Julian Biggs (1920 in

Port Perry, Ontario Port Perry is a community located in Scugog, Ontario, Canada. The town is located northeast of central Toronto and north of Oshawa and Whitby. Port Perry has a population of 9,453 as of 2016. Port Perry serves as the administrative and commer ...

– 1972 in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

) was a director, producer and administrator with the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

for 20 years responsible for two Academy Award nominees, ''

Herring Hunt ''Herring Hunt'' is a 1953 National Film Board of Canada short documentary film about the operations of a herring boat off the coast of British Columbia, directed by Julian Biggs, written by Leslie McFarlane and produced by Guy Glover, which was n ...

'' (1953, as director) and '' Paddle to the Sea'' (1966, as producer).

Career

A graduate of

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

who served in the Canadian army and navy during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Julian Biggs joined the National Film Board as production assistant and writer in 1951. He became the director of English production at the Board in 1966, then returned to active directing in 1968. He was responsible for several of the early NFB dramas, the ''Perspective'' series, '' 23 Skidoo'' and ''The Little Fellow from Gambo''. He directed the Academy Award-nominated ''Herring Hunt'' and oversaw the production of nearly 200 films, including Don Owen's ''

High Steel ''High Steel'' is a 1965 short National Film Board of Canada documentary film directed by Don Owen about Mohawk Ironworkers from Kahnawake building New York City skycrapers. Synopsis Featuring breathtaking sequences of workers walking along na ...

'' and ''

Notes for a Film About Donna and Gail ''Notes for a Film About Donna and Gail'' is a Canadian drama film, directed by Don Owen and released in 1966.Steve Gravestock, ''Don Owen: Notes on a Filmmaker and His Culture''. Indiana University Press, 2005. . The film centres on Donna (Mich� ...

'', and

Bill Mason Bill Mason was a Canadian naturalist, author, artist, filmmaker, and conservationist, noted primarily for his popular canoeing books, films, and art as well as his documentaries on wolves. Mason was also known for including passages from Christ ...

's '' Paddle to the Sea'', the popular Oscar-nominated live-action short. In 1970, his profile of Newfoundland Prime Minister Joey Smallwood, ''A Little Fellow from Gambo'', earned him a best director award at the

Canadian Film Awards The Canadian Film Awards were the leading Canadian cinema awards from 1949 until 1978. These honours were conducted annually, except in 1974 when a number of Quebec directors withdrew their participation and prompted a cancellation. In the 1970s ...

''Perspective'' series

A National Film Board series of 30-minute dramas produced by Biggs (paralleled by a similar series in French known as ''Passe-partout'') from 1956 to 1958. The emphasis was on documentary dramas in which social themes such as alcoholism, drug addition, adolescence, the elderly, racial problems etc. predominated. One such film, ''Monkey on the Back'', directed by Biggs, was a bleak, tragic story of man's struggle to free himself, unsuccessfully, from drug addiction. Similar to Robert Anderson's ''Drug Addict'' (1948), which had been banned in the U.S., it was the type of film that caused the Board to reconsider its role in producing socially relevant films. There was an unwritten policy and priority to shift away from social realism to the ''art'' of film. In his authoritative ''Film Companion'', Canadian film historian Peter Morris wrote this about the series that contained elements, which later become common in direct cinema. "Perhaps the most original aspect of the films was their method of production: a light, quiet-running

Auricon Auricon cameras were 16 mm film Single System sound-on-film motion picture cameras manufactured in the 1940s through the early 1980s. Auricon cameras are notable because they record sound directly onto an optical or magnetic track on the same film ...

camera mounted on a chest harness, used on location and combined with double-system sound recording using the Sprocketape recorder. This technology sharply reduced production costs and shooting time. The style that resulted is apparent in most of the films, mostly clearly in ''Joe and Roxy'' (1957) and ''Night Children'' (1956), and clearly anticipates the later application of direct cinema to fiction. The series initially attracted a large audience, but the didactic tone of many of the film and the problems inherent in condensing high-intensity dramas into 30 minutes drove viewers away. The series was cancelled in the spring of 1958. The '' Candid Eye'' series was developed at least partially in reaction to the dramatic format of ''Perspective'', an approach the NFB believed had lost touch with the real world."

Films include

*''The Oyster Man'', 1951 (co-directed with

Jean Palardy Jean Palardy (1905November 28, 1991) was a French-Canadian painter, art historian, ethnologist and filmmaker. Biography Born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Palardy moved with his family to Canada as a child in 1908, one of eight children. He was ...

) *''The Son'', 1952 (directed and wrote) *''

'', 1953 (directed) *''The Shepherd'', 1956 (produced and directed) *''Monkey on the Back'', 1956 (produced, directed and edited) *''Night Children'', 1956 (produced) *''Joe and Roxy'', 1957 (produced) *''Fire in Town'', 1958 (directed) *''William Lyon MacKenzie: A Friend to His Country'', 1961 (produced and directed) *'' 23 Skidoo'', 1964 (directed) *''John Hirsch: A Portrait of a Man and a Theatre'', 1965 (produced) *''

Buster Keaton Rides Again ''Buster Keaton Rides Again'' is a 55-minute 1965 documentary film directed by John Spotton and narrated by Michael Kane. The film is a behind-the-scenes documentary shot while Buster Keaton's film '' The Railrodder'' (1965), was being produce ...

'', 1965 (produced) *''

The Railrodder ''The Railrodder'' is a 1965 short comedy film starring Buster Keaton in one of his final film roles, directed by Gerald Potterton and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). A 25-minute comedic travelogue of Canada, ''The Railrodder ...

'', 1965 (produced) *''

'', 1965 (produced) *'' Paddle to the Sea'', 1966 (produced) *''

'', 1966 (produced) *'' A Little Fellow from Gambo: The Joey Smallwood Story'', 1970 (produced, directed and wrote)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Biggs, Julian 1920 births 1972 deaths National Film Board of Canada people Film directors from Ontario Canadian film producers University of Toronto alumni People from Scugog Canadian military personnel of World War II