D.A. Pennebaker '47, Engineering Pioneer of Cinema

If you’ve seen “Dont Look Back,” the documentary about Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England, you likely remember the famous opening sequence featuring the “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” While it plays, Dylan holds up cue cards that approximate the song’ lyrics. The scene is considered one of the first music videos. The film then goes onto follow Dylan as he makes his way through England, playing shows, meeting fans, and famously dissing the folk-pop singer Donovan. 

It was directed by D.A. Pennebaker, who graduated from Yale with a degree in mechanical engineering and went on to use his technological expertise to change filmmaking. He died this week at age 94.

Whether it’s music, painting, or theater, technology has long helped shape the arts. Movies are no exception. Pennebaker was one of the pioneers in what became known as “direct cinema” - that is, using light, handheld cameras and live sounds to document events as they were happening. Pennebaker used his mechanical engineering skills to develop a fully portable 16mm camera and with a synchronized sound recording systems.

Besides creating a “fly-on-the-wall” feeling, this method of filming it also democratized documentary making by doing away with the need for large film crews and big filming budgets.

Pennebaker’s studies at Yale were interrupted by World War II, but he returned and graduated in 1947. Shortly after, he founded the company Electronics Engineering where he used the then-burgeoning computer technology to develop a ground-breaking way for airline customers to reserve their flights. 

A few years later, he fell in with a handful of like-minded filmmakers, and he worked with them to create some of the first direct cinema documentaries. In addition to Dont Look Back, Pennebaker’s films also include the David Bowie concert film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973), The War Room (1981 documentary about Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign) and 2009’s The Kings of Pastry (about France’s most prestigious cake-making competition).