Oregon Movies, A to Z

Oregon Cartoon Institute is holding its second public meeting on Sunday, Feb. 12, at 2:00 PM at 5th Avenue Cinema.

All friends and fans of Oregon Cartoon Institute are invited. If you think you might belong to this group, you do.

The agenda includes a brief introduction to the all volunteer Institute, and a discussion of what is up next. We’ll have some announcements to hear, from the Mel Blanc Project and the Homer Davenport Project, some proposals to consider, and some hand outs to take home.

Last time the Institute met, Dennis Nyback supplied home made refreshments.

This year out featured attraction is a rare public screening of The Clay Baker, a stop motion animation short by early Portland filmmaker Lewis Clark Cook (1909 – 1983). We will also screen a rarely seen ten-minute profile of Cook, made for OPB in the early 1980’s by Portland artist Jim Blashfield. Michele Kribs, who was trained by Cook to succeed him as head of Oregon Historical Society’s Moving Image Archive, will be in attendance.

In the photo above, generously loaned by the Oregon Historical Society, Lew Cook is 14 years old. That is his own 35mm camera. A doting aunt, knowing that he was in love with the movies, bought it for him. He quit selling newspapers and went to work as a newsreel photographer. 14 years old!

Reasons You Might Want To See The Clay Baker:

4. Cook made his living as an independent filmmaker using more tricks than you can imagine. Just as Bill Plympton would turn down Disney, Lew Cook turned down Warner Brothers. He chose independence. Besides Plympton, the generations of Portland filmmakers who followed his lead include Will Vinton, Joan Gratz, Jim Blashfield, Gus Van Sant, Rose Bond, Joanna Priestley and Travis Knight.

3. The Clay Baker was made “in the 1920’s” which means Cook could have made it anywhere between age 11 and age 20. Come help us sleuth out clues as to whether this is the work of a hard working child or an uninhibited adult.

2.  No one else you know has seen this film.

1. Will Vinton credited The Clay Baker with inspiring him to consider clay animation. Who knows what it will inspire you to do!

Look at it this way. You can travel to Europe to catch the program of experimental shorts Grand Detour sent on tour, or you can stay home and go to their very first Experimental Film Festival in May 23 -27.

And if you’re going to go, you might as well get some EFF swag. That’s what the Kickstarter is for. They’re offering a volcano kit and a DIY telephone, among many other things.

Check it out!

Oregon has a film at the Oscars this year.

Documentarian Marshall Curry followed Daniel McGowan from Brooklyn, where he was a graduate student, to Eugene, where he was an environmental activist,  to Illinois, where he is serving time in the Communication Management Unit, aka a highly restrictive federal prison. McGowan is serving a 7 year sentence for two counts of arson and conspiracy, one in Glendale and one in Clatskanie.

If A Tree Falls: A Story Of The Earth Liberation Front first aired on the PBS documentary series P.O.V. It has been nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Documentary.

From The Gothamist’s interview with Curry.

There’s some footage that you included in If a Tree Falls from the Warner Creek blockade in the mid-90’s, where activists were attempting to stop logging in a national forest in Oregon. Their encampment looks exactly like Zuccotti Park—the tents, the signs, everything. And it’s destroyed by the police, just like the Zuccotti encampment was. In what ways are eco-terrorism and “economic inequality terrorism,” as the authorities might call it, similar, and in what ways are they different?

I think there are a lot of thematic similarities between what happened in the 90s, in the environmental movement, and what we see now with the Occupy movement. There there are things that I was seeing on television as the Occupy movement was being covered that seem to be almost lifted from the movie. Whether it’s scenes like the one you describe where folks were being evicted from an encampment where they were trying to keep logging trucks from getting into the forest, or whether it was the use of pepper spray by police to go after non-violent protestors.

