TVTV
Encyclopedia
TVTV was a San Francisco
-based pioneering video collective founded in 1972 by Allen Rucker
, Michael Shamberg
, Tom Weinberg, Hudson Marquez and Megan Williams. Shamberg was author of the 1971 "do-it-yourself" video production manual Guerrilla Television
. Over the years, more than thirty "guerrilla video" makers were participants in TVTV productions. They included members of the Ant Farm
: Chip Lord
, Doug Michels, Hudson Marquez and Curtis Schreier; the Videofreex
, Skip Blumberg
, Nancy Cain, Chuck Kennedy, and Parry Teasdale. TVTV pioneered the use of independent video based on wanting to change society and have a good time inventing new and then-revolutionary media, ½" Sony
Portapak
video equipment, and later embracing the ¾" video format.
The group made a series of unique socially significant historical documentaries such as:
Other participants in TVTV included designer Elan Soltes, producer David Axelrod
, actor-comedian Bill Murray
and his brother Brian Doyle-Murray
, cinematographer Paul Goldsmith
, actor and director Harold Ramis
and producer Wendy Appel (aka Wendy Apple).
In 1976 -1977, experimental filmmaker Wheeler Winston Dixon
briefly joined the collective, editing most of the Supervision series, as well as portions of the Hard Rain Special and the entirety of The TVTV Show.
TVTV's many alumni went onto careers of their own with the disbanding of the group in 1979, after a move to Los Angeles that brought many in the group more into the orbit of conventional filmmaking. Bill Murray
went on to become an international film star; Michael Shamberg
a film producer, most notably with his company Jersey Films, in collaboration with Stacey Sher
and Danny DeVito
; Allen Rucker
became a writer and author; Wheeler Winston Dixon
became an author and university professor; Harold Ramis
went on to a long career as a mainstream film director, writer and actor.
Other TVTV members Skip Blumberg
became a well known videographer and producer; Tom Weinberg produced more than 500 nonfiction broadcasts, local and national based in his hometown, Chicago; Elan Soltes emerged as a video graphic designer in Hollywood. One of the world's most influential video "communes," TVTV's influence is felt to this day on the many "guerrilla videos" on YouTube
and other websites, as people now routinely use videography to get their message out to larger audiences.
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
-based pioneering video collective founded in 1972 by Allen Rucker
Allen Rucker
Allen Rucker is an American writer and author. Born in Wichita Falls, Texas, and raised in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, he earned a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis , an M.A. in American Culture from the University of Michigan , and another M.A...
, Michael Shamberg
Michael Shamberg
Michael Shamberg is an American former Time-Life correspondent and current film producer.-Life and career:His credits include Erin Brockovich, A Fish Called Wanda, Garden State, Gattaca, Pulp Fiction and The Big Chill...
, Tom Weinberg, Hudson Marquez and Megan Williams. Shamberg was author of the 1971 "do-it-yourself" video production manual Guerrilla Television
Guerrilla Television
Guerrilla television is a term coined in 1971 by Michael Shamberg, one of the founders of the Raindance Foundation; the Raindance Foundation has been one of the counter-culture video collectives that in the 1960s and 1970s extended the role of the underground press to new communication...
. Over the years, more than thirty "guerrilla video" makers were participants in TVTV productions. They included members of the Ant Farm
Ant Farm (group)
Ant Farm was an avant-garde architecture, graphic arts, and environmental design practice, founded in San Francisco in 1968 by Chip Lord and Doug Michels.-The group:...
: Chip Lord
Chip Lord
Chip Lord is an American Digital Media artist currently teaching at UC Santa Cruz and residing in the Bay Area. He is best known for his work with the alternative architecture and media collective known as Ant Farm, which he co-founded with Doug Michels in 1968...
, Doug Michels, Hudson Marquez and Curtis Schreier; the Videofreex
Videofreex
The Videofreex were a pioneering video collective who used the Sony Portapak for countercultural video projects from 1969 to 1978. They were founded in 1969 by David Cort, Curtis Ratcliff and Parry Teasdale, after Cort and Teasdale met each other at the Woodstock Music Festival...
, Skip Blumberg
Skip Blumberg
Skip Blumberg is one of the original camcorder-for-broadcast TV producers, and among the first wave of video artists in the 1970s. His early work reflects the era's emphasis on guerilla tactics and medium-specific graphics, but his more recent work takes on more global issues. His work has screened...
, Nancy Cain, Chuck Kennedy, and Parry Teasdale. TVTV pioneered the use of independent video based on wanting to change society and have a good time inventing new and then-revolutionary media, ½" Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
Portapak
Portapak
A Portapak is a battery powered self-contained video tape analog recording system that can be carried by one person. Earlier television cameras were large and relatively immovable, but the Portapak made it possible to record television images while moving around...
video equipment, and later embracing the ¾" video format.
