Robert J. Flaherty’s Film Stock

Origin
Robert Flaherty first became interested by the indigenous Inuit culture when his boss asked Flaherty to film as they completed railroad construction. He spent so much time observing that he neglected his actual duties, returning to Toronto with 30,000 feet of nitrate film. Unfortunately, a stray cigarette lit the recordings on fire, burning the footage and his hands. The surviving work he edited together was an offensive bore to the majesty he witnessed, so he set about making a new film.

Staying with an Inuit family, he filmed their community’s exercises as Nanook of the North. To great reviews, Flaherty began making the first documentaries to recapture his tone. He traveled to the South Seas, Ireland, and American bayou to show how native people managed to thrive in such challenging areas, even if he did not always represent their current standards of living accurately.

Effects
Depicts the ethnographic culture of any people that fancies the user’s interests. Not completely reliable for accuracy, as it will inflate some rituals to look more spectacular or modernized. Using also slowly burns away more of the roll, making the effect more vivid and engrossing but briefer after each use.