We saw it in Zuccotti and it’s similar to the WTO protests and a number of other places in the 90s in the film. And what’s been interesting is when the film came out in the theaters this summer, it was a couple of months before the Occupy movement had started, and a lot of people kind of saw protest movements in the United States as a quaint historical event. There was no discussion of a current protest movement about to happen. And as soon as it happened it really seemed to follow the playbook, and I feel like the film could be a cautionary tale both for activists to consider the types of tactics that they’re engaging in, and also for law enforcement to think about how they’re reacting to activists because I think there are some responses to activism that radicalize people and other responses that bring people into the democratic argument.

This is Curry’s second Academy Award nomination. His first was in 2005 for Street Fight, a profile of a mayoral race in Newark, NJ.

Curry was a Comparative Religion major at Swarthmore. Just to show you what it takes to become an Oscar nominated filmmaker.

If A Tree Falls is distributed by Oscilloscope Pictures, which also distributes Meek’s Cutoff, Wendy and Lucy and Howl.

I hereby claim If A Tree Falls: A Story Of The Earth Liberation Front as an Oregon film, on the basis of location shooting, and on the basis of the inspiration provided by Oregon forests, which impelled McGowan to take the journey Curry documented.

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If A Tree Falls is an Oregon film by virtue of subject matter and location.

For Oscar nominated films with Oregon directors and/or based on work by Oregon authors: See this Handy Guide

For Oscar nominated animation by Oregon artists, including three Oscar winning Oregonians: See this Handy Guide

Justin Koleszar doesn’t believe in making movies by himself.

He drives a dagger through the heart of soul shriveling isolation with Film Networking Meetups.

As he puts it:

Wanted to remind everyone that this event is tomorrow night! You can join us at Rontoms for the best night of your life or you can stay home and make yourself a pot pie. Your choice.

The Meetups are CROWDED. Portland Film and Video Networking, which sponsors them, has 788 members. 788 filmmaking connections!

Rontoms is located at 600 E. Burnside.

Hey! Laika isn’t the only place in Portland where animators rearrange reality to suit themselves. Numerous kitchen tables, guest rooms, basements and garages serve as studios for independent artists working in the world’s most expressive medium.

How can you see their work? Animator Svenn Bonnichsen has curated his second festival of Portland animation – just for your viewing pleasure.

Portland Animation Now!

short films from 20+ Portland animators

Dates:  Jan 27 and 28 @ 7pm

Runtime:  90min

Tickets:  $8 general admission

More info:  www.nwanimationfest.com

Discover Portland’s powerhouse animation scene…

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Portland Animation Now! showcases 20+ short films from local independent animators. Including both masters and remarkable amateurs, this is a line-up of new works and seldom-seen gems you won’t find anywhere else.

Highlights include:

Eyeliner by Joanna Priestley (dubbed “the queen of independent animation” by Bill Plympton): A playful exploration of the organic geometry and archetypes of the human face.

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Ursula 1000 – Rocket by Eric Kilkenny: A love story told as a fever dream involving stolen works of art, dualistic robot terminators, and a giant floating head who seriously needs his moustache trimmed.

Ruby Rocket, Private Detective by Sam Niemann & Stacey Hallal: It had been a long night and Ruby Rocket, Private Detective needed a stiff one—then HE walked in.

Missionary by Mike A. Smith: Geopolitical allegory as cartoon slapstick, featuring eggs and fearsome hand-on-stick technology.

Old-Time Film by Barbara Tetenbaum & Marilyn Zornado: Handset type, printer’s ornaments and antique engraving come to life in the first film created entirely through letterpress printing.

Operation: Fish by Jeff Riley: After a series of goldfish abductions, a secret agent is dispatched to bring the fishnappers to justice, and possibly save the world!

Portland Animation Now! is being presented as part of Fertile Ground, a city-wide festival of over 100 new Portland-generated arts events.

That’s Santa Fe University Art and Design (SFUAD), to you! Eyre will be chairing the Moving Image Arts Department.