The group made a series of unique socially significant historical documentaries such as:
- Four More Years (1972), covering the 1972 Republican National Convention1972 Republican National ConventionThe 1972 National Convention of the Republican Party of the United States was held from August 21 to August 23, 1972 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida. It nominated the incumbents Richard M. Nixon of California for President and Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland for Vice...
- The World's Largest TV Studio (1972), covering the 1972 Democratic National Convention1972 Democratic National ConventionThe 1972 Democratic National Convention was the presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party for the 1972 presidential election. It was held at Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida on July 10–13, 1972....
- Adland (1974), an examination of American commercial culture
- Lord of the Universe (1974), an award-winning documentary on the activities of the Guru Maharaj Ji and his followers
- TVTV Looks at the Oscars (1976)
- TVTV: Super BowlSuper BowlThe Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
(1976) - Gerald Ford's America (1975)
- The TVTV Show (1976), TVTV's final television special, co-produced with NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
television - The Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
Hard Rain Special (1976), another NBC co-production - Supervision (1976), a multipart PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
series about the birth of television and its cultural impact
Other participants in TVTV included designer Elan Soltes, producer David Axelrod
David Axelrod (musician)
David Axelrod is an American composer, arranger and producer, working in several musical genres.-Biography:...
, actor-comedian Bill Murray
Bill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
and his brother Brian Doyle-Murray
Brian Doyle-Murray
Brian Doyle-Murray is an American comedian, screenwriter, actor and voice artist. He is the older brother of actor/comedian Bill Murray and has acted together with him in several films, including Caddyshack, Scrooged, Ghostbusters II, The Razor's Edge and Groundhog Day...
, cinematographer Paul Goldsmith
Paul Goldsmith
Paul Goldsmith is a motorcycle Hall of Famer, Motorsports Hall of Fame of America inductee and former USAC and NASCAR driver.- Motorcycle career :...
, actor and director Harold Ramis
Harold Ramis
Harold Allen Ramis is an American actor, director, and writer, specializing in comedy. His best-known film acting roles are as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters and Russell Ziskey in Stripes , both of which he also co-wrote...
and producer Wendy Appel (aka Wendy Apple).
In 1976 -1977, experimental filmmaker Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon is best known as a writer of film history, theory and criticism. He is the author of numerous books on film, as well as a professor who has taught at Rutgers University, New Brunswick; The New School in New York; and the University of Amsterdam, Holland. He received his Ph.D....
briefly joined the collective, editing most of the Supervision series, as well as portions of the Hard Rain Special and the entirety of The TVTV Show.
TVTV's many alumni went onto careers of their own with the disbanding of the group in 1979, after a move to Los Angeles that brought many in the group more into the orbit of conventional filmmaking. Bill Murray
Bill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
went on to become an international film star; Michael Shamberg
Michael Shamberg
Michael Shamberg is an American former Time-Life correspondent and current film producer.-Life and career:His credits include Erin Brockovich, A Fish Called Wanda, Garden State, Gattaca, Pulp Fiction and The Big Chill...
a film producer, most notably with his company Jersey Films, in collaboration with Stacey Sher
Stacey Sher
-Early life:Born in New York but raised in Fort Lauderdale, Sher is a graduate of University of Southern California's Peter Stark Producing Program.-Movie career:...
and Danny DeVito
Danny DeVito
Daniel Michael DeVito, Jr. , better known as Danny DeVito, is an American actor, comedian, director and producer. He first gained prominence for his portrayal of Louie De Palma on the ABC and NBC television series Taxi , for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.DeVito and his wife, Rhea Perlman,...
; Allen Rucker
Allen Rucker
Allen Rucker is an American writer and author. Born in Wichita Falls, Texas, and raised in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, he earned a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis , an M.A. in American Culture from the University of Michigan , and another M.A...
became a writer and author; Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon is best known as a writer of film history, theory and criticism. He is the author of numerous books on film, as well as a professor who has taught at Rutgers University, New Brunswick; The New School in New York; and the University of Amsterdam, Holland. He received his Ph.D....
became an author and university professor; Harold Ramis
Harold Ramis
Harold Allen Ramis is an American actor, director, and writer, specializing in comedy. His best-known film acting roles are as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters and Russell Ziskey in Stripes , both of which he also co-wrote...
went on to a long career as a mainstream film director, writer and actor.
Other TVTV members Skip Blumberg
Skip Blumberg
Skip Blumberg is one of the original camcorder-for-broadcast TV producers, and among the first wave of video artists in the 1970s. His early work reflects the era's emphasis on guerilla tactics and medium-specific graphics, but his more recent work takes on more global issues. His work has screened...
became a well known videographer and producer; Tom Weinberg produced more than 500 nonfiction broadcasts, local and national based in his hometown, Chicago; Elan Soltes emerged as a video graphic designer in Hollywood. One of the world's most influential video "communes," TVTV's influence is felt to this day on the many "guerrilla videos" on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and other websites, as people now routinely use videography to get their message out to larger audiences.