Assistant Professor at the School of Communication, Dr. Brian Graves, is the writer, producer, and director of a new film project called “It’s Your War Too:” Charlotte Dee Mansfield’s Photographic Memoir of the Women’s Army Corps. Produced in collaboration with faculty and students at the FSU Institute on World War II and the Human Experience, and students in FSU’s Digital Media Production Program, the film tells the story of Charlotte Mansfield’s pioneering career as a Women’s Army Corps photographer during World War II. 
The film draws from an extraordinary archive of unpublished military photographs and personal correspondence, as well as expert and family interviews to reveal Mansfield’s story. In 1943, Mansfield trained at Lowry Field’s Photography School in Colorado, and was deployed to England in 1944, where she served in the Women’s Army Corps as a military photographer and photo lab technician. When Mansfield was not performing her professional duties, she took snapshots documenting the lives of fellow WACs. As a documentary record, these intimate personal photos reflect a unique experience of the War and offer an extraordinary glimpse into how women navigated their new roles in the military. 
In addition to funding through the FSU Council of Research and Creativity Planning Grant, the project was recently awarded with a $2,500 Leibner Cooper Grant for Creative Productions on the History of Media from the Broadcast Education Association (BEA). The grant is funded in partnership with the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation (LABF), with the generous support of the Leibner Cooper Family Foundation. In April, Dr. Graves travelled to Las Vegas, NV, to receive the award at the 2018 BEA Annual Convention, and will also be recognized this Fall at the LABF’s annual Giants of Broadcasting Luncheon in New York City.