Robert Altman

Robert Bernard Altman (born February 20, 1925) is an American film director known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a somewhat skewed perspective.

Industrial film experience

In 1950 there were no film schools, but at the age of 25, Altman hit upon the next best thing. He joined the Calvin Company, the world's largest industrial film production company and 16mm film laboratory, headquartered in Kansas City. Altman, fascinated by the company and their equipment, started as a film writer (even though the writing he had done was with collaborators who did most of the real work), and within a few months began to direct films. This led to his employment at the Calvin Company as a film director for almost six years. Until 1955, Altman directed 60 to 65 industrial short films, usually made to promote a business, a service, or a government function, earning $250 a week while simultaneously getting the necessary training and experience that he would need for a successful career in filmmaking. The ability to shoot rapidly, on-schedule, and work within the confines of both big and low budgets would serve him quite well later in his career. On the technical side, he learned all about "the tools of filmmaking": the camera, the boom mike, the lights, etc. Although the Calvin Company never intended themselves to be a substitute film school, evidently they were, not only for Altman, but for a great number of other young filmmakers in the area.

Related Topics:
1950 - Calvin Company - Industrial film - 1955

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However, Altman soon tired of the industrial film format, and kept grasping for more challenging projects. He would occasionally leave for Hollywood and try to write scripts, but then return months later, broke, to the Calvin Company. According to Altman, each time the Calvin people would drop him another notch in salary. The third time, the Calvin people declared at a staff meeting that if he left and came back one more time, they were going to keep him.

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