Oregon Movies, A to Z » Vanessa Renwick

Jon Raymond On Vanessa Renwick

Anne Richardson — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 20:22:04 +0000

Portland novelist/screenwriter/art critic Jon Raymond, whose name appears in the previous Matt McCormick On Vanessa Renwick post, agreed to send in his own entry. These three question quizzes are being conducted in honor of Raw, Raucous and Sublime: 33 1/3 Years Of Vanessa Renwick, An Oregon Department Of Kickass Retrospective, on April 25 & 26 at the Hollywood Theatre.

Anne: Do you remember meeting Vanessa? Did you meet her first, or see her films first?

Jon: I might’ve met Vanessa for the first time in the mid-90s, on a Wednesday night at Ringler’s Annex. Back then, a group of artists had a regular Wednesday-night thing at that bar. Mike Brophy, Eric Stotik, Randy Gragg, Cynthia Lahti. I bet Vanessa and I first crossed paths among that group. It was a great period. I met so many amazing artists at that table, some of whom, like Vanessa, have remained dear friends ever since.

Anne: Vanessa is prolific. You’ve seen her work over the years. Recently, she won acclaim as a portraitist of the Pacific Northwest. When you met her, and saw her first films, did you expect this would be in her future?

Jon: One does not speculate about Vanessa’s future. One only admires the singular, incredible wake of destruction in her path.

Anne: How close to the surface was the “insanely ambitious” aspect of life in Portland when you, Matt McCormick, Vanessa, and Miranda July were brought together by Matt McCormick’s Peripheral Produce screenings? You all went on to careers which reached far beyond the Rose City. Was there some kind of critical mass achieved by the coming together of four emerging artists, aka the Fantastic Four?

Jon: I don’t know that I ever contributed much to that group, except maybe as an ardently enthusiastic audience member. (Ed note: Raymond is being modest here – he directed, produced and starred in Battles On The Astral Plane – turns out he is a really good dancer!) I can say, though, that Vanessa’s peculiar form of ambition has always been really inspiring to me. She’s ambitious, yeah, but never in a way that has anything to do with status or competition. She’s ambitious about making new work and living an interesting life, and the measuring stick she uses is always solely her own. Maybe ambition isn’t even the word for what drives Vanessa. Maybe its just a fantastic, infectious, open-hearted love of life.

Anne: Thank you, Jon!

Other interviews in the Raw, Raucous & Sublime Three Question series:

Matt McCormick

Kevin Sampsell

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What: Raw, Raucous and Sublime: 33 1/3 Years Of Vanessa Renwick, An Oregon Department Of Kickass Retrospective, presented by Oregon Movies, A to Z.

Where: Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR (503) 281 -4215

When: April 25 & 26, 7:30 PM.

Plus: Filmmaker in attendance!

Interview: http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2013/04/vanessa-renwick-talks-why-portland/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/513729408679513/

Matt McCormick On Vanessa Renwick

Anne Richardson — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 18:30:33 +0000

Matt McCormick came to Portland as a musician. He still is a musician, but you might know more about his career as a filmmaker. Last year, the year Vanessa showed her work in Le Pompidou Centre in Paris, Matt was showing his work at the New Directors Series in New York. I asked Matt for a commemorative Oregon Department Of Kickass Retrospective interview.

Anne: Matt, do you remember when you first met Vanessa?

Matt: Jon Raymond introduced us, I think they came to an early Peripheral Produce show.

Anne: Did you first meet her, or first see her work?

Matt: I knew she was a filmmaker and was excited to meet her.

Anne: I love the footage of Vanessa winning the audience award at the PDX Film Festival at the Hollywood. I remember how packed her first retrospective was, at the 5th Avenue Cinema. What is it, in your opinion, about Vanessa’s work which provokes such vociferous love and support?

Matt: I think with Vanessa’s films you encounter an interesting situation where she is such an amazing character and her work is so auto-biographical that her being and her filmic work become a sort of packaged deal. I am not suggesting she is a performance artist, but in a sense she is a performance artist in that she is living a life that I think a lot of us fantasize living, and we can sort of vicariously achieve that through her and her work.

