Stanley Jackson

Stanley Jackson (1914-1981) was a Canadian film director, producer, writer and narrator with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Jackson began his career as a schoolteacher in Winnipeg, before taking a teaching position in Toronto. There, in 1942, he was hired by NFB producer Stuart Legg to conduct research for the new NFB series Canada Carries On. He wrote and directed the first film he worked on, Battle of the Harvests. At the time, Tom Daly was putting together the NFB’s now-famous Unit B; Jackson and Colin Low were its first two members. They were joined by Terence Macartney-Filgate, Robert Verrall, Norman McLaren, Roman Kroitor, Don Owen, Arthur Lipsett, Wolf Koenig and Hugh O'Connor.

Jackson soon distinguished himself as a writer, and as a narrator. He wrote most of his own scripts, and created a characteristic narration style for NFB, becoming known as ‘the voice of the NFB’. Of the 130 films he made, he was the narrator of 82, and Low would call him "irreplaceable" in the field of documentary film commentary. Ironically, Jackson is also credited with helping to break the NFB narration style he helped to create, on Low and producer Tom Daly's 1954 film, Corral:Gathered around the moviola, the crew watched the film; it was silent, save for the music. "Where's the commentary?" someone asked halfway through. They kept watching. When it was over, Jackson asked them frankly, "What would a commentary do for that?" Low and Daly couldn't help but agree. Corral became the first NFB film without a voiceover track.

Jackson was known as a meticulous filmmaker and, along with Low, as the ‘conscience’ of Unit B; the two men worked together to make sure that no documentary descended into voyeurism. Jackson was also the ‘peace-keeper’ of the unit, holding the team together as others found the personalities of Kroitor and Lipsett difficult to deal with. A bachelor with no relatives, Unit B was Jackson’s family—to the point where he paid the school tuition for Kroitor’s son for two years. He retired for health reasons in 1971 and died in Toronto in 1981, at age 67.