This
two-hour television special (video
preview)
was organized and told from the perspectives of the surviving Code Talkers
and their families who returned to the former
battlefields of the bloody and brutal Pacific Theater. Their
observations on the secret code they created for the U.S. Marine Corps in
World War II - and their lives before and after the war - were recorded on
the former battlefields of the Pacific and on the lands of the Navajo Nation
with high-definition digital television cameras.
Dr.
George
A. Colburn, a historian
and and Starbright Media's Director of Operations, was in charge of the overall
production for the Santa Fe Media and
Education Center. His television credits include eight hours of prime-time
documentaries on Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1941 – 1961, which were hosted by Gen.
Colin L. Powell (U.S. Army, retired), former Secretary of State. Colburn is also the co-founder and Associate Director of the
Santa Fe High Definition Television Workshops.
Tom
McCarthy, currently Director of Media for the New Mexico state museums, and
someone who interviewed several of the original 29 Code Talkers on film more
than 20 years ago, worked closely with Dr. Colburn on development and production
of the program. His interview footage of those Code Talkers (who created the
code and are now deceased) from the late 1970s is an important part of this
new production.
The
program features dramatic HD location footage from the Navajo Nation and the
islands of the Pacific that several surviving Code Talkers visited with their
families. Military, private and public archives were searched by production
staff for the finest visuals available to illustrate the war years, and life
in the Navajo Nation before and after the war. Cultural historians, war historians,
USMC experts, and witnesses to the history of the Code Talkers on the battlefields
from both the U.S. and Japan had their remembrances recorded for this program…
and for posterity. First phase of production took place in the last two weeks
of October, 2005, when six Code Talkers and their companions along with a
HDTV crew visited the battlegrounds on Guam, Saipan
and Tinian.
Following
completion of the television special and
the theatrical film, the producers will create a multi-media education package
about the Code Talkers and the Navajo experience in the United States.
The package of print, audio-visuals and web-based materials will be made
available to schools and museums nation-wide through a major educational distributor.
The complete video archive will be donated by Starbright Media Corporation
and the Santa Fe Media & Education Center
to an appropriate depository in the Southwest for ongoing use by scholars and
other interested researchers.
Code Talkers® is a registered name of the Navajo Code Talkers
Association.
Dr. George Colburn
Post Office Box 309, Walloon Lake, MI 49796
517/332-6265 or 202/258-4887
StarbrightMC@cs.com
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