Seawards the Great Ships is a 1961 short documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 directed by Hilary Harris

Hilary Harris

Hilary Harris was a documentary filmmaker, one of the pioneers of time-lapse photography. The documentary, Seawards the Great Ships, directed by Harris, won the Academy Award for best short subject in 1962....

. It won an Academy Award in 1962

34th Academy Awards

The 34th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1961, were held on April 9, 1962 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California. They were hosted by Bob Hope; this was the seventh time Hope hosted the Oscars...

 for Best Short Live Action Subject

Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film

This name for the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film was introduced in 1974. For the three preceding years it was known as "Short Subjects, Live Action Films." The term "Short Subjects, Live Action Subjects" was used from 1957 until 1970. From 1936 until 1956 there were two separate...

, the first Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 film to win an Oscar. The film chronicles the Shipbuilding

Shipbuilding

Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...

 industry of the River Clyde

River Clyde

The River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....

 at the time, featuring footage from the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company

Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company

The Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Limited was a British shipbuilding company in the Govan area on the Clyde in Glasgow. Fairfields, as it is often known, was a major warship builder, turning out many vessels for the Royal Navy and other navies through the First World War and the...

, John Brown & Company

John Brown & Company

John Brown and Company of Clydebank was a pre-eminent Scottish marine engineering and shipbuilding firm, responsible for building many notable and world-famous ships, such as the , the , the , the , the , and the...

 and Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company

Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company

Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited, often referred to simply as Scotts, was a Scottish shipbuilding company based in Greenock on the River Clyde.- History :...

. It was produced by Glasgow-based Templar Films for the Association of Shipbuilders and the Central Office of Information (COI). It was released onto Blu-ray by Panamint in 2010 as part of their 'Faces of Scotland' compilation.

It includes dialogue between shipyard workers, but this is all scripted. They had hoped to use genuine dialogue between shipyard workers, but this included too many swearwords to be usable.

Cast

• Kenneth Kendall
  Kenneth Kendall
  Kenneth Kendall is a retired British broadcaster. He was a contemporary of Richard Baker and Robert Dougall...
  
  as Narrator (Worldwide version)
• Bryden Murdoch as Narrator (Original Scottish version)

External links

• National Library of Scotland: Scottish Screen Archive (Film details and clips from Seawards the Great Ships)