# In the 70's and 80's a lot of high school films were crazy expensive. Are they still very costly? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 12, 2011, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201 "2011-06-12T06:04:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/1 "2011-06-12T06:04:16Z")
Just curious. In the 70’s I remember seeing a price list once while I was in high school for a variety of high school educational and vocational films, and they were hundreds to thousands of dollars _each_. These were actual film reels to be played on projectors. If I recall they were so expensive the school system (ie the county) would buy them and the individual schools would be able to borrow a copy for some limited period of time to use. Is educational media less expensive these days? ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/2 "2011-06-12T07:28:25Z")
Very much cheaper, to the free degree many times. Many educational TV programs _encourage_ educators to show videos (tapes, DVD, internet streaming) in their classes. There are websites that have a huge catalog of 5-30 minute lessons that you can show. (Eg., [KhanAcademy](http://www.khanacademy.org/).) Most of the classrooms that I’ve substituted in in the last couple of years have some projector system connected to the teachers desk computer, so that videos of whatever media can be shown directly on the whiteboard at the front of the class. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/3 "2011-06-12T07:40:05Z")
All videos were crazy expensive around 1980. A VHS of something like Pumping Iron was a couple hundred bucks back then, and not just for schools. Everything I show my students is free off of YouTube. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/4 "2011-06-12T09:08:38Z")
Does anyone else recall [Cable in the Classroom](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_in_the_Classroom)? From Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > Cable stations broadcast Educational television programs at specific times (usually early in the morning) commercial-free and notify Cable in the Classroom as to when the shows will be on. This way, educators are able to record the programs for free and use them in school as learning tools for children. It’s apparently declined in recent years, and it was never a huge source of good programming to begin with, but it was a cheap way to get reasonably educational programs for the cost of a cable subscription, a VCR, and a VHS tape. Here’s the [Cable in the Classroom website](http://www.ciconline.org/). ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/5 "2011-06-12T11:49:50Z")
Who uses tape or disk anymore? Channel One supplies daily educational and entertainment shows by satellite free to subscribing schools, downloaded automatically to a server at the school, although I’m sure they have alternative methods of delivery. Subscribers also have access to a huge teaching library with teacher guides and auxiliary material, free. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/6 "2011-06-12T12:04:40Z")
In the UK one of the main channels (I cannot remember which chanel, BBC2 I think) used to show educational programmes during the night. By educational programmes, I mean shows detailing the information needed for GCSE or A level exams. There would be a half hour epsiode explaining basic water dynamics, an episode on human anatomy, an episode on basic alegbra, and so on. I always assumed there was an episode for each aspect of the curriculum and they just ran them in sequence. I always assumed teachers would be able to buy these collections from the BBC cheap enough, or alternatively just record them as they happened. Another example was the celebrated “World at War” series. [The World at War - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_War) that we used to watch in GCSE history, and which had just been recorded from the TV at some point. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/7 "2011-06-12T13:32:38Z")
Channel One? Schools still do that nonsense? I remember when my old system did. Every morning, we had to watch Channel One News with Lisa Ling and Anderson Cooper. The only thing the kids (9th grade) would pay any attention to was the Mountain Dew commercials. I think one reason the system paid for it was to get a TV in each room. I guess they finally figured out it was cheaper in the long run to just buy a TV and VCR for each room and a gadget to let the teacher use one of the class computer’s DVD player. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/8 "2011-06-12T14:00:14Z")
I was in school in the 1980s and early to mid-90s, and by the time I got to middle school they had pretty much phased out film strips in favor of VHS. But in elementary school, in addition to regular film reels, we also had another film projector-type device that’s kind of hard to describe. It used an actual roll of film that you would thread into it, but instead of playing at 24 fps, like a regular film, it would consist of a series of pictures, each of which would flash up on the screen for about 30 seconds at a time or so, while a cassette tape offered narration. Think a picture book, but projected on to a movie screen. Anyway, one of the movies we watched in this format was Disney’s “Treasure Island.” ---
