Public information film
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Public Information Films (known as PIFs) are a series of government commissioned short films, shown during television advertising breaks in the UK. The US equivalent is the Public Service Announcement (PSAs).
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Subjects
The films advise the public on what to do in a multitude of situations ranging from crossing the road to surviving a nuclear attack. They are sometimes thought to concern only topics related to safety, but there are PIFs on many other subjects, including animal cruelty, protecting the environment, crime prevention and how to vote in an election or fill in a census form.
Many of these films were aimed at children and were shown during breaks in children's programmes during holidays and at weekends. The general low-budget quality and the infamous static "crackle" before them gave them a Hammer Horror style aura. Some of them were quite terrifying and remained ingrained in the child's psyche well into adulthood, others were quite humorous and used comedy to show the dangers or ridicule the folly of those who ignore them (Joe and Petunia are a good example of a comic PIF). Many of them involved or were narrated by celebrities of the day.
History
The earliest PIFs were made during the Second World War years and shown in cinemas; many were made by and starred Richard Massingham, an amateur actor who set up Public Relationship Films Ltd when he discovered there was no specialist film company in the area. They were commissioned by the Ministry of Information, and Massingham's work has since gained a cult following for their quirky often humorous tone. After the war PIFs were produced for the Central Office of Information, and again by private contractors, which were usually small film companies, such as Richard Taylor Cartoons.
They are still being produced although they are rarely shown in the same frequency as their peak in the 1970s, and while many have speculated that current PIFs are not as hard-hitting as those of the past, smoking PIFs have bucked this trend.
Some advertisements and charity appeals have gained the status of honorary PIF among fans, including Cartoon Boy, a 2002 campaign about child abuse produced by the NSPCC, while films such as the 1980s British Gas advertisement about what to do in the event of a gas leak can be considered non-Governmental PIFs.
PIFs have a nostalgic cult following and a DVD was released in 2001 called Charley Says: The Greatest Public Information Films in the World, comprising the contents of two earlier VHS releases. A sequel was released in 2005.
Famous public information films
- Charley Says
- an animated series of PIFs with a ginger cat called Charley (whose warning growls were voiced by Kenny Everett) who advised children against stranger danger
- Green Cross Code
- played by David Prowse who advised children about crossing the road safely. An earlier road safety campaign targeted at children featured the animated squirrel "Tufty", and a Tufty Club for young children was later founded.
- Apaches
- a public information film shown in primary schools about the dangers of playing on farms. This PIF is notorious for being extremely graphic.
- Robbie
- a film based around a child losing his legs after being struck by a train. A modern equivalent, Killing Time was shown in secondary schools during the 1990s but was later replaced for, apparently, being too graphic. Robbie replaced the notorious and extremely graphic The Finishing Line. However, Robbie and The Finishing Line are arguably not strictly PIFs, being produced by British Transport Films.
- Protect and Survive
- a series of films (never shown) advising the British public on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. They would have been shown constantly on all television channels in the build up to a war. Voiced by Patrick Allen.
- Lonely Water
- a 1973 film warning children of the dangers of foolhardy behaviour around lakes and ponds. The film was shot in horror movie style with a menacing black-robed figure, featured a memorably chilling voiceover from Donald Pleasence ("I'll be back-back-back...!) and allegedly frightened and traumatised a generation of children.
- Front Seat Child
- a chilling film from 1977 warning you not to let a small child ride in the front of your car (from the days when it wasn't illegal not to wear a seatbelt). We see a guy turn up at a park and learn throughout the course of the film that he took his daughter there in the car one day, she was in the front seat without a seatbelt and she was fatally injured on the way. We hear voiceovers describing how he has identified the body of his daughter and how the car was in good condition but a van pulled out in front of them causing the crash. It even mentions the fatal injuries his daughter suffered as a result. To make it even more chilling we see a young girl on a swing, the result of the guy remembering bringing his daughter to the park before the accident.
- Joe and Petunia
- a series of animated PIFs about a couple whose amazing stupidity caused dangerous problems for everyone around them. They appeared in only four PIFs ("Coastguard", "Water Safety - Flags", "Country Code" and "Worn Tyres"), but their popularity grew so quickly that it was decided to kill them off in the last one. However, they were "resurrected" when "Coastguard" was remade in 2007 with updated references: Petunia is reading Hello and listening to an iPod; Joe wears a Burberry cap and phones the desktop PC-using coastguard on his mobile phone.
- Drinking And Driving Wrecks Lives
- a series of 1980s - 1990s PIFs targeting drink-driving offenders. An equally well-known and successful road safety campaign was Clunk Click Every Trip, fronted initially by Shaw Taylor and later by Jimmy Savile.
- Amber Gambler
- about the dangers of racing through amber lights before they turn to red.
- Reginald Molehusband
- a man who demonstrated the correct way to park safely. His reverse parking was "a public danger", bets were laid on his performance and people came from all round to watch, until the day he got it right - "Well done! Reginald Molehusband, the safest parker in town." This film is now classified as missing and is not in the archives of either the COI or the private company, which now owns most of its archive footage, although an audio recording still exists.
- Clunk Click Every Trip
- a series of films about the importance of seatbelts, similar to crash test dummies psas.
- Julie
- about the importance of rear seat belts, which ran for 5 years between 1998 and 2003 with a return in 2007, and was so successful it was repeated in France. It was updated with the Think! logo in 2001.
- Carry a Knife, Lose Your Life
- A series of short adverts and films created to discourage people from carrying knives and to show the consequences of knife crime. The advert starts with two identical-looking people talking about an ambition in life they both share, then end with "But I never thought...". The ad then shows one person having reached their goal and pursuing a career based on their ambitions, whilst the other person explains how they thought would never get into trouble for carrying or using a knife.
Cultural references
A number of musical artists have been heavily influenced by the analogue, overdriven sound of British PIFs, including Boards of Canada and most artists on the Ghost Box Records label, especially The Advisory Circle, whose most recent album, Other Channels directly references or samples many PIFs, including Keep Warm, Keep Well. Additionally, their debut album features a few reprises with the suffix "PIF". Another example of PIF influence in music was that of the song Charly by The Prodigy, from 1991, which heavily sampled the meows of Charley Cat, hence why they called it Charley. The Comedian Chris Morris satirised Public information films in The Day Today in an episode where there was a constitutional crisis.
See also
