Standing by.

Ready and action.

That's a cut.

I'm Mary Jemison.

And it's one of the famous captive stories.

Well, as you can see, things are a little different tonight.

You just saw a battle scene from The War That Made America.

And now you're looking inside.

Live at the WQED studios at a preview celebration where supporters of this major national documentary are getting ready to watch in advance screening.

Good evening, and welcome to OnQ magazine.

I'm Stacy Smith, and boy, what a party we have going on here tonight for the preview party of The War That Made America.

We are on the second floor on the balcony level overlooking the screening room and also the TV studios.

And we have a lot of guests here tonight, probably close to 600.

And they are here for one reason.

And that's because next week we're going to show the premiere of The War That Made America.

I'm going to give you the dates and the times right now.

It's next Wednesday night at 7:00 and excuse me at 9:00.

That's January the 18th for The War That Made America.

It's a week from tonight, and that's part one.

And then part two will be airing the following Wednesday, January the 25th at 9 p.m.. I have with me now George Miles, who's president of WQED.

No no, no.

Oh, I thought you all look alike.

No no no no no.

They told me George was going to come on, this is Chris Moore.

How are you doing?

You are the new president of WQED.

Congratulations, I know just what George Miles, pulls everything out, and we're sail along smoothly.

Then I get to be present.

Exactly.

All this hard work.

But anyway, that's good.

Chris is here and this is one heck of a party.

It is for a very good reason.

For a very good reason.

It's a major national premiere and this project has been worked on very hard.

Its shot right here in western Pennsylvania.

And it's the history of America and how America actually began.

All right.

It's super duper.

We're going to get George Miles in here now so we can.

You know what I like to, you know.

Oh, he said that.

Okay, okay.

My back was turned.

You know, this is this is this is WQED, not KDKA.

I know, I know that, and you are a little taller than Chris.

Yeah, exactly.

wider too.

As I was telling Chris, this is one heck of an event tonight, and it's this this is a major documentary that WQED is.

It's a really a it is a major documentary, not only a documentary about this region, but it is.

This documentary will be aired on every public television station in the country.

And after this, airs in public stations around the country.

We're going to probably air international because this the French and Indian war, The War That Made Americans we called it was the First World War.

So we will get other countries to have this program.

And what makes it so significant for here in Pittsburgh is that the war started in this, area.

You know, crazy.

I say to everyone that I talk to groups that we talk about, you know, the war, the something what started America.

It started here right here at the Fort in the Ohio.

That's what's so significant.

The people in this community should be very proud that we have something America would not be America if it wasnt about Pittsburgh and where we are tonight.

That's what's so exciting.

And we were able and the story that that was being told is not told in a traditional PBS style.

We have somebody sitting in the back of a sitting in front of a bookcase talking about a story.

Right.

This story is really a drama that's really aired, that was filmed right up there in Ligonier.

So we're excited by this, and it's done in a unique way.

And, of course, next week you're going to get a chance to see.

George, I'm not going to keep you from the guest here tonight.

Thank you.

600 or more here.

And, they're going to see the preview tonight of, what is going to be a major documentary.

This, of course.

Thank you.

George, thank you so much.

Okay.

This, of course, is a site of, the, What?

I guess that's what?

Studio A?

That's a studio?

Yes.

Everybody's down to having a good time.

But as George was saying, Stacy, this is a major effort.

And a lot of people don't know that this happened.

First World War.

You know, we look at the point, we look at the fort down there in the outlying, symbol of it and that kind of stuff.

But we don't know the history of it.

And it turns out that general Braddock led an army of more than 1500 men all the way from Maryland here to attack the French and some Indians.

But it was a different kind of war.

You know, the British marched up, right?

And they they met.

You had long nose to nose.

And that was the fight.

Well the Indians said, well, wait a minute, you guys outgunned us.

We'r going to hide behind some trees.

And and it wasn't a good thing.

And especially for Braddock's tactics and how Braddock went about fighting the war, especially when he crossed the Mon.

That's right.

And so let's take a look at another clip from the from the, documentary.

