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Around the World in 30 Years
by Kate Smyres
It took 14 years and 200,000 workers to build Beijing's Forbidden City; it took another 500 years to open the Imperial Palace concealed within the wall that surrounds the gugong to the public. Six hundred years after its completion, HBO Archives can bring you China's ancient city in a single afternoon. The Gate of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Inner Golden River Bridge, and the Meridian Gate are all part of our collection on this eminent city within a city.
But maybe what you need, instead, are shots of the Cathedral of the Annunciation or Red Square and the Kremlin nearly 4,000 miles northwest in Moscow. Or, perhaps you're looking for a something that aptly illustrates the influences of western culture on Russia's youth? Our footage of teenage kids in baggy jeans and sneakers skateboarding around Oktyabrskaya Square might do the trick.
HBO Archives has been gathering original scenic footage for over 30 years and has an abundant collection of unique and arresting locales from around the world shot by the industry's top cinematographers and videographers. We are in the process of cultivating the very best material in this extensive library.
Six years after the Berlin Wall came down, HBO sent a team to the city to document the streets and people to see how it was getting along. On a cold winter's day, the crew set about filming the bits of the Wall that still remain, now known as the East Side Gallery. They captured a peasant woman near the area playing an antiquated hand-crank organ for spare change from passersby, as well as the Berlin Cathedral, the Artes Museum and a little band setting up alongside a busy marketplace.
While on a trip to Cuba, our crew visited Castillo del Morro, the island's 400 year-old garrison fort that, along with guarding the bay, was a prison and tomb for Cuban patriots in the 19th century. From the castle's hilltop, they collected picturesque views of Havana's vivid harbor and skyline. We also have excellent interior images in and around the city that depict the various types of architecture throughout its public and private sectors.
Moving northward 60 or so miles, our teams have also spent time amassing a good bit of striking material from Miami's "Little Havana" and across Florida up along the soft white sands and tropical aqua waters of the Gulf coast. And while in Hawaii, we sent the cameraman underwater to film tropical fish and coral. He even caught a glimpse of a multi-colored Humuhumunukunikuapua, the official indigenous state fish.
We have scenic film and video from all across the United States too: from the desert city of Phoenix to small-town Wyoming to the muddy Mississippi River in St. Louis clear on down to Memphis and New Orleans; to New York and Boston and Chicago and Pittsburgh and Dallas and Los Angeles, our crews have been everywhere, shooting metropolitan symbols of prosperity and power as well as the clustered ghettos along their outskirts and everything imaginable in between magnifying the disparities within those worlds.
So when you find yourself wondering where you can find a great shot of a British castle or a woman selling prawns from her stand in an open-air Barcelona market or a surreal African sunset, send us an e-mail, a fax or give us a call and we'll research your request - and have the reel in your hands before you can say "Humuhumunukunikuapua."
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