Michael Shamberg (born 1945?) is an American

film producer A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...

and former

Time–Life Time Life, with sister subsidiaries StarVista Live and Lifestyle Products Group, a holding of Direct Holdings Global LLC, is an American production company and direct marketer conglomerate, that is known for selling books, music, video/DVD, ...

correspondent.

Life and career

His credits include ''

Erin Brockovich Erin Brockovich (née Pattee; born June 22, 1960) is an American legal clerk, consumer advocate, and environmental activist who, despite her lack of education in the law, was instrumental in building a case against Pacific Gas & Electric Compan ...

'', ''

A Fish Called Wanda ''A Fish Called Wanda'' is a 1988 heist comedy film directed by Charles Crichton and written by Crichton and John Cleese. It stars Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin. The film follows a gang of diamond thieves who double- ...

'', '' Garden State'', ''

Gattaca ''Gattaca'' is a 1997 American dystopian science fiction thriller film written and directed by Andrew Niccol in his filmmaking debut. It stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman with Jude Law, Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Gore Vidal, and Alan Arkin ap ...

'', ''

Pulp Fiction ''Pulp Fiction'' is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who conceived it with Roger Avary.See, e.g., King (2002), pp. 185–7; ; Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Ving Rhame ...

'' and ''

The Big Chill Big Chill can refer to: *The Big Chill (music festival), an annual music and comedy festival held in England * ''The Big Chill'' (film), a 1983 American film directed by Lawrence Kasdan *The Big Chill at the Big House, a 2010 U.S. college ice hock ...

''. His production companies include

Jersey Films Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. (born November 17, 1944) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He gained prominence for his portrayal of the taxi dispatcher Louie De Palma in the television series ''Taxi'' (1978–1983), which won him a Gold ...

, with

Stacey Sher Stacey Sher (born November 30, 1962) is an American film producer. Early life Sher was born to a Jewish family in New York City and raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She graduated and got her bachelor's degree from University of Southern Cal ...

and

Danny DeVito Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. (born November 17, 1944) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He gained prominence for his portrayal of the taxi dispatcher Louie De Palma in the television series ''Taxi'' (1978–1983), which won him a Gold ...

, and, , Double Feature Films, with Stacey Sher. In the 1960s and 1970s, counter-culture video collectives extended the role of the underground press to new communication technologies. In 1970, Shamberg co-founded a video collective called

Raindance Corporation Raindance Foundation (RainDance Corporation) was founded in October 1969 by Frank Gillette, Paul Ryan, Michael Shamberg, Louis Jaffe, and Marco Vassi. Raindance was a self-described "alternate culture think-tank" that embraced video as an alternat ...

, which published a newspaper-magazine called

Radical Software ''Radical Software'' was an early journal on the use of video as an artistic and political medium, started in 1970 in New York City. At the time, the term ''radical software'' referred to the content of information rather than to a computer progra ...

. Raindance Corporation later became TVTV, or Top Value Television. Shamberg and his first wife Megan Williams were founding members of TVTV. The collective believed new technology could effect social change. An example was Shamberg's work on ''In Hiding: A Conversation with

Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponen ...

'', broadcast on

Public-access television Public-access television is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is narrowcast through cable television specialty channels. Public-access television was creat ...

station WNET/13 in May 1975. Shamberg described his approach as " guerrilla television" (the title of his 1971 book) because, despite its strategies and tactics similar to warfare, guerrilla television is non-violent and he saw it as a means to break through the barriers imposed by

broadcast television Broadcast television systems (or terrestrial television systems outside the US and Canada) are the encoding or formatting systems for the transmission and reception of terrestrial television signals. Analog television systems were standardized b ...

, which he called beast television. His TVTV group's documentary ''

Lord of the Universe ''Lord of the Universe'' is a 1974 American documentary film about Prem Rawat (at the time known as Guru Maharaj Ji) at an event in November 1973 at the Houston Astrodome called "Millennium '73". ''Lord of the Universe'' was first broadcast on ...

'', 1974, won a DuPont-Columbia Award in 1975. The group urged for the use of

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

Portapak A Portapak is a battery-powered, self-contained video tape analog recording system. Introduced to the market in 1967, it could be carried and operated by one person. Earlier television cameras were large and heavy, required a specialized vehicle ...

video camera, introduced in 1967, to be merged with the

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

style and television, and later pioneer use of 3/4" video in their works. Shamberg is a graduate of

Washington University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

St. Louis, MO St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which ...

Filmography

He was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted.

Film

;As an actor ;Thanks

Television

;As an editor ;As writer

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shamberg, Michael 1945 births American film producers Living people Businesspeople from Chicago Washington University in St. Louis alumni