The Discovery Lecture reels and what they contain.
Making a film from found footage can either be a purely artistic process or one that involves an archival overlay. I first learned of the existence of these reels of film from Jason Cervenec at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. I soon thereafter joined them as a staff member, media specialist, and began working with Jason to bring more media to the BPCRC's identity footprint. That included putting together a Go Pro program where we sent specialized camera kits with scientists to remote research areas in Antarctica, the Arctic and Greenland to bring back footage for us to work with. Concurrently I started to work with Laura Kissel, the Byrd Archivist, on the idea of making a film out of material the Archive was having preserved and digitized. After determining that only 10 of the 28 reels were still salvageable, the Polar Archives sent the films to the preservation lab, anticipating that the preservation work would take about a year. Ultimately in the fall of 2014, the Polar Archives received the preserved archival prints as well as digital versions of those ten reels. Ultimately in the fall of 2014 we received the archival prints of what the lab could save as well as digital versions of those reels. out of 28 reels of film only 10 were able to be saved. All we had to go on were labels on the tins that indicated they were films that Richard E. Byrd used to accompany his lecture series about his expeditions. Byrd was a master at understanding the link between media and exploration. While other explorers had certainly taken motion pictures to the poles and come back with film footage, he took it to another level, engaging both the press and the motion picture industry on a professional on a masterful and well planned out level. His first expedition to the South Pole where he was the first to fly over the pole, he had entered into film deal with Paramount Studios to make and release a film about the adventure. A successful release of the film "Byrd at the South Pole" made it to theaters and fired the imagination of the nation and the international community, ultimately winning an Oscar in 1934. On his second expedition, which BYRD 1933 is about, he wanted to reproduce that experience with some adaptations. Paramount wasn't interested in simply duplicating what they had already done and but they also wanted to preserve their corner on the Byrd franchise market since he was such a popular figure. They agreed to send with Byrd several cameramen but not the large retinue of film crew they had on the first expedition. Byrd, by this time, had embraced the idea of telling his story through film in a way that he felt represented his invaluable work as an explorer and as an advocate of scientific research. On that expedition he set out to make another film "Discovery" that would capture new world records and scientific discoveries. Interestingly, that film was edited and distributed but we have little knowledge about that film outside the archives. To the film industry it all but disappeared and was lost. However early review of the film assets in the archive by Archivist Lara Kissel revealed a 35 mm version of this film and it is currently in cold the deep freeze at the BPCRC, alongside ice cores from all over the world, to maintain its integrity while waiting for funds to preserve it. No other available copies are known to exist to know what that film looks like. What has been most recently preserved are 10 reels of lecture footage were taken at the same time from 1933-1936 on BAEII (Byrd Antarctic Expedition II) but their contents were also unknown. When we received the digital files from the lab, the work of reviewing them and understanding what they contained began a long process of logging, reviewing and studying the clips in connect them to information from the archives.
Initially it was all overwhelming because the images were frankly so beautiful they were mesmerizing. The cameramen were artists, they had an eye for the dramatic and Antarctica is a place of visual wonder. They also were some of the early pioneers of the documentary form. The cameramen for the BAEI film won the Oscar for Cinematography during the 3rd annual Academy Awards for their efforts. This second expedition produced equally beautiful images however this work would not culminate in a theatrical film or be seen by the public except through Byrd's lecture circuit. The first step was to be able to know what we had. The reels had no organization so effectively it was a mass of footage. As it was, it amounted to looking at and logging one thousand 3-10 second random clips of expedition activities, snow storms, aerial footage and lots of ships, airplanes and dog sleds. There were no descriptions, no chronologies, or descriptions of this footage. I started by combing the archives for some clue as to what we were seeing. Laura Kissel provided the expert navigation of where to start and we pulled two boxes from the archives, out of 1500, that were initially reviewed to have contained movie industry information. From here it was about making a small mountain of photocopies of untitled shot lists, rough drafts of lecture scripts and film industry correspondence that Byrd had with Paramount and its editing department. A chronology of the expedition was garnered through well known treatises on the matter and work began in earnest in trying to match up and describe what we had. At this point the idea of the film was still in flux. Would this be an artistic interpretation of these expeditions or could it rise to documentary level. Would we be able to give this visual record a voice?
