Animator/animation teacher/animation historian Laura Di Trapani offers a comprehensive survey course at NWFC this spring. The course runs from April 5 to June 7, 2012. It covers all animation history, worldwide, while at the same time offering an introduction to Portland’s contribution to that history.

Take this class and claim your birthright as a citizen in one of the world capitals of animation. There is every reason to expect it will ring all of your film history chimes.

Here’s the course description.

This informal enrichment class for film lovers and students of cinema (self-appointed or formally enrolled) examines the rich history and evolution of animation from an international perspective, discussing its inventors and innovators and placing a wide range of animators and their works within a cultural context.

Beginning in the late 1800s with the French Industrial Revolution and highlighting the art form’s sources in vaudeville, drawing, painting, photography, and film, the course discusses such early animators as J. Stuart Blackton, Emile Cohl, and Winsor McCay; looks at the rise of production studios and aggressive commercialization in America; and contrasts these with such works as Russia’s Wladyslaw Starewicz’s stop-motion stag beetle animation and Jiri Trnka’s film THE HAND, which openly questioned the power of the Czechoslovakian government.

European avant garde artists such as Hans Richter, Man Ray, and Fernand Léger are considered, along with American filmmaker Mary Ellen Bute, the modern self-referential personal films of George Griffin and Chris Landreth, and Portland’s own Will Vinton, Joanna Priestley, Joan Gratz, and others.

Through lecture, in-class screenings, and discussion, emphasis is placed on the creative process and how animation has helped define the cultural sensibilities of societies around the world.

For more information:

The 2012 Los Angeles Animation Festival salutes one of the world’s most respected animators.

“This year we’re excited to honor one of the greats of animation, Bill Plympton, whose work and independent career have inspired so many of us in the field of animation.” announced John Andrews, founder and co-director of the LAFF.

On Saturday, March 10, Alexia Anatasio will premiere her new documentary Adventures In Plymptoons at the Regent Showcase Theater. Plympton will be present to accept the LAAF award for his contribution to the world of animation on March 11, following a 20th anniversary screening of his first animated feature, The Tune.

Speaking of Oregon directors and first animated features, on March 9 the festival screens Iron Giant, with members of the cast and crew present, including Brad Bird.

LAAF has very discerning taste in animation. The previous festival, in 2010, honored Will Vinton.

How does Oregon do it? The 2012 LAAF honoree, Bill Plympton, was born and raised in Oregon City. A two time Oscar nominee, he made his first animated film at PSU.

The 2010 LAAF honoree, Will Vinton, was born and raised in McMinnville. After winning an Oscar for his first short film, Closed Mondays, in 1976, he founded Will Vinton Studios in Portland.

By the time Brad Bird graduated from Corvallis High School, he knew he wanted to be an animator. He won a Disney scholarship to Cal Arts, an Oscar in 2005 for The Incredibles and another Oscar in 2008 for Ratatouille.

Vince Porter of Oregon Film Commission would love to see an annual animation festival taking place in Portland. You can understand why!

This post brought to you by Oregon Cartoon Institute.

On Sunday, February 26, at 2:00 PM, Oregon Movies, A to Z talks Oscars at the Oregon Historical Society.

This talk serves as a great crash course in Oregon film history.

For those impatient to get started, I include here a short list of Oregon artists who have received recognition from the Academy. I leave off the curious case of David Fincher, who was nominated for SOCIAL NETWORK and for THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, because although Fincher graduated from high school in Ashland, he never identifies himself as being from Ashland in the way that Brad Bird, for example, identifies himself as coming to Disney/Cal Arts straight from Corvallis.

When I identify the filmmaker with the name of a city or town, it is the city or town which the filmmaker originally came from, not where he/she currently lives. Where I give the city as “Portland” for Joan Gratz and Bob Gardiner and Irene Taylor Brodsky, it is because I am not sure where those filmmakers grew up, or lived, before becoming Portlanders.

See you there!

Brad Bird (Corvallis)
Winner for THE INCREDIBLES (2004) and RATATOUILLE (2007)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Will Vinton (McMinnville)
Winner, with Bob Gardiner, for CLOSED MONDAYS (1974)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Joan Gratz (Portland)
Winner, MONA LISA DESCENDING A STAIRCASE (1992)

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Bill Plympton (Oregon City)
Nominated for YOUR FACE (1987) and GUARD DOG (2004)

Gus Van Sant (Portland)
Nominated for GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997) and MILK (2008)

James Ivory (Klamath Falls)
Nominated for ROOM WITH A VIEW (1985), HOWARD’S END (1992), REMAINS OF THE DAY (1993)

George Bruns (Sandy)
Nominated for composing the scores of SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959), BABES IN TOYLAND (1961), THE SWORD IN THE STONE (1963) and the song “Love” in ROBIN HOOD (1973)

Irene Taylor Brodsky (Portland)
Nominated for THE FINAL INCH (2009)

James Longley (Eugene)
Nominated for IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS (2006) and SARI’S MOTHER (2006)

Oregon’s most distinguished filmmaker, three time Oscar nominee James Ivory, speaks here about the future of his profession:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lost, but now found!

Rockaday Richie was written and produced by Don Gronquist and directed by George Hood, son of Frank Hood, the founder of the all important Teknifilm Lab.

It is screening on Feb. 6, 7:00 PM at the Whitsell Auditorium, as part of the Essential Northwest series. Admission is pay what you wish.

Both filmmakers will be present.

