The Photo-Drama of Creation
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The Photo-Drama of Creation, or Creation-Drama was a religious film (4 parts, altogether 8 hours) produced under the direction of Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the Bible Student movement. Production began as early as 1912, and the Drama was introduced in 1914 by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. It has the distinction of being the first major screenplay to incorporate synchronized sound, moving film, and color slides.[1][2] A book by the same name was also published in 1914, and contained representative slide images with a page of accompanying text explaining Russell's beliefs regarding the chronological progression of God's plan from the creation of the earth through to the end of the 1,000 year reign of Christ.[3][4][5]
The presentation premiered in January 1914 in New York, and in the summer of 1914 in Germany. In North America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia, over 9,000,000 people saw either the full "Photo-Drama" or its abbreviated version called the Eureka-Drama.[1][2]
Combination shows of magic lantern slides and movies were common in this period, but the addition of recorded speech was unusual, and the magnitude of its distribution and for a single religious production was particularly notable. At the times, the project's full cost was estimated at about $300,000[6][7][8] (US$6 million in 2007).
[edit] References
- ^ a b IMDB article "Photo-Drama of Creation (1914), IMDB article "Trivia", Retrieved 2009-04-15
- ^ a b American Movie Classics, "Timeline of Influential Milestones...1910s", Retrieved 2009-04-15
- ^ "Israel and Jordan", 1980 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 215
- ^ "Romania", 2006 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 78
- ^ "Responding to Godly Training from Infancy", The Watchtower, August 1, 1972, page 476
- ^ "United States of America", 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 59, "A fortune for those days—some $300,000—was spent by the Society in producing the Photo-Drama."
- ^ "Society Uses Many Means to Expand Preaching", Centennial of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennyslvania 1884-1984, page 24, "The Photo-Drama presented the explanation of Bible truth from the time of creation, the fall into sin, the promises of God to redeem man and His dealings through history until the millennial restitution. It is believed to have been viewed by more than 9,000,000 people throughout North America and Europe, as well as many others in places around the world. It took two years and $300,000 to complete the project, many of the scenes being hand colored. Yet admission was free and no collections were taken."
- ^ The Warning Work (1909-1914)", The Watchtower, March 1, 1955, page 143, "To demonstrate further that these united students and workers did not believe the prophetic year of 1914 would end all their operations with respect to this earth, from 1912 to the beginning of 1914 the Watch Tower Society spent a fortune (over $300,000) in preparing the Photo-Drama of Creation, to spread Bible knowledge to the masses of people during and after 1914."
[edit] External links
- RealMedia: "The Photo-Drama of Creation"
- Pastor Russell´s ministry
- Photo-Drama from the Bible Students
- Scanned PDF of original book version of Photo Drama of Creation
- Full Photo-Drama available on two DVDs
[edit] Further reading
- Richard Alan Nelson, “Propaganda for God: Pastor Charles Taze Russell and the Multi-Media Photo-Drama of Creation (1914),” in Roland Cosandey, André Gaudreault, and Tom Gunning, editors, Une Invention du diable? Cinéma des premiers temps et religion - An Invention of the Devil? Religion and Early Cinema, Sainte-Foy, Québec, Canada: Les Presses de l’Université Laval & Lausanne, Suisse: Éditions Payot Lausanne, 1992, 230-255; ISBN 2-7637-7300-1.
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