Anne: People influence each other. Do you think you were influenced by Vanessa, as an artist?

Matt: I think I have been influenced by Vanessa both as an artist and a human being. Inspiration is probably a better word then influence – Vanessa has inspired me to be brave in my filmmaking practice. (If it is not obvious by now I hold Vanessa in very high regard!)

Anne: Here’s a bonus question. Vanessa told me that the deadlines you imposed on her for Peripheral Produce screenings were crucial to her developing awareness that she was a serious artist. Peripheral Produce included both Vanessa Renwick and Miranda July. Film is notoriously low on female directors. I wonder if it occurred to you at the time you were curating Vanessa’s and Miranda’s work that Portland’s experimental film scene was unusually gender diverse.

Matt: Maybe a little bit, but I was just excited about the work they were making. I am happy that Peripheral Produce shows were “unusually gender diverse,” but that was simply a result of the amazingly talented people around me making films and not a conscious issue on my part.

Anne: Thank you Matt!

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What: Raw, Raucous and Sublime: 33 1/3 Years Of Vanessa Renwick, An Oregon Department Of Kickass Retrospective, presented by Oregon Movies, A to Z.

Where: Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR (503) 281 -4215

When: April 25 & 26, 7:30 PM.

Plus: Filmmaker in attendance!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/513729408679513/

Kevin Sampsell On Vanessa Renwick

Anne Richardson — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 05:45:51 +0000

Vanessa’s multiple hats! Preparing for Raw, Raccous & Sublime: 33 1/2 Years Of Vanessa Renwick, An Oregon Department of Kickass Retrospective, I learned she helped grow the Small Press section at Powells. I interviewed the current Powells employee in charge of that department, writer/publisher Kevin Sampsell, to find out more.

Anne: Do you remember first meeting Vanessa?

Kevin: It was right after I moved to Portland in the summer of 1992. I was in the early days of my own micropress, Future Tense Books, and I wanted to see if they’d sell some copies of my scrappy little chapbooks. She was running the section (with someone else) and she bought some of my stuff. A couple of months later, I came back in with new stuff and she remembered me and said she liked the bio in one of my chapbooks that said I wanted to someday be “Sassiest Boy in America.” I thought that was funny but I think she was kind of serious and that was cool. I felt like I was taken seriously and like I was supported outside of my small circle of friends. That is a valuable feeling for any creative person to have. It encouraged me.

Anne: How large was Powells’ Small Press section at that time?

Kevin: I remember it being tucked away in the cafe I think. It was kind of unorganized but vibrant. A lot of different kinds of things, from politics to poetry. It was maybe about 1,000 titles.

Anne: How big is it now?

Kevin: It’s grown throughout the years and now it’s a nice corner chunk of the Blue Room–latest estimation says nearly 2,000 different titles.

Anne: Do you think there is a connection between Vanessa’s vision for the Small Press section at Powells and the eventual opening of Independent Printing Resource Center?

Kevin: She was definitely a trailblazer (no Portland pun intended) in that regard. When she left, Marty Kruse (RIP) took over the Small Press section for the next several years, and then when he left, I took it over. I know that other people in other cities opened up their own small press-minded bookstores after being influenced by Powell’s section. I’m not sure if Chloe Eudaly and her friend Rebecca were inspired by the Powell’s small press section when they opened the IPRC–they were also running Reading Frenzy–but Vanessa’s work definitely helped to make Portland’s burgeoning DIY writing scene what it is today.

Anne: How small press crazy/zine crazy is Portland?

Kevin: It’s pretty crazy. For a city that’s not huge, we have a lot of stuff going on and one thing I really think is great is that people in the zine scene here, or the literary scene in general, are really supportive of each other. We have a really exciting thing going on right now in this town–people starting out, people breaking through to bigger audiences. People are going to look back at this time and realize it was pretty extraordinary.

Anne: When you first met Vanessa, did you know she was a filmmaker?

