Documentary
Synopsis
Cast: Jeff Bridges
Producer(s): National Geographic Television
Crew: Director - Bruce Neibaur, Producer - Lisa Truitt, Producer - Jeff T. Miller, Cinematographer - T.C. Christensen, Film Editor - Stephen Johnson, Writer - Mose Richards, Original Music - Sam Cardon, Associate Producer - Erica Immucci, Researcher - Todd Hermann, Film Consultant - Stephen E. Ambrose, Film Consultant - Gary Moulton
Distributor:
Release Date: /0/0
Running Time: 42 minutes
OFFICIAL SITE
Production Notes:
History in the Making
Lewis and Clark, whose expedition is a quintessential American
story of exploration and the Old West, come to life in a new dramatization
that commemorates the bicentennial of their remarkable journey.
Lewis & Clark:
Great Journey West
Watching a priceless IMAX camera
hurtle over a 60-foot precipice toward the Missouri River below was a signature moment for the upcoming
Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West, set to premiere on April 20, 2002, in Omaha, Nebraska.
The film dramatizes one of the greatest adventure stories in American history, the tale of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who led the Corps of Discovery on the first overland expedition into the newly expanded territory of the United States nearly 200 years ago. Their missionthe brainchild of Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. presidentwas to discover the fabled Northwest Passage, a waterway believed to run between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Although the explorers found that no such passage exists, their scientific expedition mapped the American West and became the stuff of legend.
ÒNational Geographic is about telling good stories with great images,Ó explains producer Lisa Truitt. ÒWhen we got involved with the IMAX world, we wanted to do that in this format, too. For the Lewis and Clark film, we wanted to push the format a little bit and look for new, entertaining ways to tell a historically accurate story.Ó
Pushing the format in this instance meant strapping the 65-pound camera to a specially constructed vehicle that was Òhalf free-fall and half buggy,Ó according to director of photography T.C. Christensen. ÒThe day before we shot that scene, Bruce [Neibaur, director], Lisa [Truitt], Jeff [Miller, producer] and I talked about how to make the scene where Lewis
slips down the mountain more visceral and exciting than we had originally planned,Ó says Christensen.
ÒSo we said, 'let's do his POV as he's sliding down the mountain.' The key grip, Matt Stelling, made a four-wheeled go-cart with a tether and pulley system that went straight over the side and down about 20 feet. We had guys throwing rocks and dirt so it feels like a weight is sliding along, picking up earth,Ó continues Christensen. ÒWe shot it about
three times, but I think it was the first take when the camera turned over on its back, giving a disorienting feeling, that ended up in the film.
ÒSure, we worried about the camera getting smashed. We only have one, and we were very careful with it. If it's broken, not only is IMAX, which only has about four of these cameras, very unhappy with us, but we are down.Ó
A TRAVELING CIRCUS
Having an emergency halt to shooting is a nightmarish prospect for any producer, but for a production that sometimes stretched to 120 cast and crew situated in some of the most remote locations that still exist in the Western United States, a potentially major breakdown is a hellish thought indeed.
ÒWe were like a traveling circus,Ó explains Truitt. ÒWe had actors for many shots, which means we had to have wardrobe and make-up and hair, and we had a large number of Native American extras. We had all the trucks that you need for any large film production, and on top of that, we had the boatswe had the 55-foot keelboat, two smaller pirogues and about a dozen canoes. We weren't a particularly portable unit.
ÒWe set up a base camp where the trailers and trucks were parked, and then we ferried actors to the shooting site. Without the beautiful settings, the scenes wouldn't have worked, and those places aren't usually alongside a road with easy access. And by the time you load the cameras with film and pack the lenses and the dollies and cables and everything else you need, you've got a lot of stuff. So it wasn't always easy to get on site with the gearwe often had to climb down a cliff, cross a creek or get in a boat.Ó
THE QUEST FOR AN UNSPOILED VIEW
In a nation increasingly dotted with human habitation, finding sites that were untouched by civilization and representative of Lewis and Clark's journey was one of the greatest challenges the filmmakers faced. Ã’I think our greatest
accomplishment was being able to take that many people from one place to the next to give our audience a sense that they are seeing what it was like 200 years ago,Ó says producer Jeff Miller. ÒWe had to take them to the Northwest and back through Omaha, Nebraska, in six weeks, staying as close to the trail as we possibly could. There aren't many places where there are no telephone poles or gas stations or bus stops.
Ã’And some of the landmarks from Lewis and Clark's day just don't exist in the same form anymore. Places like
Great Falls, Montana. Shooting in a medium that is six stories tall, there was just no way to shoot the falls without getting power lines in the frame and, besides, the river has been dammed up, and it looks completely different now. There were times when we had to resort to computer-enhanced graphics to show what the country was like 200 years ago.
Ã’We also had to use computer graphics for the bison herds, which obviously don't exist in those numbers anymore. Someone told us that Ted Turner has 3,000 bison, but we needed so many more than that to be authentic to the times. There's literally no way to do that without enhanced graphics.
