FILM 2200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: British Columbia Coast
Document Summary
Most films in the early documentary period were called news reels they were usually. 15 minutes in length and depicted real effects. Even when feature film developed, some people still looked for news reels in it. Feature film was the next step after the newsreels. Rescue of survivors (1914) an example of the newsreels. Newsreels create the news and reality and something exotic. Curtis was considered to be one of the most important people for documentary. He was a successful portrait and commercial photographer. He began photographing native people around seattle and british columbia coast. He created a sense that the only reason to photograph natives because they were on the verge of distinction. Natives themselves thought the same so did several anthropologists. Curtis set upon the task of going around united states and photographing natives he was determined to photograph them in tradition sorts of poses. In the end he took 40,000 pictures of native people around united states.
