Stretching from Maryland to Illinois, the National Road, commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1806, is an icon of American transportation. Members of the telecommunication department will film a documentary about the Indiana portion of the road, which runs through Richmond, Indianapolis and Terre Haute, as part of a digital storytelling project.
Nancy Carlson, chairwoman of the TCOM Department, said she received the National Scenic Byways Grant to produce the film.
Though most documentaries on the National Road serve as travel logs, the Ball State production will focus on the stories of the people along the road, graduate student Brian Handler said.
She and her team are looking beyond the buildings and landmarks along the road to its raw human history, she said.
"The National Road is a story of westward migration, story of travel, story of the itch to move," Carlson said.
The National Road was built as a way for settlers on the east coast to move west, she said. With the introduction of canals and railroads, the National Road was all but abandoned.
It was "the road that really never made it," Carlson said. With the invention of cars, the National Road received a second chance, but was left behind when the national interstate highway system was built.
2006 graduate Kyle Ramsy, who will do preproduction on the project, said the documentary will reveal the "undiscovered treasures of Indiana" and give people reasons to stay in Indiana. Through discovering new places in Indiana, viewers of the film can "see how people live in different areas," he said.
Well-known Indiana artists will narrate, sing or paint the stories that the production team discovers, Carlson said. The documentary is scheduled for completion in early 2009 and will be available for schools to use for educational purposes. It will air on eight Indiana public television stations, and 300 national stations will have access to the documentary.
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