farnovision

The Origins of Television

I'm in the process now of sorting thorugh all the video segments I've got lying around here and uploading them to YouTube, which I will eventually compile into a "farnovision" channel.  Let's start with this segment from the Discovery Channel's "Origins" program from 1996, to which I contributed the Farnsworth side of the story:

This piece is notable because it includes some footage of an actual Baird Televisor from the 1920s, as well as an animated demonstration of just how mechanical television worked.  It's a pretty good illustration of a doomed technology.

Also, pay close attention when they're talking about Felix the Cat.  The grainy, blurry footage that you'll see was actually produced in the RCA laboratory in 1929 -- and serves as graphic evidence that Zworykin and RCA did NOT have a viable camera tube before visiting Farnsworths' San Francisco lab in the spring of 1930. 

Pem's Moment at the Emmy's

I was just poking around YouTube and found this footage that somebody has posted from the 2002 Emmy Awards Telecast, when Pem Farnsworth, aka "The Mother of Television" was introduced to the industry that she and her husband were instrumental in starting.

I for one still cannot quite comprehend why it was necessary to diminish this moment for Pem by including a nod toward David Sarnoff by introducing his son Tom, who just happened at the time to be the chairman of the Television Academy or some such thing.  But it does seem to underscore the idea that these two names are for ever united in this "death struggle" over who launched the industry that now cradles all our "living room dreams."

Oral History: Videos with Pem Farnsworth, 'The Mother of Television'

Here's something I should have linked to long ago, which only occurs to me now that I have this handy way to quickly add new links to this website. 

Elma G. 'Pem' Farnsworth, the widow of Philo T. Farnsworth and affectionately known by all who knew her as 'The Mother of Television,' died last May at the age of 98.  But sometime back in the 1990s, she conducted a series of videotaped interviews with historians for the Acadamy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS).  Extensive excerpts of those interviews are available online via Google Video

Pem Farnsworth worked beside her husband from the moment they were married in 1926; she was present the night in 1927 when the first successful experiments with electronic television were conducted, and shared all of his trials and tribulations throughout their lives together.  Hers is perhaps the single most valuable first-hand account of those early years.  Serious students of this subject will want to spend some time viewing these videos.

The Boy Who Would Be Farnsworth

A young actor named Jimmi Simpson has been cast to play Philo T. Farnsworth in the La Jolla Playhouse production of The Farnsworth Invention.

The riveting new drama, which uncovers the story behind one of the world’s most powerful inventions, is a part of the Page To Stage New Play Development Program, La Jolla Playhouse’s signature program in which audiences experience the “birth” of a play, taking part in its shaping as playwright and director make constant changes in response to audience reactions and feedback.”

Simpson recently took a break from rehearsals to conduct an extensive interview with the online theater site, BroadwayWorld.com.  Read the full interview.

The Play is Cast

Hollywood may finally be taking notice of Philo T. Farnsworth.

As some of you may recall, when Aaron Sorkin stepped down  as executive producer of NBC's The West Wing back in the spring of 2004, he announced that his next project would be a feature film, The Farnsworth Invention. 

Sorkin's interest in the Farnsworth story reaches back at least a decade.  During the 1990s, Sorkin considered writing a screenplay for Castle Rock Pictures; he was introduced to the material by the company that owns film rights to Pem Farnsworth's book, Distant Vision.  He even spent some research time with Pem at her home in Fort Wayne, Indiana while working on that project.  The Castle Rock project fell through, but Sorkin's interest in the story never lapsed.  In 2002, during the commercial break right after Pem was introduced to the audience at the Emmy Awards, Sorkin approached Pem and said "we're not done with this story yet...."  Two years later, his film was announced (though there was no participation discussed for Mrs. Farnsworth or the estate....).

Sorkin's film project has faltered, but his interest in the story continues unabated.  The Farnsworth Invention has now been adapted as a stage play which will be performed at the La Jolla Playhouse near San Diego as a "page to stage workshop production" from February 20 to March 25, 2007.

This week, the cast for the play was announced and rehearsals have commenced. Jimmi Simpson will play Philo T. Farnsworth; Stephen Lang will portray David Sarnoff, and Alexandra Wilson will play Pem Farnsworth.

This stage-to-screen process is familiar to Aaron Sorkin.  One of his most notable films, A Few Good Men (with Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, and Demi Moore) began the same way, i.e. starting out as a stage production in order to develop the material before converting it into a feature film. There is no doubt that a similar evolution is contemplated here, inasmuch as no less a personage than Stephen Spielberg has signed on as an executive producer of the La Jolla Playhouse production -- Spielberg's very first foray into stagecraft after an illustrious career as a film and television producer and director.  That can only bode well for the future of The Farnsworth Invention.

Kent Farnsworth has been following all this very closely for philotfarnsworth.com  Visit his website to see photos of the cast juxtaposed with their real-life counterparts, or to purchase a copy of Pem's book.

I am also going to be retooling my own "farnovision" site in the days and weeks ahead using a Typepad "blog" format so that it will be much easier to keep pertinent information front and center as this saga continues to unfold.  That format has worked very well for my Townsend Brown website, so I'm going to replicate that format for Farnovision as well as my other websites.

Coming Soon...

...the new "farnovision" website.