From Native American Times:

“I am thrilled to hear of this inspired appointment,” said Robert Redford. “Chris Eyre is a successful and authentic voice in cinema and perfect for this position. His vision and imprimatur on this program will be profoundly valuable in ways that Chris, alone, is uniquely positioned to fill,” continued Redford. “His influence on a new generation of storytellers will be significant.”

Chris Eyre grew up in Klamath Falls. He studied film ( actually, I think, television) at Mt Hood Community College before heading off to NYU film school. It was in New York that Smoke Signals, his first project, drew the attention of future mentor, Robert Redford.

Congratulations, Chris!

When John Wayne came to Oregon in 1975 to make Rooster Cogburn, it was a return trip.

Wayne was working as a props man on Rough Romance, a logging film shot in Oregon in 1930, when he was tapped to play an uncredited bit part in front of the camera. Later that same year, Raoul Walsh gave him the lead in The Big Trail, and his career in the props department was over.

I always wondered where Rough Romance was shot. Today an Oregon Movies, A to Z reader gave me a clue.

She writes:

I was told that John Wayne (when he was still known as Marion Morrison), was in a logging film done in Coos County, Oregon. I cannot find any mention of it on-line.There are no known copies of the film; yet stills used to hang in the Taylor Maid Donut shop located in Bunker Hill (Coos County).Can you confirm this? Or shed any light as to its history?

I wish I could help with more information.

Here’s what I know, beyond the ”blink or you’ll miss him” role Wayne had in Rough Romance.

1. The star of Rough Romance, George O’Brien, returned to Oregon to make  Park Avenue Logger (1937), now lost. I would love to see it!

2. The logging film genre and the lost film genre seem to enjoy significant overlap. Sometimes A Great Notion, the culmination of the logging film genre, was for a long time a lost film.

Thank you, Cherie, for sending in this question!  I may never see Rough Romance, but I now know it was shot  in the same county where I first fell in love with movies.

Here’s a photo, recently offered on eBay, of George O’Brien in Rough Romance.

I agree! He looks like a chucklehead. But looks are deceiving – he was a big star. Rough Romance is set in Canada, so maybe this is how Canadian lumberjacks dressed in 1930.

Read about the intersection of John Wayne’s career with Oregon film history  here.

I hereby claim Rough Romance as an Oregon film, based on location shooting in Coos County.

Where did Joanna Priestley get her title “Queen of Independent Animation”? From Bill Plympton, King of the same. At the suspenseful and highly competitive Art vs Commerce Animation Smackdown which took place at the Platform Festival in 2007, Bill and Joanna went mano a mano.

Bill’s account:

…Joanna Priestley, famed Portland animator, came on stage wearing a robe and boxing gloves, and smacked me around on stage. She showed three abstract films, alternating between my three favorite funny films, including Signe Baumane’s “Teat Beat of Sex”, which even made Joanna laugh. Joanna’s husband was the score-keeper (he had an applause meter) and she stacked the crowd with her friends, so naturally she won – just barely, though, with a score of 6.5 to 6. But it was such a raucous success, we believe that we’ll return for Round 2 next year.

If you missed the smack down in 2007, you can catch Joanna at the Whitsell Auditorium on January 28, 2012 at 7:00 PM. This evening of films, which includes FIVE premieres, is part of Northwest Film Center’s Northwest Tracking series.

The program includes EYE LINER (2011), a meditation on facial recognition; SPLIT ENDS (2012), which probes perception and cognition through the use of multi-layered patterns inspired by wrapping and wallpaper designs; CHOKING HAZARD (2012), a whirlwind tour of best intentions gone awry in the recycling of plastic; DEAR PLUTO SLIDESHOW (2011), an amusing behind-the-scenes look at the making of DEAR PLUTO (2012), a tribute to everyone’s favorite planetoid from the poem “Pizza” by Taylor Mali; and MISSED ACHES (2009), a witty commentary about proofreading and the indiscriminate use of spellcheck, written and narrated by poet Taylor Mali.

Joanna Priestley will be there, of course.

