Chel White

Chel White is an American film director, commercial and music video director, animator, actor, screenwriter, and visual effects supervisor on feature films.

He is co-founder of the international production company Bent Image Lab^[1] in Portland, Oregon, along with co-founders Ray Di Carlo and David Daniels.

Known for his first person narratives and stylized use of images, White's films explore love, obsession, alienation, memories, and dreams. He uses allegory and frequently black humor to paint pictures of the human experience. His narrative films are often told from the perspective of the estranged individual; the outsider looking in [1]. He has made three films based on the work of Peabody Award winning radio personality and writer Joe Frank ^[2][3](Dirt, Soulmate, and Magda).

Biography

Chel White was born May 30, 1959, in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. White cites his earliest influence as being the Surrealist painting he was exposed to in grade school when visiting the Art Institute of Chicago.^[4] He began making films in high school and went on to received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Visual Arts, with a central focus on experimental film, from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. After college he began making independent short films, starting with Metal Dogs of India (1985). The films that followed were Machine Song (1987), Choreography for Copy Machine (or Photocopy Cha Cha)(1991), Dirt (1998), Soulmate (2000), Passage (2001), Magda (2004) A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process in Less Than 60 Seconds (2005), and Wind (2007).

Chel White is the recipient of a Rockefeller/Ford Foundation Media Arts Fellowship^[5] through Re:New Media, a Media Arts Fellowship from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, Portland Oregon, and project grants from Creative Capital, the Pacific Pioneer Fund and the Oregon Arts Commission.

The short films of Chel White have been shown in major film festivals throughout the world including the Sundance Film Festival,^[6][7] Berlin Film Festival,^[8] International Film Festival Rotterdam,^[9] Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival,^[10] SXSW^[11] Festival, Zagreb Animation Festival, Portland International Film Festival,^[12] Ottawa Animation Festival, Annecy Animation Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, and Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The awards received for White's films include Best Short Film from the 1998 Stockholm International Film Festival (Dirt),^[13][14] Best Animated Short from the 1991 Ann Arbor Film Festival (Choreography for Copy Machine), Grand Jury Award for Best Animated Short Film from the 2005 Florida Film Festival (Magda),^[15] and the EMPA Work Life Award from the 2005 Ann Arbor Film Festival (Magda). Through various film festivals, his films have been screened at The Brooklyn Museum,^[16] The Smithsonian Museum,^[17] The Boston Museum of Fine Arts^[18] and The High Museum in Atlanta.

Since 1985, Chel White has made his home in Portland, Oregon.^[19]

Professional career

Chel White started his professional career working as an animator at Jim Blashfield and Associates,^[20] Portland, Oregon, in 1986. In 1991, he began creating visual effects for film director Gus Van Sant,^[21] starting with My Own Private Idaho (1991). White was Visual Effects Supervisor on Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get The Blues (1993), Paranoid Park (2007), First Kiss (2007), and Milk (2008), as well as title effects supervisor on director Todd Haynes' film, I'm Not There.^[22][23] White directed two shorts for Saturday Night Live's "TV Funhouse," The Narrator That Ruined Christmas (2001) and Santa and the States (2004),^[21] both parodies of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer television special (1964).

"Fever Dreams and Heavenly Nightmares," a DVD compilation of Chel White's short films was released in 2005, and is distributed by Microcinema International.^[24]

In 2006 White directed the music video for Thom Yorke's song "Harrowdown Hill," which won the award for Best Music Video at the 2006 SXSW Festival. Along with his team and co-founders at Bent Image Lab, he pioneered the Smallgantics technique that was used for the first time in the "Harrowdown Hill" video.

The commercials Chel White has directed have been honored with Clio Awards, AICP Awards, Mobius Advertising Awards, a Rosey, and several awards from the Chicago International Television Awards. Two commercials are included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In 2007, White's film "Wind" was commissioned by the climate change awareness organization Live Earth,^[25] to be included in "Save Our Selves," a global concert and simulcast on July 7, 2007. Wind premiered April 26, 2007 in the opening night program of eight Live Earth short films, in the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival with keynote speaker Al Gore,

In December 2005, Chel White and his then girlfriend Laura McGie were stranded in a mountain snowstorm for four days, Cascade Mountains, Oregon. They were found by Marion County Search and Rescue officers who traveled to the remote location by snowmobile. White and McGie are currently writing a feature film screenplay based on their shared experience, titled 96 Hours. White and McGie are currently in post-production on a feature film titled Bucksville.^[26]

As an actor, Chel White made his only appearance to date in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), playing a brain surgeon in a scene with Uma Thurman.

