White Wonder

Creator: Wilding Picture Productions

Format: 16mm

Sound: sound

Description: Illustrates techniques for extraction of salt from the sea and from land. Tells the historical role of salt and its uses in national defense, industry, agriculture and home.; Story of salt, uses of salt in industry and the home. Mining and recovery of salt by evaporation.; Voiceovers; Today, salt enters into almost 14,000 different uses.; Stock shots; globe spinning, salt crystals, many rows of salt shakers seen from overhead, laboratory, electrolysis occuring; Morton Salt plant, salt mines, mines are dynamited to free salt, CU Morton Salt logo (When it rains, it pours); woman applying lipstick, spray painting automobiles, smokescreen in battle; solar evaporation, salt being harvested loaded onto trucks, sheeps, pigs, chicken, turkeys eating from salt blocks; water pump (hand); strange section; use of salt in household cleaning: salt with oil to remove water marks on wood furniture, cleaning the kitchen sink, cleaning pots, salt on carpets, cleaning iron, cleaning grease; excellent shot of steaming, whistling (by inference) chrome tea kettle, water running out of a kitchen tap, hundred pound bags of salt, salt being spread on road in winter, also a demonstration of how salt cuts through snow; sequence: hydraulic drilling, large vats of brine, giant drying machines and kilns, adding iodine to salt, assembly line, canning and labeling of salt containers; display of many different kinds of salt in packages: consumer and industrial; globe rotating in heavy smoke (good), then smoke clears a bit, bust of ancient Greek rolls by, then Roman, then Napoleon, then Abraham Lincoln, then Winston Churchill; rotating globe continues; CU large salt crystal; CU, crane from top to side of 100 salt shakers (good); Zoom out from 200-lb pile of salt; Zoom into 200-lb pile of salt; LS 1950s-type factory, red car driving up on circular driveway; GS Morton Salt research laboratory (modern 1950s-type building); Two men in lab; CU electrolysis breaking down salt into sodium and chlorine; CU salt falling into pile in middle of frame; MS woman pulling clothes off rack; MS smiling woman taking toothpaste out of cupboard; MS woman applying lipstick; [more not logged – good); freeway with cars; small metal parts on conveyor running by under camera; VS combat shots (poor quality); CU more salt pouring into frame; Conveyor loading salt onto huge pile (exterior); Man on top of pile shoveling salt out of way of conveyor; VS evaporating pools (concentrating ponds); VS water flowing through pools and channels; MS man testing brine; VS guarding ponds (garden ponds); Trucks and backhoes driving by to salt harvest; Tractor and heavy equipment harvesting salt; VS backhoes gathering salt, dumping it into bin (good – could be any white powder); Atomic blast; Group of cows clustered around salt lick; Pan left around larger group of cows; Sheep clustered around salt lick; CU salt blocks and bricks; CU pigs eating out of trough (good); MS group of chicken clustered around feeder; MS another group (turkeys?); GS farm scene, cows walking on grass; MS woman in kitchen sitting at counter, writing (good); Hands open cupboard showing food inside; All food products suddenly vanish, leaving empty shelves; CU condiment and spice cupboard, all contents vanish; Potato chips, peanuts and snacks – all vanish; Cereals, jams, jellies, pickles, olives – all vanish; Cupboard of pasta, noodles, biscuits – all vanish; hands open refrigerator, showing contents, all progressively vanish as narrator explains that salt goes into all of them; then the refrigerator itself vanishes, leaving an empty wall; CU hands rubbing sponge in salt, then rubbing off stain on table; Hands using salt and turpentine solution to clean stained sink; CU woman’s hands using salt to clean tarnished copper-bottomed pan; CU woman’s feet walking on patterned rug sprinkling salt in front of her to clean rug (good); CU hands sprinkling salt on ironing board in front of iron (good); Salt used to clean greasy oven tray in place and then in sink; CU woman’s hands pouring salt into vase, then water, to make solidified base for flowers; CU from top looking down into clotheswasher (washing machine) with lid up (good); CU water flowing out of gutter into rain barrel; CU pan down pump with hand pumping it (old-style pump, good); Pan over drawing showing old rain barrel and underground rock strata; CU kettle with steam spraying from spout (good); CU man maintaining industrial steam blower (good); Another CU looking down on open lid of clothes washer with suds (good); Map of United States showing hardness of water in different regions; CU sink with water flowing out of fixture (good); CU Lindsay automatic water softener – lid raised showing insides; Pallet loaded with large bags of Morton Salt moving by camera; LS pan over salt flats (Utah?) and briny areas; GS tunnel in salt mine; VS salt mine tunnels, pillars, ceilings (pan around room); Pan down from roof along pillars; Men using heavy equipment in salt mine; Men drilling wall with long bit to set dynamite charge; Undercutting machine cutting gap below section of salt to be mined; Men on cherrypicker tapping blasting powder into holes; Pan over wall with holes; CU buzzer; Man throws switch; Explosion visible from one side of frame; VS conveyors and tools gathering salt and moving it out; Salt pouring from chutes into trucks; VS Cars on snowy street in winter (poor quality stock shots); Driver’s POV driving behind salt spreader on road in winter; CU demonstration showing how salt penetrates ice and snow on pavement, turning frozen water into dripping water; Pan up road building machine onto dirt bed for unfinished road; Two beakers filled with soil particles, the one with salt in it is bound and won’t pour out; Truck moving away from camera on rural road with farm in distance (good establishing shot); CU drill on derrick turning around (like oil well, but drilling salt); Pan down drawing showing how salt is drilled for underground; Pan over LS of brine settling tanks; Man filling jar with brine and taking sample; CU rotary dryer reducing moisture in brine; Salt tumbled and baked in kiln; Salt being carried through chute by long screw; CU hand pulling out handful of table salt crystals from machine; VS Rotating screw moving salt around (good); ECU rotating screw (good); VS cardboard salt containers moving by on production line (good); VS cardboard shipping carton receiving completed packed salt containers; VS chemists in research laboratory; Display of salt products packed in different bags; Cars on wet freeway seen from above (good); Meatpackers (Black) moving carcasses (good); Man in lab working with beakers filled with colored fluid (not too bad); Display of objects made using salt (telephone, paint, fire extinguishers, etc.); Air-to-air shot of 3 bombers seen from above (then fighters); Air-to-air shot of U.S. Air Force plane from above (good); VS tanks moving over terrain (stock footage); Battleships in combat (good); Flamethrower (good); Defense sequence culminating in atomic bomb blast and missiles taking off (good, but weird); VS mining salt from evaporator polls; CU salt shakers from side (good); Crowds walking on busy downtown streets (hand-held, probably downtown Chicago); Tunnel through salt mine (lights go off); End title (Morton logo with girl and umbrella)