Snyder Films
From Fargo Filmmaking
Snyder Films was a Fargo film studio started by William D. Snyder in 1958, following a number of years of production work that took place when Snyder returned from military duty in 1946. Although Snyder Films was not the first film studio in Fargo or North Dakota it was the longest-lived, surviving for forty years before being absorbed into Media Productions in February 1998.
Most of the output of Snyder Films was in 16mm film format, color and black-and-white, with smaller amounts of production in 35mm film format. The studio's early work was in long-format industrial programs produced for corporate entities and non-profit groups. Snyder Films supplemented those projects by producing television commercials, still photography, and film animations from the early 1960s through its final years.
William D. Snyder was the founder and primary director of photography for the studio from its inception through his retirement in 1983, at which time Snyder sold his interest in the studio to Minnesota State University Moorhead graduate Tom Tollefson. Tollefson joined the studio as an employee in 1973 as a still photographer and second-unit director of photography. Also working with Snyder in the studio from 1958 through 1988 was Hollywood-trained film editor John McDonough.
In 1980 the studio purchased its first video camera and supporting equipment for production work, gradually supplanting all film production for the remainder of the studio's life. Shortly after being purchased by Tollefson, the studio changed its name to Snyder Films & Video.
The studio is notable for the amount of film and video it produced in the four decades of its operation: almost four million feet of 16mm and 35mm film and ten-thousand hours of video tape were in its archives by 1998. All contents of this vast library were donated to the North Dakota State Historical Society in Bismarck after being acquired by Media Productions.
The Fargo Film Festival named the Bill Snyder Award, which is typically presented to the winner of the Best Documentary Feature, in Snyder's honor. The program for the 2001 Fargo Film Festival contained a written tribute that included information about Snyder and Snyder Films.
