Edward Summer

American film director

Edward Summer (March 18, 1946 – November 13, 2014) was an American painter, motion picture director, screenwriter, internet publisher, magazine editor, journalist and science writer, comic book writer, novelist, book designer, actor, cinematographer, motion picture editor, documentary filmmaker, film festival founder, and educator. He died on November 13, 2014. Among his better known works are the collection of Carl Barks stories Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times, the Dinosaur Interplanetary Gazette (one of the pioneering online magazines), the first motion picture based upon Robert E. Howard's character Conan the Barbarian, the novel Teefr, and a prequel The Legend of Teddy Bear Bob.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Summer studied painting at the Albright Art Gallery (now called the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Albright Art School, and with the noted water color painter Sandra Chessman. He was also acquainted from childhood with another noted water colorist, Robert Blair. Charles Summer, his father, was an amateur photographer who owned a then uncommon Exakta single lens reflex camera. The photographer Milton Rogovin was a family friend and early on exposed him to fine art photographs. At age 15, Summer had a special one man exhibit of his drawings in a group show at the Buffalo Museum of Science.

At the Studio Theater (now called Studio Arena Theater), Buffalo, New York, Summer appeared in Many Moons, based on a James Thurber book, choreographed by Michael Bennett, and directed by Roberta Sharpe circa 1961. He also worked with Fred Keller and Neal Du Brock as actor and stage manager, as well as Joe Krysiak founder of Project Artaud.

Founding editor and co publisher: The Dinosaur Times. Contributing writer: Written By, Time, The New York Times, Circus, Films in Review, The Perfect Vision, The Absolute Sound, Home Theater Magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, Skeptical Briefs, The Monster Times.

In 2005, Edward Summer founded The Digital Nitrate Prize in order to encourage the research necessary to properly transfer and preserve the world's motion picture heritage using the developing digital media. Based upon the X Prize, the Digital Nitrate Prize will offer a cash prize for the first individual, group or corporation which is able to exactly duplicate the look of nitrate film stock using digital transfer and digital projection.

Edward Summer was a certified instructor of Constructive Living. He studied with David K. Reynolds in Los Angeles, New York, West Virginia and Tennessee.

Summer has taught animation history at School of Visual Arts New York City. Summer's contributions to Star Wars and friendship with George Lucas was profiled extensively in 2013 through interviews with Jonathan Rinzler in issues 139, 140, 141 of the magazine Star Wars Insider.