Kevin: I learned that about her eventually. I think she invited me to some event where she showed a couple of her short films. I was really impressed by them. I was into stuff like Richard Kern and Karen Finley and I thought her work was in that same spirit. The first piece of journalism I ever published was an interview with Vanessa for Snipehunt, which was a legendary newspaper kind of zine in Portland for a while.

Anne: Now I want to read it! Thank you, Kevin.

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More information about Kevin Sampsell at www.kevinsampsell.com.

More information about his small press is at www.futuretensebooks.com.

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What: Raw, Raucous and Sublime: 33 1/3 Years Of Vanessa Renwick, An Oregon Department Of Kickass Retrospective, presented by Oregon Movies, A to Z.

Where: Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR (503) 281 -4215

When: April 25 & 26, 7:30 PM.

Plus: Filmmaker in attendance!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/513729408679513/

Hey, Matt McCormick, Why Did You Curate A Show of Experimental Portland Film/Video (And Can I Buy A DVD Of It?)

Anne Richardson — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:49:07 +0000

Portrait of Matt by Andrew Kosinski, at DINCA.org.

Anne: Matt, this Saturday, Aug. 4 you are screening films from your legendary Auto Cinematic Video Mix Tape at the Hollywood Theatre. Is this program the same exact group of films as the original tape?

Matt McCormick: there will actually only be a couple videos from the DVD. The DVD contains (mostly) Portland/Northwest work made circa 1997. Since it has been so long since I have set up a Peripheral Produce show, I thought it would be more fun to include newer work and younger filmmakers- so the show is essentially a retrospective of Portland made experimental film from the past 15+ years.

Anne: Were all the filmmakers known to you as personal friends when you conceived the festival/curated the mix tape?

Matt McCormick: Pretty much, though some I only knew through correspondence. I think in those pre-internet/email days we were all very eager to meet each other and network- so direct communication was really the only option when you’re talking about such a small organization.

Anne: Vanessa Renwick explained to me that Peripheral Produce pushed her into becoming a serious filmmaker. She hadn’t sought audiences for her work before. You sought audiences for her and gave her deadlines to work against. She gave you and PP total credit for her decision to begin to think of herself as an artist.

Matt McCormick: I am honored that she said that. I think in those early days of PP it was like that for a lot of us- at least the idea of a schedule with deadlines. A LOT of local work premiered at PP shows. Most of Miranda’s video works and performances premiered at PP shows- at least in rough draft versions. It was sort of our testing ground. Eric Ostrowski, Jon Raymond, Johnne Eschleman, myself- we’d make things specifically for a PP show, not really thinking about the project’s potential life afterwards.

Anne: Had you done a festival elsewhere before you moved to Portland?

Matt McCormick: no. i was 21 years old when i moved to Portland. i had set up some very small music and film ’shows’ in Albuquerque, but nothing really significant.

Anne: Vanessa explained to me that there had been a scene – live theater, I think – which was centered at the Rexall Drug storefront space on Mississippi. ( Ed. note from Anne: I had this wrong. She meant the Rexall Rose on Alberta.) How did this scene overlap with the experimental film/art film scene, in terms of makers and audience?

Matt McCormick: The Rexall Rose- that was pretty much the first/only coffee shop on Alberta street in the mid 90s- back when Alberta street looked and felt nothing like it does now. The Rexall Rose was this punk/lesbian hangout that was super cool. they had a back room where all sorts of shows happened (film, music, performance, etc- some early PP shows there) – the Rexall Rose, along with a number of punk houses in the neighborhood, was probably the first wave of the gentrification that has so swept that neighborhood today. But obviously businesses like the Rexall Rose and punk kids can no longer afford that neighborhood either.

Anne: Does the mix tape represent the work of people who participated in that scene?

Matt McCormick: yes, the mix tape is 100% people who were showing in PP shows 1996-1998

Anne: Did you know of Jim Blashfield/Jim Blashfield’s work before you moved to Portland?

