A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Birthplace:
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Born:
August 8, 1927
Died:
March 3, 1991
John Spotton was a Canadian filmmaker, cinematographer, and editor associated with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He played a pivotal role in developing the Direct Cinema movement, contributing to documentaries that emphasized naturalistic and unobtrusive filming techniques. Spotton's notable works include Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965), a documentary capturing the making of Keaton's short film The Railrodder, and Memorandum (1965), which explores the Holocaust's impact on survivors. His contributions significantly influenced documentary filmmaking in Canada and beyond.
Camera Operator:
1958 A Day in June
1961 The Days of Whisky Gap
Director:
1958 A Day in June
1961 The Days of Whisky Gap
1965 Buster Keaton Rides Again
1966 Never a Backward Step
1967 Memorandum
1979 A Pinto for the Prince
Director of Photography:
1952 The Puppeteers
1953 The Story of Peter and the Potter
1957 What Do You Think About... Being Different
1958 A Day in June
1958 Railroaders
1961 Circle of the Sun
1961 The Days of Whisky Gap
1962 Runner
1963 Toronto Jazz
1964 Legault's Place
1964 Nobody Waved Goodbye
1964 The Hutterites
1965 Buster Keaton Rides Again
1965 High Steel
1966 Never a Backward Step
1967 Memorandum
1973 Kainai
1979 A Pinto for the Prince
Editor:
1952 The Puppeteers
1953 The Story of Peter and the Potter
1957 What Do You Think About... Being Different
1958 A Day in June
1958 Railroaders
1959 City Out of Time
1959 The Back-breaking Leaf
1960 I Was a Ninety-pound Weakling
1961 Circle of the Sun
1961 The Days of Whisky Gap
1962 Lonely Boy
1962 Runner
1963 Toronto Jazz
1964 Legault's Place
1964 Nobody Waved Goodbye
1964 The Hutterites
1965 Buster Keaton Rides Again
1965 High Steel
1966 Never a Backward Step
1966 The White Ship
1967 Memorandum
1973 Kainai
1979 A Pinto for the Prince
Executive Producer:
1952 The Puppeteers
1953 The Story of Peter and the Potter
1957 What Do You Think About... Being Different
1958 A Day in June
1958 Railroaders
1959 City Out of Time
1959 The Back-breaking Leaf
1960 I Was a Ninety-pound Weakling
1961 Circle of the Sun
1961 The Days of Whisky Gap
1962 Lonely Boy
1962 Runner
1963 Toronto Jazz
1964 Legault's Place
1964 Nobody Waved Goodbye
1964 The Hutterites
1965 Buster Keaton Rides Again
1965 High Steel
1966 Never a Backward Step
1966 The White Ship
1967 Memorandum
1973 Kainai
1979 A Pinto for the Prince
1983 Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community
1983 Prisoners of Debt: Inside the Global Banking Crisis
1985 Final Offer
1985 Pitchmen
1988 Peep and the Big Wide World
Producer:
1952 The Puppeteers
1953 The Story of Peter and the Potter
1957 What Do You Think About... Being Different
1958 A Day in June
1958 Pilgrimage
1958 Railroaders
1959 City Out of Time
1959 The Back-breaking Leaf
1960 I Was a Ninety-pound Weakling
1961 Circle of the Sun
1961 The Days of Whisky Gap
1962 Lonely Boy
1962 Runner
1963 Toronto Jazz
1964 Legault's Place
1964 Nobody Waved Goodbye
1964 The Hutterites
1965 Buster Keaton Rides Again
1965 High Steel
1966 Never a Backward Step
1966 The White Ship
1967 Memorandum
1973 Kainai
1979 A Pinto for the Prince
1979 Viking Visitors to North America
1983 Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community
1983 Prisoners of Debt: Inside the Global Banking Crisis
1983 Thanks for the Ride
1984 Abortion: Stories from North and South
1985 Final Offer
1985 Pitchmen
1988 Peep and the Big Wide World
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.