Oral History and Historical Documentary Samples
The 100th Birthday Anniversary of Theodore Geisel, better known as Doctor Seuss, was cause for celebration world-wide. In his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts, the Connecticut Valley History Museum paid special tribute with an exhibit that displayed all manner of his creative works. These included his books, characters, artwork, and various adaptations of the stories he is most famous for.
One Corner of the exhibit showed a 90-minute DVD compilation of some of his lesser-known works, including films for the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, television commercials, and film adaptations of some of his earlier children’s stories.
This six minute sample includes portions of all three of these genres. The voice introductions were done at our facility by the curator of the exhibit. The spoken introductions remain intact, but we’ve edited these samples for length and copyright purposes.
The 90 minute compilation was culled from many sources and formats, including 16mm film, silent 8mm film, VHS and ¾” videotape, DVD, and CD-ROM. In some cases, such as Spies, above, different copies of the same program were combined—for instance the noisy and slightly distorted optical soundtrack of a 16mm film was replaced by a clean version from VHS tape. The picture quality on the VHS tape would have been acceptable, but it lacked the cleaner and sharper quality that we got working from the 16mm print. The fun part came in making several small corrections throughout the soundtrack to keep perfect lip-sync of the cartoon characters!.
The Flood of 1936 was an awesome event, and an equally great documentary of it was produced locally. This clip is one of the few primary sources that documented some of the destruction in real time. Though very underexposed, we were able to get a grainy, but reasonably good transfer to video, made even better with the addition of music and voice-over by the filmmakers.
This 5 minute excerpt is a portrait of a true renaissance man. Well into his 90s, Harry discusses his true loves in life, and his life’s work that is an eternal source of inspiration and fulfillment. We trace his three ongoing vocations—as a farmer, as an entertainer, and as a writer, and see how they intertwine to paint a picture. It’s impossible to capture the full breadth of an individual, but by sharing one’s experiences so candidly as Harry does with us here, a deeper appreciation and connection to him emerges as we relate to his stories and observations.
By doing some tricky editing to an hour-long documentary called The History of the Pioneer Valley (produced 10 years prior, when there was an endowment for such things) we put together a more concise piece called A Cultural History of the Pioneer Valley for an exhibit at the Springfield Museums. This excerpt highlights some of the innovations and events that made Pioneer Valley history become an integral part of America's cultural history.
You don’t even need all three minutes of this to know that Mabel is her own person, and probably unlike most people you know. But beneath the fiercely-independent-rugged-individualist-damn-Yankee is a caring and funny free spirit that we are glad to have known and share with you.
You can also link to our channel on Vimeo.com to view additional samples and information that might not appear here.