John Dorr / EZTV Timeline: 1979 – 1993
Some people were making films on videotape in 1979!
John Dorr
1944 – 1993
1979
John Dorr takes a black and white security camera and a Betamax deck and makes a feature length
film in camera called Sudzall Does It All.
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John makes his second feature, The Case of The Missing Consciousness, starring
Strawn Bovee and John Dorr. Its first screening is at The Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art.
[more]
1980
April 1982
EZTV Video Gallery debuts with a screening of Dorothy and Alan at Norma
Place.
[more]
John makes his fourth feature, Approaching Omega, starring Harry
Hart-Browne, S.A. Griffin and Robin Fuentes.
1983
June 1, 1983
EZTV Video Gallery & Production Center opens in its own space at 8543 Santa Monica Boulevard in
West Hollywood's New Orleans Square.
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EZTV Art Gallery opens in the EZTV Video Gallery & Production Center.
James Williams is the director until 1985, followed by Michael J. Masucci.
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EZTV Art Gallery presents a show of digital art.
Fall 1983
November 1983
Crushed Lilies, an experimental work by T. Jankowski, is produced
and screened at EZTV. Many other experimental works are subsequently screened.
[more]
Twenty six weekly half hour episodes of Hour 25: SFTV, an interview
show on the subject of science fiction, are produced at EZTV's facilities.
[more]
1983 – 1984
1984
Political documentary Dorothy Ray Healey, An American Red by Eve Goldberg
screens at EZTV.
[more]
David Curlendar, a graduate student at UCLA, shows the first computer-generated
animation at EZTV.
Blonde Death by James Dillinger becomes EZTV's first hit, running
continually for four months.
[more]
January 1984
May 1984
The Truth is Bad Enough by Michael Kearns screens at EZTV on multi-track
video.
[more]
Mark Kramer opens an EZTV Video Gallery in Dallas, Texas.
[more]
April 1984
1985
Terry Zwigoff shows his documentary about underground artist R Crumb,
Crumb, as a work-in-progress at EZTV. It was accompanied by a show of Crumb's work in the EZTV Art Gallery.
EZTV collaborates with LA SIGRAFF, Visual Music Alliance, and California Outside
Music Alliance to present "On the Threshold", a multimedia event at the Hollywood Palace in downtown L.A.
[more]
What Happened to Kerouac? becomes the first city-wide video hit playing
continually at three video theaters in Los Angeles.
[more]
January 1985
Warner Brothers screens the feature length film
Mike's Murder, starring Debra Winger, at EZTV in consideration for an Academy Award.
1985 – 1989
The video component of The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival screens at EZTV.
In collaboration with the American Film Institute, EZTV screens 3 feature films made on video by
Jean Luc Godard, including Grandeur and Decadence.
1986
April 1986
The West Hollywood Sign, conceived by EZTV Artistic Director Michael J. Masucci and located next to EZTV,
is unveiled on the 40th anniversary of the introduction of video technology.
120 1-minute messages are recorded on videotape and sent to President Reagan as part of The Live
Videotaping Party in support of The Great Peace March.
May 1986
September 1987
Strawn Bovee produces Astral Tea Parties at EZTV. The tea parties are talk show, performance
and video events covering fields as diverse as physics and the Japanese tea ceremony.
[more]
EZTV and KPFK collaborate to present a live computer chat with Arthur C. Clarke
in Sri Lanka as part of The Los Angeles Fringe Festival.
[more]
John Dorr and Lewis MacAdams make 26 one-hour documentaries about poets for the
Lannan Literary Series. Poets include Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg,
W.S. Merwin, Octavio Paz, Louise Glück, and Sonia Sanchez.
[more]
1988 – 1991
May 1988
EZTV screens The Charles Bukowski Tapes by Barbet Schroeder, which
contains interviews with Charles Bukowski that originated as 5 minute segments on French TV.
Zina Bethune and Michael J. Masucci collaborate on Dance Outreach in
the People's Republic of China, a profile of dancer/choreographer Zina Bethune.
November 1989
Fall 1990
EZTV Arts Foundation sponsors a four month series of screenings and discussions called "Conversations
in Video" on the subject of current trends in video.
Siggraph/LA Art '90, a show of digital art, screens at EZTV as part of the Los Angeles Art Festival's Open Festival.
October 1990
June 1991
Kim McKillip and Michael J. Masucci work with Patrick Wall, organizer of the environmental group Earth
Alert, to make the documentary Orange County: Beween the Sewage and the Sea at EZTV's facilities.
John Dorr and Mike Kaplan make the feature-length documentary
Luck, Trust and Ketchup: Robert Altman in Carver Country.
[more]
Fall 1992
October 1992
CyberSpace Gallery opens in the upstairs space at EZTV with a show called "Silent Partners".
[more]
Dr. Timothy Leary leads a series of Monday night interactive multimedia lecture-demonstrations at
CyberSpace Gallery titled "How to Operate Your Brain".
December 1992
January 1, 1993
John Dorr dies of complications from AIDS in Los Angeles.