September 05, 2007
Revolution in Boston
Program Note: The documentary I have been working on for much of the last year, SAVE OUR HISTORY: REVOLUTION IN BOSTON, will air on The History Channel on Saturday September 22 at 8 PM ET/PT.
Here's the description from The History Channel's press release:
It was on the streets of Boston that colonial patriots first stirred the fires of independence and abolitionists in the nineteenth century called for an end to slavery. These transforming movements can be traced back to two historic places: The Old State House and The African Meeting House. SAVE OUR HISTORY: REVOLUTION IN BOSTON explores the history behind these two notable buildings as they undergo major preservation efforts.
The show includes some very cool re-enactment sequences, as well as some wonderful animations done by Sputnik up in Portland Maine.Just for fun, here are three frames from an animation they worked really hard on that depicts the Old State House through the years from 1775 to today, with the buildings around undergoing tremendous changes.
More on this program as the date gets closer.
Posted by rickbeyer at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2007
Filmmakers Workshp
I'm a member of the Filmakers Workshop, which is closely tied to the Center for Independent Documentary, the fiscal sponsor for my film The Ghost Army Click on the graphic to get more info!!
Posted by rickbeyer at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2007
Ghost Army: The 1100
In the spirit of embracing the internet, we are launching an online fundraising campaign for The Ghost Army film called "The 1100." We want to use the internet to reach out to 1100 donors--that's the same number as there were men in the unit. We're building this campaign around somethinc called a "Charity badge." What is a charity badge? Well, ours is below. And here's a description from the website Techsoup.Charity badges — also known as fundraising widgets — are small graphic modules (similar in appearance to online banner ads) designed to help individuals and nonprofits raise funds online. Charity badges solicit donations for a specific cause or organization and can be posted to Web sites, blogs, and social networking pages. They can also easily be repurposed by other bloggers and site owners who are interested in supporting your cause.
Beth Kanter, a nonprofit technology consultant and blogger who has spearheaded several successful charity-badge fundraising campaigns, thinks that offering others a way to quickly add your charity badge to their own blog or Web site is one of the technology's most powerful aspects.Here's a link if you want to read the entire article. Anyone can take the charity badge and post it on their website or blog, or enclose the link in an email. It provides people an easy way to learn and give. (You can donate by credit card or paypal). For example, my sister Cathy has put one on her Choosing Santa Fe blog. It provides people an easy way to learn and give. It’s easy to replicate, so anyone that embraces the project can help spread the word. And it offers a way to keep score, by tracking the number of donors and the total amount of donations made through the badge. So people can see how we are doing. This makes it simple and painless to support the project: Make a donaton through the badge--it doesn't matter how small the amount, our goal is the max number of donors. Then help us get it out there on the web. Post a copy! Pass it along to others you think might be interested. We want this to be the online version of "Kilroy was here." It should be everywhere! The more places we can get this, the more people we can reach, and the closer we can come to our goal of completing the film while the men in the unit are still with us. One note on contrbuting. The "Donate" link on the badge will direct you to a place where you can make a donation to the Center for Independent Documentary, our fiscal sponsor, but the donor has to type "The Ghost Army" on the "Designation" line to make sure the donation goes to our film. (That's not ideal, but it is out of our control.) Thanks! We welcome your feedback on how to make the campaign work better--let us know what you think!
Posted by rickbeyer at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
April 30, 2007
The History Channel Announces Greatest Stories Web Series
The History Channel announced today that The Greatest Stories Never Told web series will launch on their website in the fourth quarter of this year. The news was part of an announcement outlining a series of major intiatives for their website, history.com
Here’s the part of the release about the Greatest Stories series.
GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD - The original short form series is based on the Greatest Stories Never Told books by Rick Beyer. Every episode tells a fascinating, little known story from history with a surprise twist. From the world conqueror that died of a nosebleed to the development of the pigeon guided missile to Annie Oakley's shot at stopping World War I, host Timothy John Smith relates stories of the absurd. (4th Quarter 2007)The news has been carried by a number of online news outlets, including MultiChannel News, Hollywood Reporter, and Variety.
