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Faculty

School of Film faculty are among the region's finest documentary, narrative, and experimental film and video makers whose award-winning work appears on public and community television and in non-theatrical venues, including film festivals, microcinemas, and exhibition programs regionally and world wide. As teaching artists who devote a portion of their professional lives to education, these individuals combine craft, vision, and significant life experience in their approach. A low faculty-student ratio makes interaction a central part of the learning process, with hands-on classes averaging 8-15 students.

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Peggy Ahwesh, a special guest at this year’s Portland Documentary & eXperimental Film Festival, and Associate Professor of Film and Electronic Arts at Bard College, has developed a heterogeneous body of work over the last 20 years in the field of experimental film, digital media, and audio. Aptly described as a bricoleur, she works in a combination of narrative and documentary styles, improvisational performance, found footage, and noise and nonsense, utilizing a variety of obsolete, low-end, and arcane technologies. Her work has been screened internationally at museums and film festivals, including the Whitney Biennial, CinemaTexas, NY Film Festival’s Views from the Avant Garde, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Peter Appleton is a producer, director, director of photography, and picture and sound editor whose more than 30 year career has included shooting documentaries for National Geographic, ABC-TV, and a variety of national commercial and broadcast clients; shooting short subjects directed by Robert Altman and Kelley Baker; shooting TV programs for Channel-4 London and Paramount Television; editing features for Altman; and sound editing for five of Gus Van Sant’s features, including GOOD WILL HUNTING and MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO. He holds an MA in Communications from the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sue Arbuthnot is an independent filmmaker with an MFA in Film Production from Columbia University. Her company, Hare in the Gate Productions, LLC, produces independent and commissioned documentaries. Her work includes IMAGINING HOME, chronicling the 5-year revitalization of a historic and troubled public housing community in North Portland; AMBER WAVES & CHECKERED FLAGS, which frames a combine demolition derby within the larger issue of vanishing farming communities; numerous features for OPB’s Oregon Art Beat; and PROVING UP & SETTLING DOWN, an oral history of hardscrabble Hells Canyon life in the early twentieth century. Through the Young Filmmakers program, she has taught artist residencies with area high schools and numerous community organizations. www.hareinthegate.com

Bushra Azzouz, lead faculty member for 18 years, is the director of the award-winning documentaries AND WOMAN WOVE IT IN A BASKET..., highlighting Native American basketry, and NO NEWS, a personal reflection on 9/11. She holds an MA from San Francisco State. Most recently, she co-directed WOMEN OF CYPRUS, now touring internationally.

Kelley Baker, aka the Angry Filmmaker (www.angryfilmmaker.com), has written, directed, and produced (and is self-distributing) three full-length feature films. In an earlier life, he was the sound designer of six of Gus Van Sant’s features. He produced and directed eight award-winning short films and documentaries which have screened in festivals and broadcast outlets worldwide. A Portland native with a BA and an MFA in Film Production from USC, Baker has spent the last five years traveling around the US and UK lecturing on low budget independent production in over 200 cities and 350 college and media arts venues. His new book is The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide: Making the Extreme No Budget Film.

Craig Baldwin, a special guest at this year’s Portland Documentary & eXperimental Festival, is a filmmaker and curator whose interests lie in archival retrieval and recombinatory forms of cinema, performance, and installation. As an adjunct faculty member of the SF Art Institute and California College of the Arts, he recently finished a monumental 2-hour collage narrative, MOCK UP ON MU, satirizing the impending militarization of space.

Jon Beanlands, former Film Center Technical Services Manager, is a director of photography and editor who has shot documentaries and shorts for Late Bloomer Productions, Public Media Works, GOOD Magazine, and the Oregon League of Conservation.

Andrew Blubaugh is a filmmaker and performance artist whose work has screened at Sundance, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand, PDX Fest, and the Seattle International Film Festival. His works include HELLO THANKS, a meditation on personal ads; SCAREDYCAT, a film about crime victimization and healing, which was created through a Rockefeller Fellowship; and THE PULL, which screened at last year’s Northwest Film & Video Festival. He was recently named one of 25 “new faces in independent film” by Filmmaker Magazine.

Holly Brix is a screenwriter with projects in development at Paramount Studios, Phoenix Pictures, Fox, Warner Brothers, and Sony Pictures. She has two films shooting this year: MILE ZERO, with Milla Jovovich, and BUTTERFLY EFFECT REVELATION. With an MFA in Film and Television from USC, she has taught screenwriting at OCLA Extension and was a featured guest on NPR’s “All Things Considered Goes Hollywood.” She also won the contest for best sci-fi script in Written By, the official publication of the Writers Guild of America.

Daniel Conrad has master's degrees in Cinema and Molecular Immunology, which infuse his dance films with a curiosity about the unapparent structure of things. These films, which have screened at such venues as the Dance On Camera series at Lincoln Center, Vancouver International Film Festival, and Bravo Channel, include ABOARD THE PATER NOSTER, choreographed by Aszure Barton and filmed in a doorless elevator in Prague; 7 UNIVERSAL SOLVENTS, choreographed by Paul-Andre Fortier; and SUBWAYS: 5 VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY RILKE, choreographed by Crystal Pite and winner of the NOW Audience Choice Award at Toronto Moving Pictures. He has taught similar workshops at Cineworks (Vancouver, BC) and the American Dance Foundation at Duke University.

