Joanna Priestley

Last updated
Joanna Priestley
Priestley by Tim Sugden web.jpg
Joanna Priestley in her studio in 2013, with the Movieola she used to edit her 16mm films
Born
Nationality American
Education Rhode Island School of Design
Alma mater University of California at Berkeley (BFA 1975), California Institute of the Arts (MFA 1985)
Known forFilmmaking, animation, teaching, Burning Man events
SpousePaul Harrod
Website www.joannapriestley.com

Joanna Priestley (born November 25, 1950 [1] ) is an American contemporary film director, producer, animator and teacher. Her films are in the collections of the Academy Film Archive [2] in Los Angeles and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Priestley has had retrospectives at the British Film Institute, [3] Museum of Modern Art [4] and Hiroshima International Animation Festival in Japan. [5] Bill Plympton calls her the "Queen of independent animation". Priestley lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

Contents

Early life and education

Priestley was born in Portland, Oregon to Mae Irene and Arthur James Priestley. She grew up in a wooded area near the Willamette River with horses, dogs, a cat and a huge collection of comic books.

Priestley began experimenting with animation early in her life. In an interview with Harvey Deneroff, [6] she explained: "One of the first toys I was given was a zoetrope, which worked on a little turntable and had little zoetrope strips with it. I loved it! I'm sure I became an animator because of that toy. Then I started drawing on the corners of my textbooks in grade school, and later studied art in high school and college, where I specializing in painting and printmaking."

Education

Priestley studied painting and animation at Rhode Island School of Design and received a BFA in Art (with a minor in Art History) from the University of California at Berkeley, graduating with honors. [7] During her final year there she produced thousands of posters used in protests against the Vietnam War and she was the Art Department representative to the Ad Hoc Committee to End the War.

Priestley received a Master of Fine Arts in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts, where she received the Louis B. Mayer Award. For two years she was the teaching assistant for famed abstract animator Jules Engel. Priestley made the first computer-animated film at Cal Arts, Jade Leaf (1985), using the Cubicomp, early animation hardware that was purchased by Cal Arts in the fall of 1984. Priestley and Engel co-directed Times Square (1986), also using the Cubicomp [8] to generate images and recording them on a 16mm Bolex camera on a tripod, positioned in front of the monitor.

Joanna Priestley at an exhibition of her animation art (watercolor and ink on index cards) from Voices, Main Gallery, California Institute of the Arts in 1985 Joanna Priestley at show of her animation art, California Institute of the Arts in 1985. Photo by R. Dennis Wiancko.jpg
Joanna Priestley at an exhibition of her animation art (watercolor and ink on index cards) from Voices, Main Gallery, California Institute of the Arts in 1985

Career

In 1977, Priestley co-founded and co-directed (with Martha Kelley) Strictly Cinema in Bend, Oregon. They presented film festivals in Bend and weekly film screenings at Bend and Redmond High Schools. She became the regional coordinator, editor of The Animator and coordinator of the Northwest Film and Video Festival at the Northwest Film Center at the Portland Art Museum from 1978 to 1983. Gene Youngblood, one of the jurors of the Northwest Film and Video Festival, encouraged her to apply to Cal Arts, which she did in 1983. In 1988, Priestley founded ASIFA-Northwest with Marilyn Zornado. This ASIFA chapter included the northwest region of the United States which comprised Portland, Seattle, Vancouver B.C., and the areas in between. Priestley was president of ASIFA-NW for four years. The organization is now known as ASIFA-Portland.

In 1985 she founded her own company, Priestley Motion Pictures, where she has directed, produced and animated 31 short films, [9] the IOS app Clam Bake (2014) and the award winning abstract feature film North of Blue [10] ,. Animated Women: Joanna Priestley, [11] a short documentary with three of Priestley's films, was broadcast on PBS and BBC2 in 1995–96. Priestley has directed animation segments for Sesame Street ("“The Lumps: Rejection Victories” and “The Lumps: Social Skills”, 1990), and directed and animated music video sequences for Tears for Fears (“Sowing the Seeds of Love”, 1988) and Joni Mitchell (“Good Friends”, 1985) and a PBS series title: “Making Peace” (1996). After directing and producing short films from 1979 to 2015, Priestley made an abstract feature film, North of Blue , which premiered at the Annecy International Animation Festival [12] in France in June, 2018. North of Blue has won multiple awards, including Best Experimental Film at the Indie Film Awards (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Best Animated Film at the Yosemite International Film Festival (CA, USA), [13] Best Feature Film at the Los Angeles Animation Festival (CA, USA) [14] and Best Sound Design Award and Best Feature Original Score Award at the Local Sightings Film Festival, NW Film Forum (Seattle, WA, USA). [15]

