Carol Beecher

Carol was born in Calgary, Alberta, April 12, 1964. Her youth was spent moving all over the province from Calgary to Vermillion to Peace River to Grimshaw to Devon and back to Calgary where she entered first year at the Alberta College of Art and Design in 1982. She graduated in 1987 with a major in Ceramic Sculpture, but not without being influenced by an elective in Animation. She became involved with the visual arts community in Calgary, gaining arts administration and grant writing skills working in various capacities at Second Story Gallery and TRUCK: an artist-run centre.

She became an active Producing Member of the Quickdraw Animation Society in 1990, and with the help of a job program also became their first administrator. At this time she started to explore the creation of animation, and began work on her first film, a 16mm cameraless project called Ask-Me.

She took a brief hiatus from QAS starting in late 1991 to explore the art and craft of Theatre Technology (specializing in Props) at Red Deer College, and attended the Winter Internship in Technical Theatre at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 1993. Animation still had a strong grip and she returned as Operations Coordinator at QAS in 1994. She completed her employment with QAS in 1998. In 1999 she was awarded a lifetime Honorary Membership at QAS, in recognition of her years of dedicated service to the Society and it's Members. She's back at QAS on a temporary contract to assist with getting the place ready for the next millenium.

In 1994 Carol and her partner Kevin D.A. Kurytnik invested in the creation of their own animation production company, Fifteen Pound Pink Productions. They are currently hard at work on an intense, multi-year cel production, Mr. Reaper's Really Bad Morning, a 15 minute film "about the uneasy co-existence between life and Mr. Death." Carol is also further exploring cameraless animation with her solo project Spirits of the Dead, based on a poem by Edgar Allen Poe.

As a strong advocate of the independent animation community, Carol has been invited to participate in lectures and panel discussions at several international animation festivals and at post-secondary educational institutions. Most recently she attended the 1998 Ottawa International Animation Festival, representing the independent media arts community for the "Traditional and Alternative Channels of Distribution" panel along side Marv Newland from International Rocketship, Ron Diamond of Acme Filmworks and Animation World Network, and Bill Plympton, independent U.S. animator. She was also a participant for the panel discussion "Whose Golden Age? The State of Canadian Animation", which debated where Canadian animation currently existed in the world: as a supplier of grist for the American studio mill, as ground breakers (or panderers) in television, as torch bearers (or pall bearers) of the NFB tradition, or as visual and media artists working in the medium of animation. The other panelists were Chris Robinson, director of the Ottawa Festival, Pierre Hebert of NFB French Animation, Marcy Page of NFB English Animation, Clive Smith of Nelvana Animation Studio, and Ellen Besen, animation instructor from Sheridan College.

Carol takes her role as animator and arts professional very seriously, being active in promoting awareness of animation as a viable artistic expression as an independent animator and as a member of ASIFA Canada (Association International du Film d'Animation), where she served on the Board of Directors in 1998. She truly enjoys her position as champion of independent animators, and looks forward to other opportunities to act as an ambassador for QAS and Canadian animation.

Filmography

 Ask Me1994
2 minute, cameraless, 16mm

Ask-Me is an experimental cameraless animation piece worked directly onto 16mm black leader The spirit appears as a masked being, "speaks", and disappears. The title, Ask-Me, plays on pig latin for mask. Communication can be manipulated through language tricks, such as pig latin, as well as archtypal visual symbols; the mask, geometric shapes, and blatantly abstract images. Ask the spirit what you will and the answer could reveal itself within the forms of light and colour that appear on the screen, allowing the viewer to interpret the film how they will. The sound track plays on a certain amount of repetitiveness to allow the viewer to concentrate visually, without any aural surprises, while encouraging a trance-like possibility, as if dreaming while awake. the length of the piece may belie this possibility, but this is the whim of the spirit, to appear however it decides.

Carol Beecher
1994, as if dreaming while awake.

Spirits of the Dead

4 minute, cameraless

Spirits of the Dead - Edgar Allan Poe

I

The soul shall find itself alone
'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tomb-stone -
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy:

II

Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness - for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
Before thee are again
In death around thee - and their will
Shall overshadow thee: be still.

III

The night - tho' clear - shall frown -
And the stars shall look not down,
From their high thrones in the heaven,
With lights like Hope to mortals given -
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever.

IV

Now are thoughts thou shall not banish -
Now are visions ne'er to vanish -
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more - like dew-drop from the grass.

V

The breeze - the breath of God - is still -
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy - shadowy - yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token -
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!

Mr. Reaper's Really Bad Morning
1991 (work in progress)

15 minute cel animation

Client Work

Screenings

Awards

• 1999 Lifetime Honorary Membership, Quickdraw Animation Society
• Alberta Foundation for the Arts Film Project Grant, "Mr. Reaper's Really Bad Morning"
• 1998 Calgary Region Arts Foundation Impresario grant, "Mr. Reaper's Really Bad Morning"
• Canada Council Film Production Grant, "Mr. Reaper's Really Bad Morning"
• Canada Council travel grant to attend Ottawa 98 International Animation Festival
• 1996 Honorable Mention, TREES!, Columbus International Film and Video Festival, Ohio
• Official Competition, TREES!, Ottawa 96 International Animation Festival, Ontario
• Official Competition, TREES!, Hiroshima 96, 6th International Animation Festival, Japan
• Finalist Award, TREES!, WorldFest Houston, Texas
• Silver Apple Award, TREES!, National Educational Media Network, California
• Bronze Eva Award, External Communications, TREES!, ITVA Canada
• Nominee, Best Animation, TREES!, 22nd Annual AMPIA Awards
• Nominee, Corporate Education Category, TREES!, Iris Awards, Alberta
• Nominee, Best Experimental Film, Ask-Me, Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival, Sask.  
• Alberta Foundation for the Arts Film and Video Project Grant, Spirits of the Dead
• 1995 Silver Hugo Award, Children's Educational category, TREES!, Intercom '95 International Communication Film & Video Festival, Chicago, Illinois  
• Director's Citation, Ask-Me, Black Maria Film-Video Festival, Jersey City, N.J.
• Best Animation, Ask-Me, New Frontiers Film Festival, Ottawa, Ontario
• 1994 Best Documentary, Dunvegan: Where the Trails Cross, Southern Alberta IRIS Awards  
• Alberta Foundation for the Arts Film and Video Project Grant, Ask-Me  

Carol Beecher
Fifteen Pound Pink
1419-9 St. S.W.
Calgary, Alberta   T2R 1C8

Studio Phone/Fax: (403) 541-1527

e-mail reaper@spots.ab.ca