Here's a link to The History Channel Press Release. It refers to the series as an "original digital brand," which sounds important.
Most news articles led with the fact that George Lucas is supplying documentary material that will be used on the website. I can't quibble with the media's decision to give George top billing over me--I'm just glad to be mentioned in the same (almost) breath.
We filmed these pieces in December, and I am dying for them to get on The History Channel website so people can see them. It now looks like they will be coming out in October, at just about the same time as my new book, The Greatest Presidential Stories Never Told. That will make for some nice synergies.
Posted by rickbeyer at 03:32 PM | Comments (1)
December 29, 2006
Greatest Stories Never Told: The Web Series
We have spent the last month working on a wonderful project that should burst forth from The History Channel website in a matter of weeks.
We are creating web-based videos of the stories from my first two Greatest Stories Never Told books. The History Channel is going to create a Greatest Stories Never Told web page on their site where the stories will live. The History Channel is billing it as, and I hope I have this right, their first original web series not associated with an ongoing TV program. Which is pretty exciting.
It is especially exciting because it will also cross promote the books. Just to help you keep score: First there was Timelab 2000, a series of history minutes hosted by Sam Waterston that aired on The History Channel. This led to the books. Now the books have led to a new series of history shorts for The History Channel website. Wacky world, eh?
These ones are very different from the Timelab pieces. They are longer, with more information and more attitude. They are hosted by an amazing young Boston stage actor named Timothy John Smith who really throws himself into each piece, and has a lot of fun with the material. (This is the first TV/film project he has ever done, and boy was he good!) Tim is also the artistic director of the Red Feather Theater Company.
The editing and the music on the pieces is very aggressive. The result is energetic, entertaining, and just plain enjoyable—if I do say so myself. We shot 20 of them, and they will probably be on The History Channel website by mid January.
We shot the pieces a week before Christmas in historic Buckman Tavern in Lexington. (A shout out to the Lexington Historical Society for making this possible!) It was the perfect location. It has a great historic look, it is closed during the winter so we could completely take it over, it is a short walk to Peet’s coffee, has wireless internet, and is only three minutes from my house. Of course it is also filled with priceless, irreplaceable historic objects, so we took great care of everything while shooting. Dillard Morrison and Mike Lee did a great job of lighting, giving the nearly 300 year old location a funky new look. We were aiming at a mix of hip and history--hope we hit it!
The History Channel asked us to complete the project by the end of the year, and we took them at their word: our final edit is scheduled for the morning of New Year’s Eve. A whole lot of people have worked very hard at a crazy time of year to make this happen, and I am very grateful to all of them for doing so. It's been a wild ride the last four weeks getting them ready for air, but I think it is fair to say that everyone involved has had a whole lot of fun.
Posted by rickbeyer at 05:41 PM | Comments (1)
November 15, 2006
What's News?
It has been a long time since my last posting, but I'm vowing to do better!
Piece of News #1: The documentary "Godspeed to Jamestown" will air on The History Channel Saturday, December 2, at 8 PM Eastern. We worked on this for nearly two years, covering the construction of the godspeed from the laying of the keel to her first day at sea. I've done numerous postings about this over the last 24 months, and I am certainly delighted to put this one up. The show features Steve Thomas as host, and people who have seen it seem to think it came out pretty well. Who am I to diagree?
Piece of News #2:
I am in New Orleans this week. Thunderstorms are moving through as I write, although it is supposed to be nicer the rest of the week. I'm here for a World War II COnference at the D-Day Museum. I met with the folks from the museum last night to discuss the Ghost Army project, and I am thrilled to say that they are excited about us, and have offered to endorse the proejct (which should help us in fundraising) and to explore some co-branded efforts. Very cool!
I have to say that it is a bit sad being in NO for the first time since Katrina. (I was last here 36 hours before the hurricne hit,and had toe vacuate with my family to Houston). I'm staying in the French Quarter, which was not pariculraly hard hit, but even here there are favorite shops and restuarnats closed, lots of For Sale and For Rent signs, and a paucity of tourists. We'll see if my impression improes as the week goes on, when the sun is supposed to come out and more people will prbably be coming in as the weekend approaches.