ÒBut I think we did justice to their story. We drove the Lewis and Clark trail on the scouting expedition, and it was difficult, particularly along the Columbia River, to find pristine areas that didn't have a train track running alongside it or a place where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hadn't touched. But we researched the trail thoroughly and found our spots.Ó
THE BLAZING TRAIL
One of the unique challenges for the production team in September 2000 was shooting around the massive wildfires that were raging through the Western states. Termed Òthe worst in half a centuryÓ by USA Today at the time, the fires kept the film team from certain areas in Montana and the surrounding states. Even from a safe distance, smoke threatened to mar the skyline and float into the viewfinder. ÒWe were very worried that we wouldn't get the aerials at the gates of the mountains because of smoke engulfing that area,Ó says director Bruce Neibaur. ÒThe aerials were critical. Finally, there was a shift in the wind for a day or two. Permission was granted to fly, and aerial photographer Jack Tankard and his crew got great footage. It would have been a real disappointment not to give the audience a chance to see this
amazing place from the aerial perspective, and we also needed that footage to move the story ahead.Ó
THE STORY OUTLINE
Most Americans have at least a smattering of knowledge about the Lewis and Clark expedition, and telling a story that is already familiar to those viewers can be a daunting prospect for filmmakers. ÒOne of the hardest things was how to take an expedition that lasted two years and condense it down to 40 minutes,Ó says Miller. ÒWe looked at it as the hit parade. What were the significant high points along the trail? We tried to convey the human struggle, how the leaders were helped by the Native Americansmost significantly Sacagawea's contributionshow their success and say good-bye.Ó
ÒDeciding what aspects to include and how to tell the story presented some difficult choices for us in the scripting phase,Ó agrees Truitt. ÒWe debated long and hard about how much we could include Thomas Jefferson, because he was the visionary who set this process in motion, and we all really felt that we wanted his spirit and vision to be present. We had various scenes with Jefferson and Lewis planning the trip, but the time constraints forced us to make some painful choices, and we didn't want to have to water down the story of the expedition. As in any film, you have to decide what you're trying to do or you end up with soup instead of a fine dinner.Ó
SETTING THE MOOD
Once the storyline was set, Neibaur and photography director Christensen were ready to go to work. Ã’Typically,
in IMAX films, filters that yield an unusual color balance are not used, but Bruce and I decided to go for a period look to give the viewer the feeling that they were watching something from the past,Ó says Christensen. ÒSo we began the film with a tobacco filter, which is kind of a reddish brown colora little more red than sepia. It's a lovely look. We drop it when spring arrives to give the feeling of freshness, but when they get out of the river in Great Falls, Montana, we used a chocolate filter to show how arduous the portage was. It looks sweaty and dusty and hard. It doesn't look fun. The other filtration we used was for winter. We didn't go just a touch coolwe went really blue to show how cold they were. I think it might be the most extreme filtering done in an IMAX film to date.Ó
GETTING IT RIGHT
ÒOnce you've decided how you'll tell the story, and you decide to get it right, you can't imagine how many details you have to check,Ó says Truitt. The film relied on the expertise of noted historians Stephen Ambrosea National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and author of Undaunted Courage, a definitive history of the expeditionand Gary Moultona professor of history at the University of Nebraska and editor of an unabridged version of Lewis and Clark's journals. ÒResearch is integral to every film that National Geographic does,Ó says associate producer Erica Immucci. ÒBut with a historically based story like this, fact-checking didn't always yield definitive answers.Ó Immucci spent nearly a year before filming began, poring over the journals that Lewis and Clark painstakingly kept throughout the journey and consulting with Ambrose, Moulton, as well as the American Philosophical Society, the Missouri Historical Society, the National Council of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial and many Native American tribes to ensure that the film was factually authentic. Details relating to clothes and equipmenteven the type of paper the journals were written on, the kinds of pens used and myriad other minutiaewere all meticulously researched and double-checked.
ÒThe journals were a godsend,Ó claims Immucci, ÒBut they were also limiting. I would check every detail of the script against the journals, and if we couldn't substantiate something exactly, we checked another source or changed the script. For instance, there's a scene in the film where the explorers think they've reached the Pacific Ocean, and the journal entry for that day says, 'Ocean in view. O, the joy!' But, in fact, they just thought they were at the ocean. What they were really looking at was the widening of the Columbia River. We needed a big moment in the film, so we use the quote while they are on the river and then cut to an aerial camera view that shoots down into the mouth of the river and out into the ocean. So it was factual, but also dramatic.Ó
SAY THAT AGAIN?
Particularly for residents of the Western U.S., who learned the story of Lewis and Clark as local history, hearing the pronunciation of the female Indian interpreter's name in the film may be jarringly unfamiliar. ÒSa-CA-ga-WEE-uhÓ rather than the more common ÒSA-ca-ja-WEE-uhÓ sounds like the work of the same Easterners who mispronounce the Beaver State of Oregon as ÒOr-ee-goneÓ instead of ÒOrygun.Ó The confusion was born in one of the many later published versions of the Lewis and Clark journals by an editor who added a ÒjÓ to the spelling of the young woman's name, an error that has resonated through generations of history books and schoolchildren.
