FILM TALKS - The Craft of Filmmaking
• Biographical Filmmaking
Presented by: Kathryn Dietz
Eleanor Roosevelt is an historical biography on one of the most admired and most controversial first ladies in American history. It was recently broadcast on the American Experience series on PBS. In this presentation, Ms. Dietz discusses the joys and challenges of working with Eleanor Roosevelt as a subject, covering such issues as how to sort through an overabundance of source materials, how to decide what is and is not important in a person’s life, how to present the controversies that she generated, and how to pull it all together while people with personal memories are still alive to talk about them.
Other Keywords: American Studies, History, Women’s Issues
• Bringing Early American History to the Screen
Presented by: Laurie Kahn-Leavitt
There is, without a doubt, a difference between representing early American history on the screen and reading about it in a book. It is the goal of this presentation to make the audience aware of what it takes to successfully reveal history on film and how to evaluate and discuss those films that attempt to do so. This is accomplished by examining how films use a combination of visual elements, music and sound effects, and narrative structure. Ms. Kahn-Leavitt shows selected clips from the following films to discuss these themes: Hearts and Hands, which chronicles the lives of 19th century American women of different regions and races using the quilts they made; Insanity on Trial tells the story of the assassination of President Garfield: and Views of a Vanishing Frontier explores the 1830-32 journey of Prince Maximilian, a German naturalist, and the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, who documented what they found in paintings and journals as they explored the upper Mississippi River area. This is a ìmust attendî for anyone who is interested in learning about American history, involved in making historical recreations, or is just curious about how a film gets made.
Other Keywords: American Studies, History
• The Craft of Creating Historical Documentaries
Presented by: Nancy Porter
Using clips from four of her films produced for WGBHís The American Experience, Nancy Porter will talk about the craft of creating historical documentaries. The films included in this discussion are Amelia Earhart, a biography of the famous flier; The Wright Stuff, a film about Orville and Wilbur Wright; Alone on the Ice, a film about the Polar explorer Admiral Richard Byrd; and Houdini, a profile of the Master Mystifier himself. Each of these films uses archival footage and dramatic recreations to tell its story. Ms. Porter dissects selected clips from each film and relates them to the processes of shooting and editing.
Other Keywords: History, Nuts & Bolts of Filmmaking
• DoHistory.com: Piecing Together the Lives of Ordinary People
Presented by: Laurie Kahn-Leavitt
The goal of this presentation is to introduce the audience to a new, innovative website that teaches its users how to piece together the lives of people from the past who cannot be found in history textbooks. This interactive website is based on the film A Midwife’s Tale and engages its users with the materials that were used to create the film, including Martha Ballard’s diary, maps, tax records, and research on music, architecture, costumes, and behavior. The website includes timelines and maps of the 18th century, a toolkit that provides guidelines for doing historical research, and an area where users interested in medicine can obtain easy access to sources of information about midwifery, herbal healing, and women in medicine. The website also has an area devoted to learning about the making of the film, A Midwife’s Tale, and an easy-to-download teacher’s guide. Showing actual video clips of A Midwife’s Tale, Ms. Leavitt will lead the audience through the website, linking together the fields of history, technology, and filmmaking.
Other Keywords: American Studies, History, Web-based presentations
• Filmmaking with Cultural and Historical Challenges
Presented by: Kathryn Dietz
This presentation focuses on Ms. Dietz’ experience making the six-hour CHINA series for PBS. In it, she explains the nuts and bolts of filmmaking, from program concept to funding to production to broadcast and distribution. She will also describe the special conditions that inform filmmaking in a place as foreign and inaccessible as China, such as how to be culturally and politically sensitive, and how to make a complex historical subject accessible to an American audience with little background in Chinese names and history. Ms. Dietz will show clips from the series, which includes China in Revolution: 1911-1949 covering the early years of the Chinese republic; The Mao Years: 1949-1976, which examines the radical campaigns launched by Mao in his effort to create a “new China”; and Born Under the Red Flag: 1949-1997, a look at post-Mao China as it transforms itself into an extraordinary hybrid of communism and capitalism.
Other Keywords: History, Chinese Studies, Cross-Cultural Issues
• Tales from Producing for NOVA
Presented by: Linda Harrar
Using clips from programs like Signs of the Apes, Songs of the Whales, to The Hole in the Sky (on the Antarctic ozone), to a portrait of biologist/paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, Ms. Harrar tells stories from her 12-year experience producing for the science series NOVA.
Other Keywords: Nuts & Bolts of Filmmaking, Science
• Writing for Broadcast
Presented by: Linda Harrar
Using clips from her own productions, and the productions of filmmakers she admires, Ms. Harrar talks about the art of writing for documentaries. From rappelling through the rainforest canopy to exploring the geology of the Grand Canyon, she discusses the varying challenges of crafting a narrative that suits the stories one wants to tell.
Other Keywords: Writing