Draft:Robert L. Pryor

Robert L. Pryor

Robert L. Pryor (1928–) is an American filmmaker whose documentary movies from the 1960s and '70s cover Spokane Garry; the Nez Perce; the City of Spokane, Washington; the development of the Spokane River and Columbia River; and recreation at Priest Lake, Idaho.

Early life and education

Pryor was born in Spokane, Washington, in 1928 and raised in Cheney where he received his master's degree from Eastern Washington State College (now Eastern Washington University) in 1959. After a year of teaching in Oregon, he moved to Spokane and worked for Spokane Public Schools for 32 years. For 23 of those years he served as the district's Instructional Media Coordinator, a position that allowed him to screen thousands of educational films and teach himself the art of filmmaking.

Film career

When Pryor could not find films about the history of the Spokane area, he decided to make the films himself. "I felt a need for films on local subjects," Pryor told Spokesman-Review reporter Shawn Vestal in 2015. Beginning in the 1960s, Pryor made films with his company Northwest Film Productions and with the Instructional Materials Service of Spokane Public Schools. He worked with film editor Robert C. Horn of Crown Film Co., artist Patricia Christensen who worked in Pryor's Instructional Media department, narrator Stanley G. Witter, Jr., of KREM TV and radio, photographer William J. Benish, and Alpha Cine Lab of Spokane.

Filmography

Pryor made seven films. Five of his films are on YouTube:

• Chief Spokane Garry: Indian of the Northwest (1966, 23 min)
• Utilizing Fresh Water Resources: The Columbia River (1968, 14 min)
• Spokane: The First 100 Years (1969, 26 min)
• The Spokane River (1970, 17 min)
• Aqua Summer [Priest Lake, Idaho] (1973, 14 min)

Two of Pryor's films are currently considered lost:

• Nez Perce: Bring Us the Black Book (release date and runtime unknown)
• An unreleased film about surfing in Hawaii (runtime unknown)

Loss and Rediscovery

As 16mm film projectors became less common, Pryor's films disappeared from public view. Then, the Washington State University MASC (Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections) department digitized Chief Spokane Garry and posted it to YouTube in 2014, bringing Pryor's first film back into the public spotlight. Historians took notice. Eastern Washington University history professor Larry Cebula saw the film and wrote in the video's comment section: "Wow, I had no idea that this video existed! Though a bit condescending in tone it is pretty fair and holds up well. I would love to know more about who made it." WSU MASC replied, "We believe he may have died in 1993." Lee O'Connor, author of Take Cover, Spokane: A History of Backyard Bunkers, Basement Hideaways, and Public Fallout Shelters of the Cold War (2014), found that Pryor was still alive and secured permission from the pioneering filmmaker to digitize five of his movies and share them online. O'Connor posted the films in a Pryor playlist on YouTube.

Film scanning

O'Connor hired Lightpress in Seattle to digitize Pryor's films in 2015. The process of scanning Pryor's Aqua Summer is documented in the O'Connor video How to Digitize Vintage Films, Jeff Tillotson Talks 16mm Film Scanning at Lightpress in Seattle.

Recognition

Pryor's filmmaking has been recognized in an interview of Pryor conducted by O'Connor, a documentary video about Pryor produced by Bob Lawrence for KSPS PBS Public TV, and an article by Shawn Vestal that appeared in the print and online editions of the Spokesman-Review.

• Interview: Robert L. Pryor, A Pioneering Northwest Filmmaker (2017) by Lee O'Connor

• Northwest Profiles: Pryor Knowledge (Historic Filmmaker) (2017) by Bob Lawrence for KSPS PBS Public TV
• Shawn Vestal, "Four old documentaries on Spokane worth watching," Spokesman-Review, 24 November 2015.
• Shawn Vestal, "Rediscovered Films Put Spokane in Focus," Spokesman-Review, 25 November 2015.

Preserving Pryor's Film Legacy

In 2024, Pryor gifted his physical films and the copyright in works to O'Connor so that O'Connor could preserve Pryor's filmmaking legacy and legally share the movies with others who may wish to showcase Pryor's films.

Creation of this page

When O'Connor created this Wikipedia page about Mr. Pryor's filmmaking, he followed Wikipedia policy and acknowledged that he is a friend of Pryor, a fan of his filmmaking, and has a legal interest in his movies, which could make him biased when writing this page. "Whatever bias or conflict of interest may exist in my creating the article about Mr. Pryor," O'Connor wrote, "it is outweighed by the need to preserve in history that Mr. Pryor is a pioneering documentary filmmaker from Spokane."

References

Category:Draft articles about filmmakers