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Ken Burns' seven-part documentary on World War II that begins Sept. 23 on PBS is said by the producer to explore "the greatest cataclysm in history--a worldwide catastrophe that touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America."
| The War will preview at USC Upstate Sept. 12. To read more, click here. |
Just over five solid minutes of archival film used in The War came from Carolina's Fox Movietone News Collection at the News Film Library (sc.edu/library/newsfilm), which was given to the University by 20th Century Fox in 1980.
"That's just an enormous amount of material to come from one source," said film library director Greg Wilsbacher, noting that the volume of Carolina's material for the documentary--some 565 feet of film--makes it one of the largest sources of materials for the series.
"It's one of the biggest purchases [of licensing rights] we've ever had," he said.
Burns began working on the documentary with the News Film Library in 2004 and for the next two years perused hours of footage. He also drew on video collections maintained by the Library of Congress, the federal repository for film shot by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, The George Eastman House, and UCLA, among others.
He was particularly interested in footage at Carolina of things that were happening on the home front during the war, according to News Film Library production manager Ben Singleton. By the time Burns ended his work, he had licensed the use of reports from 31 separate newsreels of the war era in Carolina's film library at 707 Catawba Street.
Included were scenes of New York City, combat in Europe and the Pacific, the manufacture of dolls for little girls, and presidential reports to the nation, among other images.
The library's staff of seven employees has worked with Burns on several of his previous documentaries, including his series on jazz, baseball, and the Civil War. The staff also is working with him on his new documentary about national parks. Overall, the library helps about 170 "content producers" a year who are seeking newsreel footage, said Wilsbacher. But use of the collection for the Burns war documentary provided a special distinction.
"This means a lot to us," he said. "When Ken Burns works with us we know that he is going to be very professional and his project will go through to completion, and that it is going to be seen by a lot of people. We know we're contributing to something that is going to be meaningful in a broader public sphere.
"We're proud of this collection and we like to see it treated with a lot of respect by content producers. Sometimes people don't always do justice to what we think is the quality of the images and the importance of the images we've giving them, but when somebody like Ken Burns comes along we know that the material is going to be handled appropriately and properly and the historical context is going to be provided."
Burns is equally complimentary of the Movietone News collection at the University. In a letter he wrote in support of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant that enabled the Film Library to purchase specially designed archival containers for its 11 million feet of Movietone film, he noted his extensive reliance on the collection in a career "spanning more than 25 years and 20 films on American history.
"This collection has proven time and again to be an invaluable resource, helping bring to life the stories we tell," he said. "My colleagues and I have repeatedly turned to the University of South Carolina to find outstanding American newsreel coverage of national and international events. Our latest project...includes newsreel footage [from the collection] that will help our audience understand how the public was informed about the war. They will be a critical part of the film."
8/07
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