Hillsboro temperance marches to be featured in new Ken Burns PBS documentary
Lead Summary
By
Brandy Chandler-brandychandler@gmail.com
Academy Award-nominated documentary film maker Ken Burns will debut a new film on PBS this fall chronicling the rise and fall of prohibition, with the Temperance Crusades of Hillsboro, Ohio helping set the stage.
Bob Lambert, president of the Highland County Historical Society, said that Burns' production company requested historical photos of the marches to be featured in the film series.
"Ken Burns' is based on the book 'Last Call,' the rise and fall of prohibition" by Daniel Okrents who did a scholarly work on the subject and included a lot of information about the Temperance Crusades in Hillsboro Ohio. It was a natural story for Burns to do after his Civil War and Baseball series of documentaries," Lambert said. "His production company, Florentine Films ,contacted Jean Wallis and the Ohio Historical Society for more information. They were working with copies of the photos of the 1873 Crusade March and Jean and Lester Wallis had most of the original glass negatives."
The society was already in the process of scanning and archiving many of their historic photos, Lambert said.
"Florentine Films arranged for the Cincinnati Museum Center to make high quality scans of the negatives and they are of such great clarity they can be used in HDTV productions," Lambert said. "I also worked with Max Petzold on scanning materials we had in the Historical Society archives relating to the march. We were already scanning the archives for inclusion in a book he and I are working on about historic Hillsboro, so it was an ideal time to supply Florentine Films with other materials and pictures."
The society is hoping to be able to have a local debut of the film.
"Our plan is to show the finished documentary as a fundraiser for the (Highland House) museum as soon as we get a preview copy. We also hope to work with the PBS stations in Cincinnati and Dayton to provide coverage of our Temperance March September 17th for use during the fall fund drive that will be premiering the Ken Burns documentary," Lambert said.
According to his website, Burns' documentaries have been nominated for two Academy Awards, one in 1982 for for "Brooklyn Bridge" and one for "The Statue of Liberty in 1986. They have won seven Emmy Awards, with most of the honors for "The Civil War" and "Baseball." His films are regularly featured on PBS. A technique often featured in his work in which the camera appears to pan and zoom across a still photo is known as "The Ken Burns Effect" in Apple editing software.
Academy Award-nominated documentary film maker Ken Burns will debut a new film on PBS this fall chronicling the rise and fall of prohibition, with the Temperance Crusades of Hillsboro, Ohio helping set the stage.
Bob Lambert, president of the Highland County Historical Society, said that Burns' production company requested historical photos of the marches to be featured in the film series.
"Ken Burns' documentary is based on the book 'Last Call: The rise and Fall of Prohibition' by Daniel Okrents, who did a scholarly work on the subject and included a lot of information about the Temperance Crusades in Hillsboro, Ohio. It was a natural story for Burns to do after his Civil War and baseball series of documentaries," Lambert said. "His production company, Florentine Films, contacted Jean Wallis and the Ohio Historical Society for more information. They were working with copies of the photos of the 1873 Crusade March, and Jean and Lester Wallis had most of the original glass negatives."
The society was already in the process of scanning and archiving many of their historic photos, Lambert said.
"Florentine Films arranged for the Cincinnati Museum Center to make high-quality scans of the negatives, and they are of such great clarity they can be used in HDTV productions," Lambert said. "I also worked with Max Petzold on scanning materials we had in the Historical Society archives relating to the march. We were already scanning the archives for inclusion in a book he and I are working on about historic Hillsboro, so it was an ideal time to supply Florentine Films with other materials and pictures."
The society is hoping to be able to have a local debut of the film.
"Our plan is to show the finished documentary as a fundraiser for the (Highland House) museum as soon as we get a preview copy. We also hope to work with the PBS stations in Cincinnati and Dayton to provide coverage of our Temperance March September 17th for use during the fall fund drive that will be premiering the Ken Burns documentary," Lambert said.
According to his website, Burns' documentaries have been nominated for two Academy Awards, one in 1982 for for "Brooklyn Bridge" and one for "The Statue of Liberty" in 1986. They have won seven Emmy Awards, with most of the honors for "The Civil War" and "Baseball." His films are regularly featured on PBS. A technique often featured in his work in which the camera appears to pan and zoom across a still photo is known as "The Ken Burns Effect" in Apple editing software.
[[In-content Ad]]