Blaine Dunlap

  

• Migrant Media Worker
• Southeast Media Preservation Lab
• Website: analoglab.org

BLAINE DUNLAP, pioneering folklore video documentarian, studied cinema verite editing with Stephen Schmidt and experimental television with David Dowe at the Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University. In 1974 he was invited to join Broadside TV, the Tennessee-based community video cooperative. In 1975 he teamed up with video artist Sol Korine; on 12/27/1977, their “Showdown at the Hoedown,” became the first folklore video documentary to be nationally broadcast on Public Broadcasting System (PBS). The partners made “Hamper McBee: Raw Mash,” presented byWNET-TV's “Non-Fiction Television to PBS April 6, 1979; and “The Uncle Dave Macon Program,” presented by the Georgia Education Television's Network (GETV) to PBS December 7, 1980. On May 28, 1981, GETV/PBS began airing Korine-Dunlap's “Southbound” a ten-part anthology roots music series consisting of three new works, “Mouth Music,” (Korine- Dunlap); “Give the World a Smile,” (Gretchen Robinson); “Gimble's Swing,” (Ken Harrison): and seven national premieres, including“Give My Poor Heart Ease,” (William Ferris): “Chulas Fronteras,”(Les Blank)” and “Fannie Bell Chapman” (Judy Pieser); and “This Cat Can Play Anything, (Stevenson Palfi, Andrew Kolker, and Eddie Kurtz). The series gave most American television viewers their very first video experience with the Blues, Tex-Mex, Black Gospel,White Gospel, Cajun,Western Swing, and traditional Appalachian music. Dunlap went on to make documentaries for Turner Broadcasting, work in client-based production, write and direct independent drama, and co-produce “AreWe On.?” and “Played In the USA,” (with Stevenson J. Palfi) for the Learning Channel. Since the Storm of 2005 Dunlap has devoted all of his resources to help moving image archives and makers save our audio-visual legacy. Blaine Dunlap is a Guggenheim Fellow and lives with his two young daughters in New Orleans.