TV

Learn about Austin, from the tectonic plates up

By Diane Holloway
AMERICAN-STATESMAN TELEVISION WRITER
Friday, November 24, 2006

Think you know everything there is to know about Austin?

No matter how "old Austin" you think you are, you probably don't know about dinosaurs roaming the Hill Country . . . or the violent earthquakes that formed our landscape.

Did you know that Lake Austin was originally known as Lake McDonald and formed by the Austin Dam, which collapsed in a horrendous flood of the Colorado River in 1900?

And maybe you didn't know that pre-Civil War Austinites were predominantly pro-Union and our county originally voted against secession.

"Austin Time Tours" relays all that juicy info and more in a richly illustrated and smartly narrated two-hour documentary. It's a bold undertaking, covering 300 million years, but filmmaker and University of Texas lecturer Karen Kocher has done a splendid job.

Six years in the making, the film's budget, including in-kind donations, was roughly $500,000, which Kocher raised.

"I was inspired by the collections at the Austin History Center, especially the motion pictures," says Kocher, who came to Austin from New Jersey to attend UT. "I grew up with a sense of the coolness of all that came before me and just got the history bug. With this, I liked the challenge of being able to do such a huge project, raise the money and create something that would get other people jazzed about Austin history."

The Austin History Center's treasure trove of photos, maps and films help paint this portrait, rendered Ken Burns style with terrific period music and voice-overs by notables including Will Wynn, Luci Baines Johnson, Dan Rather, Ray Benson, Ann Richards, Neal Spelce, Cactus Pryor, Tish Hinojosa and Marcia Ball.

The documentary also uses colorful original drawings by Austin artist Charles Shaw.

Narrated by distinguished Austin filmmaker Hector Galán, "Austin Time Tours" rises above a sappy valentine. It deals deftly with the less savory aspects of our history — racial and ethnic segregation and poverty. It is history, with all the bad and good therein.

The film also is part of "Austin Past and Present," a larger multimedia history project for use in public kiosks, schools and libraries.

dholloway@statesman.com; 445-3608