**Author:** ![Reeses\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reeses_monkey/32/2885_2.png) [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/9 "2011-06-12T14:22:53Z")
Ya know, I realize VHS was progress but I really hated it when our movie days changed from being on a real screen we could all see to being on a tv we all had to crowd around. Even filmstrips, sucky as they were, were visible to the back row. FWIW I was in high school in the late 80’s. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/10 "2011-06-12T14:42:38Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Just curious. > > In the 70’s I remember seeing a price list once while I was in high school for a variety of high school educational and vocational films, and they were hundreds to thousands of dollars _each_. These were actual film reels to be played on projectors. Probably because the film companies made their money on rentals and wanted to discourage purchases. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/11 "2011-06-12T15:07:52Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > Channel One? Schools still do that nonsense? I am not up to date on this (Channel One), but I investigated it about 4 years ago for our local school. I would be hard pressed to call it “nonsense.” Besides the daily news tailored to high and junior high students, a subscription to the service got you a continuous stream of high-quality programming on quite appropriate topics – science, art, humanities, you name it. The school received rights to use any or all of these at any time, all stored on the school’s central server – also free – and all with lesson plans and teacher aids. I think they got 5 new shows each week to keep. The only requirement was that students be shown 10 minutes of news per day, which included ads, but most of the ads were public service announcements like stay in school, join the army, don’t do drugs, be excellent to each other, etc. – not the least commercial or controversal. Channel One’s original concept was to give the schools a TV and tape player for each classroom free, back when that was expensive and a big deal. By the time our school looked at the program, they already had plenty of TVs and players and no teacher wanted to give up 10 minutes of a 45 minute class hour. Personally, I thought they should have considered it more seriously. The high level of programming and depth of topic coverage far exceeded anything available to the students at our small, rural school, where dialup Internet access and no cable TV is still the norm at home. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/12 "2011-06-12T15:43:16Z")
PBS charges more for AV versions than it does for the home versions of the same programming. The AV version is intended for classroom and library use, and may be shown in public exhibitions, provided there is no admission fee charged. That being said, however, PBS will allow you to show its regular, “home” version in a regular, face-to-face classroom. (From [this](http://teacher.shop.pbs.org/helpdesk/index.jsp?display=shopping&subdisplay=holidayReturns) website.) Other distributors of educational videos throw in goodies like handouts, lesson plans, and whatnot that go with the video, which is another reason for the price differential. Many of these videos are also what you might call “niche” because most of them aren’t really intended for home use, so fewer copies are made. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/13 "2011-06-13T01:40:57Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > I was in school in the 1980s and early to mid-90s, and by the time I got to middle school they had pretty much phased out film strips in favor of VHS. > > But in elementary school, in addition to regular film reels, we also had another film projector-type device that’s kind of hard to describe. > > It used an actual roll of film that you would thread into it, but instead of playing at 24 fps, like a regular film, it would consist of a series of pictures, each of which would flash up on the screen for about 30 seconds at a time or so, while a cassette tape offered narration. Think a picture book, but projected on to a movie screen. Anyway, one of the movies we watched in this format was Disney’s “Treasure Island.” Yeah, you said that in your first paragraph: “film strips” is what those were called. Much more convenient than slide carousels, although sometimes we had those, too. For the audio tape, you either advanced when it beeped, or fancy projectors advanced automatically when a correct audio cue was detected. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/14 "2011-06-13T02:05:01Z")
Film is expensive to produce. I worked in a cinema in the early 90s, and I believe at the time a typical mass-produced, feature length 35mm print cost at least several thousand dollars to make. (A one-off, high quality print could be quite a lot more than that). An 8mm or 16mm short film would obviously be a lot less, but the cost of materials would have still been a significant factor at the time. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-70s-and-80s-a-lot-of-high-school-films-were-crazy-expensive-are-they-still-very-costly/585201/15 "2011-06-13T02:13:02Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > Yeah, you said that in your first paragraph: “film strips” is what those were called. Much more convenient than slide carousels, although sometimes we had those, too. For the audio tape, you either advanced when it beeped, or fancy projectors advanced automatically when a correct audio cue was detected. Ahh, I guess I just learned something new. I always assumed “film strips” was the catchall term for all film formats, including the 16 mm films (the ones that actually moved at 24 fps) they showed in school.