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7 With support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Sid W. Richardson Foundation

 

 

 

 

TRIGGER FILMS

CHAIR: Well, I'm sorry, that’s just the way it is. . . 1 thought we could, uh, milk the dean for Bob and David
for their highly visible efforts. Maybe we can do better for you in the future.

GEORGE: Hell, I'll be retired "in the future." Maybe you can give me a gold watch.

CHAIR: George, I am doing the best I can.

GEORGE: Well, dammit, you'd better do better, or you won't see much of me this year!

[George exits, slamming door.] [Freeze on close-up of Chair, still seated, rubbing back of neck. Cut.]

The above is the script for the final 30 seconds of "Money," a trigger film dealing with a confrontation about
salary increments. George, a senior faculty member, has just learned that several younger members of the
department received much larger increases than he, and he demands to know why. This excerpt actually
represents about a quarter of the film. Short? Extremely so—trigger films are rarely as long as three minutes.
Dramatic? Quite—many shots in "Money" are close-ups. Abrupt? Yes, life often comes to a head that way.
Incomplete? Intentionally—the essence of a trigger film is its open-endedness. All of these are calculated to
enhance the purpose of the film: to trigger feelings and reactions of the viewers.

This is one in a series of seven trigger films on college administration. They don’t lecture, and they don’t
moralize. They were designed to permit department and program chairs to anticipate problems that might be
encountered and to begin to develop strategies for coping with, or precluding them. Discussion about "Money"
often focuses on questions such as these: Could the chair’s decisions about salary be justified? What might
have made George so irate? What are appropriate patterns for distributing limited resources? What are effective
processes for determining and announcing salary increments? How can a confrontation such as this be
resolved? How could it have been avoided? What would you do in this situation?

A trigger film (or videotape) can be useful in group learning situations because it is an effective way to focus
the attention of the group and to maximize the involvement of the members in a discussion. The film and the
feelings it generates are data input for the group; the interaction that follows is a processing of the data. It’s a
rather simple idea in concept, as well as in implementation.

A trigger film can do more than produce rapid entry into a discussion. When group members work first with
a relatively unthreatening situation portrayed in a film, they often become more free to discuss parallel situations
in their own lives. Since participants begin to use each other as resources, the technique facilitates movement of
the teacher out of an authority role, which enhances learning in many circumstances.

Applications and Variations

Because a trigger film is so compact, the production of a trigger film can readily become the focal activity in a
group’s learning experience. In one notable instance of the learning effectiveness of this strategy, 40 public
health workers in Texas produced five trigger tapes on smoking and health in a little over two hours.
Production was accomplished with a portable on-camera system that could be handled easily by one person.
The primary achievement was that the workshop members examined the parameters of smoking and health,
developed increased awareness of exemplary health behavior, and in many cases came to firmer commitments
themselves with regard to such behavior.

A program developed by the U.S. Army at Fort Knox is another practical example of a trigger film strategy at
work. Video trigger tapes of problem racial situations were shown; the tapes end at the height of the critical
moments for action or decision making. Viewers then played out the roles from that point and in the process
explored and began to resolve some of their own tensions with regard to interracial relations.

Perhaps one of the more unusual variations in the application of trigger films occurred at the University of
Kentucky College of Dentistry. In a curriculum that extensively employed self-instructional modules, Oral
Biology faculty members observed that a relatively unvaried instructional diet sometimes contributed to student
lethargy. Video trigger tapes related to the modules were programmed intermittently to rekindle motivation and
interest and to stimulate discussion and interaction among students.

 

w) F Community College Leadership Program, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712

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