Joanna Priestley is featured as one of six interviewees in Martin Cooper's feature documentary History, Mystery & Odyssey: The Lives and Work of Six Portland Animators (2023). The other interviewees are Joan C. Gratz, Jim Blashfield, Chel White, Rose Bond and Zak Margolis. [16] The film premiered at the 2023 Ottawa International Animation Festival. [17]

Priestley has received fellowships from Creative Capital, National Endowment for the Arts (USA), [18] American Film Institute (USA), [19] Fundación Valparaíso (Spain), Millay Colony (USA), Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (Canada) [20] and the Caldera Arts Foundation (USA). She was awarded the 2007-08 Media Arts Fellowship from the Regional Arts and Culture Council [21] and her films are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY, USA), the Academy Film Archive (Los Angeles, CA, USA) and the Library of Congress (Washington DC, USA).

Priestley's influences include Hilma af Klint, Mary Ellen Bute, Jane Aaron, David Hockney, Evelyn Lambart, Norman McLaren, Jules Engel, Len Lye and Antoni Gaudi. She has taught animation, portfolio design and cinema history at the Northwest Film Center/Portland Art Museum, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Art Institute of Portland and Volda University College (Volda Norway) as well as teaching animation workshops throughout the US and in Canada, Germany and Norway. She is an active proponent of animation as an art form and has worked throughout her career to improve the status and exposure of animation in academia, museums, galleries and the media worldwide. Priestley has presented two papers at the Society for Animation Studies Conference, including "Creating a Healing Mythology: The Art of Faith Hubley" in 1992, which was published in the Spring 1994 issue of Animation Journal. [22]

Priestley has been an active member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1992 and the Short Films and Feature Animation Executive Committee (2018 to 2022). She has served on the board of the Regional Arts and Culture Council and been a member of the Public Art Committee in Portland, Oregon.

Filmography

Music videos

Television

DVD compilations and iOS app

Retrospectives

Awards/accolades

Personal life

Priestley's interests include hiking, medicinal herbalism and designing and producing performative events for Burning Man [61] and All Hallows Eve. [62] She is married to award winning animation director and production designer Paul Harrod ( Isle of Dogs , [63] Wendell & Wild , [64] and The PJs [65] ).

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanna Quinn</span> English film director and animator

Joanna Lisa Quinn is an English independent film director and animator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Pinkava</span> Czech-British-American writer and animator

Jan Jaroslav Pinkava is a Czech-British-American producer, director, writer, and animator. He directed the Pixar short film Geri's Game and served as co-director and co-wrote the story for Ratatouille, both of which went on to win Oscars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Animated Film Association</span> Voluntary association

The International Animated Film Association is an international non-profit organization founded in 1960 in Annecy, France by well-known animation artists including Canadian animator Norman McLaren. There are now more than 30 chapters of the Association located in many countries of the world.

The International Tournée of Animation was an annual touring program of alternative animated films that started in 1965 as The First Festival of Animated Film with each selected and assembled from films from many countries around the world and which existed from the 1970s to the 1980s-90s.

Rose Bond is a Canadian-born media artist, animator and professor who currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon. She has been considered a scholar on the subject of animation and an experienced animator herself. Bond's animations and short films have been shown at film festivals including the Sundance Film Festival. Bond is also known for her architectural animation installations. She shown work at Exeter Castle in 2010 and created a prototype animation for the Smithsonian. Bond's hand-painted films are held in the film collection at the Museum of Modern Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chel White</span> American film director

Chel White is an American film director, composer, screenwriter and visual effects artist. In his independent films and music videos, White is known for his stylized, often experimental use of images, unusual animation and narratives depicting an outsider's perspective. He often adopts darkly humorous and poetic sensibilities to explore topics of love, obsession and alienation; with dreams and the subconscious being his greatest influences. He describes his own work as “stories and images that reside on the brink of dreams, or linger on the periphery of distorted memories.” A Rockefeller Fellow, Chel White has made three films based on the work of Peabody Award-winning writer and radio personality Joe Frank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Harrod</span> American film director

Paul Harrod is an American animation director, production designer, and art director with a special emphasis on stop motion.