And this is, the death of General Braddock.

And you can see he he really wanted to go out and meet the enemy head on.

But it might not have been the best of tactics.

And you might get back to the fight.

The general's been hurt!

What's left of Braddock's army makes a desperate retreat.

Shocking scenes which presented themselves in this night's march are not to be described.

Five days into the retreat, General Braddock dies of his wounds at an encampment near the Great Meadows.

The brav but unfortunate General Braddock breathed his last Brave but unfortunate.

But the war goes on, and there's a lot more history to tell.

That was, I think, of Genera Washington's personal battle too And I think it was it happened very quickly with him in The end game.

All right.

Good.

All right.

Thank you.

Chris.

Also with us this evening, I'll talk to you in a moment.

All right.

All right.

You got some more clips for.

I'll be back, I got more you got more clips?

Warts.

Tonia Caruso joins us now.

Tonia, this is a major events for this region.

Not just to show the documentary, but for other reasons as well.

Absolutely.

When you look at this documentary, this is also about educatio and tourism, two key components.

Tourism cannot express enough how important many believ this film will be to our region.

And when it comes to education for folks at home, you can log on to our website wqed.org and on our website we will link you to The War That Made America website.

And this is really designed as a tool for teachers to use in their classrooms.

You know, it' very easy to study the Civil War or the American Revolution or any of the world wars because there is film, there are pictures, there are stories that have been written really, when it comes to the French and Indian War, there is not a lot of material out there for teachers to use this when there are so many links that have been set up to promote education in the classroom.

And it's not just in our area.

PBS stations all around the country and schools all around the country are taking part in special workshops so folks can log on.

We encourage educators to go online, download the information online.

You can also contact the station here and find tons of information.

And then what else is better than kids are learning about this?

Kids are learning about this in school, and then they can tour the actual sites in our region.

That's just phenomenal.

And this is an entertaining way to do it.

And I know exactly what you're talking about.

I mean, I remember far back when I was a, you know, in grade school, whatever you learned about Christopher Columbus, you learned about the pilgrims, you learned about this and that.

But the war that made Americ was really kind of glossed over.

We went from there to the Revolutionary War and then the Civil War.

And then you had World War On if you were going to study wars.

But not a lot of attention was paid to the French and Indian War.

Absolutely.

And what a better tool than you teach it in the classroom.

But locally, kids can take field trips, they can go to Fort Necessity, they can go to Fort Ligonier, they can tour museums.

There is so much they can do.

So really, this is not just about QED, celebrating, making a movie.

This is QED celebrating the entire community coming together.

It's tourism.

It's education.

And that's really what we're all about.

Exactly what we're all about.

A lot of people are here, as we've said at the WQED studios, we're going to take another look here.

This is a studio A wher a lot of people have gathered to to watch the preview tonight for The War That Made America, the documentary that will air next, beginning next Wednesday night, and then the following Wednesday on January the 25th.

With me now is a it's Jeff Miller.

Jeff, you this evening.

Good to see with you.

Also, this was a major undertaking that you did.

This is I'm actually the longest running employee, and I've been working on it for four and a half years, so it's been a long time.

So I'm really excited to see it on the screen.

Has this been like a love of yours?

Well, actually, growing up as a kid in outside the Boston area, you're immersed in colonial history.

So unlike your story about an hour of glossing over The War That Made America the French and Indian War does get some prominence in New England.

So as a kid, I always was very much interested in this moment of history.

I grew up four miles from th Battle of Lexington and Concord, where we actually shot the opening of the series on the eve of the Revolution.

We shot it literally 100 yards from the battlefield of, Lexington and Concord.

But when you're growing up in New England, you don't necessarily at tha time, nor do we necessarily here realize how important this region is.

No, not at all.

And that was one of the real driving motivations for me.

Getting involved in this was that this is an opportunity to really tell the the country and the world how important southwestern Pennsylvania is and its role in colonial history.

Now, this was a major undertaking, as we say.

How long did it take?

Well, the total project was about five, five and a half years with a little research and development.

