Film Record: Backyard Zoo

Image from Backyard Zoo. Movie Makers, Dec. 1945, 476.

Date produced: 1945

Filmmaker(s):

Francis M. Spoonogle

Languages:

English

Length:

200 ft

Format:

8mm

Colour:

Kodachrome

Sound Notes:

Silent

Awards/Recognition:

ACL Ten Best 1945 - Honorable Mention General Class

Description:

"To film an insect well, when it is crawling, creeping or flying, is a real feat. Francis M. Spoonogle does this with great success. In his film, Backyard Zoo, he has taken completely undirectable creatures and has managed to capture them on film with such intimacy as to give one the feeling that he might be living for a while in the insect world. Unsuspected beauty is revealed in the coloring of caterpillars with normally unseen fur collars. So sharply has he focused on insect life in this beautiful 8mm. film that the "feathers," making up the coating of a butterfly's wings, are almost discernible." Movie Makers, Dec. 1945, 495-496.

Resources:

Discussed by Spoonogle in "Your Backyard Zoo" (Movie Makers, June 1946, 220-221). The article describes how one's backyard can feature new filming material. The filmmaker's equipment and film stills are shown.

Subjects:

• Animals
•      Insects
•           Butterflies
• Nature

Genre:

• Nature

Form:

• Short

Tags:

Screenings:

• Screened by the Amateur Motion Picture Society of Albany in 1946: Albany, N.Y.
• Screened by the Movie Group of the Schenectady Photographic Society in 1946 and 1948: Schenectady, N.Y.

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