The Street is a 1976 animated short film by Caroline Leaf for the National Film Board of Canada.

Jason Donati is an animator, educator, and author noted for his animated independent film work, professional career as a 3D visualization artist, and academic authorship including Exploring Digital cinematography, published by Cengage Learning.

Candyjam is a 1988 7 minute 35mm short animated film animated collaboration by ten animators from four countries produced and directed by Joanna Priestley and Joan C. Gratz. The animation was made with clay painting, drawings, puppets and object animation.

Pro and Con is a 1993 9-minute 16mm short animated film produced, directed and animated by Joanna Priestley and Joan C. Gratz using drawings on paper, pixillated hands and object animation. The "Pro" section of the film was written by Barbara Carnegie and Joanna Priestley and narrated by Lt. Janice Inman. The "Con" section was written by Jeff Green and narrated by Allen Nause. The sound was designed and produced by Lance Limbocker and Chel White with music by Chel White. Pro and Con was commissioned through the Metropolitan Arts Commission's Percent for Art Program in Multnomah County, Oregon.

Grown Up is a 1993 7 minute 16mm short animated film by Joanna Priestley, using drawings on paper, pixellated hands and object animation. The film was written by Barbara Carnegie and Joanna Priestley, and directed, produced, and animated by Priestley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cristobal León & Joaquín Cociña</span> Chilean animators and filmmakers

Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña are Chilean stop-motion animators and filmmaker duo. They live and work in Santiago de Chile, and have been working together since 2007. Independent of each other, they make drawings, animations, installations as well as backdrops and they also write texts. Their work often finds direct or indirect inspiration in children's literature, using and resituating their narratives and visual aesthetics. In 2018, they premiered their first feature fiction film, The Wolf House.

Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis are a Canadian animation duo. On January 24, 2012, they received their second Oscar nomination, for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) animated short film, Wild Life (2011). With their latest film, The Flying Sailor, they received several nominations and awards, including for the Best Canadian Film at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and on January 24, 2023, they received a nomination for the 95th Academy Awards under the category Best Animated Short Film.

The Rubber Stamp Film is a 1983 7 minute 16mm short animated film by Joanna Priestley, using rubber stamped images and drawings on paper. The film was directed, produced, and animated by Priestley with sound designed and produced by R. Dennis Wiancko.

The Dancing Bulrushes is a 1985 5-minute 16mm short animated film by Joanna Priestley, and Steven Subotnick using sand on top glass, directly under the camera.

Joan Carol Gratz is an American artist, animator, and filmmaker who specializes in clay painting. Gratz is best known for her 1992 Oscar-winning animated short film Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase.

<i>North of Blue</i> 2018 American film

North of Blue is a 2018 American animated feature film directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley with a score by Jamie Haggerty. It is an abstract, experimental film that was inspired by the winter landscapes of the far north.

Voices is a 1985 four-minute 16 mm short animated film directed produced and animated by Joanna Priestley with sound design and production by R. Dennis Wiancko. It was made with ink, watercolor, and pastel drawings/paintings on paper.

<i>Missed Aches</i> 2009 American film by Joanna Priestley

Missed Aches is a 2009 16mm short 2D animated film directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. It was narrated by Taylor Mali and is based on his poem “The Impotence of Proofreading”, with sound design by Normand Roger and Pierre Yves Drapeau, music by Pierre Yves Drapeau with Denis Chartrand and Normand Roger, text animation by Brian Kinkley, character design and animation by Don Flores and storyboards by Dan Schaeffer.

