BASIC TRAINING follows a company of draftees and enlisted men through the nine weeks of the basic
training cycle. The varieties of training techniques used by the army in converting civilians to soldiers are
illustrated in scenes of drills, M-16 and bayonet use, gas chamber, mines, night crawl, infiltration course and
the many forms of ideological training familiar to millions of men and women who have served in the armed
forces.

CANAL ZONE is about the people who live and work in the Panama Canal Zone and shows both the operation of the Canal and the various governmental agencies — business, military, and civilian — related to the functioning of the Canal and the lives of the Americans in the zone. The film includes sequences of ships in transit, the work of special canal pilots, aspects of the civil government, work of the military, and the social, religious and recreational life of the Zonians.

ESSENE is about daily life in a Benedictine monastery and the resolution of conflict between personal needs
and the institutional and organizational priorities of the community. In the Order, where the focus of life is
the relationship of individual work and worship to the community as a whole, the brethren must cope with
the same issues that arise in any community: rules, work, worship, values, love, and play.

CENTRAL PARK is a film about the famous New York City landmark and the variety of ways in which people make use of it: running, boating, walking, skating, music, theatre, sports, picnics, parades and concerts. The film also illustrates the complex problems the New York City Parks Department deals with in order to maintain and preserve the park and keep it open and accessible to the public.