Production
The documentary was produced by Top Value Television (TVTV) in association with TV Lab, and was primarily directed by Michael Shamberg. TVTV had received initial funding for the documentary through a small grant from the Stern Foundation, with an additional promise from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. David Loxton arranged a post-production budget of USD$4,000, and the total production costs for the documentary amounted to $36,000 – about forty-five percent of the average costs for a PBS film production at the time. Several camera crews used 1/2-inch (13 mm) black and white portapaks, and followed Maharaj Ji and his group across the United States for six weeks. The TVTV production team debated whether or not to include the secret techniques of Maharaj Ji in the documentary, and finally decided that it was vital to disclose these practices in the piece. They chose to have an ex-premie divulge these practices rather than use a narration, but were fearful of potential repercussions, which never came. TVTV member Tom Weinberg found a man who demonstrated meditation techniques in the documentary, which he described as being the "Knowledge". Producer Megan Williams stated that TVTV crew members empathized with the experiences of Maharaj Ji's followers, because there was very little age difference between them and the TVTV production team. Nevertheless, many in the crew of TVTV felt superior to these "lost souls" describing the followers as "gurunoids".
At the end of filming, eighty-two hours of tape were edited to the final fifty-eight minute documentary piece. TVTV's team utilized graphics, live music, and wide angle lens shots. Stop-action sequences where quotations flash on the screen were also used for effect. The production was the first Portapak video documentary made for national television, and the "first program originally made on 1/2-inch video tape to be broadcast nationally". Lord of the Universe was also: "The first independent video documentary made for national broadcast on public television." The trailer was originally broadcast on WNET Channel Thirteen television. Lord of the Universe was shown to a national audience in the United States on February 2, 1974, broadcast on 240 stations of the Public Broadcasting Service. It aired a second time on July 12, 1974. Later TVTV productions broadcast on public television included Gerald Ford's America, and a 1975 program on Cajuns The Good Times Are Killing Me.
In 1989, the documentary was included in an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art on video art called "Image World: Art and Media Culture". The documentary was re-released to VHS on November 1, 1991, by Subtle Communications. On the packaging it is claimed that Guru Maharaj Ji "promised to levitate the Astrodome". Sources including TVRO, the library of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Art Journal repeat this statement in varying forms. The documentary was screened in August 2006 at The Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, Scotland, as part of the Camcorder Guerilla cinema programme.
Read more about this topic: Lord Of The Universe
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