Pat O'Neill

Artist Biography

O'Neill's first feature, Water and Power, a journey through a California of the imagination, was a Sundance Grand Jury winner in 1990 and was hailed as a touchstone for filmmaking in the future. The film became an instant classic, and was received with delight at the New York Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Telluride, London, Los Angeles and many others. Several of the 14 avant-garde 16mm short films he produced between 1963 and 1982 are also considered classics (especially 7362, Runs Good, and Saugus Series) and all are in international distribution and in the collections of major museums, from the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris to the Austrian Film Archive in Vienna.

O'Neill moves in two worlds: he and his visual effects company, Lookout Mountain Films, have realized some of the best-known effects shots in major films since the 1970s, from Return of the Jedi through The Game, and he has also been a respected member of the experimental film scene that was so vibrant in the '60s and '70s, where he was a pioneer with the sort of free-flowing, manipulated live-action imagery that is now all around us.

Pat O'Neill (born 1939, Los Angeles) received a Master of Arts degree in graphic design and photography from UCLA, where his mentor was photographer Robert Heinecken. He produced his first short film in 1963 in collaboration with computer-graphics pioneer Robert Abel. During the '60s and '70s he taught photography at UCLA, while experimenting with and refining the limited means for combining images that were available at the time (the optical printer, first in 16mm and then in 35mm). Aesthetic concerns he shares with a generation of California artists led him from sculpture to experiments with continuous-projection film installations which were exhibited in galleries and incorporated into rock-concert light shows. O'Neill's contemporaries in the experimental film movement include Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner, Bruce Baillie, Chick Strand and the late Hollis Frampton and Ed Emshwiller, and he cites as an influence Michael Snow.

He was founding Assistant Dean for Film and Video at the California Institute of the Arts 1970-1975, and since 1975 has operated his highly regarded special-effects and optical printing company. He has always supported the making and showing of experimental film, and donates much time and energy to other filmmakers. He and his wife Beverly, who is also active in the Los Angeles film community, were co-founders of "Oasis," a Los Angeles film cooperative, and he often serves as a jury member for international film festivals. O'Neill and his films have been the recipient of Filmmakers' Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The American Film Institute, The Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation.

Concurrent with the production of "Tracing the Decay of Fiction," he is working in the digital world on an interactive DVD-ROM inspired by the film. This electronic fiction is being produced in collaboratin with Marsha Kinder, Kristy H.A. Kang, and Rosemary Comella at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California (USC). Digital tools for image-combining have also replaced his photographic darkroom, and he now exhibits large-format digital prints.

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