Isaac Woodard, a decorated Black army sergeant, boarded a bus to South Carolina in 1946 to reunite with his wife after serving in World War II.

During the journey, Woodard, who was still wearing his uniform, asked the driver if he could disembark to use the restroom while the bus was stopped.

The driver refused, cursing at Woodard. The two men then got into an argument. 

At the next stop, in Batesburg, S.C., the driver complained to police that Woodard was causing a disturbance. Ordered off the bus, Woodard attempted to explain what happened—but he wasn’t given a chance. Police officers, including the police chief, brutally struck Woodard across the head with a club. Later, after a struggle, police used the club to hit Woodard in the eyes, leaving him permanently blind.

This horrific attack serves as one of the early scenes of the 2021 AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film “The Blinding of Isaac Woodard,” which details how the attack outraged President Truman and helped galvanize the civil rights movement. 

In seeking to produce an accurate historical film about the attack, the producers had a dilemma: While they wanted to give viewers a sense of what happened to Woodard, there was no archived footage or photos of the attack.

The solution, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Executive Producer Cameo George said, was to create an impressionistic graphical animation. In doing so, the film team used Woodard’s affidavit as well as court testimony from the case to re-create the scene with as much precision as possible.

“We recognize this is touchy because this is such an important turning point in the story—but also just such a sensitive thing,” George said. “Someone is brutally attacked. You don’t want to make it more sensational than it already is. You don’t want to be insensitive in any way in how you portray it.”

The lack of archived materials is fairly common issue for historical filmmakers, and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE’S careful approach is worth emulating. 

As the PBS Editorial Standards state: “In instances where re-creations or simulations of actual events that did occur are necessary or desirable to inform the audience, they should be as accurate as possible and clearly identified (either through the use of verbal or visual disclosures or through stylization techniques such as the use of different colors or camera speeds) whenever there is a possibility that members of the audience could reasonably be confused or misled.”

In illustrating Woodard’s attack, great care was taken to make sure the audience did not mistake any elements of the animation sequence for reality, George said. In one early mock-up of the scene, for example, there was a moment when a full-frame drawing of Woodard could have been mistaken for an actual photograph of him. The sequence was altered so that Woodard’s likeness appeared from the side and back.

“We didn’t want there to be any ambiguity or questions around how real or not this was,” George said.

That same level of care was also used in re-creating the segregated Columbia, S.C., courtroom where the trial of Batesburg police chief Lynwood Shull occurred. (An all-white jury only briefly deliberated before acquitting Shull.) 

Like the scene of Woodard’s attack, producers had no footage or photos of the trial, so they relied on impressionistic graphical animation.

For this scene, producers didn’t use just any courtroom; they made sure it was a courtroom from that time period in the South. They also drew upon photos from that time to re-create the crowd but used filters to ensure that no particular individual was unfairly misrepresented as “supporting a clearly racist and abusive white sheriff,” George said. The graphical effects were also done in a way to signal to the viewers that the images did not specifically reflect Shull’s trial. 

“We’re looking at these moments and saying ‘Is this right?’ ‘What is the takeaway?’ ‘What would you get if you’re the viewer?’ ‘Are we misleading you?’ ‘Are we giving you the wrong impression?’ That’s the thing we’re always guarding against,” George said.

While re-creations are sometimes the only option for bringing a scene to life visually, producers should diligently pursue historically accurate materials whenever possible. While acquiring such content is often costly, George suggested a few less expensive options such as the National Archives, universities, museums, and public libraries—as well as members of the community being covered.

When incorporating such materials, filmmakers should always take care to avoid deceiving the audience. In some cases, it might be acceptable to use a photo as a representative image of a general time period.  But if the script is referencing a specific person or event, then the corresponding visuals should match or otherwise not confuse or deceive the viewer. 

It's not always easy to get right. But, as George said, “We just don’t want people to think that we’re misleading them.” Using this philosophy as a guide, filmmakers will be prepared to think through and scrutinize potential re-creations and re-enactments.

Contact Standards & Practices at standards@pbs.org