Name John Spotton Died March 3, 1991, Cuba | Role Filmmaker | |
Nominations BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, Gemini Award for Best Documentary Series Movies The Railrodder, Buster Keaton Rides Ag, Memorandum, Nobody Waved Good‑bye, Circle of the Sun Similar People Donald Brittain, Gerald Potterton, Roman Kroitor, Wolf Koenig, Colin Low | ||
Buster Keaton Rides Again
John Spotton (January 1, 1927 - March 3, 1991) was a Canadian filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada.
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A versatile artist who worked as a director, producer, cinematographer and editor, Spotton was best known for his role in developing the Direct Cinema genre of documentary and in the application of those techniques in narrative fiction films, in particular Nobody Waved Good-bye (1964), in which he served as cinematographer and editor.
An early member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers (CSC), Spotton briefly working as a cameraman for a private company, joined the NFB in 1949 and worked there for the rest of his life with the exception of a two-year period in the 1970s when he worked with Potterton Productions. He was executive director of the NFB's Ontario Centre from 1982 until 1988.
He drowned at the age of sixty-four while on vacation in Cuba. The NFB's John Spotton Theatre in Toronto was named for him.