It was Gidal who added the word 'Materialist' to qualify, and differentiate from, the already established 'Structural Film' category.

Le Grice was instrumental in acquiring, installing and operating the Co-op workshop equipment that afforded filmmakers the hands-on opportunity to investigate the medium. His own work developed through direct processing, printing and projection, gaining an understanding of the material and examining filmic time (duration), while touching on aspects of spectacle and narrative.

Gidal's cool, oppositional stance refuted narrative and representation, denying illusion and manipulation though visual codes. His uncompromising position resists all expectations of cinema, even modernist formalism and abstraction. He argues that film cannot be reconstructed in the memory of the viewer, and that film can only be experienced during the moment of projection.

See Room Film 1973 (Peter Gidal) Little Dog for Roger (Malcolm Le Grice)