Production Information
This production is an 83 minute monologue featuring Devarnie Lothian as Frederick Douglass in the autumn of 1844, some 6 years after he managed to escape his master Hugh Auld in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
The script is entirely based on the words he wrote that made up his first autobiography which was published to great acclaim and much success in the spring of 1845.
His book was written while staying at his first residence in the industrious town of Lynn, Massachusetts not far north of Boston, during his early years as an Abolitionist, in association with his mentor Mr. William Garrison
In the production, Frederick recalls his life on the plantation of Colonel Lloyd where, as a child slave, he witnessed his first acts of wanton cruelty.
He recalls his time also in Baltimore where he managed to learn how to read, and then write, under difficult circumstances. It is a first hand account of the barbarism of enslavement that had been enacted throughout the South for over 300 years.
The production ends with Frederick orating, as we imagine he might have done, while away in Ireland and the United Kingdom to avoid being kidnapped and dragged back to Maryland and enslavement.
As the script has been religiously adopted from Fredericks autobiography there are a number of instances where the dreaded ’N’ word is spoken.
The production was filmed in 4K and recorded in DNxHR HQX 10 bit 4.2.2 with 2 SONY AS7S Mk III’s DSLR Cameras using Carl Zeiss Loxia Prime lenses of varying focal length. Rendered for QC testing in Apple Prores HQ 4.2.2 10bit. Blackmagic Design Davinchi Resolve for Editing and Grading.
Audio equipment used was a ZOOM F8 Field recorder and mixing unit, two Sennheiser wireless microphones and three Rode condenser microphones.
All scenes were shot in a Green Screen environment at 3rd Strike Films studio in Witney, Oxfordshire, England