A&E

Local film director speaks about his success in the industry

By Stephen Floyd

Audience members were treated to a surreal look into the shadowy mind of local film director Chel White in the Visual Arts Theater Wednesday.

White, a Portland-based director, shared five of his short films as well as his music video for Thom Yorke’s “Harrowdown Hill,” which has been winning awards internationally since 2007, such as Best Music Video at the South by Southwest music festival.

White said Yorke, lead singer of Radiohead, wanted the video to reflect the strong political influences carried in the song, most notably the perceived suicide of British biological weapons expert David Kelly.

“(Yorke) wanted to bring in a political aspect, but not be too specific,” said White.

Employing his talents of manipulating shadows and colors, White’s video features a recurring image of a soaring bird of prey that appears to be flying normally, were it not for the ever-shifting hands holding it up. White said such erratic motion and ambiguous imagery has become a key aspect of his style of filmmaking.

“I’m really keen on how things look,” said White. “I gravitate towards images that have a lot of mystery to them, things that could be living in the shadows.”

Music videos are nothing new to White, as his directing debut was a music video of his own composition, “Metal Dogs of India.” The 1985 film, less than five minutes in length, was a promenade of flashing, colorful shapes set to music, something reminiscent of an old Sesame Street short.

Since his start as a director, White has also created visual and sound effects for feature length films such as Gus Van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho” and the recently completed “Paranoid Park,” as well as directing episodes of “The PJs” and “Saturday Night Live” in the 1990s.

“When I’m doing commission work, the ideal case is where I have full creative control,” said White of projects brought to him by third parties.

He said that after more than 20 years making films, coming up with ideas as well as fleshing out ideas for others has become less of a challenge for him.

“Over time, I’ve just gotten better at coming up with ideas that don’t fail,” said White, adding that he plans to make a feature-length film in the near future.

At the end of the presentation, White credited the dark, surreal stories told in his films to his ability to nod off, saying, “A lot of images I get come from dreams, but a lot I get from that space between