J. Aubrey Smith "Filming Insects" papers


Descriptive Summary
Title: J. Aubrey Smith "Filming Insects" papers
Creator: Smith, J. Aubrey (James Aubrey), 1902-2004
Inclusive Dates: 1952-1970
Language(s): English
Extent: 0.5 Linear Feet (1 box)
Collection Number: UA08-007
Repository: University of Georgia Archives

Collection Description

Biographical/historical note

James Aubrey Smith (1902-2004) worked as a filmmaker with the University of Georgia College of Agriculture's Cooperative Extension Service for nearly three decades. During that time, he produced films on subjects from ant extermination to the making of clothes for teenagers, from 4-H camps to Georgia pine. He began his career as a filmmaker with the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1934, and worked for TVA until 1942. In 1943, he went to work for the Extension Service. Films would make a critical contribution to the Extension Service's work. Smith's Extension Service films were loaned out free of charge, sent to county agents for screenings in schools, 4-H clubs and other organizations. Knowing his audience to be farmers and their families, Smith often used those families in dramatizations, conveying information in story form. Despite his fundamentally practical subject matter, Smith was also concerned with his films' aesthetics: for example, he built his own time-lapse camera for special effects. One colleague recalled standing in a cotton field in Polk County with Smith, because the filmmaker insisted on waiting until the clouds in the shot were perfect. Smith-whose work eventually took him to every single county in the state-remained with the Extension Service until retiring in 1971.

Scope and Content

The collection consists of notes, drafts, photographs and a full layout copy of the proposed work "Filming Insects." In addition there are travel notebooks, an interesting 1962 brochure on burials in Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona, and Smith's annotated copy of a 1970 workshop on film production sponsored by Calvin Communications, Inc., in Kansas City, Missouri and a 1952 illustrated booklet "Hyperclose-up Photograph with the Exakta" produced by the Exacta Camera Company of New York City.

Administrative Information

Preferred citation

J. Aubrey Smith "Filming Insects" papers, UA08-007, University Archives, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, The University of Georgia Libraries.