World War Two
Published 7 Dec 2020

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In this episode: Japan’s meticulous planning and preparation made it possible to surprise the Americans at Pearl Harbor. Alert on Oahu is largely nonexistent. It is the deep breath before the plunge.

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Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Spartacus Olsson and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Wieke Kapteijns
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Produced by: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Co-Producers: Maria Kyhle and Francis van Berkel
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Set Design by: Astrid Deinhard
Graphic Design by: Mikolaj Uchman
Map Animations by: Daniel Haczyk and Eastory
Assistant Editors: Miki Cackowski, Daniel Weiss, Karolina Dołega
Still Colorizers: Adrien Fillon, Norman Stewart, Jaris Almazani, Daniel Weiss, Mikolaj Uchman, Carlos Ortega Pereira
Research by: Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Markus Linke, Wieke Kapteijns, Bastian Gaete, Lewis Braithwaite, Tim Smith, Ian Irungu
Sound Design by: Marek Kamiński
Dogfights by: Daniel Weiss, Bastian Gaete, Ian Sowden, Dennis Stepanov

Voices:
Mitsuo Fuchida – Daniel Grieb
Ada Peggy Olsson – Shani Neidell Beard
Iyōzō Fujita – Emi Celis
James Anderson – Emi Celis
Dorinda Stagner – Zora Johnson
Jack Kelley – Ryan Socash
James McClelland – Spartacus Olsson
Phil Rasmussen – Spartacus Olsson
Dan Wentrcek – Dennis Stepanov
Thompson Izawa – Samir Mechel
Robert Isacksen – Ian Sowden
Joseph K. Taussig Jr. – Tim Smith
James Cory – Ryan Tebo

Film colorization by: Ricks Film Restoration
Naval Gameplay by: World of Warships
Archive material provided by: Reuters/Screenocean

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
1 hour ago (edited)
When we set out to do this crazy project we thought we wanted to try some really new things. As anyone knows that follows us regularly, our first and foremost goal is remembrance — to shine a light on our past and learn form our ancestors’ mistakes and achievements. We try our best to do that with a dedication to facts and details liberated from partisan, or ideological historiography. For this purpose, the attack on Pearl Harbor serves very well. It is a compact event over only a few hours that is spectacular in its nature, tragic in its effect, gripping in its drama, and has tremendous impact on WW2 on all fronts. It is also an event that is often simplified to the point of misunderstanding, has been woven into national mythology, and given rise to some pretty nutty conspiracy myths. Simply put: the Attack on Pearl Harbor is short enough, exciting enough, and misunderstood enough for us to do a limited series like this.

But more than that we also wanted to try some new technical and narrative things. Since we started doing historical documentaries with the Great War in 2014 we have tried to be on the forefront of pioneering new ways of creating historiography for the modern media world. Narratively, we have dedicated ourselves to chronologies, which in historiography is nothing new, but it is new in the world of film documentaries (at least to the level we do it) — so we thought; “heck what if we go down to minute by minute for this” — well we did and it taught us an enormous amount about Pearl Harbor, but also about how we can write. We will get back to that in further comment on the series. As for technology, it truly is technology that enables our work, well any media — for us it is social media, affordable ways to capture film, global virtual remote working spaces, digital research opportunities, digital film archives, and so on.

Two areas we had not been able to venture into was recreation of scenes using computer graphics and colorization of moving images. Using a gaming engine to create animation is also nothing new, but usually very, very expensive because you have to first create the world, the assets and the characters for your recreation. But for Pearl Harbor, World of Warships ​https://worldofwarships.com and World of Warplanes https://worldofwarplanes.com opened an opportunity to do this on a new scale at a cost that is only a fraction of what it usually costs. Along the way we also got to know Ricks Film Restorations (https://bit.ly/ricksfilmresorations and https://www.youtube.com/user/Rick88888888) who use AI technology to enhance and colorize film footage. While both of these technologies are only at the beginning of their potential, we think the results are spectacular. More than anything it has enabled us to enhance the emotional and visual experience for this series to a level we never reached before. Last but not least it enabled us to use the financial contributions of the TimeGhost Army, and World of Warships to create five hours of content for less than 1/50th — only 2% — of what it would cost to do with traditional means.

creatingstuff

In the Name of the entire TimeGhost Team,
Astrid, Indy, Spartacus, and Wieke

Episode Guide:
This is a 10 episode limited series within our weekly coverage of WW2 — to see the immediate events leading up to this day watch episode 119 from December 5, https://youtu.be/DYUzmBuX-6Y. Some of the events covered briefly as they start on this day, such as the invasions in the West Pacific will be covered in more detail in the coming weeks, especially in episode 120K (the 11th episode this week).coming out on December 12.

The playlist to get all these episodes in one go is here: https://bit.ly/Pearl-min-by-min