City of Gold (1957 film)

City of Gold is a 1957 Canadian documentary film by Colin Low and Wolf Koenig, chronicling Dawson City during the Klondike Gold Rush.  The film is narrated by Pierre Berton and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. 

Production
City of Gold made innovative use of archival photos, combining narration, music and camera movements to bring drama to these still images.  Its innovative use of still photography in this manner has been cited by Ken Burns as an inspiration for the so-called Ken Burns effect. 

The film grew out of an earlier 1952 idea to promote tourism and sport in Yukon.  In researching the film, Low and Koenig found some still photos in an Ottawa archive and tried to improve the panning method Low had employed on his 1955 visual arts documentary, Jolifou Inn.  Low then discovered a much larger set of archival images of the Yukon Gold Rush, from photographer Eric A. Hegg's collection at the University of Washington in Seattle.  The problem of how to animate the images via camera movement prior to the invention of computer-assisted animation cameras was resolved by Kroitor, who enlisted British mathematician Brian Salt to devise mathematical tables, and developed a device dubbed the 'Kroitorer' that allowed one to take single photos of the archival images as if photographing real-life scenes with a hand-held camera. 

Awards
The film won the Palme d'or for best short film at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, was named film of the year at the 10th Canadian Film Awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award. 

References

External links
 
 Watch City of Gold at NFB.ca

Category:1957 films
Category:Canadian films
Category:English-language films
Category:Dawson City
Category:Documentary films about cities
Category:Films directed by Colin Low (filmmaker)
Category:Documentary films about historical events
Category:Klondike Gold Rush in fiction
Category:National Film Board of Canada documentaries
Category:Canadian short documentary films
Category:Short Film Palme d'Or winners
Category:Films set in Yukon
Category:Pierre Berton
Category:1950s documentary films
Category:Films scored by Eldon Rathburn
Category:Films produced by Tom Daly
Category:Animated documentary films
Category:1957 animated films
Category:Canadian animated short films
Category:National Film Board of Canada animated short films
Category:1950s animated short films