ÒMost people in those days spelled phonetically,Ó says Truitt. ÒIn every reference in the journals, her name was spelled with a 'g' and in every instance in their journals, a 'g' meant a hard 'g' sound. We also talked to the tribes involved. Sacagawea was Shoshone but had been kidnapped by the Hidatsa tribe when she was younger. The Shoshone would have pronounced her name with the 'j' sound, which is probably how that pronunciation came about. But the Mandan and Hidatsa, with whom she was living when Lewis and Clark met her, pronounced it with the hard 'g.' For us, the real key was the spelling in the journals, which we felt was the best indication of how they were pronouncing her name at the time.Ó
ÒIt was an interesting dilemma for us,Ó admits Immucci. ÒDo we go with the more well-known pronunciation or with what we felt was historically accurate. We decided to come down on the side of accuracy.Ó
ÒThe film was interesting in so many ways,Ó agrees Truitt. ÒI've spent most of my career at
National Geographic working on other continents, filming projects about other cultures. As an American, it was such a treat to make a film in my own country about our own history. And as a filmmaker, it's just a great story, period.Ó
###
By Laurie Fry, a freelance writer based in the Washington, D.C. area, who grew up in Oregon, not far from where the Lewis and Clark expedition reached the Pacific Ocean.
Lewis &Clark: Great Journey West
Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West is a National Geographic production, distributed by Destination Cinema, Inc. and endorsed by the National Council of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial. Funding is provided by Eddie Bauer and the Suzanne and Walter Scott Foundation. Narrated by Jeff Bridges, the 42-minute film features an original soundtrack by Sam Cardon.
Visit www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark OR www.destinationcinema.com
LEWIS & CLARK: GREAT JOURNEY WEST
Production Credits
Bruce Neibaur, Director
Neibaur has won many awards for his dramatic filmmaking talents, including an Emmy Award for a television special on the 200th anniversary of the Constitution. He has directed the large-format films India: Kingdom of the Tiger, Building the Dream and National Geographic's Mysteries of Egypt as well as the motion pictures The Buttercream Gang, Friendship's Field and The Ghosts of Dickens' Past.
Lisa Truitt, Producer
Truitt, executive producer for large-format films and special projects at National Geographic Television and Film, co-produced the acclaimed Mysteries of Egypt, National Geographic's first large-format film, and has produced and directed some two dozen television films, including the critically-acclaimed and award-winning National Geographic special Arctic Kingdom: Life at the Edge. She has won many television and film awards, including the People's Choice award at the International Nature Film Festival.
Jeff T. Miller, Producer
Miller, a large-format veteran, has produced more than a dozen IMAX® and other giant-screen projects including Great American West, Ozarks: Legacy & Legend, and Valencia, Spain. Miller has also produced 12 feature films, including Friendship's Field, winner of the Chicago International Film Festival's 1997 Liv Ullman Peace Prize. He is currently developing The Centennial of Flight for National Geographic Television and Film and Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.
T.C. Christensen, Director of Photography
Winning over 240 national and international film awards including five CINE Golden Eagles, Christensen served as director of photography on three other large-format films, including Ozarks: Legacy & Legend; Valencia, Spain and Olympic Glory. He also served as cinematographer for the feature flims Witness, The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepherd and Nascar.
Stephen L. Johnson, A.C.E. Editor
Johnson has edited seven large-format films, including Grand Canyon: The Hidden Secrets, recipient of the first GSTA Hall of Fame Award; Amazon, the first giant-screen film nominated for an Academy Award; Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, which was chosen for the Best Film Award at the 2001 GSTA conference; and Mysteries of Egypt, National Geographic's first large-format film. Johnson has also edited over 25 independent, family-oriented motion pictures and is an active member of the American Cinema Editors.
Mose Richards, Writer
Richards has written more than 50 non-fiction films for a variety of clients including National Geographic, NOVA, The Discovery Channel, Graphic Films, The National Air and Space Museum and the Cousteau Society. His large-format credits include Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, Kilimanjaro: Mountain of Many Faces, Africa: The Serengeti, Alaska: Spirit of the Wild, Whales, Ocean Men and Amazing Journeys. He is currently working on the giant-screen films Centennial of Flight and The Lost City of Pompeii. Honors include The George Foster Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America (first place), International Documentary Association Award for Distinguished Achievement and six Emmy nominations.
Sam Cardon, Composer
Cardon is an Emmy-winning composer with music credits on four large-format films, including Whales, The Enchanted Castle, Zion Canyon: Treasure of the Gods, and National Geographic's Mysteries of Egypt. He has also written or co-written themes for National Geographic EXPLORER, ABC Sunday Night at the Movies, and Good Morning America and provided three hours of original music for the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary.
###