Ben Coonley, a special guest at this year’s Portland Documentary & eXperimental Film Festival, is a video and new media artist who uses documentary, narrative, and pedagogical modes of address to explore aspects of media culture and film history. His films, installations, and live performances are exhibited at film festivals, museums, underground performance venues, and on the Internet. With a degree in Semiotics from Brown University and an MFA from Bard College, he has taught video and media production at Princeton University, the New School Media Studies Masters Program, and Parsons the New School for Design.

Carl Diehl received his MFA in Digital Art from the University of Oregon where he taught digital imaging, animation, and multimedia. His work, which ranges from experimental animation to live audio-visual performance, and from short-form video essays to installation and sound collage, has screened in the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival for multiple years, as well as in festivals and galleries nationally and internationally. He recently premiered BYOTV, with Video Gentlemen, at the New American Art Union.

Christopher Doyle is the renowned director of photography for all but the first of Wong Kar-Wai’s features, including 2046, DAYS OF BEING WILD, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, CHUNGKING EXPRESS, and HAPPY TOGETHER, which won the Best Director award at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. He also shot the PSYCHO remake directed by Gus Van Sant and Jim Jarmusch's THE LIMITS OF CONTROL.

Trevor Fife, former Film Center Technical Services Manager, is the award-winning director of MERIDIAN DAYS, a personal meditation on family ties. The film was the winner of the 2002 PDXFest Invitational and also screened at Sundance, Ann Arbor, and the Northwest Film & Video Festival. He is now producing an on-going series of short films highlighting coffee farmers from around the world.

Emily Hubley's work (www.emilyhubley.com) has screened in prestigious venues worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco International Film Festival, Sundance, and SXSW. An Annenberg Film Fellow and a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and other major foundations, Hubley has collaborated with musicians such as Sue Garner and You La Tango and created animated sequences for John Cameron Mitchell's HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, Judith Hellfand and Dan Dold's EVERYTHING'S COOL, and BLUE VINYL. Her company, Bubbub, Inc., has created series for Nickelodeon and Lifetime cable networks. THE TOE TACTIC, her new feature film, premiered at MOMA early this year.

Randall Jahnson is a freelance screenwriter who, after more than 20 years in Hollywood, has recently transplanted to Portland. He has written for the large and small screen, in studio and independent realms, in genres from horror to historical. He has developed scripts for such directors as Jonathan Demme, Spike Lee, Steven Spielberg, and actor-producer Alec Baldwin. Among his credits are THE MASK OF ZORRO, THE DOORS (sharing credit with Oliver Stone), TALES FROM THE CRYPT, and the videogame GUN.

Daniel Johnson, a graduate of the Art Center College of Design, is a photographer, fine artist, and digital animator who has created motion graphics for Adidas International, Jantzen, Tektronix, and Johnson & Wolverton. His work can be seen at www.dj-tv.com.

Lee Krist specializes in hand-processed film techniques and the century-old tradition of the hand-crank projector. His film series BIG FILMS screened at the Whitney Museum and San Francisco Cinematheque. His latest work is TABLEAUX VIVANTS, an installation exploring the boundaries between photography and motion pictures.

Christina Liczbinski Fletcher is a master designer of wigs and makeup with 45 years of experience in the performing arts and feature films. She worked for seven years with the Disney Channel, nine years as head designer of the Orlando Opera Company, and 20 years in feature film and television, including MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS, MEN OF HONOR, THE HUNTED, and LEAVE IT TO BEAVER 2.

Brian Lindstrom, with an MFA in Directing from Columbia University, is the producer/director of such documentaries as THE VISIONARIES, a PBS series hosted by Sam Waterston; KICKING, about breaking the cycle of addiction, broadcast on OPB and distributed nationally; and FINDING NORMAL, a feature documentary about what it takes to move beyond substance abuse once and for all.

Kathleen Lopez works as a commercial, documentary, and feature film production manager with clients from Oregon and around the US, and has produced and directed projects for Heart to Heart Productions, Red Door Films, Respond 2, At Radical Media, and Dreamworks. She holds an MS in Communications from Portland State University.

Ted Mahar wrote about film and television for the Oregonian from 1965 until early 2009 as a film critic, and for the popular weekly FILM FREAK series and TV Click as a columnist.

Roger Margolis, a graduate of the UCLA Film School and faculty member for 30 years, has written numerous feature film screenplays and acted as a consultant on such films as THE CHINA SYNDROME and DEATH RACE 2000. He is also the author of Condition Red: Funny Stories for Scary Times.

Chris Matheson, a graduate of UCLA, is the writer, with Ed Solomon, of BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and its sequel BILL AND TED’S BOGUS JOURNEY. He wrote and directed the 2000 indie feature THE WISE ONES and EVIL ALIEN CONQUERORS (2003).

