Tom Daly (filmmaker)

Thomas Cullen Daly, OC (April 25, 1918 – September 18, 2011) was a Canadian film producer, film editor and film director, who was the head of Studio B at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) in the 1950s and 1960s.[1] On April 27, 2000, he was honored by being made an Officer in the OC (Order of Canada). During his 44-year career at the NFB, Daly produced and executive-produced more than 300 films.[2]

Tom Daly
Born
Thomas Cullen Daly

(1918-04-25)April 25, 1918
Toronto, Canada
DiedSeptember 18, 2011(2011-09-18) (aged 93)
Westmount, Canada
OccupationProducer
Film editor
Film director
Years active1940–1984

Early years

Daly learned the art of film editing from filmmaker Stuart Legg and documentary pioneer and NFB founder John Grierson, who had hired Daly in 1940 directly following his graduation from the University of Toronto. Daly was passionate about assisting in the NFB's war effort. Grierson was apparently taken with Daly’s intellect and bookish manner and brought him aboard as a production assistant, joking calling him “the best butler in the business,” an expression which would serve as the title for film scholar D.B. Jones’s decades later book on Daly, The Best Butler in the Business: Tom Daly of the National Film Board of Canada.[3]

Unit B

As head of the NFB's Unit B, Daly was involved in, or responsible for, numerous milestones and achievements in both documentary and animation film art, including Cinéma vérité and Direct Cinema productions.[4][5] He was also heavily involved in the multi-projector cinematic presentation In the Labyrinth, which eventually led to the development of IMAX.[2] Daly was persuaded to put aside his studio responsibilities for a year and a half to edit In the Labyrinth.[3]

Daly also produced such works as Colin Low's Corral, Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor’s Lonely Boy, Koenig and Low’s City of Gold, Kroitor and Low’s Universe, Arthur Lipsett’s Very Nice, Very Nice, Robin Spry's One Man, and Gerald Potterton’s animated short My Financial Career.[2] Daly also served as executive producer on Candid Eye, a 14-part cinema-vérité series made between 1958 and 1961.[3][6]

Daly ran a mixed-discipline studio that included many of the most talented Canadian film-makers of the time, including an animation group with Norman McLaren, Don Arioli, and Robert Verrall; a documentary team including Roman Kroitor and Terence Macartney-Filgate.[7] Both Colin Low and Wolf Koenig worked at various times in both areas.[2]

Retirement and death

In 1980, Daly received an honorary doctorate from Concordia University.[8] He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000.[9]

He died on September 18, 2011, after a lengthy illness, at the Chateau Westmount residence in Westmount, Quebec.[10]

References
  1. Ellis 2000, p. 143.
  2. "NFB pioneer Tom Daly dies at age 93." CBC News September 21, 2011. Retrieved: May 2, 2016.
  3. Brownstein, Bill. "Looking back on the work of Tom Daly." Vancouver Sun, October 5, 2011. Retrieved: May 2, 2016.
  4. Evans 1984, p. 128.
  5. Hassannia, Tina (1 March 2016). "Colin Low, Don Owen and how the NFB's Unit B changed Canadian cinema". CBC Arts. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  6. Khouri 2007, p. 36.
  7. McInnes 2004, p. 135.
  8. "Honorary Degree Citation: Tom Daly." Concordia University Archives. Retrieved: May 2, 2016.
  9. "Order of Canada: Thomas Cullen Daly". The Governor General of Canada. Retrieved 10 March 2017.
  10. "NFB marks death of documentary pioneer Tom Daly." Canada News Wire, September 211, 2011. Retrieved: May 2, 2016.

Bibliography
  • Ellis, Jack C. John Grierson: Life, Contributions, Influence. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-80932-242-8.
  • Evans, Gary. John Grierson and the National Film Board: The Politics of Wartime Propaganda. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. ISBN 978-0-80202-519-7.
  • Jones, D.B. The Best Butler in the Business: Tom Daly of the National Film Board of Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-8020-0760-5.
  • Khouri, Malek. Filming Politics: Communism and the Portrayal of the Working Class at the National Film Board of Canada, 1939-46. Calgary, Alberta, Canada: University of Calgary Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-55238-199-1.
  • McInnes, Graham. One Man's Documentary: A Memoir of the Early Years of the National Film Board. Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of Manitoba, 2004. ISBN 978-0-8875-5679-1.
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