Rey Scott
Rey Scott was an American journalist, documentary filmmaker, and cinematographer. He is best known for directing Kukan, a pioneering color documentary about China's resistance during the Second Sino-Japanese War. His later work documented U.S. military operations in the Aleutian Islands Campaign during World War II.
Early life
Scott was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Census records show his family later moved to Los Angeles, where he began his career as a journalist and photographer in the 1930s.Career
Pre-war work
In 1937, Scott relocated to Hawaii as a journalist for the Honolulu Advertiser, where he documented tourist life and collaborated with labor activist Roy Cummings during newspaper unionization efforts.''Kukan'' and wartime documentation
Partnering with Chinese-American playwright Li Ling-Ai, Scott co-produced Kukan using a handheld 16mm camera. He had to smuggle it out of China by inserting it into a bamboo pole.The film earned a 1941 Honorary Oscar, with the Academy citing "exceptional courage and enterprise in photographic documentation".