Matt McCormick: i did, but didn’t realize it. I had most definitely seen music videos he had made, but it was some time before i actually met him and put it all together. when i moved here and got PP started was about the time that the local animation scene was really taking off commercially. I pretty much missed the early days of that scene’s formation and I naively thought they all just did commercial work. it wasn’t until a few years later i learned about their cool history.

Anne: Did you have any pre-conceptions, coming here, about the film scene at the time? If so, was that pre-conception part of the draw?

Matt McCormick: I never planned on moving to Portland- i was on a desperate 3 month coach surfing road trip, and this is pretty much were I ran out of money. A long story in itself, but while staying here and trying to make some money I became very interested in the city and excited about what i was seeing. The NW Film Center seemed really great, knowing Gus was from here, and a great local music scene convinced me that I should stick around and check it out. 17 years later here I am.

Anne: Did you work for Jim or Will Vinton or Gus or any Portland filmmaker?

Matt McCormick: no. i washed dishes for the first year i was here. my first ‘film’ job was video taping city council meetings for the local cable access channel. i eventually started getting hired as a production assistant on commercials and hollywood movies, and worked my way up to art director. i worked mostly through Food Chain Films. when my short films started getting national attention that led to me getting some commercial and music video directing jobs, but those have always been few and far between.

Anne: How did you view NWFF? Was PP a “Slamdance” alternative to NWFF’s “Sundance”?

Matt McCormick: the relationship changed over the years. early on we were very much in reaction to them- the film center seemed oblivious of local experimental filmmakers. In the late 90s jon raymond, vanessa renwick, miranda july, and I were all rejected from the NWFF multiple times- while often having the same work accepted to much larger film festivals in other cities. But i do give them credit for catching up quickly- I think the success of PP made them realize they needed to pay closer attention to the local scene, and they definitely did. by 2004 the NW Film Center became a vital colleague in helping put forward the PDX Film Festival

Anne: Was PP ever self sustaining, in terms of funding?

Matt McCormick: it really comes down to how you define self sustaining. it at least broke even, was able to pay artists (very small) screening fees, and paid me a very modest salary. but it also relied on me being willing to work a full time schedule for part time pay. it relied on lots of volunteer effort.

Anne: What would you say is the biggest difference, in terms of filmmaking, between the Portland of today and the Portland of 1996?

Matt McCormick: digital. we could write a book about how different it is. back then we were cutting film, editing video at Portland Cable Access, or using our VCRs to make movies. We called each other on the phone or sent actual letters to each other. most of us didn’t even own computers. computers have changed how we make movies, watch movies, communicate with each other and promote and show our work.

Anne: I see a big parallel between the scene you facilitated here and the No Wave scene in NYC during the early 80’s. In both instances, the boundary between musicians and filmmakers was almost invisible (Jim Jarmusch, John Zorn), DIY ruled, and people were working way way way off the grid, and not with an eye to mastering Hollywood narrative.

Matt McCormick: I think I agree with that. It’s more just about creative culture- music, film, art, writing. when you are that far off the grid (and in pre-internet days) it was harder to find your people, so creatives stuck together- communities were formed based on creative personalities as much as genre or artistic medium. especially for the stuff in a more avant garde direction. as an experimental filmmaker i often find more in common with an experimental musician then i do a mainstream/hollywood type filmmaker.

Thank you, Matt! See you at the Hollywood on Aug. 4!

Here’s Matt, giving a Dill Pickle Club lecture on May 27, 2012:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Fans of underground Portland filmmaking take note! A DVD of the original Auto Cinematic Video Mix Tape will be available for sale at the event.

Handy Guide To Growing Independent Film Outside of LA & New York: What Portland Did Right

Anne Richardson — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:05:46 +0000

Pittsburgh has George Romero, Baltimore has John Waters, and Boulder has the memory of Stan Brakhage.

Portland has Gus Van Sant, Bill Plympton, Matt Groening, Mike Richardson, Jon Raymond, Aaron Katz, Chel White, Jacob & Arnold Pander, James Westby, Jim Blashfield, Joan Gratz, Joanna Priestley, Matt McCormick, Rose Bond, Vanessa Renwick and Will Vinton.

