Grant Robert Gee (born 24 October 1964) is a British film maker, photographer and cinematographer. He is most noted for his 1998 documentary ''

Meeting People Is Easy ''Meeting People Is Easy'' is a 1998 British documentary film by Grant Gee that follows the English rock band Radiohead on the world tour for their 1997 album ''OK Computer''. It received positive reviews and was nominated for a Grammy Award for ...

'' about the British

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial ...

group

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass ...

Early life

Gee was born in

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

and studied

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...

St Catherine's College, Oxford St Catherine's College (colloquially called St Catz or Catz) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford and is the newest college admitting both undergraduate and graduate students. Tracing its roots back to 1868 (although t ...

. He did postgraduate study at

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Un ...

Career

In the early 1990s Gee worked on U2's

Zoo TV The Zoo TV Tour (also written as ZooTV, ZOO TV or ZOOTV) was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Staged in support of their 1991 album ''Achtung Baby'', the tour visited arenas and stadiums from 1992 to 1993. It was intended to mirror th ...

and Zoo Radio, and collaborated with Mark Neale on several projects (many through London production company Kudos Productions), including "The Memory Palace", an experimental multi-media project combining film and live performance for the Expo '92. In 1996 he directed a twenty-seven-minute short film commissioned by progressive house band

Spooky Spooky or Spookey may refer to: something that will cause creepiness or uncanniness. Arts and entertainment Music Musicians * Spooky (house music duo) * Spookey (UK band), a 1970s soul band based in Manchester * DJ Spooky, musician and producer ...

for parts of their album "Found Sound" (namely the tracks "Central Heating", "Bamboo", "Aphonia", "Lowest Common Denominator", "Hypo-Allergenic"/"Interim"). The film was displayed on a continuous loop outside the

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

as part of its re-opening. Gee followed the band

whilst they were on tour for their highly acclaimed 1997 album ''

OK Computer ''OK Computer'' is the third studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in Japan on 21 May 1997 and in the UK on 16 June 1997. Radiohead self-produced the album with Nigel Godrich, an arrangement they have used for their subsequ ...

''. Gee's 1998 documentary of the tour, ''

'', was nominated for a Grammy award for

Best Long Form Music Video The Grammy Award for Best Music Film is an accolade presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally named the Gramophone Awards, to performers, directors, and producers of quality videos or musical programs. ...

. His short films including ''Tel Aviv City Symphony'' (commissioned by

onedotzero onedotzero is a contemporary digital arts organisation based in London that aims to promote new work in moving image and motion arts. The organisation conducts public events, artist and content development, publishing projects, education, produc ...

), the documentary ''JC-03'' (about

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various sty ...

at work) and the dance film ''Torsion'' (choreographed by Russell Maliphant) have been shown internationally as part of touring packages by the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...

, onedotzero and Film and Video Umbrella. Gee has also made music videos for British bands including Radiohead and Blur. In April 2006 the Creative Commons-licensed film project

A Swarm of Angels A Swarm of Angels (ASOA) was an open source film project and participatory film community, whose aim was to make the world's first Internet-funded, crewed and distributed feature film. The collaborative project aimed to attract 50,000 individual su ...

announced that Gee has joined the project team as Director of Photography. In 2007, he made ''Western Lands'', a ten-minute film about climbing the Old Man of Hoy. In November 2010 Grant received funding from the

UK Film Council The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and ...

to develop the project ''New Career in a New Town: David Bowie in Berlin'', a music documentary on David Bowie's Berlin period. Gee's 2007 documentary, ''Joy Division'', told the story of the eponymous Manchester band and was made in collaboration with writer

Jon Savage Jon Savage (born Jonathan Malcolm Sage; 2 September 1953 in Paddington, London) is an English writer, broadcaster and music journalist, best known for his history of the Sex Pistols and punk music, ''England's Dreaming'', published in 199 ...

. The film received generally positive reviews from critics. In ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'', Robert Koehler wrote that the documentary was "emotionally deeper" than the biopic directed by

Anton Corbijn Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard (; born 20 May 1955) is a Dutch photographer, film director and music video director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2,Pitman, Joanna"The silent partner"' ...

, ''

Control Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Control, an element of management accounting * Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization * Controlli ...

''. In January 2011, Gee completed his film ''Patience: After Sebald'' based on Sebald's book ''

The Rings of Saturn ''The Rings of Saturn'' (german: Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt - An English Pilgrimage) is a 1995 novel by the German writer W. G. Sebald. Its first-person narrative arc is the account by a nameless narrator (who resembles the a ...

'', which was accepted by the

Vancouver International Film Festival The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October. The festival is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Fest ...

and the

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center (FLC). Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, i ...

. In ''The Observer'',

Philip French Philip Neville French OBE (28 August 1933 – 27 October 2015) was an English film critic and radio producer. French began his career in journalism in the late 1950s, before eventually becoming a BBC Radio producer, and later a film crit ...

called it a "modest, immensely enjoyable documentary". In 2015, Gee's documentary film '' Innocence of Memories'', made in collaboration with Turkish novelist

Orhan Pamuk Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, his work has sold over thirteen million books in sixty-three lan ...

and based on his novel '' The Museum of Innocence'', was screened as a special event in the Venice Days section at the

72nd Venice International Film Festival The 72nd annual Venice International Film Festival took place from 2 to 12 September 2015. Alfonso Cuarón served as the President of the Jury for the main competition. A restored version of Federico Fellini's film ''Amarcord'' was shown at the ...

References

External links

*
Grant Gee
at the Music Video DataBase
Biography
at the site of production company Oil Factory

at Cinecity: The Brighton Film Festival in 2005
John May interviews Grant Gee
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gee, Grant 1964 births Alumni of St Catherine's College, Oxford British film directors British music video directors British documentary filmmakers Mass media people from Devon Living people University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni