Behind the Scenes at the HRC

If you’re curious about some of the key elements necessary for producing a successful film, the Harry Random Center is definitely the place to go. While walking visitors through a visually enticing exhibit, the museum provides everything from descriptions of key roles to actual costumes, scripts and pictures from award-winning cinema. I was astonished by the amount of work that actually goes in to making these films and was interested to see how our classes project may use the information provided to our benefit.

The Deer Hunter Exhibit was one example of the preparation that goes in to preparing roles for movies. Robert Deniro, who played a soldier in the Vietnam film, did extensive research in his efforts to really embody the character by which he was cast. In order to focus closely on his particular role, he looked at first hand accounts and kept a notebook with notes about the story and the character. Additionally, he carried photos of men from the Viet Cong Prison with him to provide inspiration and direction in becoming his character. Even though not all of us will be playing an actor role in our particular class project, I think his dedication to the film should serve as a model of how to portray our thesis and evidence as authentically as possible.

Some of the other roles included in addition to the actor in the museum were music, editing, cinematography, producing, directing and costume design, many of which are assigned to individuals in the class. As a sociologist, I did not see one section dedicated to my role solely though obtained a lot of good information from some of the others on how to best carry out my position. Overall, Hannah and I as interviewers should focus on asking questions to best reflect our ideas as a class and provide solid evidence to our beliefs on Vietnam in history textbooks. Hopefully, as they did in Hearts and Minds, these interviews can offer a degree of credibility to our argument that couldn’t be obtained otherwise.