Robert Nelson(1930-2012)

He studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute (formerly known as the California School of Fine Arts) in San Francisco, California and at Mills College in Berkeley, California. He was trained as a painter when he became active in the San Francisco arts scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He began making movies with other painters, William T. Wiley and William Allan, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the composer, Steve Reich.

[on his first film] I had 2,000 feet of film after we shot it, and it looked very poor - only because it was repetitious and long. I struggled with the footage for weeks. No matter what I did, it seemed boring. In desperation, I started cutting shots shorter and shorter, and when I saw the energy that put into the film, I have my first real revelation about cutting.