PROGRAMMES FOR THE U.S.

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 942, 30 August 1957, Page 22

PROGRAMMES FOR THE U.S.

‘THIRTEEN half-hour documentary plays with the general title Pacific Portraits, written by J. C. Reid, of Auckland, and produced at the University of Wisconsin, with the help of the American Ford Foundation, are now being heard from the 70 stations of the U.S. National Association of Educational Broadcasts as well as on several networks. In 1956, Mr. Reid told The Listener, a special allocation of funds was made by the Ford Foundation in the United States to assist in the production of special series of programmes for use on the member stations of the N.A.E.B. This Association includes almost all the U.S. non-commercial stations, in the main operated by Universities, and devoted to the presentation of programmes along the lines followed by New Zealand’s YA and YC stations, "When I was doing research at the University of Wisconsin in 1953,’ he said, "I did three series of broadcasts for the University Station, WHA, which controls the State radio network, and which on a linked series of eight stations, broadcasts right throughout the State. When the Ford Foundation called for programme suggestions, the Chief Producer at WHA, Karl Schmidt, wrote to me suggesting that we might devise ‘a series of programmes centring round the Pacific. Together we arrived at the concept of Pacific Portraits, 13 half‘hour documentary-plays, designed to ‘promote a better understanding of the lands and peoples of the Pacific.’" The series was designed to cover the history of the discovery and development of the Pacific in broad outline and to cover also as many lands and islands of the area as possible, through studies of the lives and characters of men and women who had influenced the growth of the Pacific communities. The historical records, the writings of the people concerned and other primary documents were to serve as a basis for the pro‘grammes and, as far as possible, these were to be incorporated in the programmes. (continued on next page)

The project was one of those approved by the Ford Foundation in December, 1956, and between then and the end of June of this year, Mr Reid completed the scripts, all of which were accepted by WHA, where production was to take place. The subjects finally agreed upon were Captain Cook, Captain Bligh, Darwin, Herman Melville, Father Damien, Paul Gauguin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Hubert Murray, Katherine Mansfield, Daisy Bates, Sir Peter Buck, and two invented characters, to bring the series up to date and to illustrate post-war trends, including the work of the South Pacific Commission. "I recorded on tape in the introduction and concluding portion for each

programme, ‘speaking from. Auckland, New Zealand,’ and tried in each to give the point of view of a member of the Pacific community," said Mr Reid. "Authentic music to serve as background was also obtained from each of the important islands, and special music

was composed by Don Voegli, music director of WHA, and a member of the University School of Music, for the radio orchestra." Production has been in the hands of Karl Schmidt, a director who has won several awards for his work on radio and in the production of documentary film. The series was completed in the studios of WHA during June and July, and was scheduled for release to member stations of the N.A.E.B. for broadcast this month. "I was pleased to be associated with this project," Mr Reid went on, "for, apart from the challenge it offered and its intrinsic interest, it seemed to me to offer an admirable opportunity to make New Zealand better known in the United States, as well as to extend the knowledge there of the development and problems of the Pacific in general. The research involved for each programme was extensive, but lightened by the assistance of several authorities on the area. "A set of symbols and of recurrent ideas binds the series together-among them the relationship between white and brown man, the clash of cultures, the contrast between the ‘Romantic Pacific’? of travel-posters and _ the reality, the emergence of a ‘Pacific con- sciousness,’ and the problems still to be faced." The reaction to the scripts by the producer and by the directors of WHA had been most encouraging. Mr Schmidt in a recent letter wrote: "I’ve never enjoyed doing a series of programmes as much as Pacific Portraits, and I have high hopes for them if we here are able to fulfil in production the beauty of the scripts." Broadcasts of this kind are considered to be an important part of adult education in the United States; such universities as that of Wisconsin, which claims that "the boundaries of the University are the boundaries of the State," rate the production and transmission of such programmes as among the most significant of their cultural activities,