Joanna Priestley

Award-winning independent animator and teacher Joanna Priestley was DIVA's filmmaker-in-residence and host of the Fifth Annual OpenLens Festival January 9th, 10th, and 11th, 2009.

Priestley screened an evening of her own animation taught a "Making Wonderful Animation" seminar the following day. She also hosted the festival's program of short videos by South West Oregon filmmakers during the festival weekend.

Joanna Priestley has produced, directed and animated 19 award-winning films. Her work is shown world-wide and she has had retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Center for Contemporary Art (Warsaw, Poland), American Cinematheque (Los Angeles, CA) and the Stuttgart Animation Festival (Stuttgart, Germany) and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Film Institute, the MacDowell Colony, Fundación Valparaíso and Creative Capital.

Her work has also been broadcast on PBS and the BBC. In addition, she has done animation pieces for Sesame Street as well as for music videos for Tears for Fears, and Joni Mitchell.

After graduating from CalArts, Priestley returned to Portland in 1988 to fund with the help of her friends, "ASIFA-Northwest", the ASIFA chapter in the Northwest region of the United States which was comprised of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver B.C. and the cities in between. It is now known as ASIFA-Seattle.

She is an ardent proponent of animation as an art form and has presented papers at the Society for Animation Studies Conference and works to improve the status of animation in academia, museums, galleries and the media worldwide.

Her influences include Oskar Fischinger, Len Ly, Norman McLaren and Jules Engle.

Priestley has taught animation at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland.  She has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts since 1992.

This is a four part interview about documentary film with Joanna Priestley conducted by Festival coordinator Steve Newcomb. Part 1 - What is important to consider when making animated films? Part 2 - You can use anything in the making of animated works Part 3 - What is the importance of sound to you? Part 4 - How would you get your first film noticed?

Festival Screening: Friday, January 9th, 2009 - An Evening with Joanna Priestley

Voices (1985, 4 minutes, drawings on paper)  Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Sound by R. Dennis Wiancko. Voice by Joanna Priestley.

“Priestley gets across a series of personal phobias in a refreshing and humorous fashion. We get a superb, contemporary animated film with salutes to historical cartoon figures scattered throughout. Delightful!” -Marv Newland, Northwest Film and Video Festival Juror.

All My Relations (1990, 5 minutes, drawings on paper with 3-D frames) Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Voices by Victoria Parker and Scott Parker. Sound produced by Joanna Priestley. Sound effects by Dennis Wiancko.

All My Relations satirizes the pitfalls of romance, from marriage, childbirth and upward mobility to the disintegration of a relationship. The animation is framed by a series of assemblages which emphasize the message implied by its archetypal characters whose dilemmas are familiar to those who have bought into the American Dream.

Grown Up (1993, 7 minutes, drawings on paper, pixillated hands and object animation) Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Sound produced by Lance Limbocker. Written by Barbara Carnegie and Joanna Priestley. Music by Steve Christopherson and Warren Rand. Funded by ITVS and a Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowship

“Everybody from Germaine Greer to Gloria Steinem to Betty Friedan are writing about aging, but what about middle aging? Priestley does a brilliant job of reclaiming 40, and believe me, I have a vested interest in this subject.  An animation that just might make twenty-somethings wish they were older.”  -B. Ruby Rich.

Streetcar Named Perspire  (2007, 6.5 minutes, 2Dcomputer animation)  Directed and produced by Joanna Priestley. Sound designed and produced by Lance Limbocker.  Music composed by John Smith.  Animation by Pascal Campion and Joanna Priestley.  Written by Joanna Priestley and Victoria Parker Pohl. Narrator: Paul Harrod.  Funding: Regional Arts and Culture Council.  

“Priestley’s animated roller coaster ride both previews and celebrates-  depending on your age- one of life’s most thrill-filled experiences.” -Heide Kuehn, Northwest Film and Video Festival

Dew Line (2005, 5 minutes, computer animation). Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Sound designed and produced by Jaime Haggerty.  Supported by a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council.

“A rich abstract tapestry of botanical and biomorphic forms. Priestley’s first Flash animation is a striking continuation of her fluid playful style.” - Bill Foster, Northwest Film Center

Andaluz (2004, 6 minutes, drawings on paper), Directed, produced and animated by Karen Aqua and Joanna Priestley. Sound designed and produced by Lance Limbocker. Music composed and produced by Ken Field and Juanito Pascual. Edited by Cam Williams.

"Colors dance and landscapes morph to the rhythms of southern Spain in the latest work from two award-winning animators."  - New York Film Festival

Pro and Con (1993, 9 minutes, object and cel animation, puppets, drawings and clay painting).  Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley and Joan Gratz. Sound produced by Lance Limbocker and Chel White. Music by Chel White. Narrated by Lt. Janice Inman and Allen Nause. “Con” written by Jeff Green. Commissioned through the Metropolitan Arts Commission's Percent for Art Program.

Pro and Con looks at the U.S. prison system through the eyes of a female, African American corrections officer and a white, male inmate.  The film includes self-portraits that were drawn by inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary and contraband weapons and crafts that were confiscated from inmates. 

Kali Yuga (2000, 5 minutes, pixilation and object animation)  Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley.  Composed and sound produced by Joseph Waters. Performance by Diane Wilson.  Edited by Steve Greiner.

"Kali Yuga" includes two experiments that have intrigued me for many years.  The first section was shot in the forest, over a six month period, with yoga teacher Diane Wilson.  The second was an experiment with collected household tools, bolts, screws and nails. Kali Yuga was originally commissioned by and performed with live music by the Fear No Music ensemble.

Utopia Parkway  (1997, 5 minutes, drawings on paper, objects and replacement  animation).  Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley.  Sound design and music by Jaime Haggerty. Edited by Chris Willging and Joanna Priestley. Funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Utopia Parkway was inspired by the box sculptures by Joseph Cornell, who lived in the same house on Utopia Parkway in Queens, New York, nearly all of his life.

She-Bop (1988, 8 minutes, drawings and puppet animation). Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Music by Dave Storrs. Written by Carolyn Myers. Narration by Carolyn Lochert Curtis. Sound effects by R. Dennis Wiancko. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

She-Bop explores the dark, feminine side of spirituality. The central character in the film is a cartoon Kali, goddess of creation, preservation and destruction.  The animation is drawn on index cards with pen, watercolor and paste.

Festival Seminar: Saturday, January 10th - What makes Wonderful Animation?

This interactive seminar will include a discussion of the important components of animation, a mini-survey of animation techniques, and an introduction and demonstration of Adobe Flash and the Wacom tablet. Award winning animated films will be shown during the seminar.