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Story Subject Category: Literature
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Segment duration: 2:51
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Producer: Eleanore Stasheff
Chief Camera - Segment: David Noreen
This segment is filed in these categories: Food/Restaurants • Literature • University of Illinois
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Tim Hartin and I got to know Carl Sandburg while working on WILL-TV’s “The Song and the Slogan.” For that production we had interviewed his only surviving daughter, Helga, at her father’s birthplace in Galesburg. But the interview just didn’t seem to fit into that production. When we decided to produce a “Prairie Poets Special” for Prairie Fire, we knew it was our chance to use the footage with Helga. It was also a chance to give viewers another opportunity to visit the state’s wonderful museum in Galesburg. The museum gives you the opportunity to experience the many faces of Sandburg, from newspaper boy and socialist organizer to poet and folk singer. It is a place you should certainly see for yourself.
Segment duration: 05:11
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Producer: Alison Davis Wood
This segment is filed in these categories: Arts/Culture • Illinois Culture/History • Literature
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My mom first taught me about Vachel Lindsay. On the wall in her bedroom she had autographed copy of one of his poems. It originally belonged to my grandmother. It was a present from her teacher upon her 8th grade graduation. The teacher had asked Lindsay to sign poems for the entire class and he had graciously obliged. It was a treasured possession in our house and a reminder of another famous man from my hometown. It inspired me to learn more about Lindsay’s poetry and his life in central Illinois. I learned that my grandmother had another connection to Lindsay. She had Susan Wilcox as an English teacher at Springfield High School, the same teacher who was a great influence on Lindsay’s life.
When the state beautifully restored Lindsay’s home, I knew it was time to put my interest in Lindsay to tape and produce a story on him for Prairie Fire. The story was even more fun to do because I got to interview Jennie Battles. I first met Jennie when I was planning my wedding and she worked at the Old State Capitol. Her love of Springfield and Illinois history is infectious. Her tours of the Lindsay home are so incredible that you feel the Lindsay family’s presence in every room. It is something you have to experience for yourself.
Segment duration: 08:46
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Producer: Alison Davis Wood
This segment is filed in these categories: Arts/Culture • Illinois Culture/History • Literature • Springfield
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I was first introduced to Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology when I was 9 years old. My parents were both theater majors and one summer decided to teach an acting class to elementary school children. Each student had to perform a different poem from Spoon River Anthology – mine was “Emily Sparks.” Several years later I was cast in the Spoon River Anthology play at my high school. I have grown up reading and re-reading the poems of Spoon River, but it wasn’t until I decided to do a Prairie Fire segment on Edgar Lee Masters and the Spoon River Valley that I really learned about the life of the Spoon River poet. Primarily famous for his best selling anthology, Edgar Lee Masters was a prolific poet and eccentric personality who suffered great tragedy in his youth and whose boundless curiosity and creativity eventually produced the more than 250 epitaphs in Spoon River Anthology.
Setting out to do something different
When I set out to film this segment, I decided I wanted to do something different from the Prairie Fire pieces I had done before. Having actors performing a selection of the Spoon River poems and weaving performance with biography was definitely different and proved to be very challenging as both a producer and editor. As I usually do when I get obsessive about a subject I’m doing a Prairie Fire segment on, I read as many books as I could about Masters, including “Illinois Poems” and his autobiography “Across Spoon River.” I spent three months doing research on him and had great difficulty in figuring out how to condense and incorporate the biographical information into the piece. So ask me anything about Edgar Lee Masters and I can probably give you a four-minute or longer answer. Saddy, it’s a talent I only find useful at poetry parties.
At the cemeteries
There were four different film shoots. The first was mostly spent getting B-roll of the towns in the Spoon River Valley during the annual Spoon River Drive in early October. I also spent that day combing the two most famous cemeteries that inspired Masters – the Oakland Cemetery in Petersburg and the Oak Hill Cemetery in Lewistown – and let me tell you, it’s really hard to find a specific tombstone in a big cemetery when you have no clue where it is! Eventually I got a map and that helped a lot. The second film shoot was filming the Edgar Lee Master’s Memorial Museum in Petersburg, and the interview with Museum custodian David Edwards. The fourth film shoot was spent on pick up shots at the museum during their Winter Open House, and an interview with James Michael Pisel, a board member of the museum whose interview was not able to be used due to time constraints (alas! I’ll use it somewhere, some how).
The primary shoot
The third shoot was, of course, the primary shoot in Oakland Cemetery where six actors and seven crew members filmed the poems and a variety of wonderful footage. Five of the six actors are related (the “Clan” MacLeod) which made it rather fun, and the sixth was an actress from the Chicago area. Everyone seemed to have a great time that day. Mary Stasheff did a fantastic last-minute job with the costumes, hair, and makeup, and Brian Paris, Shane Pangburn, Virginia Steffen, and David Noreen all did a wonderful job behind the camera, providing me with an editor’s dream of rich and varied shots.
Rain holds off
The weather forecast said it would be raining all day, and we almost canceled the shoot at the last minute, but decided to go ahead with it and film whatever we could before the rain hit. However, the sun rose on a gorgeous morning – sunny and bright with a vivid autumn blue sky. We filmed all the poems in the morning, then broke for lunch around 1 p.m. and by 2 p.m., we continued filming the cemetery B-roll with three cameras and crews shooting simultaneously in different areas of the cemetery. The storm clouds moved in and we were able to get gloomy, “ghosting” shots as the sky became increasingly darker. We wrapped shooting by 4 p.m. and just after we had finished loading all the equipment into the vans, the rain hit and quickly became a downpour. That film shoot is one that I will always remember.
Segment duration: 12:03
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Producer: Eleanore Stasheff
This segment is filed in these categories: Arts/Culture • Literature
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Prairie Fire features a conversation with poet Michael Van Walleghen, a University of Illinois English professor who’s been called a “pure Midwestern voice.”
Host Alison Davis talks with Van Walleghen about the process of writing poetry and about where he gets the inspiration for his work. Davis said Van Walleghen’s style is straightforward, yet he sometimes deals with metaphysical subject matter. His poetry “doesn’t gloss over the grim details of life. He’s a realist,” she said.
“A lot of people may not realize that we have nationally recognized poets in this area,” said Davis. Three of Van Walleghen’s books have been published by the University of Illinois Press.
Segment duration: 10:33
Producer: Alison Davis
This segment is filed in these categories: Arts/Culture • Literature
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Prairie Fire looks at some of the most valuable items in the University of Illinois Library collection. The items, then on display at the Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion, include James Jones’ heavily hand-edited typescript of “From Here to Eternity,” the H.G. Wells and Carl Sandburg collections, and original photographs from the 1936 Olympics by controversial German photographer Leni Reifenstahl.
Segment duration: 08:57
Producer: Alison Davis
This segment is filed in these categories: Arts/Culture • History • Libraries/Museums/Cultural Centers • Literature • University of Illinois • Champaign • Champaign County • University of Illinois • Urbana
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Segment duration: 11:45
Producer: Leslie Epperson
This segment is filed in these categories: Arts/Culture • Landscape • Literature
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This segment was produced by South Carolina Educational TV for its program “2750.” They were gracious to let us air this segment on Prairie Fire.
Segment duration: 08:10
Producer: South Carolina Educational TV
This segment is filed in these categories: Literature • Travel
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