References

  1. Bendazzi, Giannalberto (2015-11-06). Animation: A World History: Volume III: Contemporary Times. CRC Press. ISBN   978-1-317-51987-4.
  2. "The Rubber Stamp Film - Academy Collections". oscars.org/.
  3. "Joanna Priestley Retrospectives & Screenings Set for Stuttgart, BFI" . Retrieved April 26, 2017.
  4. "TJoanna Priestley". www.cccb.org/.
  5. "International Jury" . Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  6. "Joanna Priestley Animator - Life and Work Interview". Dec 31, 2004. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  7. "Michael Sporn Animation – Splog » Joanna Priestley". www.michaelspornanimation.com. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  8. "Times Square (1986)" . Retrieved 5 May 2018 via www.imdb.com.
  9. "Joanna Priestley". IMDb. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  10. "North of Blue". IMDb. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  11. O'Connor, John J. (5 April 1995). "TELEVISION REVIEW; The Art of Women's Animation". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  12. "Annecy > Programme > Index". www.annecy.org. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  13. "North of Blue - Awards". IMDb. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  14. "North of Blue, Joanna Priestley". cinemarket.io. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  15. "Local Sightings Film Festival 2018: North of Blue". nwfilmforum.org. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  16. Six of Portland’s most gifted animators are the focus of a new documentary
  17. Six Portland-Based Animators Step In Front Of The Camera
  18. "Joanna Priestley".
  19. "The Portable MacDowell". The Portable MacDowell. Archived from the original on 8 February 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  20. "Past Participants". klondikeinstituteofartandculture.ca. 29 September 2016. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  21. "Individual Artist Fellowships". racc.org.
  22. "Animation Journal essays". www.animationjournal.com. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  23. The Rubber Stamp Film at the Internet Movie Database
  24. Cartoons Considered For An Academy Award - 1983|Cartoon Research
  25. The Dancing Bulrushes at the Internet Movie Database
  26. "Voices". imdb.
  27. "After the Fall". imdb.
  28. "Pro and Con". imdb.
  29. "Utopia Parkway". imdb.
  30. "Andaluz". imdb.
  31. "Streetcar Named Perspire". imdb.
  32. "Missed Aches". imdb.
  33. "Split Ends". imdb.
  34. "Bottle Neck". imdb.
  35. "North of Blue". imdb.
  36. "Special Events: The 50 Foot Challenge". nwfilm. 4 October 2018.
  37. "Jung & Restless". imdb.
  38. "Fighting Gravity: Films by Joanna Priestley". DVD.com.
  39. "Relative Orbits: Films by Joanna Priestley". University at Buffalo Libraries.
  40. "Best of Tricky Women 2009". tricky women.
  41. "Clam Bake". Cartoon Brew. 16 August 2012.
  42. "Retrospective Joanna Priestley". fantoche.ch. 17 July 2019.
  43. "An Evening With Joanna Priestley". nwfilm.org/. 27 October 2017. Archived from the original on 2 August 2019.
  44. "Joanna Priestley Retrospectives & Screenings Set for Stuttgart, BFI". awn.com. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  45. "Joanna Priestley to Appear at Stuttgart, British Film Institute". animationmagazine.net. 27 April 2017. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  46. "Joanna Priestley Retrospective - tricky women". www.trickywomen.at. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  47. "Department of Art Education & Crafts". www3.kutztown.edu. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  48. "Animated Worlds of Joanna Priestley - Cinema Pacific". cinemapacific.uoregon.edu. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  49. 1 2 "Guest of Honor: An Evening with Joanna Priestley | POWFest". Archived from the original on 2017-09-16. Retrieved 2017-09-15.
  50. "Joanna Priestley". redcat.org. 29 July 2009. Archived from the original on 10 December 2019. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  51. "'Floreana,' 'North of Blue' Top LA Animation Festival". awn.com. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  52. "Yosemite International Film Festival". imdb.com. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  53. "Local Sightings Film Festival 2018 Winners Announced". nwfilmforum.org. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  54. "Finalists - Animation". festeuro.ru. Archived from the original on 2019-08-02.
  55. "aaff". aaff. 26 March 2013. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  56. "ASIFA-SF Spring Festival Winners Announced". Animation World Network. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
  57. Brooks, Brian (6 May 2011). ""Interview" & "Enrique" Among Top Short Winners at Oscar-qualifying USA Film Festival". indiewire.com. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  58. "Joanna Priestley - Regional Arts and Culture Council". racc.org. Archived from the original on 16 September 2017. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  59. "Tricky Women 2001 - tricky women". www.trickywomen.at. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  60. Andrew. "24th Northwest Film & Video Festival: Awards". oldsite.nwfilm.org. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  61. "Children of Chaos @ Burning Man". wordpress.com.
  62. "Children of Chaos Halloween Bus". wordpress.com.
  63. "Production Designer Paul Harrod Gets into the Details of Isle of Dogs". www.studiodaily.com. 23 March 2018.
  64. Wendell and Wild at the Internet Movie Database
  65. "Paul Harrod". nwfilm.org.