Third Rough Cut nearly finished!

I am on the last part of the final act in a rough cut that is going very well.  I think I have found the right narrative structure for the film.  When I have completed this rough cut I will be buying additional HD videos from the National Archives; and I will be hiring voiceover actors to read the words of my various characters in the documentary.  Looking forward to the next two months of enhancing the documentary.  Right now it is close to 90 minutes long.  The final version will be shorter.

Second Major Rough Cut

I have just finished the first part of the second rough cut of "The Passing Show".  It's going very well and now I have received HD copies of signal corps films from the National Archives; and they are wonderful!  I am so excited to finish this second cut.

Script Second Rewrite

Nearly done with the second script rewrite.  It's coming together nicely with three narrators: Janis, Callen and Haddad.  Hope to begin the second rough cut in the next week or so.

I am also preparing an IARL to the National Archives to begin the process of obtaining good quality copies of certain Signal Corps films from World War I.

First rough cut by end of June, 2015

I've edited up until the final sequence of the documentary during the past three months.  I've decided to combine the personal experience of learning about my great uncle's story with the actual accounts of the Americans who fought with Walter during the war.  This has added to the time necessary to finish the story, but it makes the film stronger.

Trip to National Archives and New York, July 2013

Mark and I got back a week or so ago from a fantastic trip out East.  We stayed in College Park, MD for five days, researching at the National Archives.  We acquired many, many copies of Signal Corps videos from World War I.  These we will use to do the rough edit of the film and once we know what we want in the final film we will order high quality copies.  We also found many more wonderful Signal Corps photos while we were there.  Here are four:

Phosphorus bomb at night

Attack!

Stringing Barbed Wire

     

                  Elsie Janis and Mother

While we were at the Archives we met again with Mitchell Yockelson.  He was very helpful once more as we discussed our story and talked about the 27th Division and General John O'Ryan.  He is a fantastic source of history and analysis.  Thank you so much, Mitch, for all your help.


After our stay at the Archives, we headed up to New York City.  There we spent a wonderful afternoon with Lee Alan Morrow, the fount of all knowledge on Elsie Janis.  Lee obtained his Phd in theater studies and focused for his final thesis on the life of Elsie Janis.  He has an incredible amount of documentation and stories on her life and was kind to let us copy items in his collection.  We are so grateful to Lee for offering his help to get our documentary completed.  We will continue to be in contact with him has we move forward.

From New York City we headed to Albany, New York, the home of one of our heroes, John Joseph Brennan.  There we met Debbie Brennan Mahan, Joe's granddaughter, Jane Brennan, Joe's daughter in law and John Mahan, Debbie's husband.  We spent a terrific morning and lunch with them.  Debbie showed me the photos and diaries left by her grandfather.  We had a great time and made new, wonderful friends.  Here is the photo of me and Mark with Debbie and Jane.  Thank you so much to the whole family for your hospitality and fun conversation!!!  We'll see you again in the future, I'm certain.

Screenplay and opening edit

I've been working on the screenplay for "The Passing Show."  It is now about 90 pages long and this first draft of the screenplay will be over 100 pages.  I anticipate the final screenplay will be closer to 60 or 70 pages.  However, I like what I'm seeing at this point.

I have also begun to edit the opening segments of the documentary and it is very exciting to put visuals and audio effects together with the words spoken by the individuals.  We continue to search for more visuals to animate the documentary and we may take another trip to the National Archives during the next few months. I am very happy with the progress we are making on the film!

The Passing Show of 1918

This documentary follows the lives of seven Americans during the last eight months of World War I. All of them were connected, in one way or another, with the 27th and 30th American Divisions which fought under the British in Belgium and France in the final months of the war.  These divisions helped to break the supposedly impregnable Hindenburg Line. The documentary uses the actual words of the individuals taken from their letters, diaries, books and historical monographs.

The documentary will show the war from the personal points of view of those who encountered it first hand.  Our original intent in taking up this project was to tell the story of the war through one person -- our great uncle, Walter Lindahl.  But, in researching the path to his death, we came across wonderful accounts of other people who fought in the same battles and experienced many of the hardships and adventures that he did during the Great War.  We decided to tell a larger story of these American soldiers attached to the British -- a story that was never completely told when it happened and that has been almost forgotten during the past century.

Research in Tennessee and at the National Archives

WWI photos retrieved in our trip this October.

This past week Mark and I traveled to Knoxville, TN, home of the 117th infantry regiment which was part of the 30th Division during World War I.  Walter fought in the 117th and we wanted to research this regiment to learn more about the men, officers and campaigns during the Great War.

We spent several hours at the Knoxville County Library, looking at microfilm of 1918 newspaper articles about the 117th during the war.  There were many interesting contemporary accounts of the battles in which the 117th engaged, including personal letters of the men involved, which we copied for our records.

Newspaper article describing the breaking of the Hindenberg Line in France.  The 117th Regiment was part of this battle. 

More about the battle.

Homecoming celebration in Knoxville for 117th regiment at the end of World War I.

We also researched at the McClung Special Collections in the library.  This section has old files, including the papers of General Tyson, head of the 59th Brigade which included the 117th and 118th infantries.  At the McClung we were also able to review microfilm of the Tennessee World War I Gold Star records of Tennessee men killed in the War.

General Tyson. in middle.

