Robert N. Zagone

Dormant for over 50 years, the film was recently rediscovered and played multiple sold-out shows at the Tenderloin Museum and the Mission District's famous Roxie Theater. It also was screened for two nights as part of the Another Hole in the Head film festival. It also played at the San Francisco Urban Film Festival in November 2017.

Written by Jim Vaccaro, produced by Larry Lauter, and directed by Zagone, this independent feature film was shot at Black Oak Books in Berkeley, California, and featured Tony Amendola, Karen Black, Lorenzo Pisoni, Catalina Larrañaga, Ricardo Gil, Shaun Landry, Joe Bellan, Will Marchetti, Sophia Vaccaro, Bob Sarlatte, Alan Draven, and Danny Glover. The film was screened at the 2006 Mill Valley Film Festival.

Produced and directed by Zagone, Dylan's infamous press conference held in the KQED studios was also attended by Bill Graham, poet Michael McClure, and Allen Ginsberg. Footage from the press conference was used in the Martin Scorsese documentary No Direction Home : Bob Dylan (2005) for the American Masters series on PBS.

In 1995, Zagone received a Golden Telly Award for The Artist. This one-minute short directed by Zagone was a dramatic vision presentation commissioned by the Digital Equipment Corporation. The film was the opening presentation at a fan event in New York introducing a newly designed laptop computer. The film depicted an artist at work at an easel creating an abstract oil painting that ultimately represented the forward design of the laptop.

At the 1995-1996 San Francisco / Northern California Emmy Awards, Zagone received a reward for Outstanding Achievement in Children/Youth Programming for Short Stories, Tall Tales.

In 1990, Zagone received a reward for Creative Excellence at the U.S. Industrial Film & Video Festival for Custom 800, one of the shorts in a series of dramatic videos produced and directed by Zagone and commissioned by the Pac Bell Media division. The short was a lighthearted demonstration of how people could use the then-new Custom 800 number.

At the 1976-1977 San Francisco / Northern California Emmy Awards Zagone received an award for the Class Reunion/Susan Brownmiller episode of Evening Magazine.

This program had not been seen for over 40 years when it was revived by the Tenderloin Museum in San Francisco. Beyond Chron reporter Randy Shaw said of the program, "Reverend Cecil Williams (pastor), the legendary leader of Glide Church, recently celebrated his 86th birthday. Now, thanks to the heroic efforts of film director Robert Zagone, a 1975 television program on Reverend Williams will be shown December 16 for the first time in four decades. I saw the film recently. It is not to be missed."

After leaving Fantasy Films in 1973, Zagone embarked on a freelance career, directing music shows, documentaries, high-tech visionary videos, and low-budget feature films.

Come Up the Years was followed by Vibrations (1968–1969), which also sought to document the ever-changing cultural scene in the San Francisco Bay Area. A notable program from Vibrations was A Day in the Life of Country Joe and the Fish which recorded a day in the life of one of the Bay Area's most famous rock groups.

Come Up the Years was a series of programs that focused on the cultural changes that were taking place in the San Francisco area between 1967 and 1968. One of the programs, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin was Janis Joplin's very first television appearance. Clips from this show are featured in the documentary feature film Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015). Later, this performance was released on DVD with the title Ball and Chain. Another program, Human Be-In: A Gathering of the Tribes (1967) served as a visual record of the famous Human Be-In gathering in Golden Gate Park that featured appearances by Allen Ginsberg, The Grateful Dead, poet Michael McClure, and Dr. Timothy Leary.

In 1965, Zagone received a Reader's Digest Foundation Award for Drugs in the Tenderloin.

Robert N. Zagone is an independent filmmaker and television director who is best known for his independent feature films Read You Like a Book (starring Karen Black, Tony Amendola and Danny Glover) and The Stand-In (starring Danny Glover). He is also well known for the iconic guerilla-style documentary Drugs in the Tenderloin, as well as many film recordings of the musical culture of San Francisco, including Go Ride the Music, featuring Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service; A Night at the Family Dog, featuring the Grateful Dead, Santana, and Jefferson Airplane; Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin; and the infamous Bob Dylan Press Conference. Zagone was one of the first filmmakers to cover the cultural explosion of the 1960s in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as one of the first directors to make music videos.