By Sarah Hunt
You probably won’t know John Smithson’s name. His work, however, reads like a list of Oscar nominations – and that’s probably because he was recently nominated for six.
John has produced some of the most epic stories from the last decades. Most recently, he was responsible for 127 Hours, the story of mountaineer Aron Ralston, who became trapped by a boulder in Utah for (surprise) 127 hours before amputating his arm.
John’s long career includes achievements such as; Touching the Void, the story of two mountaineers who attempted to climb the west face of famous 21,000ft peak “Siula Grande” in Peru; The Falling Man, an expose about the photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew, depicting a man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks in New York City; and Thriller in Manila, the story of boxer Joe Frazier’s iconic fights with Muhammad Ali.
As a part of our storytelling series, John speaks with Hidden Documentary on different facets of creating a compelling documentary.
John Smithson producer of 127 Hours talks about documentary trends in 2011 – Hidden Documentary from hiddendoco on Vimeo.
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