With the United States’ 250th birthday, the documentary filmmakers of Declarations: Black Americans and the Revolutionary War turned to modern technology to reclaim history.
Director Stacey Holman and her co-writer/fellow director Maya Tepler explained why chose to use generative AI to “give our historical subjects agency” and how they hope this documentary, premiering June 29 at 10pm ET on PBS, “will serve as a blueprint” for how to responsibly use the technology.
“How do you create a historical documentary centered on the disenfranchised, disregarded, and decentered? As documentary filmmakers, our options have always been limited,” they wrote in an essay for PBS. “The typical route has been archival materials. Archive is often a primary visual tool, but in the case of storytelling centered on historical Black narratives, archive is both limited and limiting.
“Portrayals of Black-centered narratives in early American art are few and far between. And the ones that do exist were faceless in fields, or caricatured — displayed as subservient property. In Declarations: Black Americans and the Revolutionary War, we knew we wanted to give our historical subjects agency on visual terms, as never seen before. In doing so, we aim to be a part of a long lineage of artists reclaiming and reshaping Black narratives,” Holman and Tepler added.
Declarations: Black Americans and the Revolutionary War follows the stories of four Black Americans as they navigate our country’s fight for independence and their individual pursuits of freedom, including James Lafayette, Harry Washington, Elizabeth Freeman and Abraham Peyton Skipwith.
Noting they “wanted to have animations” and “explore new technology to help us bring these stories to life,” Holman and Tepler enlisted artist and researcher Hudson Campbell, who made oil paintings of four historical subjects “rooted in accurate historical context” and “based on actual portraiture.”
“He then used AI tools to animate these portraits, preserving his artistic style while bringing the characters to life,” they explained. “Even for the animations and still images that do not feature the faces of our historical subjects, with time, the programs our animator used generated imagery centered on his own style and artistic vision.”
Campbell’s work was proved by the doc’s creative team and expert historical advisors: Colonial Williamsburg historical re-enactor and staff member Stephen Seals, professor and National Humanities Medal recipient Dr. Ed Ayers, and Oscar-nominated and Emmy-award-winning doc filmmaker Sam Pollard.
“We hope that this work will serve as a blueprint for how to use generative AI as a tool, while still being artist-centric, historically accurate, and in line with ethical storytelling practices,” added Holman and Tepler.
Declarations is not the first historical documentary on the Revolutionary War to use genAI, after Darren Aronofsky’s AI studio Primordial Soup and Time Magazine released the animated short-form series On This Day… 1776 in January via YouTube
