Press Material for Secret War in the Pacific

This documentary about the life and work of Charles ‘Chick’ Parsons was produced over a ten year period by one of his sons, Peter Parsons, along with his partner from Moon River Productions, Morgan Cavett. Originally, it was Cavett’s idea to do something on Chick Parsons, a person whom he did not even know except through some stories he had heard while visiting in the Philippines. Cavett had been shooting mini documentaries on the making of handmade paper for Peter’s brother, Michael.

Once Peter and Morgan agreed to proceed, the long process of meeting and interviewing and recording as many living guerrillas and other associates and relatives of Chick Parsons began. This would take both of them to all four corners of the United States, to many island locations in the Philippines and to Japan.

There are now some 140 hours of recorded interviews as well as hundreds of photographs in the video’s files.

The scripting and editing was done jointly by Peter and Morgan. The video authoring was being done by Morgan at his desert studio, Moon River Ranch, in Pinion Hills, California. Morgan, however, died in December, 2004 before he had finished the final cut.

At this point Peter and Mary Cavett (Morgan’s wife) brought in John Anderson of Information Programs, to finish the authoring. He was able to cut 20 minutes from the version Morgan had been working on, which brought the show down to 50 minutes. He worked with Peter to add more pictures as well as a few more stories about Chick Parsons.

The final product however had to wait for Peter to return to his home in the Philippines where he enlisted the help of Lucky Guillermo of AVMANILA. The final selection of photos and other footage, the addition of sound effects and final authoring and presssings as well as the completion of the credits were accomplished in Manila.

The video runs 50:20 before credits; and 53:55 with credits. It is copyrighted by Peter Parsons and Moon River Productions in the United States and the Philippines.