intelligence journal, Singapore, 1975)

The kit enabled them to take photographs, develop the film, organize individual frames into a story sequence, annotate pictures with text or graphics, take close-ups of objects and copy printed material, and print and project the completed 35mm filmstrip to an audience without needing any outside services, darkrooms, additional photographic equipment, or even mains electricity. 

My biggest problem was finding a simple yet effective way to develop film under conditions that could not be controlled. Many difficulties had to be overcome before ordinary people could be expected to start developing their own film! First, the quality of the image is critically dependent on the temperature of the processing bath; lowering the temperature even slightly would result in under-developing the film, while a warmer bath would overdevelop it. In either case, the processed film may be unusable because it is too dense or too light. Secondly, to simplify the process I had to concoct a chemical formulation that developed and fixed the film in one go, instead of in two separate processes as is the norm. Furthermore, the film had to be developed to a specific density in order to make it suitable for copying, printing and projection. Another riddle was how to transfer the roll of film from the camera into the developing tank without exposing it to light and destroying it. 

 I won’t bore you with technical details about how all these obstacles were overcome, but I think solving the temperature issue is interesting because of its sheer simplicity. As so often happens when one is totally focused on a particular problem, the answer came to me quite by accident when I was doing something completely unrelated -- checking the performance of UNICEF village handpumps in different parts of the country. On reviewing my notes from trips to Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, it struck me that the water temperature from the handpumps was constant to within a range of a degree Celsius (between a low of 24 degrees and a high of 26 degrees), irrespective of location, weather and time of day, or even if the air temperature varied by as much as 18 degrees. Stunned by this discovery, I became madly excited when I found that the water from open wells followed the same pattern! Once the temperature issue was thus resolved, all that remained was to adjust the chemical formulation to give optimum results at the mean temperature (25 degrees).

22 kits were produced by Dynam Engineering, a firm in Bangalore manufacturing science teaching kits, and tested with different users and under varying conditions in India and Africa. Everything needed was included in the kit, including a starter stock of film, chemicals, slide mounts, clothes clips, paper and felt pens. Making a filmstrip involved a few simple steps:

• Prepare the story and shot list
• Take pictures with the 35mm camera and black-and-white film. Photograph small objects or document pages using the flash reflector, close-up lens and copy stand.
• Using a plastic jar, prepare the special one-shot film processing solution by dissolving a packet of chemical in water drawn from a well (or handpump). Rewind the film, load the cassette in the developing tank and pour in the solution.
• Hang up the film to dry, then cut it into frames and fix them in cardboard slide mounts.
• Project the slides to choose the best shots, arrange and number them in the desired sequence. Place the frames in transparent slide folders for storage.
• Using the camera, projector and copy stand with a sheet of white paper clipped to it, project each slide onto the paper screen and photograph the projected image in the correct sequence. A subtitle or graphic can be superimposed over any image by writing it on the paper screen with a felt pen.
• Develop the roll of film to produce the completed filmstrip.
• Connect the projector to the mains or car battery and project the filmstrip.
  

Here's a simple instruction manual explaining how each component of the kit should be used for optimum results.

Of course, in today’s world of camera phones and global distribution via the internet, all this is academic! But in the 1970s, when the invention  of the video cassette gave rise to 'portable' video recorders weighing 20 pounds and costing 2000 US dollars, the UNICEF filmstrip kit was a 300-dollar breakthrough for development institutions who were searching for more effective ways to communicate with the community. The kit’s simple wooden construction and modular design was user friendly and invited experimentation and creativity. Everything needed was included in the kit, including a starter stock of film, chemicals, slide mounts, clothes clips, paper and felt pens. I soon found that rural people became fascinated with the production process, especially developing film near the village well! The kit seemed to give them a newfound power to create visual images and stories about their lives and share them with the rest of the community.

Looking back, the ability to create visuals and project them to many people simultaneously empowered those with a story to tell, especially in promoting discussion, spreading awareness and finding solutions to local problems. With UNICEF support, filmstrip kits were distributed to NGOs in various parts of India and a few were tested in other countries as well. I only wish this work could have been done years earlier! As it happened, video and digital technology was gaining popularity and before long rendered filmstrips, and film itself, obsolete¹.

I have to say that this was the most exciting and fulfilling project of my life and I am forever grateful to my supervisor Ken Nelson, the UNICEF Regional Office in Delhi, the communities, institutions and governments that participated in the trials, the community workers, farmers, rural housewives, students and other individuals who were inspired by the adrenaline that flows when creativity takes over, and to my long-suffering and ever-patient assistant, Avtar Singh, for making sure that everything worked.

¹ film is still widely used for professional production in the entertainment industry, however