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Archival research and finding the film in the stone.


My first few hours working on research at the Byrd Archives, looking for clues about the 1933 Antarctica expedition films shot by Admiral Byrd and his team, was an amazing experience. To be able to sort through a mountain of beautifully preserved documents from the golden age of Hollywood, among them the multiple versions of scripts, letters, correspondence, and most interesting to me as a cinematographer, the Paramount Caption Sheets, for footage that was captured during the first expedition, where they took notes on every shot (30 miles of footage), I began to grapple with the immensity of the task in finding a finished film in this project. A quote from Michelangelo comes to mind: "Every block of stone has a statue in it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it." The same would go for creating a film out found footage. It is the amassed visual document and archival information in ones mind that has to be accumulated, like a great stone. The deep reassesses of the unconscious then go to work on the material, giving rise to inklings of form. The thoughts of Byrd, written in journals and sometimes on random pads of paper are like beacons in a sea of facts and already well-told history that begins to explain what he and his men experienced. Grasping at any form or chronology becomes a necessity. Simple observations like items held in the hands of these explorers, or the call number son the side of a plane, became clues about what they were doing. Beginning to put names to 50 faces helped develop an understanding of not only their activities but also of the relationships that developed between them and a window into each of their personalities. It was the humanizing of people who perhaps had fallen out of recent memory. It became shocking to me that how quickly this can happen. These men were famous and their deeds legendary. Most were still alive 50 years ago, yet I was having to dig for detail on what I thought of was well known information. It is the stuff of anthropological science and study, and I began to realize this film was more important than making a film, it was a reclaiming of history, which like the original reels, deteriorates daily without constant attention given to the remembering.

In these groups of documents I was able to start finding clues as to what was shot and when. In the end it was Byrd's own notes that served as most helpful. As an explorer, he took copious notes on everything in preparation of his expeditions and later when he had decided to create lecture series many drafts of lectures would help inform the public as to his mission. Byrd relied a great deal on the good will he created with his public audience for he seemed to have felt that it was they that ultimately supported his vision. While it may have been the financiers, businesses and the government that donated and loaned to him all of the needs of his expeditions, it was to the American people he felt a deep unerring responsibility. For him, his efforts were in the public trust and through much of his correspondence with Paramount Studios he made it clear to both executives and editors that he wanted to be transparent about his expeditions, giving his audience a real view of the natural world, his men's efforts and the scientific achievements they were making in the name of humanity.

From a personal standpoint, reading through the archives, and constructing a picture of how this all came about was like reading a best selling novel describing the ins and outs of the movie industry in its golden era. Exhausting correspondence between Byrd and the studio illuminate the upper workings of film making with concerns for PR, editing 35 mm film to everyone's liking and the business of royalties and contracts. It alternatively gives a magnified view of film production which has not changed in 100 years. The same way I might shoot a small independent today was magnified simply in detail and magnitude in these paper trails. All the same processes dealing with film, development, lighting, conditions and narrative are all there and familiar. What became extraordinary was the realization they were shooting and developing 35mm film 50 degrees below zero. Tertiary sources of documentation by the cameramen illuminate the conditions under which they shot film, risking their lives along side these explorers. Stories about the brittle nature of film at that temperature and the bits of ice and snow making their way into every part of camera mechanics were all a apart of their everyday battles. Then when you take into consideration the difficult lighting with either a completly white landscape or complete darkness in the winter months, the respect for these artists balloons to epic proportions. It becomes mind boggling to imagine how they could have been so successful in those conditions at still the dawn of the film medium. But what an adventure and a challenge it must have been. Byrd knew this too. He types onto one of the intros of his many undated lecture working scripts something he would start all of his lectures with: "To the camera men who made this picture I want to give full credit. They did not hesitate to risk their lives at their job."


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