Documentary Filmmaking For Archaeologists

Documentary filmmaker Peter Pepe and historical archaeologist Joseph W. Zarzynski provide a concise guide to filmmaking designed to help archaeologists navigate the unfamiliar world of documentary film. They offer a step-by-step description of the process of making a documentary, everything from initial pitches to production companies to final cuts in the editing. Using examples from their own award-winning documentaries, they focus on the needs of the archaeologist: Where do you fit in the project? What is expected of you? How can you help your documentarian partner? The authors provide guidance on finding funding, establishing budgets, writing scripts, interviewing, and numerous other tasks required to produce and distribute a film. Whether you intend to sell a special to National Geographic or churn out a brief clip to run at the local museum, read this book before you start.

Documentary filmmaker Peter Pepe and historical archaeologist Joseph W. Zarzynski provide a concise guide to filmmaking designed to help archaeologists navigate the unfamiliar world of documentary film. They offer a step-by-step description of the process of making a documentary, everything from initial pitches to production companies to final cuts in the editing. Using examples from their own award-winning documentaries, they focus on the needs of the archaeologist: Where do you fit in the project? What is expected of you? How can you help your documentarian partner? The authors provide guidance on finding funding, establishing budgets, writing scripts, interviewing, and numerous other tasks required to produce and distribute a film. Whether you intend to sell a special to National Geographic or churn out a brief clip to run at the local museum, read this book before you start.

It outlines a fresh approach to the archaeological study of the historic cultures of North America.

Chronicles the history and archaeological study of Lake George, New York’s sunken bateaux of 1758. In Ghost Fleet Awakened, Joseph W. Zarzynski reveals the untold story of a little-recognized sunken fleet of British warships, bateaux, from the French and Indian War (1755–1763). The story begins more than 250 years ago, when bateaux first plied the waters of Lake George, New York. Zarzynski enlightens readers with a history of these utilitarian vessels, considered the most important vessels that transported armies during eighteenth-century wars in North America, and includes their origins and uses. By infusing the book with underwater archaeology doctrine, Zarzynski shows the nautical significance of these colonial craft. In the autumn of 1758, the British command at Lake George made a daring decision to deliberately sink two floating batteries (radeaux), some row galleys and whaleboats, a sloop, and 260 bateaux, thereby placing the warships into wet storage and protecting them from marauding French during the coming winter. In 1759, many submerged boats were raised but some were not. Then, in 1960, two divers rediscovered several sunken bateaux, dubbed the “Ghost Fleet.” These shipwrecks were the focus of underwater archaeological investigations that provided archaeologists with opportunities to gain unprecedented insight into eighteenth-century lifeways. Zarzynski explores and explains shipwreck preservation techniques, the creation of shipwreck parks for scuba enthusiasts, and the many multifaceted programs developed by the nonprofit organization Bateaux Below to help protect these finite cultural treasures. “Zarzynski offers fascinating new research on bateau shipwrecks through the use of manuscripts, period newspaper accounts, and interviews. It is an outstanding piece of research, explaining the chronological history of cultural resource preservation. No other book provides this level of documentation on the role of bateaux during the wars of the eighteenth century.” — Russell P. Bellico, author of Empires in the Mountains: French and Indian War Campaigns in Forts in the Lake Champlain, Lake George, and Hudson River Corridor “This is a major contribution to the field of American history, New York State history, underwater archaeology, and cultural resource management. There is no equivalent book that documents this story.” — Timothy J. Runyan, editor of Ships, Seafaring and Society: Essays in Maritime History

The public’s fascination with archaeology has meant that archaeologists have had to deal with media more regularly than other scholarly disciplines. How archaeologists communicate their research to the public through the media and how the media view archaeologists has become an important feature in the contemporary world of academic and professional archaeologists. In this volume, a group of archaeologists, many with media backgrounds, address the wide range of questions in this intersection of fields. An array of media forms are covered including television, film, photography, the popular press, art, video games, radio and digital media with a focus on the overriding question: What are the long-term implications of the increasing exposure through and reliance upon media forms for archaeology in the contemporary world? The volume will be of interest to archaeologists and those teaching public archaeology courses.

A cultural study of an array of popular North American science fiction film and television texts, Excavating the Future explores the popular archaeological imagination and the political uses to which it is being employed by the U.S. state and its adversaries.

Documentary Editing offers clear and detailed strategies for tackling every stage of the documentary editing process, from organizing raw footage and building select reels to fine cutting and final export. Written by a Sundance award- winning documentary editor with a dozen features to his credit and containing examples from over 100 films, this book presents a step-by-step guide for how to turn seemingly shapeless footage into focused scenes, and how to craft a structure for a documentary of any length. The book contains insights and examples from seven of America’s top documentary editors, including Geoffrey Richman (The Cove, Sicko), Kate Amend (The Keepers, Into the Arms of Strangers), and Mary Lampson (Harlan County U.S.A.), and a companion website contains easy-to-follow video tutorials. Written for both practitioners and enthusiasts, Documentary Editing offers unique and invaluable insights into the documentary editing process.