But, you know, the project is much more than a television show.

You've already talked about the website, but we have a companion book that's out.

We have a whole group of educational activities and outreach activities.

We've partnered with ten PBS stations all around the country from Springfield, Massachusetts and Fort Ticonderoga and New York all the way down to Miami, where we're creating classroom activities to try to help change the dialog and let Americans know that it's not just the pilgrims in Jamestown.

And fast forward to the Revolution, but there was a very importan nodal moment of American history that began right here outside of Pittsburgh.

When you were doing this, was there anything that surprised you that you didn't know?

Well, I certainly didn't know the the incredible role that native Americans played as powerbrokers.

You know, the French and Indian War is such a strange name to begin with because nobody really knows who was fighting who.

But what I learned from doing the research was what a pivotal and important role the Native American nations played, even though they eventually sowed the seeds of their own destruction as a result of that.

But that they played such an important role.

And had they not become neutral and not sided with the French and become sided with the English, you and I would be having this interview in French, in French.

Exactly.

We'd be in Montreal or something.

That was just like, we know we'd be in Pittsburgh, but it was.

But it would be but it would be called Duquesne.

And you and I'd be talking i French.

You're absolutely right.

You weave a lot of different stories into this as well.

The one I'm thinking of i we just showed at the beginning, as the clip is as if from a wonderful painting by Robert Griffin called The Taking of Mary Jemison.

Well, that, that, story of Mary Jemison and we have another story of the captive is a very important part of history that very few people know that, you know, it wasn't just men fighting wars, they were camp followers as women.

And from an Indian perspective, they would take captives to replace the souls of the Indians, that of their Indian brethren that they lost.

So we know that the Mary Jemison House is up near Katanning.

So it's really a part of southwestern Pennsylvania as well, and a very important story about women and being taken captive.

Well, it all sounds great.

It sounds interesting.

And I think it's got to be a dynamic, documentary.

And I'm looking forward to seeing the entire program.

We don't call it a documentary.

It's a dramatic documentary because it's, much more than a documentary.

But I thank you very much.

Well, that's something we in news can't do is drama in our documentaries anyway.

Jeff Miller, thank you.

Best of luck to you.

And congratulations on a wonderful dramatic documentary.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Now we're going to take a look at the the times and air dates once again, January the 18th.

On the 25th, right here on WQED, all over PBS across the country.

The War That Made America.

It's going to start at 9:00, Chris.

9:00.

And, as Jeff was saying, the other side effects of this, in addition to being produced here, is that we think it's going to boost local tourism.

And Jeff, really and the entire staff who worked on it played a great deal of attention to detail.

So all the costumes that you see that are portrayed are accurate.

When you go inside one of the buildings that you got, even the rooms, the furniture, all of that.

So let's take a look at a behind the scenes sort of look at the kind of detail that went into the program that we call The War That Made America Fire Standing by, ready and action.

That's a cut.

I'm Mary Jemison, and it's one of the famous captive stories featuring.

One and two and three.

Maybe one.

She had the bundle all wrapped up and ready to go.

I like giving advice to the actors.

For instance, today we had, a woman who was wearing a cradleboard, and it has a strap and a baby in the back, and she's wearing it.

And she was it was so cumbersome, and she just didn't know how to do it.

You keep your your neck and your head straight.

You don' turn your head around like that.

When you turn, you're like, move your hips.

And so I taught her that and I, we, I kind of rehearsed the scene with her and she did it and she got it and it looked great.

She looked like she'd been wearing it for years.

Stacy, that' an example of the kind of detail they had Native American cultural advisors on so that, all the Indian wear was authentic, and, and taken from the actual dress of the people of the time.

It is, it' a fascinating, program to watch.

We've only been able to see parts of it, here.

I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

You've got a couple more clips coming up a little bit later that we're going to talk a little bit more about the attention to detail and the portrayal of Native Americans, too.

All right, Chris, thank you.

We're going to take another look down the down stairs just below us here on the second level at the major preview party that's taking place here for The War That Made American.

