Richard Leacock

Did you know?!

1. First role

   Leacock made Canary Bananas when he was 14, a silent 16 mm film about growing bananas that he wrote, directed, filmed and edited. In his opinion, it failed to give "the feeling of being there".

2. Getting ready for a role

   In 1958 Leacock put the design of an Accutron watch into a mobile quartz camera, and with a mobile quartz tape recorder that needed no cables, proper synchronization became possible. Drew and Leacock then made the first model and shot Primary.

3. Own stunts

   At a folk music festival on a mountain in south Virginia, where electricity was unavailable, Leacock used a 35 mm studio camera and a 35 mm optical film sound recorder, both running on batteries kept in a large truck.

4. Big break

   Leacock's film Toby and the Tall Corn aired in prime time on the American cultural TV program Omnibus. That showing led to his meeting Robert Drew, an editor at Life magazine.

5. Early training

   Leacock taught at MIT from 1968 until his retirement in 1989, where his group developed cheaper Super-8 sync equipment and trained filmmakers like Ross McElwee.