Who is Typewriter Artist Paul Smith

Paul Smith, the Typewriter artist. Originally aired March-April of 1976 on KOIN-TV in Portland Oregon. At-Large Reporter Ray Summers wrote and narrated. I shot, edited and selected the music. Ray learned about Paul from a newspaper feature in the Roseburg, Oregon newspaper. Ray and I roamed Southern Oregon for a week in February and dropped by the Roseburg nursing home one wintry morn. We were in and out in 90 minutes, but what we captured was an amazing story on many levels. I shot the story with a single system Frezzolini 16mm film camera. I shot daylight Ektachrome with dichroic filters on my lights since so much daylight was coming in the windows. I put an ECM-50 microphone inside Paul's typewriter to capture the sound. I got the music from my personal library. A week or two later, Assignment Editor Norm Gunning gave me a whole day to cut this piece. I synched 4 reels of film and sound and pretaped to 2 inch tape. By the reaction of the crew we knew we had a special piece. I submitted the piece to the National Press Photographer Association's 2nd quarter clip contest in 1976. It won 1st place nationally as the best television news story. It had been lost on 3/4" Beta tape in my hot attic for years. I just bought an used 3/4" deck off EBay and recorded this story to my computer. It suffers a bit from generation loss. I count 3 generations: film, 2 inch tape, 3/4" tape. Enjoy. Mark Gardner is a regular contributor to WhackyNation.com.

Paul Smith, born in 1921 with severe spastic cerebral palsy, learned to use a standard typewriter to create beautiful pictures that from a distance resemble fine pencil or pastel drawings. Paul died in Roseburg, Oregon in 2007.

a type writter artist!