When you talk about attentio to detail, if you have ever seen any of his paintings, then you know the kind of detail that he puts into it.

I'm standing now with artist Robert Griffin.

And, he was just commissioned this past year to do a wonderful painting called The Wounding of General Braddock.

That's correct.

And, this is what it's all come to here of the, the, documentary.

That's pretty exciting stuff.

How many paintings have you done on the on the on this time period?

The time period, probably.

I would say around 175 to 180 somewhere now.

And a lot of Robert Griffin's paintings, while he does show some of the French and, and some of the English and the Scots and whomever else were involved in this particular time period, most of your paintings really do deal with Native Americans, and especially the Indians that inhabited this area.

That is correct.

The Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, all the Iroquois tribes.

Yeah.

It's that, we just saw.

Now, this is a particularly interesting painting because when you think of the Indians and the, colonial, colonists here, a lot of times you get the impression that they were always at war, but they weren't always at war with one another.

Not always.

During the French and Indian War time period, you know, when the French, and the English were, struggling to, to get the land, the Indians were faced with a, dire situation.

They had to choose between the French and the English.

And, usually it was whoever was giving the best deals, whoever they went with.

And, it was, it was a troubling time for the even though it was their standard of living was actually better because they had all the trade that was going on at the time.

During the time it was still there was still a lot of stress on their lives.

Their whole lifestyle had changed.

And while we think bac about the French and the English going in war against one another, this also said tribes against one another at times, absolutely, absolutely.

There.

The Iroquois were always, having trouble with the, Catawba and the, Cherokee.

So there were always, problems, amongst themselves.

Along with that, some you'd have certain tribes that would be agreeing to certain English demands and certain English Ideas.

And then other tribes, of course would be, in total opposite, with that.

So, yeah, it was it was a difficult time for them.

Robert Griffin, thank you so much for joining us this evening.

Just so you know that a lot of Robert's paintings were used as at least reference points for, the filming of The War That Made America.

And again, thanks.

thank you, Robert.

Appreciate it.

Once again, the program is going to air January the 18th.

On the 25th begins one week from tonight at 9:00, right here on WQED TV.

Joining me now is County executive Dan Onorato.

Boy, this is almost like one of your campaign fundraisers, isn't it?

You know, I hope so, yes.

That's a great crowd.

And outside, they're lined up all the way down Fifth Avenue.

A lot of people don't realize, how important this region is to American history.

You're right.

Because when you think of Pennsylvania, everybody thinks, first of all, Philadelphia because of the Independence Hall and the founding of the country.

But a lot of those founding battles were out here.

This was the western frontier.

And a lot of those, forts in those those different areas with the battles were fought were preserved.

And they're here right now.

And people are starting to realize we have something here that is old, it's historic and that people might want to come see from outside of the region.

And we're going to take advantage of that.

How are you going to take advantage?

Because that is somethin that, Pittsburgh has always been a tourist spot for some reasons, because of the Three Rivers or the Ligonier Mountains and that sort of thing.

Well, as we, as we, reach out to the tourism with the convention center and with the downtown cultural assets and the sporting events we have, we also recognize that people want to do other things while they're here.

And within a 45 minute drive of downtown Pittsburgh, you can hit a lot of these historical sites, be in the mountains, or you could be down in Fayette County, or if you want to go out to Westmoreland County or even Allegheny County, a lot of these war sites are right here, and people have an interest in American history, no matter where they're coming from.

So if they're here as a convention or if they're here just visiting, if we can show them, there's other things to see besides the only reason they're coming here.

We find that they really enjoy that and they come back, and obviously, tourism is, is a major part of the economy.

At least you want it to become a bigger park.

Absolutely.

I mean, the everybody talks about the convention center being lost leaders.

Well, part of that is true.

That is just to get him in here.

But tourism is about why would you pick Pittsburgh?

Sure.

We have our sports.

We have our cultural trust.

But also if they look at our terrain, you look at the outside activities that exist, and then you add the historical artifacts that are here and the American history.

That's right here in our backyard.

We have a lot to offer that other regions of the country just don't have Dan Onorato Thank you.

