THE MAKING OF:  BUCHANAN'S AMERICA

Last year, our friends at LancasterHistory released “Buchanan’s America: A Nation Divided,” an award-winning short documentary that we had the honor of producing. April 23rd marks the 229th birthday celebration for the star of the film, James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States. 

To help make today a bit of a birthday party during the distraction of a global shutdown, we are helping launch a watch party on multiple social media platforms. If you are reading this after the fact, you can see the film by visiting the grounds at President James Buchanan’s Wheatland. Also, please try to support LancasterHistory; they are a great asset and resource to our community. 

Reflecting on this production, which took about 2 years, we felt it was appropriate on Mr. Buchanan's birthday to give everyone a look behind the curtain and share some of what went into making this project. 

As with any historical work that will be scrutinized for generations to come, this film took time. We began pre-production discussions a couple months before any funding was actually in place. We formulated the plan and tackled each step as methodically as possible. The first step was to talk to top scholars in the field and develop a detailed outline that we all agreed was an accurate, honest reflection of this president’s life story. 

With the outline in place, we scripted questions intended to capture a strong, thorough narrative solely from the viewpoint of the scholars.

For the interviews, we wanted to shoot in a period appropriate location without exhausting the Wheatland location as a background. Thankfully, Buchanan’s neighbor, the Conestoga House & Gardens, graciously allowed us to use their mansion as the perfect backdrop.

In order to make the interviews more emotionally compelling, we conducted them through a teleprompter set up in front of the camera. This was not because we wanted anyone to read a pre-scripted answer. This was purely for eyeline direction. So, instead of looking off-camera to answer a question, each person could look directly into the lens while still talking directly to a person’s face.

This extemporaneous approach gained us about seven straight hours of fascinating interviews. We then took a lot of care to edit this down to a one-hour narrative cut for our small committee to discuss and revise. From this, we kept whittling it down and bridging the gaps with some scripted narration until we landed on a twenty-three minute program we all felt was great.

BRINGING HISTORY TO LIFE

While these meticulous revisions were taking place, we obviously needed imagery to cover up the narrative. Together, we gathered every image available to us. LancasterHistory scanned photos and articles, and searched multiple archives from around the country.

We took old photos and paintings and added layers to them. In one photo, we added moving fire to a building to add drama.

What really added production value was the 3D parallax work our team did. We took a flat painting of Buchanan and wrapped it around a three-dimensional surface to really bring his face to life on screen.

We also created period-accurate maps to show how the country was divided during this administration. 

Again, this layering approach to filmmaking takes time. Gathering the known visual resources that exist on one subject was a challenge. Placing these visuals artistically over an organic narrative flow to create a story that will hold up over time was truly fulfilling.

Once we had a narrative lock with visual resources, we were able to see the story as a whole in order to make a detailed list of scenes to reenact. Shooting vignettes at the historic Wheatland location was a challenging and fun experience for everyone.

The LancasterHistory team did a fantastic job coordinating dozens of their dedicated volunteers, all dressed and propped in period-accurate attire. The people we had for each role were absolutely perfect in performance as well as their familiarity with each character’s  nuance.

With careful restrictions on what we could and could not do to light the scenes, we had the opportunity to add some atmosphere to some of the rooms with a hazer. This effect is ideal for some period pieces. It brings the contrast down in camera and creates a nice fill from the lights coming in through the windows.

Another historical location we were lucky to have access to was The Rockford Plantation.

Here we shot scenes to represent both the mysterious relationship Buchanan had with Ann Coleman as well as the fury behind the creation of the Lacompton Constitution in Kansas.

Spoiler alert: We also represented a young Buchanan mourning Ann’s death at her actual burial site at St James Episcopal Church.

IN SUMMARY

Aurora Films is more than proud of the work that went into making this short documentary. As a production company that is lucky enough to work with companies all over the world, we will always look for genuine ways to be grounded into the fabric of this community.

We can all learn so much about ourselves by taking a moment to look back at our country’s history. As a nation once divided, hopefully we can look at the past and somehow learn from it.

Happy birthday to “The Old Public Functionary,” James Buchanan.

- By Brad Kenyon, Director/Cinematographer