Harold Monroe Tulchin (December 23, 1926 – August 29, 2017) was an American television and

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

director.

Life and career

Hal Tulchin was born in

Elizabeth, New Jersey Elizabeth is a city and the county seat of Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.New J ...

, the son of Jewish immigrants from

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. He attended the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

, and then studied acting and directing at the

Dramatic Workshop Dramatic Workshop was the name of a drama and acting school associated with the New School for Social Research in New York City. It was launched in 1940 by German expatriate stage director Erwin Piscator. Among the faculty were Lee Strasberg and Ste ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. He worked for Sterling Television, and for an advertising agency, Young & Rubicam, where he worked on

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

's re-election campaign in 1956. He also directed live

television commercial A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

s, and became an expert in the use of

videotape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassett ...

. In 1959, he directed a television

game show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or Let's Play, demonstrative and are typically directed b ...

, ''Across the Board''. Richard Sandomir, "Hal Tulchin, Who Documented a ‘Black Woodstock,’ Dies at 90", ''New York Times'', September 14, 2017
Retrieved 5 January 2022 In 1968, Tony Lawrence, a nightclub singer who had been working under

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

John Lindsay to organize community initiatives and cultural events in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

, invited Tulchin to film the second Harlem Cultural Festival, and excerpts were later broadcast on

WNEW-TV WNYW (channel 5) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside Secaucus, New Jersey–licensed MyNetworkTV flagship ...

in New York. James Gaunt, "Who Is Tony Lawrence?", ''The Shadow Knows'', December 9, 2021
Retrieved 29 December 2021 For the 1969 festival, held at Mount Morris Park, Lawrence secured additional sponsorship from

Maxwell House Maxwell House is an American brand of coffee manufactured by a like-named division of Kraft Heinz in North America and JDE Peet's in the rest of the world. Introduced in 1892 by wholesale grocer Joel Owsley Cheek, it was named in honor of the Ma ...

, and performers included Nina Simone,

B. B. King Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimm ...

the Staple Singers The Staple Singers were an American gospel, soul, and R&B singing group. Roebuck "Pops" Staples (December 28, 1914 – December 19, 2000), the patriarch of the family, formed the group with his children Cleotha (April 11, 1934 – February 21 ...

, and

Stevie Wonder Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...

. The event, taking place over several weekends, was again filmed by Tulchin, and also involved the participation of community activists and civic leaders including

Jesse Jackson Jesse Louis Jackson (né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senator ...

. Tulchin used five portable video cameras to record over 40 hours of footage of the event, and reportedly also designed the stage

set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...

. Two hour-long specials were broadcast by CBS in July and September 1969, and the event became known as "Black

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...

". The "Tony Lawrence Love Festival", held in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.NBC the following month. Tulchin retained control over the

s of the Harlem concerts, but there was little interest in broadcasting longer excerpts of the footage more widely - according to Tulchin, "nobody really cared about black shows". In the 1970s, Tulchin directed networked television shows featuring Bobby Goldsboro, Wayne Newton, and others. He also continued his attempts to interest broadcasters and film production companies in using footage of the Harlem festivals. Lawrence unsuccessfully disputed Tulchin's rights over the recordings. Some of the footage of Nina Simone was eventually used in documentaries about the singer, but most remained unused and in Tulchin's possession. In 2004, Tulchin agreed with film archivist Joe Lauro of

Historic Films Archive Historic Films Archive is a stock footage library operating from New York. It owns the rights to an extensive collection of television and film footage dating back to 1895. Its library includes all genres of American Music on film and video an ...

that the videotapes be

digitized DigitizationTech Target. (2011, April). Definition: digitization. ''WhatIs.com''. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/digitization is the process of converting information into a digital (i.e. computer- ...

, but negotiations with writer and film maker

Robert Gordon Robert Gordon may refer to: Entertainment * Robert Gordon (actor) (1895–1971), silent-film actor * Robert Gordon (director) (1913–1990), American director * Robert Gordon (singer) (1947–2022), American rockabilly singer * Robert Gordon (scr ...

and director

Morgan Neville Morgan Neville (born October 10, 1967) is an American film producer, director and writer. His acclaimed film '' 20 Feet from Stardom'' won him the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2014 as well as a Grammy Award for Best Music Film. H ...

to make a feature film using the recordings later broke down. Richard Morgan, "The Story Behind the Harlem Cultural Festival Featured in ‘Summer of Soul’", ''Smithsonian Magazine'', February 1, 2007
Retrieved 5 January 2022 Stephen Battaglio, "Meet the archivist who saved the historic footage that became ‘Summer of Soul’", ''Los Angeles Times'', August 19, 2021
Retrieved 5 January 2022 Tulchin died, aged 90, in New York City in 2017. Tulchin's video recordings of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival were eventually used by

Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson Ahmir Khalib Thompson (born January 20, 1971), known professionally as Questlove (stylized as ), is an American musician, record producer, disc jockey, filmmaker, music journalist, and actor. He is the drummer and joint frontman (with Black Thou ...

as the basis for the successful 2021 documentary film ''

Summer of Soul ''Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)'' is a 2021 American documentary film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in his directorial debut. It had its world premiere at the ...

''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tulchin, Hal 1926 births 2017 deaths American documentary filmmakers Film directors from New Jersey Harlem Cultural Festival People from Elizabeth, New Jersey University of Iowa alumni