Rob Nilsson: indie filmmaker and small format video feature pioneer
"Rob Nilsson pioneered small analog and digital formats and created a low-budget cinematic style called direct action. He established the Tenderloin Action Group (now called the Tenderloin yGroup) in 1990, a drama workshop for homeless people, inner-city San Francisco residents and professional actors. He was the first video maker to blow up small-format video to 35 mm film for international theatrical distribution. His work has screened at festivals in the United States and abroad, including Mill Valley, Toronto, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and Locarno. Nilsson's work has been honored with numerous awards, including the Camera d'Or at Cannes and the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival (he was the first American Director to win both)."
(Media Arts Fellow)
Fig.1 scene from Rob Nilsson (1987). "Heat and Sunlight", Betacam SP to 35mm film transfer.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
An American Family: the genesis of reality television
"Unlike most documentaries of its day, An American Family had no host, no interviews, and almost no voice-over narration. Producer Craig Gilbert presented the family's daily life - as captured by filmmakers Alan Raymond behind the camera, and Susan Raymond covering sound - in the style of cinéma vérité. It was the most controversial and talked-about television program of its era.
PBS was then a fledgling 'fourth network' joining CBS, NBC and ABC, and despite its non-commercial profile was looking for blockbuster hits, according to Bill Kobin, Vice President for programming at NET at the time. In the course of its 12 week run, An American Family riveted the country and drew in a record 10 million viewers a week. In the years since it was first broadcast, the series has become the subject of lengthy articles and reviews, including panel discussions with anthropologist Margaret Mead, who speculated that An American Family could be the beginning of a new way to explore the complexities of contemporary reality, 'maybe as important for our time as were the invention of drama and the novel for earlier generations.'
Now, 40 years since filming, the original filmmakers have edited a new 2-hour feature-length special capturing the most memorable and compelling moments of the landmark series. See for yourself why An American Family is one of the 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time (TV Guide, 2002)."
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
Fig.1 An American Family: Anniversary Edition was produced by Alan Raymond and Susan Raymond, edited by Alan Raymond and Charlotte Mangin served as the supervising producer. The original series was conceived and produced by Craig Gilbert. At WNET, Stephen Segaller was the executive in charge of production and Jane Buckwalter was the director of programming operations. At WLIW, John Servidio was the general manager. An American Family: Anniversary Edition premiered July 2011.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Family: warts-and-all portrait of working-class 1970s Britain
"Modelled on the 13-part observational series, An American Family (US, d. Craig Gilbert, 1972), producer Paul Watson's 12-part The Family (BBC, 1974) is credited with creating the concept of the 'fly-on-the-wall' documentary in Britain. Regardless, Watson's cinema verité-style, warts-and-all portrait of the working-class Wilkins family certainly popularised an 'observational' style still seen as the defining characteristic of British documentary some twenty-five years later.
The Family follows the daily lives of Terry and Margaret Wilkins, their children and their partners, as they all struggle to live together in a small flat in Reading. The series sets out to reveal to viewers the reality of family life in Britain as never shown before. "No TV family ever has dirty pots and pans," says Margaret in episode one, and the Wilkins demonstrate a remarkable candour in their on-camera conversations with one another.
Watson and his small crew spent two months with the Wilkins prior to filming. After this the team filmed the family eighteen hours a day for three months. The result was an extraordinary portrait of family life: honest, hilarious and painful, an instant classic the impact and influence of which (on both fiction and non-fiction television) it would be difficult to overestimate.
The Family divided critics and viewers alike, and the Wilkins were villified by the tabloid press for all manner of imagined transgressions: their 'acting' for the camera or their 'real' behaviour in front of it, their use of bad language and public airing of previously taboo subjects. Watson explained that he "wanted to make a film about the kind of people who never got on to television," and clearly the sight of a powerful and opinionated woman like Margaret Wilkins, or the challenge of daughter Heather to the casual racism of 1970s middle-England, was shocking to a certain section of the British public (Mary Whitehouse was among those who called for the series to be banned, lest this 'representative' family be seen as a model to imitate)."
(Joe Sieder, BFI Screenonline)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Gillian Wearing: a fascination with social behaviour
"The artist's fascination with social behaviour has been influenced by the 1970s 'fly-on-the-wall' style of British documentary such as Franc Roddam and Paul Watson's The Family (1974) and Michael Apted's 7-Up (1964) and brings to mind the recent documentary "Capturing the Friedmans" by Andrew Jarecki."
(Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania)
Sixty Minutes Silence, 60 minutes, colour video projection with sound, 1996
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Horseplay: Discussing Philip's Work At His Waimate Farm
Horseplay is a short 16mm documentary made by Simon Perkins about the New Zealand painter Philip Trusttum. The film presents a brief snap-shot of the artist and his surroundings at his farm in Waimate. The approach of the documentary makes no attempt to disguise the role of the filmmaker. In this way it pays homage to the Direct Cinema traditions through its use of hand-held camera, voyeuristic shots and off-camera audio.
The film was made in 1990 by: Simon Perkins; Peter Bannan; Vivienne Stone; Peter Evans; Robert Sarkies; Michael Brown; Philip Trusttum; Lee Trusttum; Peter Leech; James Wallace.
Fig.1 Simon Perkins (1990). 'Horseplay' 16mm, 9 minutes.
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
