Film Record: Backyard Birding

Image from Backyard Birding. Movie Makers, Dec. 1952, 323.

Date produced: 1952

Filmmaker(s):

Herbert D. Shumway

Languages:

English

Length:

250 ft

Format:

8mm

Colour:

Kodachrome

Sound Notes:

Silent

Sound:

With sound on tape.

Awards/Recognition:

ACL Ten Best 1952

Description:

"Trim, tightly knit and altogether engaging, Backyard Birding presents, with affectionate attention to detail, a nature-loving father and his small son searching out the common and uncommon birds of their New England neighborhood. The film's pleasant music and informed but unassuming narrative are in sympathetic harmony with the pictorial whole. In it, with apparent purpose, Herbert D. Shumway has employed a cloudy-bright lighting throughout. Thus, the countless closeups of his bird neighbors, as they build their nests and rear their young, are in soft, true and unshadowed color — as so befits the film's gentle theme. And, just in case you're wondering, these superb scenes (on 8mm. film, remember) are beautifully sharp, despite the wider lens apertures which must have been used." Movie Makers, Dec. 1952, 324, 337.

Resources:

Shumway shares tips on bird filming in "Bird Filming for Beginners" (Movie Makers, April 1953, 94-95, 107-108). Still images from Backyard Birding are shown.

Locations:

• New England (Filming)

Subjects:

• Animals
•      Birds
• Nature
•      Geography
•      United States
•           New England

Genre:

• Nature

Form:

• Short

Screenings:

• Screened by the Hartford Cinema Club on December 9, 1952: Hartford, CT
• Screened by the New York 8mm. Motion Picture Club in 1953: New York City, N.Y.

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