Editing An American Family (section)

== Production and story ==
Created by Craig Gilbert, ''An American Family'' examined the daily trials and tribulations of the Loud family of [[Santa Barbara, California]]. Researching subjects for the series, Gilbert interviewed about 24 families before he settled on the Louds—a mother, father, and five "telegenic" children who owned a large house, multiple cars, and a swimming pool.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Schudel |first=Matt |date=2020-04-18 |title=Craig Gilbert, creator of 'An American Family,' called the first reality TV show, dies at 94 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/craig-gilbert-creator-of-an-american-family-called-the-first-reality-tv-show-dies-at-94/2020/04/18/ea66b34c-7e4e-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html |access-date=2002-11-07 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref>  Shooting began in May 1971, and Gilbert and his film crew, which included the cinematographer Alan Raymond and his wife Susan Raymond who handled sound, spent the next seven months filming the Louds.

The final product, edited down from 300 hours of 16-millimeter footage, was ''An American Family'', which aired in 1973 as 12 weekly one-hour episodes on the [[PBS|Public Broadcasting Service]] (PBS). The film was presented in fly-on-the-wall style with very limited narration.

The story that unfolded of the Louds, who at the outset of the series seemed to epitomize the [[American Dream|American dream]], showed a married couple on the verge of divorce and children, ranging from 14 to 20 years old, in high and low moments. The "toothpaste-bright affluence, California-style" family, as described in 1973 in ''[[The New York Times]]'',<ref name="The New York Times">{{Cite news |date=1973-01-23 |title=TV: 'An American Family' Is a Provocative Series |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/23/archives/tv-an-american-family-is-a-provocative-series.html |access-date=2022-11-08 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> turned out to be "comfortably ordinary, sadly familiar, the kind of family most white middle-class Americans can identify with."<ref name="The New York Times"/>

The series was popular, earning more than 10 million viewers a week.<ref name="The New York Times"/> It also sparked controversy and drove conversation in national magazines and television talk shows about the state of the American family.

The intense interest in the Louds, wrote Dennis Lim in ''The New York Times'' in 2011, "had much to do with their lives seeming to fall apart as America watched."<ref name="lens">{{Cite news |last=Lim |first=Dennis |date=2011-04-15 |title=Reality-TV Originals, in Drama's Lens |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/arts/television/hbos-cinema-verite-looks-at-american-family.html |url-access=subscription |access-date=2022-11-08 |issn=0362-4331 |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230422151708/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/arts/television/hbos-cinema-verite-looks-at-american-family.html |archive-date= Apr 22, 2023 }}</ref>