John Spotton

Who was John Spotton?

John Spotton was a Canadian filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada.

Spotton was a versatile artist whose variously was a director, producer, cinematographer and editor best known for his role in developing Direct Cinema genre of documentary and in the application of those techniques in narrative fiction films, in particular Nobody Waved Good-bye for which was cinematographer and editor.

An early member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers, Spotton briefly working as a cameraman for a private company, joined the NFB in 1949 and worked there for the rest of his life with the exception of a two-year period in the 1970s when he worked with Potterton Productions. He was executive director of the NFB's Ontario Centre from 1982 until 1988.

He drowned at the age of sixty-four while on vacation in Cuba. The NFB's John Spotton Theatre in Toronto was named for him.