Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Case Study No. 1821: Staff of the New York Public Library's Milstein Division

NYPL Milstein Suspense Trailer
2:42
History has secrets, but secrets don't stay hidden if you know where to look. What will you find? Find out more about this video: http://bit.ly/wB2wnG
Tags: movie trailer suspense movie mystery New York Public Library library movie library trailer NYPL detective research ancestry genealogy family history
Added: 2 years ago
From: NewYorkPublicLibrary
Views: 25,392

The following preview has been approved for
All Audiences
by the New York Public Library

The film advertised has been rated
R for Research
All ages welcome
Information dissemination, knowledge and reference librarians

[scene opens with various exterior shots of the New York Public Library, as dramatic music plays]
NARRATOR: History has secrets ...
FEMALE VOICE: [whispers] Know the past, find the future ...
[cut to a young man wearing a trench coat and a fedora, as he enters the library]
NARRATOR: But secrets don't stay hidden ... if you know where to look.
[the man walks into the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy]
[cut to what appears to be the man's POV, as a young female librarian at the front desk stands up and smiles]
[cut to the man, as he smiles back ... but then he turns and stares at something off camera with a shocked look on his face]
NARRATOR: You just have to go there.
[he takes off his fedora, seemingly transfixed in awe, as the camera pans around to who several patrons and staff members milling about the room]
[cut to a male librarian helping two female patrons at one of the tables]
[cut to an overhead view of the various tables in the room]
[cut to a man and woman looking over a book at another table]
FEMALE VOICE: [whispers] Know the past, find the future ...
[cut to the man seated at a table, opening a large book as the dramatic music continues to swell]
[cut to the man walking through the stacks]
[cut to a young female library worker placing a book on his table, as the man looks up from his laptop and smiles at her]
[cut to the man flipping through an old card catalog]
[cut to a closeup of the book "The Confederate Soldier in the Civil War"]
[cut to the man pulling a book from one of the shelves]
[cut to the man flipping through old postcards]
[cut to the man writing in his notebook ("Otis Parkinson, coroner's inquisition")]
[cut to the man closing a copy of "Now" Magazine, as he looks up dramatically]
MAN: There's so much information ...
WOMAN: [from off camera] More than just New York ...
[he looks up to see a woman by the bookshelves, then someone walks past the camera and (by the time he's out of frame) she has disappeared, here words still echoing through the room]
[cut to more magazines piled up in front of him ("Oregon Historical Quarterly", "The Historical Society of Pennsylvania", etc.)]
[cut to the man looking at an old map]
NARRATOR: The tools are there for you ...
[cut to the man opening his laptop and typing in the New York Public Library's URL]
NARRATOR: Old meet new ...
[cut to a closeup of an article on the library's homepage ("Genealogy Research Tips: Breaking Through Brick Walls and Getting Past Dead Ends")]
NARRATOR: Books and technology ...
[cut to various images brought up from the library's article database]
NARRATOR: They will point to the answers.
[cut to the man looking up from his laptop, apparently unaware that a man and woman dressed in Civil War-era attire are standing behind him]
MAN: I never knew that about my family ...
[cut to the man walking through the stacks again]
[cut to the man circling an article in his copy of "Now" Magazine ("January 27 at 3:15 p.m. (also March 30), Clues from Family Photos")]
[cut to the man using his cell phone to take a picture of an old map, when he looks up dramatically]
MAN: The past ... It's here.
[the screen suddenly goes black and the music stops, then cut to a male librarian looking up at something off camera, as the sound of a beating heart can be heard]
[cut to the man looking at something off camera]
[cut to a shot of the stacks]
[cut to an exterior shot of the library, as one of the stone lions is covered in snow]
[the beating heart stops, then "What Will You Find?" appears on screen]

The Irma and Paul
Milstein Division
of United States History
Local History
& Genealogy

The New York Public Library presents
The Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy

Starring
Ronan Babbitt
Sachiko Clayton
James Dewar
Sarah Harshman
Carmen Nigro
Katherine Rissetto
Philip Sutton
Antonio Vasquez
Leer Leary

Producers
Matt Binetti
David Eisenberg
Tony Nigro

Original Music by
Jonathan Wohl

Assistant Camera
Tim Trotman

Production Assistant
Allison Moser

Costume Designer
Kaela Wohl

Editor
Tony Nigro

Director of Photography
Jaron Berman

Executive Producers
Maira Liriano
Carmen Nigro

Written by
Carmen Nigro
Tony Nigro

Directed by
David Eisenberg

Additional Music
"O Fortuna" by MIT Concert Choir (mit dot edu)
"Devastation and Revenge" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech dot com)
Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license

Follow us
@NYPLMilstein
facebook dot com slash NYPL.Milstein

---

From nypl.org:

The Library's Milstein Division staff are very excited to present a movie trailer-style promotional video, which debuted this week on YouTube. We've loved the videos that other NYPL divisions and neighborhood libraries have made - especially Jefferson Market Library's Haunted Library video - and were inspired to make our own. After writing the script, we contacted some great people in the film and television industry, and they were willing to help us out.

Our hero, played by actor Ronan Babbitt, uses several Library resources to help him discover his family secrets. We first see him receive Library materials from our page, Sarah, which means he filled in a call slip after consulting the Library's catalog. Our hero then flips through the card catalog drawers. Since we no longer use the old card catalog drawers for our collections, what you will find here are three sets of indexes: one for coats of arms, one for images of passenger ships, and one of New York City illustrations.

Our hero also uses many of the Library's visual collections and ephemera, including postcards, New York City clippings files, and the Scrapbook of Original U.S. Army Shoulder Patches. He makes a note to look for a Coroner's Inquisition. (Coroner's inquisitions were conducted in cases when a person met a sudden, violent, unnatural or suspicious death.) Some of the interesting books that our hero consults include Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, The Confederate Soldier in the Civil War and books on heraldry.

We see that he has picked up the latest issue of NOW, the Library's guide to NYPL programs, classes, and events, and he circles the class description for Clues From Family Photos so that he will remember to attend.

Our hero consults many of the Library's online resources, including the Genealogy Research Tips: Breaking Through Brick Walls and Getting Past Dead Ends post from the Milstein blog channel. He uses Fold3 to view images of the Vietnam War and Matthew Brady's Civil War photos, Ancestry Library Edition to check out the U.S. Naturalization Index, and HeritageQuest to search people in PERSI. His search in PERSI must have been a success since we see him reference several genealogy and local history periodicals, including Pennsylvania Legacies, Kentucky Ancestors, Oregon Historical Quarterly, and The Genealogists' Magazine.

Genealogy and history research is detective work. Researchers are often trying to solve a mystery, and everyone's mystery is different. What will you find?

No comments:

Post a Comment