@article{735c9909e52d4017936bdb3eff03c1b3,
title = "Nature and the wonders of the moving image: John Ott{\textquoteright}s postwar popular science filmmaking",
abstract = "This article sheds light on the films of a now-obscure popular science filmmaker named John Ott who was widely known in the 1950s for making time-lapse films about plant life that intersected with everything in postwar America from Walt Disney{\textquoteright}s animations to computer science and natural theology. Drawing on original archival research, I show how Ott used the spectacle of nature to cultivate popular interest in the innovative automated moving-image techniques and technologies he developed to photograph the secrets of nature. In the process, I consider how Ott reanimated early cinematic aesthetic, exhibition, and reception practices that invite us to see the popular science film as a genre that is as much about exploring the nature and possibilities of new moving-image forms as it is about science education.",
keywords = "Animation, Automation, Disney, Natural history, Popular science, Time-lapse photography",
author = "Colin Williamson",
note = "Funding Information: I am very grateful to Greg Waller, Julie Lavelle, and an anonymous reviewer for their generous feedback on an early draft of this article. For assisting with my archival research, I would also like to thank Rachel Ramirez and the staff at the Winnetka Historical Society, and Cindy Brightenberg at the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University. My research on Ott was supported by a fellowship at the Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. For that opportunity and the feedback that I received there, I want to thank William Galperin, Henry Turner, and the fellows who participated in the 2016–17 Arts and Aesthetics seminar. A version of this article was presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference in Seattle, WA, March 19–23, 2014. Funding Information: Colin Williamson is assistant professor of cinema studies and American studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He also serves on the Executive Committee of Domitor, the International Society for the Study of Early Cinema, and as Reviews Editor for animation: an interdisciplinary journal (ANM). His research focuses on early animation, special effects, science and the cinema, and film theory. He is the author of Hidden in Plain Sight: An Archaeology of Magic and the Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2015) and has published articles and essays in such edited collections and journals as Thinking in the Dark: Cinema, Theory, Practice (Rutgers University Press, 2016), ANM, Leonardo, The Moving Image, and Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies. His research has been supported by fellowships and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Rutgers University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in cinema and media studies from the University of Chicago. Publisher Copyright: Copyright {\textcopyright} 2019 Trustees of Indiana University.",
year = "2019",
doi = "10.2979/filmhistory.31.3.02",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "31",
pages = "27--54",
journal = "Film History: An International Journal",
issn = "0892-2160",
publisher = "Indiana University Press",
number = "3",
}