City of Gold | |
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Directed by | |
Written by | Roman Kroitor |
Produced by | Tom Daly |
Narrated by | Pierre Berton |
Cinematography |
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Edited by | Tom Daly |
Music by | Eldon Rathburn |
Distributed by | National Film Board of Canada |
Release date |
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Running time | 21 min 40 sec |
Country | Canada |
Language | English |
Budget | $20,771 [1] |
City of Gold is a 1957 Canadian documentary film by Colin Low and Wolf Koenig, chronicling Dawson City during the Klondike Gold Rush. It made innovative use of archival photos and camera movements to animate still images, while also combining narration and music to bring drama to the whole. Its innovative use of still photography in this manner has been cited by Ken Burns as the source of inspiration for his so-called Ken Burns effect, a type of panning and zooming effect used in video production to animate still images. [2] [3] [4]
The film is narrated by Pierre Berton and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. [5]
The film grew out of an earlier 1952 idea to promote tourism and sport in Yukon. In researching for the film, Low and Koenig found some still photos in an Ottawa archive and tried to improve the panning method Low had employed on his 1955 visual arts documentary, Jolifou Inn. Low then discovered a much larger set of archival images of the Yukon Gold Rush, from photographer Eric A. Hegg's collection at the University of Washington in Seattle. The problem of how to animate the images via camera movement prior to the invention of computer-assisted animation cameras was resolved by Kroitor, who enlisted British mathematician Brian Salt to devise mathematical tables, and developed a device dubbed the 'Kroitorer' that allowed one to take single photos of the archival images as if photographing real-life scenes with a hand-held camera. [1]
William Norman McLaren, LL. D. was a Scottish Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound. McLaren was also an artist and printmaker, and explored his interest in dance in his films.
Roman Kroitor was a Canadian filmmaker who was known as a pioneer of Cinéma vérité, as the co-founder of IMAX, and as the creator of the Sandde hand-drawn stereoscopic 3D animation system. He was also the original inspiration for The Force. His prodigious output garnered numerous awards, including two BAFTA Awards, three Cannes Film Festival awards, and two Oscar nominations.
Colin Archibald Low was a Canadian animation and documentary filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was known as a pioneer, one of Canada's most important filmmakers, and was regularly referred to as "the gentleman genius". His numerous honors include five BAFTA awards, eight Cannes Film Festival awards, and six Academy Award nominations.
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Death of a Legend is a 1971 documentary directed by Bill Mason for National Film Board of Canada.
Wolf Koenig was a Canadian film director, producer, animator, cinematographer, and a pioneer in Direct Cinema at the National Film Board of Canada.
Grant Holland Crabtree was a Canadian cinematographer, director, and photographer who worked during the early years of the Canadian film industry, first for Crawley Films, then for the National Film Board and the National Research Council. His work includes the highly touted The Loon's Necklace, The Chairmaker and the Boys, Morning on the Lièvre, and Song of Seasons.
Thomas Cullen Daly was a Canadian film producer, film editor and film director, who was the head of Studio B at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
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Gold is a 1955 Canadian short documentary film, directed by Colin Low for the National Film Board of Canada.
John Howe was a Canadian director, producer, and composer with the National Film Board of Canada. He is best known for his films Do Not Fold, Staple, Spindle or Mutilate and Why Rock the Boat?, and for his handling of the NFB’s 1969 Austerity Crisis.
Morten Parker was a Canadian director, producer and writer.
In the National Interest City of Gold.