Robert Drew and the Development of Cinema Verite in America

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by P.J. O'Connell

Type: Studies
Subject: Genre > Documentary
Keywords: Robert Drew, cinema Verite, direct cinema, documentary
Publishing date: 2010
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 306 pages
6 x 9 inches (15.5 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-0-8093-2986-1

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Book Presentation:
Author P. J. O’Connell traces Robert Drew’s influence on cinema verite through extensive interviews with Drew and with some of the founding fathers of American cinema verite filmmaking—Donn Alan Pennebaker, Gregory Shuker, and Richard Leacock.
Robert Drew’s contributions to documentary film have been both technical and conceptual. Realizing that his equipment was too heavy and intrusive, Drew persuaded Time-Life Broadcasting to sponsor the development of new, lightweight, portable synchronous sound equipment that freed documentary filmmakers from the bulky, tripod-mounted, AC-powered equipment of the past. His new technology allowed him to capture intense moments as they happened, and to make viewers feel personally involved in the events he presented. While making more than twenty documentaries in the early 1960s, Drew continued to initiate innovations that were not thought possible a generation before him.
P. J. O’Connell is the executive producer of public affairs at Penn State Television and an affiliate assistant professor in the School of Communication at Penn State University.

About the Author:
P. J. O’Connell is the executive producer of public affairs at Penn State Television and an affiliate assistant professor in the School of Communication at Penn State University.

Press Reviews:
“This book provides absolutely vital material on the genesis of the cinema verite movement and on the working methods of one of its most important figures.”—Alan Rosenthal, author of Writing, Directing, and Producing Documentary Films

See the publisher website: Southern Illinois University Press

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