Shouldered Oar Films
History is told one story at a time
Who We Are
John Stanton
Writer/Director
The Story Until Now
John Stanton spent the first half of his career happily working on newspapers in places as diverse as the deli lined streets of Brookline, Massachusetts and the mountains of Bluefield, West Virginia, the hallways of government in Washington, DC, and small town life in Nantucket, MA.
One day a childhood friend named Bob Quinn asked Stanton to try his hand at writing a documentary film.
The film was an oral history of the small working class city where they grew up. It was called Leather Soul. Eventually, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel agreed to narrate. Leather Soul was carried by 30 PBS stations nation-wide and was selected to screen at the National Gallery of Art during their celebration of a century of American film.
It was also the beginning of a collaboration which would lead to Stanton’s apprenticeship behind the camera, to a handful of documentary films, award-winning museum video installations, any number of corporate clients, as well an a stint producing an award winning show as part of a Time-Life series.
These Days
Almost two decades later Stanton is still chasing stories and bringing them to audiences on both PBS and at film festivals. The journey never ends. But these days he is getting a little better at reading the compass.
The work has become a way to explore certain ideas and how they define who we are. One idea that Stanton’s films keep coming back to is the complex web of personal and public lives that we call community.
Fellow Travelers
Filmmaking is a collaborative trade. It is not the quality of the camera, but the quality of the people behind it that matter. Writing, producing, camera, sound, lighting, and editing must all come together for any project to reach its potential.
The independent film and video world is an ever shifting and growing collaboration of film professionals. Shouldered Oar Films is able to put together teams of experienced professionals, whose skills match individual projects.
John Stanton (left) with Pulitzer Prize winning author and oral historian Studs Terkel, after recording the narration for the film Leather Soul.
Video Highlights
You Have To Go Out… produced for the Nantucket Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum
30-second ad for the Inquirer and Mirror newspaper
30-second spot for the Community Preservation Committee
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