Pam Minty, Film Center Registrar, is the co-founder of 40 Frames, screening 16mm films locally since 2000. She has worked as a member of the sound department for industry productions as part of IATSE Local 488. She is working on a documentary about the changing frontier lifestyle in southeastern Oregon.

Shana Moulton, a special guest at last year’s Portland Documentary & eXperimental Film Festival, creates performance and video works that examine bodily and spiritual anxieties and their relationship to popular culture. She studied at the University of California, Berkeley and attended the MFA program at Carnegie Mellon University. Her video work has been screened and exhibited internationally. Moulton currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Rick Prelinger is the founder and builder of the 48,000-film Prelinger Archives of industrial, advertising, educational, and amateur films, which was acquired by the Library of Congress in 2000, and cofounder of the Prelinger Library of image-rich nonfiction books, printed ephemera, and over 600 periodical titles. His latest feature collage film, PANORAMA EPHEMERA, an evocative journey through American landscape and history, has screened widely.

Liz Randall, a graduate of the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, is an editor, animator, and photographer who has taught animation for OMSI and 911 Media Arts. Her experimental film, INTERLUDE, was a finalist for the Student Academy Awards in 2002.

Michael Rohd is founding artistic director of Sojourn Theatre and a recipient of an Americans for the Arts' Animating Democracy Exemplar Award. His work as creator/director/performer includes BUILT, presented as part of the 2008 TBA Festival, GOOD, winner of a Portland Drammy for Outstanding Production of the Season, and WITNESS OUR SCHOOLS, which ran for 9 months in Oregon before touring nationally. A visiting professor of theatre at Northwestern University with a focus on Devising Performance & Civic Engagement, he has received support from the Ford Foundation, NEA, Rockefeller MAP Fund, and arts councils in more than 5 states. His current projects include ON THE TABLE, set to begin rolling out later this fall, which uses community partnerships, ambitious interactive media, multiple long distance locations, and audience travel to explore how place-based identities and values might be bridged through conversation and a good meal.

Dan Schaefer has contributed to film and television productions as a concept artist for more than 20 years. His list of projects varies from animation (TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES television series) and advertising campaigns (BMW, Adidas, Nike, Intel, HP, Clorox) to feature films (for NBC/Universal, MGM, Lions Gate, Paramount). He has worked as a pre-visualization artist with filmmakers Guillermo Arriga, Ellory Elkayem, and Gus Van Sant. He recently directed and produced his first documentary, MANIA, about the history of the Portland Trailblazers, which screened at last year’s Northwest Film & Video Festival.

Buck Skelton has worked on such features and TV programs as MOMMIE DEAREST and WINDS OF WAR, for which he won an Emmy for costuming. He works locally with Firehouse Theatre, CoHo Theatre, and Theatre Vertigo, and teaches at the Portland Actors Conservatory.

Christopher Tenzis is an actor, director/producer, and editor whose short films include 'TIS THE SEASON, which screened in the 2008 Northwest Film & Video Festival; A MAN AND HIS PANTS, which won the Audience Award at the 2004 Northwest Film & Video Festival; and SONG, which premiered at the 2007 Portland Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. A graduate of the London International Film School, he has been an editor for the UPN Network's GARY & MIKE and an assistant editor for the Sundance Institute. In addition to making films, he is currently a Creative for Apple, Inc., in charge of training courses and mentoring for all Apple applications in the Oregon market.

Gus Van Sant’s feature film career began with MALA NOCHE (1985), shot on the rainy streets of Portland from a story by Walt Curtis. Since that time he has directed DRUGSTORE COWBOY; MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO; TO DIE FOR; GOOD WILL HUNTING, for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Director; ELEPHANT, which won the Palme D’Or and Best Director at Cannes; LAST DAYS; PARANOID PARK, which won the Festival Anniversary Prize at Cannes; and MILK.

Will Vinton, Academy Award and primetime Emmy Award-winning director/producer, is the world renowned Claymation pioneer, having coined and trademarked the word and created some of the most innovative dimensional animation in the industry. Among the world-famous characters he has directed and produced are "The California Raisins" and the computer animated M&Ms "Red" and "Yellow." As the founder of Will Vinton Studios, he was the executive producer for the acclaimed television series THE PJs and GARY & MIKE. Now, as principal of Free Will Entertainment, he is directing, developing, and producing animation for film, television, and commercial markets.

Travis Wilkerson, a special guest at last year’s Portland Documentary & eXperimental Film Festival, is the originator of agit-prop “third cinema” media activism. His work has screened in numerous festivals including Sundance, Viennale, and Hot Docs. He is also the co-founder of the micro-distributor EXTREME LOW FREQUENCY. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Boulder, where he teaches at the University of Colorado.

Wayne Woods has been involved with sound for the moving image for nearly 30 years, as a production sound recordist, studio/recording engineer, sound editor, and re-recording mixer. His credits range from student, documentary, and independent films through theatrical features (BIRD DOG, PSYCHO, PUNK LOVE) and commercials for broadcast television. He has taught for the Film Center for nearly two decades.