Listen2Read audiobook listeners know that for every audiobook I publish, I create a pictorial preview or blog on the subject. Just as in printed books, pictures help audiobook listeners better understand the dimensions of the story.
Since all of our audiobooks are about Americans in history, I do a lot of research to find just the right historical picture to document the history. Teachers have told me they use my audiobook previews as teaching aids, so I take creating these previews very seriously.
Collecting photographs of Amelia Earhart to accompany her audiobook “ 20 hrs 40 mins,” Earhart’s autobiography of her first flight across the Atlantic Ocean- the flight which made her famous, was not difficult since she was one of the most photographed women of her time. Her book contains a log book, so you seem to be actually with her during her historic and dangerous flight over the Atlantic.
As I reviewed dozens of historic still pictures, I kept wishing I had some motion picture film of her flight in the Friendship, the name given to her airplane. Then I remembered a passage from her log book when Earhart and her crew landed in Trepassey, Newfoundland to prepare for the actual flight across the Atlantic.
Wilmer Stultz, the pilot, and Louis Edward Gordon, the flight mechanic, had arranged for a mooring for the “Friendship” during the time they waited with Amelia for weather to clear enough to permit takeoff . Many people learned of their plan and the water was filled with boats of spectators, trying to get a view of the adventurers. So many boats crowded the bay that it was difficult to get to the mooring they had arranged for.
Earhart wrote in her log -book:
“Finally we contrived to get the thought across that the most we wanted was to be guided to our own mooring, which we could reach under our own power. Andy Fulgoni, a Paramount cameraman finally caught the idea and circling around in his own launch, contrived to clear the way for us. In due course, Bill sailed to the mooring and made fast.”
The Paramount cameraman was filming for Paramount News – mostly black and white movie films shown in movie theatres before the advent of television news. Most major studios presented 10 minute newsreels as a short subject accompanying the movies. Paramount called their newsreels “The Eyes and Ears of the World.” Most Americans saw the American Depression and World War 2 through black and white newsreels in theaters. Most studios stopped producing newsreels in 1957, when the motion picture industry was damaged by competition from television and government antitrust decisions.
I wondered if the Paramount cameraman who helped them had shot news footage of the “take off?’ If he did, did the film still exist over 90 years later? If the film had been preserved, where was it? How could I find it?
I began a search through every stock film and news film library I knew of and discovered some new ones. Andy Fulgoni, a Paramount cameraman, would probably have used a DeVry 35mm motion picture camera, known in the trade as the ”lunchbox” because of its rectangular shape. It had a spring wound motor or was hand cranked.
The film came in 100 foot rolls of (very flammable) nitrate film, with a running time of 2 ½ minutes per 100 foot roll. So, a news cameraman would have to have been able to open the camera and change rolls fast or he probably would have had two or more cameras loaded so as not to miss anything.
After much research, I found it!
I discovered that Andy Fulgoni had filmed the take off from his boat on the water. He shot several angles, including close-ups of Amelia and her crew and the actual take-off . Best of all, the old nitrate film had been transferred to video and it was available to be licensed.
Licensing the footage stretched my budget, but it was worth it to see the actual take-off and to see Amelia Earhart herself, so self assured and positive entering into the best days of her life. You can see the take-off as part of the Listen2Read audiobook free preview HERE .
You can download the audiobook HERE
Andre Stojka
Publisher
Listen2Read Audiobooks
©Listen2Read.com
