Experiment in Family Documentary Editing

With time to devote to it, I am updating a family documentary I did about my own parents five years ago to high definition. Although the interviews are standard def, the photographs have more than enough resolution to show in high def.

I'm also adding historical context and music to places in the story where it fits. The original had no music and only one audio clip of Franklin Roosevelt's speech December 8, 1941 asking congress to declare war on Japan.

The reason this is experimental is because of how I used music in this chapter. Normally, I use music to help set a mood rather than help establish a time frame. That's partly because including popular music from a given time period involves having to pay license fees to use it.

I am hoping that I'll get a pass this time since I'm using records from my father's personal collection, no money is being made from the project and this is a trial to see how well popular music from a given time period fits the story.

The other reason this is experimental is that a famous song might not fit the mood of the piece. I'm still debating whether Buddy Morrow's brassy, sexy "Night Train" provides a fitting soundtrack to the opening sequence — with its mentions of Eisenhower's inauguration, the looming threat of nuclear Armegeddon, the Korean War and the race to find a vaccine for polio.