Haunted Beginning

Filmmaker Rob Child has found a niche with films about the Civil War.

See related story:
Lincoln and Lee at Antietam: The Cost of Freedom
By: Bob Brown
   If everything had gone as planned, Rob Child’s work would be heard and not seen. The writer/director, who lives in Washington Crossing, Pa., with his wife, Amy, and their four children, wanted a career in radio. He had worked in college radio when he was a communications major at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
   In 1984, he interrupted the cold winters for a warmer education at Arizona State University and a job at KDWB, "The Blowtorch in the Desert, a 100,000 watt rock radio station," as it was called. But as he arrived, the promised job collapsed when the program director left. Scrambling for work, Mr. Child answered a want ad for an opening at the local Public Broadcasting affiliate in Phoenix, KAET television.
   Mr. Child talked his way into a slot as a master control TV operator, despite having no experience. "I was rolling ¾-inch tapes to distance-learning stations for closed-circuit instructional television," Mr. Child recalls. It was only for one summer. But it was a life-changing experience. Back in New England the following fall, he completed his degree with a minor in history, and was soon working in television and gaining experience.
   He found a variety of jobs as master control operator for local network affiliates like WLNE, the CBS station in Providence, and for WCVB in Boston, where he became technical director for the 6 and 11 p.m. news broadcasts and the station’s Chronicle series. The competition for control-room positions was fierce, with hirees often filling in for what was called "vacation relief."
   "It was crazy," Mr. Child remembers. But he pushed for the chance and stuck it out for four years. "It was overwhelming, what you have to learn, the kind of analytical thinking you have to apply under the pressure of a live news broadcast."
   When a mentor at the station left for the fledgling Christian Science Monitor Channel, Mr. Child followed with the promise that he could direct. He enjoyed being surrounded by other handpicked staff who were as dedicated as he was to the high quality creative work and the state-of-the-art equipment. But it was not to last. Within two years, the Monitor Channel folded and more than 400 people were laid off with generous severance packages.
   After a short stint at WOR-TV in New York, Mr. Child saw the handwriting on the wall. In 1992, having developed his television skills, he decided to go into business for himself on a freelance basis. More satisfying technical director and director jobs came his way from HBO and MTV. As a technical director, he helped launch Emeril Live on the Food Network, and was involved in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, as well as live national TV specials.
   In 2000, however, he broke away from the grind and pressure of TV work to devote time to his own features. His first documentary, America’s Most Haunted Town, featured Cathe Curtis, a so-called "sensitive," who contacted spirits in various locations of New Hope, Pa. A companion work, America’s Most Haunted Inns, was shot in other locations around Bucks County.
   When Ms. Curtis suggested he do something on spirits haunting Gettysburg, Mr. Child had a different inspiration. He did not want to cast himself as a maker of more ghost documentaries. "The history, connecting with the soldiers themselves, compelled me," Mr. Child says. "I put everything I had into it." The result was the documentary: Gettysburg: The Boys in Blue & Gray (2002), which was secured by PBS Home Video for nationwide distribution. This project led to him getting the call to produce Gettysburg: Three Days of Destiny (2003), which was commissioned by the Gettysburg Anniversary Committee for a massive commemoration of the 140th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg.
   The film, written by Mr. Child as a docudrama, was picked up by Ardustry Home Entertainment, which released it as a feature film, not a documentary. Mr. Child had pulled a crew together, hired cranes for overhead shots, and embedded cinematographers among the 20,000 soldier re-enactors on the ground so the project had an epic and more "movie-like" feel to it.
   Both films have won numerous prizes and accolades, including Platinum EMI awards for Best Documentary at the Wordlist Houston International Film Festival, Best Documentary award for Three Days of Destiny from the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival; Best Documentary for The Boys in Blue & Gray from the Philadelphia Video Festival; and many others.
   Although Gettysburg was widely known and well covered in films and documentaries, "Antietam seemed like a mystery to me," Mr. Child says. In many ways it was even more important because its outcome altered the course of the war. He prepared a script and queried PBS Home Video about interest. With encouragement, and after putting $8,000 of his own money into the project, he was able to follow through with a distributor, Inecom Entertainment, to cover the rest for Lincoln and Lee at Antietam: The Cost of Freedom (see review on facing page).
   The pieces then fell into place: connecting with the best historians as on-camera experts, including James McPherson of Princeton University (whom he met through an acquaintance); lining up a superb narrator, Ronald F. Maxwell (director of the feature films Gettysburg and Gods and Generals); obtaining re-enactment footage; planning a shooting schedule for the year; then editing the result. Overall, the project was two years in the making. "I’m such a perfectionist," Mr. Child admits. He says he’ll leave the editing to others for his next project.
   For the moment, Mr. Child is done with the Civil War and is turning his attention to other subjects. Forthcoming is Silent Wings: The American Glider Pilots of WWII, due out this winter. It features Andy Rooney, a correspondent in the war, and Walter Cronkite, himself a participant in the events. After that, Mr. Child has his eye on the little-known pre-Revolutionary days of Alexander Hamilton, a bastard child of the West Indies who developed a dynamic relationship with George Washington.
   He would also like to cover James Naismith, the ordained minister who in two weeks invented a major sport that he lived to see featured at the 1936 Berlin Olympics: basketball. Dr. Naismith’s "13 rules" for the game are still at its core, although the tone of modern basketball has changed considerably from its first appearance in a Massachusetts YMCA.
   "We have enough drama on television now without having to show people killing one another," Mr. Child says. He’s intrigued by these kinds of heroes, and would like to continue working more with actors on dramatic subjects.
Rob Child on the Web: www.robchild.com