Ever wonder why?

For cities wishing to replicate Portland’s densely populated cinematic scene, here’s a handy “how to” guide.

1. Start early.

As soon as people were making films in New York and Fort Lee, they were making them in Portland. Portland’s first film studio, American Lifeograph, opened in 1910. That’s the same year movies came to Hollywood.

2. Have a show business friendly mayor.

During the 16 year tenure of theater-owner-turned-mayor George Baker, downtown Portland was wall to wall theaters. John Gilbert, Clark Gable, William Powell, Edward Everett Horton and Eugene Pallette are some of the actors who jumpstarted their acting careers on the Portland stage, some of them in Baker’s own stock company. It was Baker who renamed Seventh Avenue “Broadway”.

3. Support innovation.

Oregon’s oldest source of print media, The Oregonian, responded to the puzzling new medium of radio by setting up a station, KGW, right in their own building, the Oregonian Tower. Radio later served as an Early Warning System to identify the talent of Portlanders-gone-Hollywood Mel Blanc, Suzanne Burce (renamed Jane Powell by MGM) and Johnnie Ray.

4. Grow your own film processing lab.

After WWII, Portland inventor Frank Hood went to work for a brand new electronics firm (originally conceived as a radio supply store) named Tektronix. He processed films he made for them, after losing patience with the delays of sending films to out of town labs. Eventually, he went into business as Teknifilm Lab. A filmmaker himself, he acted as teacher and mentor to customers. More important to the development of independent filmmaking in Portland: Hood’s lax attitude toward payment schedules, which subsidized generations of Oregon artists working in film.

5. Provide a home for an exiled Hollywood film scholar.

Andries Deinum came to Portland during the blacklist. His vision of film as a mode of social discourse laid the groundwork for PSU’s Center For The Moving Image, housed in Lincoln Hall. Jim Blashfield, Bill Plympton, and Matt Groening were among the faithful attendees of the Center’s influential screening series, run by the Portland State Film Committee.

6. Provide a day job for the guy who wants to mentor the guy who wants to revive the archaic art form of stop motion animation.

Homer Groening led a dual life – ad man by day and experimental filmmaker by night. He had a family, a home, and his own business doing what he loved – and he did it all without leaving Portland. Aspiring filmmaker Will Vinton paid attention, and followed suit. His career, like Groening’s, would encompass both television commercials and art house films, but on a much larger scale.

7. Work with, not against, a pair of cinema addled students who want to start a regional film center.

When Sheldon Renan succeeded in persuading National Endowment for the Arts to seed regional filmmaking, they went looking for the right person to submit a grant for a film center in Portland. They were pointed to Brooke Jacobson and Bob Summers, members of the Portland State Film Committee. Brooke and Bob wrote the grant, Portland Art Museum acted as fiscal sponsor, and the Northwest Film Center went into business. This year marks its 40th anniversary.

8. Work with, not against, a visionary film preservationist who wants to create a moving image archive.

Lew Cook was trained as a newsreel photographer by the first generation of Portland filmmakers. His stop motion film, The Little Baker, made circa 1925, proved prophetic when it came to Portland’s future claim to cinema history. He and Thomas Vaughn conceived Oregon Historical Society’s moving image archive, and Cook personally trained the preservationist, Michele Kribs, who currently presides over it.

To re-cap: by the end of the 1970’s, Portland had a film program at Portland State University, a film archive at Oregon Historical Society, and a regional film festival (now the NWFF) located at Portland Art Museum. That nucleus of film creativity on the park blocks was balanced by a film processing lab, an emerging animation studio, and a warehouse waiting to be filled with filmmakers’ offices over in northwest Portland. No one entity owned the scene – the infrastructure and the support system served all comers.

The following timeline concentrates on factors which contributed to a culture where independent filmmakers supported each other in Portland. It does not address the important role played by Hollywood productions shooting in Oregon. The symbiotic role of Hollywood and the Indies in Portland is embodied in the career of Gus Van Sant who slips and slides with ease between these two worlds.