So much for joining us.

And, hopefully this will also induce people to come here to take a look at Pittsburgh once they start to see this program, next Wednesday and the following Wednesday, the 25th and the 18th and the 25th.

And this is another live look at, the hundreds of people here at WQ.

Wonderful crowd here.

Yeah, we've got a couple more clips that we want to show them right now, Stacy.

And one again has to do with the attention to detail, the cultural historians that were brought in.

You saw Mr.

Bonaparte before, and now we're going to take a look at some of the other things that went into the making of this war film.

It's very important.

I wouldn't think she'd be tired at this point.

Okay.

Sounds like a conversation needs to take place.

But, yeah, I think that would be hard to take the knife off.

Can you help him with the ears.

Oh, Says here's somebody carrying one of those hides?

I mean, it's a little earl in the season for serious ideas.

How about, the dog bing?

Yeah, the dog bing.

Mary Jemison is wearing a skirt today.

That that is a it's a, you know, it's sort of a great example of how you pull all these pieces together.

It's the only piece of 18th century native women's clothing that we've located.

So it's a very important piece.

That's in a in a museum in Saint Petersburg in Russia.

It's an 18th century Iroquois woman's skirt.

And so we replicate that and then actually see it.

Well, that's, fascinating.

And we're going to look a another quick clip very shortly.

And again, this has to do and this is very important.

With the Native Americans, they were not a side issue in this.

They were part of all the negotiation, part of all the fighting.

They had their own interested stake in what in this war, they created America.

And it's very important that they had Native American advisors, in fact, to play a Native American in this film, you have to have Native American blood.

Is that right?

That's right.

So let's take a look at how we are considered Native Americans in the making of the war film, The War That Made America.

I'd say probably one of the big ideas of The War That Made America is is trying to, bring Native Americans into the story as, as, as very influential, powerful actors who were not just allies of one European power or the other, but had a sort of third path, that helps to explain switching of alliances and a lot of actions which were have traditionally been considered very arbitrary or un unfathomable.

For my people in particular, this war wa the darkest time of our history, because it was Mohawk against Mohawk.

Any sign of friendship that we make to the English will not escape the French.

All right.

You've heard a lot already about, some of the detail that goes into The War That Made America.

But for you to be able to see it.

Someone had to photograph it.

I had to film it.

And, Peter Pilafian is with us now.

And, you were in charge of the, the, photography for this?

Yes, for the shows one and three.

I was the director of photography, and I worked with, the director, Eric Stange.

Was this a difficult one to do?

It was extremely challenging.

It was, well, complicated and, and, and broken up into many scenes and, and one, thing we had to overcome was the fact that, because of partly historical accuracy, we, it wasn't a continuous narrative like, a normal feature film.

It was, a series of, of shorter films, if you will, tied together by, leaps forward in time.

But, one of the challenges that I, enjoyed, actually, and I like, difficulties in a way, was, the idea of how, how we should evoke, the, the feeling of this subject matter.

In other words, it's one thing to have historically accurate, Indians and, paraphernalia and so on, but, photograph photographically, I wanted to evoke, a feeling and I'm sure, with no doubt about it, that, we're going to be able to see that.

Peter Pilafian.

We are almost out of time.

I'm sorry to cut you off like that, but, I'm looking forward to seeing your work in The War That Made America.

Thank you so much for joining us on OnQ.

Once again, The War That Made America, January the 18th and the 25th, 9:00, right here on PBS.

WQED TV.

Well, Chris and, Tonia, joined me again.

We're all getting nice and comfortable and close here.

Boy, what a what a what a great time tonight.

And, some great insights I think, from all of our guests.

Absolutely.

And actually walking downstairs on the floor and talking with people who have seen the screening.

Everybody's raving.

I can't wait to see it.

I can't wait to see it either.

And I know you can't either.

I hope that you tune in next week at 9:00, and the following week to see The War That Made America And thank you for tuning in tonight.

We hope that you have a great night.

We'll see you again tomorrow night.

Live at 7:30 for OnQ magazine.

Good night.