Northwest Film Forum

Peter Wick won the "Most Promising Director" Award in 1999 at the New York Int'l Independent Film Festival, for his debut feature "Long Strange Trip." Wick's newest feature "Movie Pizza Love," made with the assitance of four Northwest Film Forum grants, is currently up for several festivals. Wick has also worked professionally as an Actor - on stage for Seattle's Theater Babylon as well as other Seattle theater companies, and also on the big and small screen. Wick has toured professionally as a stand-up comedian, performing on stages from Seattle to Los Angeles, to Texas and Michigan. He has previously taught "Directing Actors" at Northwest Film Forum, and as a full-semester class at Seattle Film Institute.

 

Erik Viliniskas has honed his production skills on corporate and promotional videos, documentary projects, and independent films sets. An A/V geek since high school and a graduate of the University of Washington, Erik has also pursued a continued study of filmmaking and advanced production techniques at NWFF and 911 Media Arts Center. His work in the film industry began as actor and he has appeared in television commercials, corporate videos and indie films. You may have even seen him on a few episodes of “Bill Ny the Science Guy.”
 

Dave Hanagan is a Seattle filmmaker and the current Studio Director of the Northwest Film Forum. He has many years of filmmaking experience. You may have seen his most popular work on ABC's Reality TV, hip-hop public access shows in Atlanta, Georgia, or downloaded from the internet.

Bryan Schaeffer is the owner of Design Revelations, a conceptually driven graphic design company that provides services in print, web, illustration, presentation design and motion graphics. Prior to founding Design Revelations in 2001, Bryan Schaeffer has worked for Architectural Firms and Ad Agencies in the Seattle/Tacoma region. Mr. Schaeffer's graphic design experience covers a wide range from detailed product illustration to user interface design with particularly strong expertise in multimedia for live events. Mr. Schaeffer is a 1990 Graduate of Pacific Lutheran University where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design. He has completed a scholarship Art Director course at the Seattle School of Visual Concepts in 2001. Mr. Schaeffer currently resides in Seattle, WA with his wife Anne and their identical twin girls where he makes frequent trips to recreate in the Cascades.

Trent began his broadcast career in 1991 as a cameraman for intercollegiate football and basketball games. At the same time, he also worked for a PBS station, acting as a floor director, cameraman and technical director for various live broadcasts. After fulfilling an internship at KIRO-TV in Seattle, Trent signed on with Piranha Productions as its first employee, responsible for camerawork, editing and motion graphics for television. Over the next nine years, Trent continued with hands on production work as well as managing the growing production department and becoming V.P. of Production at Piranha. In 2002, he joined ELN Communications, where he stayed for the next two years. Trent jumped into freelance production in 2004, working with the Seattle Seahawks and continued his relationship with Piranha Productions.

For more than 25 years Jon Behrens has worked completely outside of the mainstream, He began to make films as a teenager in the late seventies, starting out with his Grandfathers Wollensak regular 8mm camera and then moving on to 16mm shortly there after. Since the age of 16 Behrens has made well over 100 films of various lengths and subject matters and approaches, from documents of the early Seattle punk rock scene to poetic film experiments in which the celluloid film stock itself has been manipulated. Over the years Jon has mastered the use of the optical printer. Behrens has screened his films in cities throughout the World Including the Seattle International Film Festival, The International Experimental Film Expo in Boulder Co, The Blinding Light Cinema in Vancouver BC, The Ann Arbor Film Festival and many many others. Jon has been called one of the Northwest's most prolific filmmakers. In addition to filmmaking Behrens has taught workshops and classes on experimental film at Northwest Film Forum and the AFLN and also taught workshops on optical printing, direct animation techniques and hand processing of motion picture films. Jon Behrens lives and works in Seattle.

Andy Spletzer helped start The Stranger in 1991, where he writes the column "Blow Up" about the local film production and exhibition scene. Over the last several years he has worked as a Script Supervisor on 7 feature films and several more shorts and music videos. His hobbies include playing in the dirt and watching Unsolved Mysteries.

Writer/director Jon Moritsugu has made over a dozen independently-financed films including 6 features ranging in budget from $5,000 to $360,000. His most recent movie, SCUMROCK, was shot for under $5,000 using a consumer Hi8 camcorder. It won "Best Feature" Award at both the New York AND Chicago Underground Film Festivals and was selected by The Village Voice Film Critics Poll as "Best of the Year." Moritsugu has been making and self-distributing his work since the late-80's and has taught filmmaking at San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley, Film Arts Foundation, and University of Hawaii.
www.jonmoritsugu.com

Clyde Petersen’s Wallingford home studio—a glorified closet—is dominated by what appears to be the skeleton of a tall, narrow chest of drawers. Black metal scaffolding holds several pieces of horizontal glass at varying heights, on which sit cut-out illustrations. “It’s a multiplane,” Petersen, 29, says, explaining that the animation device (made obsolete by computer technology) was invented in 1933 by an employee of the Walt Disney company, who devised it as a way to give depth to animation. Disney used one for Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia and other films, and Petersen—whose homemade version is, in fact, a deconstructed Ikea dresser—is using it to animate a music video (due out this month) for Portland band Quasi.

The multiplane is a suitable metaphor for the thoughtful, forthcoming Petersen, who emanates depth and works on many different planes at once. Under his production company, Do It for the Girls (started in 2005), he creates animated music videos, builds band Web sites, and designs CD art and T-shirts. He also teaches animation to junior high school students at Northwest Film Forum and for Coyote Central (at 911 Media Arts), and plays guitar with three Seattle bands.

Petersen’s history with animation goes back to his student days at Garfield High School, where he made stop-motion films with close friend and sometimes collaborator Forrest Baum. He went on to study filmmaking at Western Washington University, where—due to an intense interest in music—he assumed he’d use his degree to make documentaries about bands. But when he became Seattle musician Laura Veirs’ roadie, he changed direction. He wound up creating an animated music video for her song “Secret Someones.” After seeing it, Warner Bros. hired him to create Veirs’ next video. Soon Petersen found himself making animated videos for several Northwest bands, and last year local label Kill Rock Stars hired him as one of its official video creators. Petersen says his main joy in animation is building sets, which he enlivens with paper cut-outs, Claymation creatures, yarn, sock puppets and more; he attributes this in part to the influence of his architect father and an early fascination with his dad’s model buildings. “As a kid I really wanted to be a professional model builder,” he recalls.

Acknowledging the happy, playful nature of most of his films, he notes, “I’m the lightest animator of my friends—other people deal with more realism.” What’s also notable about his work is how much his technique varies film to film. “I always try to do something I haven’t done before,” says Petersen, who had never used a multiplane before the Quasi video. “I like to feel like I’m always learning something new.”

Originally published in March 2010 by Seattle Magazine