Michael Wadleigh

Michael Wadleigh (born September 24, 1942, in Akron, Ohio) is an American film director and cinematographer renowned for his groundbreaking documentary of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, Woodstock. Biography A native of Akron, Ohio, Wadleigh entered films in his early twenties as a cinematographer on independently produced low-budget films David Holzman's Diary and I Call First (both 1967), and My Girlfriend's Wedding (1969). He gained notice for his work from critics who followed independent and underground films, but the films, primarily aimed at a specialized and counterculture audience, brought him no financial success. In 1969, Wadleigh undertook the monumental task of documenting the Woodstock Music Festival. He arrived on the site in Bethel, New York on August 15, with over a thousand reels of film and a crew of several camera operators. The finished product was said to have consisted of about 120 miles of footage which, over the next months, was edited down to 184 minutes. Warner Bros., the film's primary financial backer, released it on March 26, 1970. The film, which reportedly cost $600,000 to produce, earned over $50 million in the United States and more millions from foreign rentals, but due to a complicated arrangement with Warner Bros., Wadleigh received only a small percentage of the profits. Woodstock stands as a milestone in the documentary film field, receiving an Academy Award for Documentary Feature at the 1971 ceremony.