Heritage Pacific
Archaeological and Cultural Consultation
Ethnographic Media Production
Winnemem Wintu Elders (Photo: Portland IMC)
Yurok Storyteller (Photo: L. Mingdale)
Heritage Pacific specializes in the production of low-cost cultural and
historical documentaries and websites. We offer our services as
anthropological filmmakers and web-designers for your needs in
documenting, preparing, and distributing archaeological, ethnographic,
and historical research. Our media can be used in education, advocacy,
in contractual meetings, and advertising.
Our ethnographically trained cinematographers can interview locals and
elders, edit the interviews with site visitations and archival footage,
and produce DVDs for private, corporate, or public use. We can also
develop educational webpages for use in schools or on the web that
integrates interviews, GIS maps, and archival pictures into an
interactive experience.
There are several different ways in which you can use film and digital
media to create National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) compliant
public education. For example, you are conducting a medium sized
excavation. Our trained media anthropologists could come during the
first week of the excavation and interview the archaeologist about the
site's historic background. We would then schedule a date to accompany
the archaeologist on an ethnographic interview. We would revisit the
site at the end of the excavation to film the units and re-interview the
archaeologists to find out what they learned about the site's history.
With only five days on site we could collect enough material to produce
a short documentary for schools or to visually explain to contracting
officers the work performed. Using GIS technology, we can also transform
this data into interactive websites.
Another example might include a Traditional Cultural Property
assessment. Oftentimes collecting information for a Traditional Cultural
Property assessment requires interviewing tribal elders and consulting
historic maps. A lasting record of such important interviews can only be
produced with film. Documentary films are an ideal way to express the
value of TCPs because tribal elders can speak for themselves directly to
an audience. We will edit the interview into an educational documentary
or integrate the video footage with GIS maps and create an ethnographic
database connecting elders' statements to mapped sites.
If you prefer to undertake this work within your community or agengy,
Heritage Pacific can train tribal members and federal land managers how
to use produce their own documentaries. We work in collaboration with
our informants during the editing process. We will help you design and
implement the ideal distribution plan for your documentary films and
websites.