Posted by rickbeyer at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2006
Inmage of the Week: Godspeed in NY
A photo from yesterday's New York Times.
The ship was making it's way to the South Street Seaport, where it will be for about ten days before sailing up to Boston. I plan to attend the openng ceremony of the Boston visit on July 14.
All this comes as we are working hard on the rough cut of the show. We just completed a first pass beginning to end, which is 55 minutes long, leaving us ten minutes or so to cut. Good thing too, 'cuz at 55 minutes it was a little slow. We've got some perking up to do.
The show, I am told, will air first quarter of next year.
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)
May 03, 2006
Image of the Week: The Godspeed Sails
On April 27, The Godspeed went out for it's first sail with the crew from the Jamestown-Yorktown foundation that will take it up the East Coast this summer on a port tour. We have, of course, been following the construction of this replica 1607 ship for more than a year for the documentary Godspeed to Jamestown that Plate of Peas is producing for The History Channel, and we weren't about to miss this.
We shot on board, from a chase boat, from a nearbye mountainop, and from a helicopter. (The only thing we didn't do, in all honesty, is shoot it from a submarine!) When we got over water, the helicopter pilot announced that there weren’t any floats on the helicopter because he hadn’t expected to be going over water (where did he think the ship would be, I wonder) and that if we went down we would all die of hypothermia very quickly. With this encouraging news ringing in our ears, we commenced shooting. Luckily we stayed in the air, thus missing out on the joys of death by drowning or impact or whatever.
It was cold, but incredibly gorgeous, and the footage that Dillard Morrison shot was equally beautiful.
The ship left Rockport this morning (they had to wait out the storm) to sail to Jamestown. It will be in both New York and Boston this summer--check the Port Tour Calendar and pay a visit!
W
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2006
Image of the Week: Godspeed on the move
It has been a long time since I've done an image of the week, which I guess means this would be more accurately entiled: "Image of the every once in a while," but it just doesn't flow very well.
This is picture of the Godspeed, a replica of one of the ships that brought settlers to Jamestown in 1607. It is being built at Rockport Marine, in Rockport Maine. The ship came out of doors last week, and was transported by Tom Brownell and his crew through downtown ROckport to the spot where it will be launched in a few days. We have been filming its contruction for more than a year, so this was a big day.
Here's another shot. Videographer Dillard Morrison captures the action as the Godspeed begins its journey.
The ship will be making a port tour up the East Coast this summer. If you want to see what it looked like a year ago, check out the entry from April 4 last year.
Posted by rickbeyer at 07:18 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2005
Ghost Army
I spent last weekend in Washington with an amazing group of guys. They are veterans of World War II unit nicknamed the “Ghost Army,” and their mission was to impersonate other units in order to deceive the Germans. The official name of the unit was the 23rd Headquarters Troops, and it was involved in more battles than any other unit in the ETO. The men of the Ghost Army staged more than 20 battlefield deceptions from Normandy to the Rhine using sound trucks, inflatable tanks, and all sorts of trickery.
It’s a really wild story, and one that has remained largely under the radar. I found out about it from a woman named Martha Gavin, who is a friend of my former business partner and good friend Mark Tomizawa. Martha’s uncle, John Jarvie, was one of the members of the unit. Mark and I interviewed a bunch of the guys, ranging in age from the low 80’s to the mid 90’s at a reunion they had last weekend in Washington. (Someone asked me today if the Ghost Army story is in my new book, and the answer is that it is briefly mentioned, but I found out about it too late in the process to do a whole story on it).
Another extraordinary aspect of this unit is that many of the men who worked in the camouflage battalion (wrangling the inflatable tanks, etc) were artists who sketched and painted their way across Europe. I’ve had a chance to go through some of their sketchbooks, and hear the stories behind the paintings, and its truly remarkable.
We are developing this as an independent documentary, and have set up a website that I will update as things progress. There isn’t much there now, but you can get a little more info on the unit and also see some of the artwork. Eventually I will be adding video clips and more info, so check back from time to time.
Posted by rickbeyer at 10:18 PM | Comments (0)