A timeline:

American Lifeograph founded 1910

Lewis Moomaw makes The Chechacos 1924

Lew Cook makes The Little Baker c1925

PGE makes It Can Be Done c1936

Tektronix founded 1946

Frank Hood founds Teknifilm Lab, early 1950’s

Andries Deinum arrives 1957

Homer Groening starts his own ad agency 1958

Center For The Moving Image founded 1965

Bob Summers and Brooke Jacobson found Northwest Film Center 197o, with a push from Sheldon Renan

Tim Smith and Matt Groening make Drugs: Killers or Dillers 1972

Ron Finne, Tom Taylor and Brooke Jacobson found Northwest Media Project 1974

Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner make Closed Mondays 1974

Don Zavin makes Fast Break 1977

Penny Allen makes Property 1977

Rose Bond makes Gaia’s Dream 1982

Gus Van Sant makes Mala Noche 1985

Bill Plympton makes Your Face 1987

Matt Groening makes The Simpsons 1987

Jim Blashfield makes Leave Me Alone 1988

Joan Gratz makes Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase 1992

Gus Van Sant makes Good Will Hunting 1997.

Vanessa Renwick makes The Yodeling Lesson 1998

Miranda July makes The Amateurist 1998

Chris Eyre makes Smoke Signals 1998

Will Vinton makes The PJ’s 1999

Travis Knight makes Coraline 2009

Jon Raymond writes & Neil Kopp produces Meek’s Cutoff 2010, one of five Oregon films at Sundance in 2011.

This post is dedicated to Portland filmmaker/film writer David Walker, who inspired it by raising the question “how rare is regional filmmaking, anyway?”

Carrie Brownstein’s Cinematic Sisterhood: Vanessa Renwick, Miranda July & Marne Lucas

Anne Richardson — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 05:05:38 +0000

Its hard out there for most retired rockers, even for Carrie Brownstein, who spent her years post-Sleater-Kinney reinventing herself as a writer-actor-producer. Not that she had to build her new career from the ground up : Carrie’s greatest gift has been an ability to lose herself in performance.

And she brought this with her to Thunderant, her webseries with Fred Armisen.

But Carrie’s considerable talent is not solely responsible for her success tonight, as Portlandia premieres on national television. Art takes strength. An independent filmmaker has to have the heart of an Alaskan sled dog and the stamina of a long distance runner. You have to see what no one else can see and believe it can happen. How is this ability nurtured?

Miranda July had the idea that the reason there were no women filmmakers was that there were no women filmmakers. No role models, no company, no mentors = no women in film. Carrie arrived in Portland just as Miranda was getting her anti-isolation Miss Movieola project off the ground.

Ten years later, writer-director Miranda is at Sundance with her second feature film, and writer-actor Carrie is on national television. Perhaps Miranda was onto something.

When Miranda directed Carrie in Sleater-Kinney’s Get Up music video in 1999, she chose Vanessa Renwick as DP. During the intervening years, while Miranda moved to LA to begin making feature length narrative films, and Carrie briefly relocated to New York to write, Portland remained Vanessa’s home base, even as her work traveled around the world. A prolific cinematic Wild Child, Vanessa never showed any interest in narrative feature films or television.

The third member of Carrie Brownstein’s Cinematic Sisterhood of Portland Peers, Marne Lucas, made a prizewinning film her first time out and then placed her full attention on still photography.

That’s Marne in a self portrait taken at the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where she now lives. I believe Marne, retired from indie filmmaking by the time Carrie arrived in Portland, still counts as a member of her support team because of her legendary skepticism when it comes to the fanfare of success, and her disciplined focus on creating new work.

Miranda July, Vanessa Renwick and Marne Lucas are three Portland contemporaries Carrie Brownstein witnessed up close and personal, staying the course, exploring their gifts as artists. I’ll save for another post the longer history, and deeper roots, of women in film in Portland.

We’ll let Carrie play us off…..