T.S. Eliot famously had J. Alfred Prufrock measure out his life in teaspoons.   In some ways the history of Davidson Films can be gauged in changes in technology.  Jack Davidson started the company in February, 1955 in San Francisco with the purchase of a wind-up Bolex 16mm camera which he initially used for CBS news stories.  Recently, the company purchased a High Definition video camera, and in between there have been lovely Éclair 16mm cameras, S-VHS cameras and digital video cameras.  From the oh-so-beautiful but costly reels of 16mm film, we’ve gone through  ¾" videotape, VHS, chaptered DVD’s and most recently, the advent of on-line systems as delivery formats for our films. Amazing 21st century technologies allow us to now provide our films with closed captions and Spanish subtitles.  And what next?  

It was during the 1960’s that Davidson Films produced its first major educational series, a twenty-seven part series on chemistry for the National Science Foundation, based on the work of renowned scientists. The huge success of these productions led to fifteen years of making scores of science and mathematics film series both for the National Science Foundation and for the major educational publishing companies such as Silver Burdett, Macmillan and the Encyclopedia Britannica.  It one of these collaborating scientists, the physicist Robert Karplus, who suggested that Davidson Films make some films on the work of Jean Piaget.  The first of our Piaget films was made in 1967 and is still being used in classrooms as are many of the animated mathematics films we created during that era.

Throughout all these changes, we’ve managed to maintain our core production values of combining the best of research based content with lively visuals for our educational films. We’ve done this by seeking out world-class academicians as collaborators and providing ourselves with a fine set of creative artists talented in cinematography, music, animation and editing.  Over the years, we’ve been privileged to work with talented people who have become friends and partners in this enterprise.  With the current efforts of these people and many colleagues in the past, we have produced hundreds of films in the fifty-plus years of the company.  Perhaps we should be measuring our lives in reels of film and tape instead of Prufrock’s teaspoons? 

Fran Davidson

Producer