From Knoxville we headed to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C..   We spent two and a half days at the Archives copying Signal Corps Official Photos from World War I and Signal Corps films taken during that time period.

National Archives II, College Park, Maryland

Emily Haddad researching photos at the National Archives.

Mark and I met with Mitchell Yockelson, the military historian who wrote the book, "Borrowed Soldiers," which was so helpful in our research of the II American Corps assigned to the British in 1918.  The 30th Division and the 27th Division were both part of II Corps.  Mitch directed us to very interesting areas of research and photos at the National Archives.  It was great to finally meet him in person and to discuss the documentary and a possible future trip to the WWI battlefields in France with him as our guide.

Mitchell Yockelson, author of "Borrowed Soldiers," and Emily Haddad at the National Archives.

All in all it was an amazing trip; we learned a tremendous amount and were able to collect a large amount of visual material which will make our film come alive and allow us to really expand the information on our website.  We look forward to our next trip to the National Archives, probably sometime in the spring of 2013.

Channel 12 News clip about Walter Lindahl and Victory Memorial Drive

Here is a news clip about Walter Lindahl and our family's quest to find out the facts of his life and death.  The  report was broadcast in July 2011 after the re-dedication of Victory Memorial Drive where Walter is memorialized along with 567 other Hennepin County soldiers who died in World War I.

Click on the link below to see the Channel 12 News report

Channel 12 News report on Walter Lindahl

Inspirations for the Documentary

I have read many books during the past year that have provided inspiration, insights and critical information about World War I and about the experiences of Walter Lindahl and the 27th and 30th Divisions during the war.  Here is a list of some of the best ones:



 "Birdsong" is a beautifully-written fictional account of the Great War.  The author captures the horror, carnage, futility and hopelessness of trench warfare.



"Borrowed Soldiers" by Mitchell Yockelson is extremely well-written, well-researched history of the 27th and 30th Divisions of the American Army which were assigned to the British Expeditionary Force during the last six months of the Great War.  Walter Lindahl was part of the 30th Division and Mr. Yockelson's book has been an excellent resource for me in researching Walter's experiences during his time in France.  I hope to get to Washington, D.C. this fall to meet with Mr. Yockelson and interview him for the documentary.  I also hope to return to northern France and Belgium during the next year, along with Mr. Yockelson, so that he can describe on camera details of the battles which took place nearly 95 years ago.





"The Last Full Measure" describes the weapons, their ferocity and  the wounds they inflict on soldiers during war. The author also examines how soldiers prepare for the possibility of their death during battle. What did soldiers in World War I think about during the night before they were to "go over the top," waves of soldiers rushing en masse at heavily-fortified enemy lines?  Two of the letters from Walter's buddies describe Walter's death on the battlefield.  This book helped me to understand how he might have prepared himself and accepted his death that day of October 7, 1918. I would like to interview the author, Michael Stephenson, some time during the next year.

Mark and I bought "The Thirtieth Division in the World War".  It is a contemporary account of the Division's actions during the War and full of essential information.

Finally, the "American Armies and Battlefields in Europe" edition from 1938 (written and edited by General Dwight D. Eisenhower) has been invaluable for the information and the military maps of the battlefields and memorials in Belgium and northern France.

Meeting with Pauline DeCook

Pauline DeCook, daughter of Naldo Steenhoek

Last Friday, July 13, 2012, my brother, Mark Thompson, and I drove down to Byron, Minnesota (8 miles from Rochester).  We were meeting Pauline DeCook, daughter of Naldo Steenhoek.

Naldo was one of Walter's buddies in Company I.  We think he was part of Walter's machine gun crew.  Two or three soldiers carried pieces of the Lewis machine gun and advanced over the top with the purpose of setting it up at some point during the attack on the Germans.

Walter was shot that morning of October 7, 1918 and took shelter in a shallow bomb crater.  Naldo was with Walter as he lay dying that day.  We think they were both tied down by the withering German machine gun fire, coming from their left flank and from in front of them.  No medics could get to Walter; and he died that evening. In 1921, Martin Schadeck, Walter's closest buddy during the war, wrote to Naldo to ask the circumstances in which Walter had died.  Naldo wrote the following letter back to Martin.

First page of original letter from 1921. Below is a transcription of the entire letter.

Private Naldo Steenhoek, Company I, 117th Regiment 30th Division

Naldo's daughter, Pauline, was so gracious to us when we stopped by to spend an afternoon talking about her father and our great-uncle during the Great War. Thanks so much to Pauline.  We intend to stay in touch with her and other members of her family to let them know developments on our film project.

A Documentary Film about World War I

I am working on a documentary telling the story of my Great-Uncle, Walter S. Lindahl, who was killed in action in France during World War I; and the stories of other soldiers who fought in the same region with Walter in the 27th and 30th American Divisions assigned to the British.

Here are a few photos of Walter's past:

Andrew Lindahl Family 1903

(L.to R.- Walter, George, Andrew, Agnes Hildegarde, Jenny, Josephine, Theresa)

Walter S. Lindahl (1894-1918)

Walter's McGuffey Reader

This is a page from the reader:                                                                              

Walter at dinner with family and friends

Map of France with Hindenberg Line and arrow pointing location of Walter's last battle

Walter's watch returned to his family after his death. Portrait of his mother.