The 1970’s saw the re-emergence of wholly independent feature filmmaking in the Rose City. Here’s the timeline:

Tom Moyers, Jr. and Will Vinton make The Circle in 1972

Don Gronquist and George Hood make Rockaday Richie and the Queen of the Hop in 1974 (For film scholars: I recommend Tim Smith’s thematically related The Case Of The Kitchen Killer , made in Portland the same year, for a great double feature)

Don Zavin makes Fast Break in 1977

Penny Allen makes Property in 1978, and Paydirt in 1981

Gus Van Sant makes Mala Noche in 1985

And then we were off and running.

Here’s more information, from NW Film Center:

VISITING ARTIST—Made at the same time as Terrence Malick’s BADLANDS, ROCKADAY (nationally released in 1975 as B-titled STARK RAVING MAD) is based on the infamous Starkweather-Fugate murder spree in 1958. Portland actors Russ Fast and Marcie Severson star as the pair who left a disastrous trail of carnage from Nebraska throughout the Midwest as they desperately tried to cover up one killing with another. Written and co-produced (with Tiger Warren) by Don Gronquist and shot by John Mincey, a large cross-section of the Portland film community worked on the film, which was also George Hood’s first feature. “A compelling, if modest, work … neither high-brow nor exploitation. Fast has a brooding presence and is genuinely chilling. … Severson has natural screen charm.”—Variety (88 mins.)

Brian Lindstrom comments “An underrated film! Truly worth seeing. Will make any independent filmmaker proud.”

Although I excuse myself from seeing Rockaday Richie and the Queen of the Hop because of my wimpy dislike of serial murdering, I do claim it as an Oregon film, based on the location shooting and the Oregon citizenship of the artists.

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 announcements from the Mel Blanc Project and the Homer Davenport Project, some proposals to consider, and some hand outs to take home.

Reminder: last time the Institute met, Dennis Nyback supplied home made refreshments.

This year our featured attraction is a rare screening of The Little Baker, a stop motion animation short by early Portland filmmaker Lewis Clark Cook (1909 – 1983). We will also screen a 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, use of which was generously made possible by the Oregon Historical Society, Lew Cook is 15 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.

Top Four Reasons You Might Want To See The Little Baker:

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

3. The Little 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 Little Baker with inspiring him to consider clay animation. Who knows what it will inspire you to do!

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This event is a partnership between Oregon Cartoon Institute, Oregon Historical Society and 5th Avenue Cinema.

Thank you to Kerry Tymchuk, Michele Kribs and Scott Rook of Oregon Historical Society.

Thank you to Heather Petrocelli of 5th Avenue Cinema and PSU’s Public History Interest Group.

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.

Entertainment Weekly called them “the coolest wrinkled musicians this side of the Stones”.  The brainchildren of California Raisin Marketing Board, the musically talented Raisins first came to life at Will Vinton Studios in 1986.

They took the country by storm.

Executive producer Will Vinton, producer David Altschul and writer Ralph Liddle collected a 1988 Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program for their work.

I hereby claim A Claymation Christmas Celebration as an Oregon film on the basis of multiple criteria (credits include two Oregon Oscar winners – Will Vinton and Joan Gratz).

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 right in the Oregonian Tower. Radio later served as an Early Warning System to identify the talent of Portlanders 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 named Tektronix. He set up his own home lab to process films he made for them, after losing patience with the delays of sending film to LA. Eventually, he went into business as Teknifilm Lab. For decades, independent filmmaking in Portland was supported by Hood’s lax attitude toward payment schedules.

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 the National Endowment for the Arts decided 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

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

Brooke Jacobson founds Northwest Media Project 1974

Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner make Closed Mondays 1974

Don Zavin makes Fast Break 1977

Penny Allen makes Property 1979

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.

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?”

Animator Laura Di Trapani has been making films in Oregon since 1984. If you study with her at Portland State you will be learning from someone who has worked with Jim Blashfield, Gus Van Sant, Chel White, Will Vinton, and the late cartoonist John Callahan, as well as Childrens Television Workshop and Sesame Street.

Di Trapani belongs to the extraordinary sisterhood of Oregon animators which includes Joan Gratz, Rose Bond, Joanna Priestley, Marilyn Zornado.

On May 22, at 8:oo PM, Di Trapani will screen her current work in progress Exquisite Corpse at the Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE MLK Blvd, in Portland.

Film preservationist Michele Kribs receives a commendation from Thomas Vaughn, former head of the Oregon Historical Society.

Michele Kribs has kept an eye on the Oregon Historical Society’s moving image archive since 1979.  Although the collection is catalogued, she remains the best source of information about what the archive holds and how to find it.

Michele explained to me that Oregon had an early start in the film industry because of three things: the Rose Festival, the Columbia Gorge, and the Pendleton Round Up. These three endlessly fascinating subjects were documented, year after year, for national audiences by silent newsreel photographers. The steadiness of the demand for these three Oregon subjects created enough economic stability for a local film scene.

The coming of sound in 1927 dampened the progress of the local industry. Only Hollywood had the budgets to keep up with the expanded costs brought in by sound. But since the roots of Portland’s film industry were deep, there was never a complete hiatus. Local ad agencies, including one run by Homer Groening, kept skills ( and processing labs)  alive. Then in 1975, after Will Vinton came home with an Oscar,  independent filmmakers in Portland had renewed determination and inspiration.

Michele was not the first preservationist/archivist to work for OHS. That honor goes to the man who trained her: Lewis Clark Cook, a filmmaker-turned-archivist who inspired both Will Vinton and Jim Blashfield ( who in turn inspired, employed and mentored a young, film curious, Gus Van Sant.) For that reason, Lew Cook could reasonably be called the granddaddy of Portland filmmaking today.

Congratulations, Michele Kribs, and thank you for keeping everything in order, including our sense of Portland film history.