Filmography

^[5][27]

Feature films

• Fever Dreams and Heavenly Nightmares: The Short Films of Chel White (2005)

Short films

• Wind (2007)
• A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process in Less Than 60 Seconds (2005)
• Magda (2004)
• Eclipse (2003)
• Passage (2001)
• Soulmate (2000)
• Swingin' With Mr. String (1998)
• Fish Bubbles (1998)
• Dirt (1998)
• Choreography for Copy Machine (or Photocopy Cha Cha) (1991)
• Machine Song (1987)
• Metal Dogs of India (1985)

Videography

• Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill (2006)
• Cottonmouth, Texas - Hoops, Ugly People, Me and My Last 4 Bucks (1997)
• Season to Risk - Blood Ugly (1994)
• Melvins - Hooch (1993)

Commercials

• Lux - Provocateur (2006)
• Washington State Department of Health - Park and Rec Room (2005)
• OfficeMax - Santa's Helper (2005)
• Tele-TV - Critics (1997)
• Fila - Mashburn (1994)

See also

• Jan Švankmajer
• Ladislas Starevich
• Ray Harryhausen
• Jiří Barta
• Brothers Quay
• Christiane Cegavske

References

1. ^ http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2008/bent-image-lab/
2. ^ http://www.floridafilmfestival.com/archive2004/films_shorts.html
3. ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0290990/
4. ^ http://www.lumeneclipse.com/gallery/14/white/index.html
5. ^ ^{a b} http://mediaartists.org/content.php?sec=artist&sub=detail&artist_id=763
6. ^ http://www.variety.com/profiles/Film/main/126551/Photocopy%20Cha%20Cha.html?dataSet=1
7. ^ http://wweek.com/html/cultfeature020399.html
8. ^ http://www.berlinale.de/de/archiv/jahresarchive/1992/02_programm_1992/02_Filmdatenblatt_1992_19923179.php
9. ^ http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/en/IFFR-2009/films-az/theme.aspx?ID=4101be9d-1e6f-4446-8385-151e5fcc8709
10. ^ http://www.siff.net/cinema/seriesDetail.aspx?FID=124
11. ^ http://2007.sxsw.com/film/screenings/film/F6765.html
12. ^ http://www.nwfilm.org/archives/piff/31/films/?series=41
13. ^ http://www.skysociety.com/epkdirt.html
14. ^ http://www.boardsmag.com/articles/magazine/20000701/editors.html?page=2
15. ^ http://www.floridafilmfestival.com/archive2004/news.html
16. ^ http://google.com/search?q=cache:ypHbyYMyjewJ:www.shootonline.com/go/e.dition.php%3Fyear%3D2005%26month%3Dmay%26day%3D06%26type%3D_lite+%22The+Brooklyn+Museum%22+%22chel+white%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us
17. ^ http://www.canyoncinema.com/W/WhiteC.html
18. ^ http://www.theworldjournal.com/special/movies/2006/iffboston.htm
19. ^ Animation World Magazine, By Taylor Jessen, 11/22/2006
20. ^ http://laughing1wolf.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html
21. ^ ^{a b} http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0924603/
22. ^ Variety Magazine: "Back to the Camera" By Christopher Grove
23. ^ http://creativity-online.com/?action=news:article&newsId=134690&sectionName=behind_the_work
24. ^ http://www.microcinemadvd.com/product/DVD/553/Fever_Dreams_and_Heavenly_Nightmares_The_Short_Films_of_Chel_White.html
25. ^ TRIBECA '07 DISPATCH | Tribeca Fest Thinks Globally With Gore and Climate Crisis in Opening Night Spotlight
26. ^ Boards Magazine, "It's About The Talent", By Teressa Iezzi, 2/1/2001
27. ^ Creativity Magazine, "Just Dupe It", By Terry Kattleman, May/1994.

External links

• Official website
• Chel White at the Internet Movie Database
• Bent Image Lab
• Animation Show
• Lumen Eclipse

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