Author
- Kang Seong-hyeon (HK Assistant Professor, Institute for East Asian Studies, Sungkonghoe University / Director, Center for Cold War and Peace)
Special Section in Yeoksa Munje Yeongu 47 (March 2022): Korean War Footage and Ideological-Psychological Warfare
Abstract
Based on the results of recent large-scale audiovisual collection projects, collaborative teams and cumulative practices of survey, research, and archiving have steadily taken shape. This article builds on that foundation to propose a methodology for studying Korean War footage and to offer an example of the kind of research-oriented annotation that scholarly and public audiovisual archives should provide.
Film footage is a historical source through which historical facts can be reconstructed by cross-reading related documents, photographs, and oral testimony. Above all, moving images can faithfully convey the atmosphere of a period in ways that written description or oral narration alone often cannot. Research on footage therefore requires analysis of the people, objects, places, dates, sounds, backgrounds, narrative framing, and unfolding events contained in the image. On that basis, this article approaches footage through both its technical elements and its historical and social context. More specifically, it proposes a methodology for Korean War footage research by integrating questions of production, intention, subject matter, filming methods, and technology, while also reflecting on the gap between visualized representation and historical reality.
Such work requires careful cataloging and description of audiovisual metadata from the moment of collection, as well as cross-analysis with published scholarship and related documents, photographs, and oral sources in order to reconstruct the military, social, and historical context of the footage. As an example, this article presents full research annotations for two U.S. Army footage records: a film concerning Mo Yun-suk’s wartime experience (RG 111 ADC8517), shot by the motion-picture team of A Company, 71st Signal Battalion, and footage related to the Geoje POW Camp Olympics (RG 111 LC-29589).