Making a film of battle in 1916 and taking it direct to cinemas before the battle had ended was groundbreaking. The cameramen filmed with the troops and captured the dirt and horror of modern warfare, but after its acclaimed first screenings, doubts began to emerge as to the honesty of the film, producing a century of controversy. – Highly Recommended
NAME: Shooting The Somme, How an Iconic Film Was Faked, Uncovering a Century of Controversy FILE: R2807 AUTHOR: Bob Carruthers PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword BINDING: hard back PAGES: 304 PRICE: £25.00 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: WWI, World War One, World War 1, First World War, The Great War, trench warfare, Battle of the Somme, 1916, movie making, motion pictures
ISBN: 1-47386-868-8
IMAGE: B2807.jpg BUYNOW: http://tinyurl.com/yxtskuj3 LINKS: DESCRIPTION: Making a film of battle in 1916 and taking it direct to cinemas before the battle had ended was groundbreaking. The cameramen filmed with the troops and captured the dirt and horror of modern warfare, but after its acclaimed first screenings, doubts began to emerge as to the honesty of the film, producing a century of controversy. - Highly Recommended This book provides the first balanced review of how this groundbreaking film was shot, edited and presented, including details of how some scenes were manufactured. Today it is perhaps difficult to appreciate the challenges of shooting a film in battle during 1916, pulling the elements together and making it flow for the audience. It is also perhaps difficult to appreciate today just how sensational the film was and how great the impact on the audiences. In 1916, movie film making may have been a young industry but was not new, with several decades of experimenting under its belt. Photography in war was also more than half a century old and this gave much knowledge of the challenges of operating relatively vulnerable equipment on the battle field, being close enough to the action to get the most revealing shots, while staying alive. There were also challenges in shooting action shots where there was no control over lighting, or the opportunity to reshoot any footage that needed to be better. Once film was shot there were challenges in getting it back to the photo lab for processing. Then the processed film had to be put together and edited to produce a flow that would hold the attention of the audience. Action footage would include imperfect scenes and the director would have to decide whether to use authentic footage, or fabricate new footage, to produce the effect required on the audience. Today we are used to phone camera footage shot by amateurs and film shot be professional war correspondents, where we assume that what we are viewing is authentic film. The mass of images available of any specific event is assumed to provide some level of authenticity by comparing footage from different cameras. However, film/video is still edited and enhanced and this is easier today in a digital environment. In reality, digital filming offers a great many opportunities to significantly enhance video and modify elements to completely alter the information portrayed. Shooting the Somme was a very interesting prototype for today's instant documentary, in addition to being a fascinating story of how early combat cameramen and film directors rose to the challenges and exploited the opportunities that were available to them.