Joanna Priestley, the Queen of Independent Animation, has a policy of never repeating herself. The only rule she seems to obey consistently is the avoidance of boredom.

Anouck Iyer, of ASIFA Seattle, interviewed Priestley in 2002.

What led you to choosing film as your medium of artistic expression?

I started as a painter. I had been working at a studio in Paris and when I returned to the states I relocated to the town of Sisters in central Oregon. At that time there were no movie theaters in Sisters nor in the three surrounding counties, which encompassed a vast area. So, a friend and I started a group called “Strictly Cinema.” We starting renting 16mm prints and showing them at the Bend High School. The screenings were wildly successful, there was no VHS back then so people came in droves to see these films. Later we started showing films at the Redmond High School and in the summers we held outdoor screenings at local parks.

We just kept doing more and more screenings because there was a demand for it. This led us to organizing film festivals. Our first big event was an animation festival. We brought in a filmmaker from Portland named Bob Gardiner who won an Oscar for a film he did with Will Vinton called Closed Mondays. That event was a gigantic success. It got me interest in animation and it was the first time I was able to see noncommercial animation art. From “Strictly Cinema” I got a job as the Film Librarian, then the Regional Coordinator at the Northwest Film Center working for Bill Foster. That was at a time when Bill Foster was bringing in a lot of independent filmmakers and animators, like George Griffin, Jane Aaron, and Marv Newland. So I was able to meet them and they were actually guests in my home. I was exposed to lots of work. I got so excited about the possibilities of translating what I was doing in painting to filmmaking.

I went to the Safeway store across the street, bought some index cards and started experimenting. From there I took a class taught by Roger Kukes who was the first animation teacher at the NW Film Center. He is a brilliant artist who is still active in town, but not in animation. He got me really excited about animation and made want to pursue it, so I went on to study at Cal Arts’ Experimental Animation program.

For readers new to the study of Portland animation history, I would like to point out a few interesting mileposts on Joanna’s career path.

1. She went to Paris. Then she went to the desert. Classic trajectory for an emerging artist! It was in Oregon’s High Desert that publisher-turned-producer Mike Richardson found his vocation in comics. It was in the desert that filmmaker Penny Allen wrote her book, A Geography Of Saints. (Although Penny reversed things and went to Paris after, not before, her desert epiphany.)

2. The first noncommercial animation she saw was by fellow Oregonians, Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner. Somewhere it must have registered that those two also happened to be Oscar winners.

3. She was taught by Roger Kukes, who also taught Rose Bond. Perhaps Priestley and Bond were in the same class! If so, Kukes is a master teacher, because these two students went on to have international careers.

4. “I was exposed to lots of work.” Bill Foster made sure Northwest Film Center students saw lots of independent animation and met living, breathing filmmakers.

The longer ASIFA interview provides a great short introduction to what Portland did right to nurture a young film artist. Joanna returned the favor by founding the Portland chapter of ASIFA, and by teaching at AI, PNCA and NWFC, and by running an apprenticeship program from her own studio.

See Joanna Priestley’s films, including three premieres, and meet the Queen Of Independent Animation herself, on January 28, 2012, at 7:00 PM, at Whitsell Auditorium. More information here.

The rarest category of Oregon film is a non-documentary based on the life of actual Oregonian. In 1951, Claire Phillips joined a select crowd which would later include John Reed and Louise Bryant, (Reds), Steve Prefontaine (Prefontaine, Without Limits ) and James Fogle (Drugstore Cowboy).

A night club singer who worked under the code name High Pockets, Phillip won the Medal Of Freedom for her espionage in WWII. You can read about her accomplishments in Brian Libby’s wonderful profile in Portland Monthly. Yes, she was water boarded by the Japanese.

She herself chose Ann Dvorak to play Claire Phillips/High Pockets on the Big Screen.‘

I hereby claim I Was An American Spy as an Oregon film on the basis of the inspiration provided by Oregonian Claire Phillips.