Peter Lynch (director)
Encyclopedia
Peter Lynch is an Canadian filmmaker, the director and writer of Project Grizzly
and Cyberman
.
Lynch won a Genie Award
for his short film Arrowhead, starring Don McKellar
.
He attended York University
in Toronto, Canada.
, and a great uncle, who was an art director for Alfred Hitchcock
and Michael Powell. Lynch was a ski bum, truck driver and assembly line worker before studying Fine Arts at York University. He then set off for New York City, where, as a V.J. at various nightclubs, he was among the first to combine video art and music in a club environment.
's 15 Minutes. First computer graphic Imax film directed by Ed Garrick. The festival highlighted advanced technologies such as the MAVICA, an early electronic camera from Sony and the Framestore TV, a precursor to the PVR. Artists were invited to experiment and produce work with these new technologies. Worked as a consultant for Sony International. Was also a creative director and vice president at Sony Creative Video, a Sony initiative to develop cultural markets for new Sony technology.
. Lynch, along with six other directors, shot 20 short films about Toronto musicians and the places where their musical lives were transformed. Lynch directed films starting The Barenaked Ladies, Jason Collett
, Lioness
, and Laura Barrett
.
In 2011, he participated in the National Parks Project
, collaborating with Barrett, Cadence Weapon
and Mark Hamilton to produce and score a short film about Alberta's Waterton Lakes National Park
.
(1996), is one of the most successful Canadian documentaries of all time: It won best-of-the-festival awards in Toronto, Vancouver and Sydney and was one of the top ten Canadian theatrical releases of 1997. It even had a fan in Quentin Tarantino
, who declared it his favourite documentary of the year. The Herd (1998), about the six-year Canadian Reindeer Drive of the 1930s from Alaska to the Northwest Territories, Cyberman (2001), about technology activist and University of Toronto professor Steve Mann, and A Whale of a Tale (2004), about Lynch's quest to discover the origin of a whale bone unearthed in downtown Toronto, all premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to enjoy festival screenings and television broadcasts around the world.
His short film Arrowhead, starring Don McKellar
, won the prestigious Genie Award
.
Project Grizzly, one of the most acclaimed Canadian documentaries of all time, was referenced the next year on The Simpsons
, in the episode "The Fat and The Furriest".
Project Grizzly
Project Grizzly is a 1996 National Film Board of Canada documentary about the lifelong project of Troy Hurtubise, a man who has been obsessed with researching the Canadian grizzly bear up close, ever since surviving an early encounter with such a bear....
and Cyberman
Cyberman (film)
Cyberman is a 2001 documentary film about Steve Mann, inventor of the EyeTap. It was directed by Peter Lynch, but much of the material in the film was also shot by Mann himself, through his EyeTap. Thus Cyberman may well have been the first film in which the subject incidentally or existentially...
.
Lynch won a Genie Award
Genie Award
Genie Awards are given out to recognize the best of Canadian cinema by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. From 1949-1979, the awards were named the Canadian Film Awards...
for his short film Arrowhead, starring Don McKellar
Don McKellar
-Personal life:McKellar was born in Toronto, Ontario to a lawyer father and teacher mother. He attended Glenview Senior Public School, Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute and later studied English at the University of Toronto's Victoria College...
.
He attended York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
in Toronto, Canada.
Early life
Lynch, who grew up in the East Toronto neighbourhood of Thorncliffe Park, was introduced to filmmaking by an uncle who obsessively filmed everything and was later inspired by his grandmother, who performed vaudeville with Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, and a great uncle, who was an art director for Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
and Michael Powell. Lynch was a ski bum, truck driver and assembly line worker before studying Fine Arts at York University. He then set off for New York City, where, as a V.J. at various nightclubs, he was among the first to combine video art and music in a club environment.
Video Culture International
Lynch co-founded, co-produced and co-directed Video Culture International, an international festival which showcased the latest in video and new media. Sponsored by Sony, this festival premiered work by Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Gary Hill, John Sanborn, Shirley Clarke, Glenn Branca, Twyla Tharp, Robert Wilson, Sanki Juku, John Giorno, Laurie Anderson and The Talking Heads. VCI also produced specials for CityTV and MuchMusic. These included premieres of music videos such as "Beat Box", Art of Noise; "Relax", Frankie Goes to Hollywood; "Smooth Operator", Sade; "Like a Virgin", Madonna; "Rock It", Herbie Hancock; and "New Frontier", Donald Fagan. Co-produced a City Limits with Chris Ward 3 hour special which featured acts like Mike Myers playing his Wayne's World character long before Saturday Night Live made it famous. The festival also premiered leading examples of art and technology such as a previsualization of Zoetrope Studios' Rumble Fish; One from The Heart; and The Outsiders; Lucas Film's animation The Adventures of Wally B; and Andy WarholAndy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
's 15 Minutes. First computer graphic Imax film directed by Ed Garrick. The festival highlighted advanced technologies such as the MAVICA, an early electronic camera from Sony and the Framestore TV, a precursor to the PVR. Artists were invited to experiment and produce work with these new technologies. Worked as a consultant for Sony International. Was also a creative director and vice president at Sony Creative Video, a Sony initiative to develop cultural markets for new Sony technology.
Film series
In 2009 Peter Lynch directed four short films for the cross-platform project City SonicCity Sonic
City Sonic is a documentary series about Toronto-based musicians and the places that influenced their music. The first five City Sonic films were previewed at Toronto's 2009 North by North East Music and Film Festival.-Films:...
. Lynch, along with six other directors, shot 20 short films about Toronto musicians and the places where their musical lives were transformed. Lynch directed films starting The Barenaked Ladies, Jason Collett
Jason Collett
Jason Collett is a Toronto based singer-songwriter. He has released four solo albums, and is a member of Broken Social Scene. His latest album, Rat a Tat Tat, was released in March, 2010.-Early life:...
, Lioness
Lioness (band)
Lioness is a Canadian indie rock dance band formed in January 2007 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.-History:The band was formed by Ronnie Morris and Jeff Scheven, former rhythm section of controller.controller and No Dynamics' vocalist Vanessa Fischer...
, and Laura Barrett
Laura Barrett
Laura Barrett is a Canadian indie pop singer-songwriter, best known for incorporating the kalimba into her music. In addition to her solo work, Barrett has also performed as a member of The Hidden Cameras, Henri Fabergé and the Adorables, Woodhands and Sheezer....
.
In 2011, he participated in the National Parks Project
National Parks Project
The National Parks Project is a Canadian music and film project. Released in 2011 to mark the 100th anniversary of the creation of the National Parks of Canada system, the project sent three Canadian musicians and a filmmaker to each of 13 Canadian national parks, one in each province and...
, collaborating with Barrett, Cadence Weapon
Cadence Weapon
Cadence Weapon is the stage name of Rollie Pemberton, a Canadian rapper.-Biography:Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, his father was Teddy Pemberton, a pioneering hip hop DJ on CJSR-FM, and his grandfather was Rollie Miles, a football player for the Edmonton Eskimos...
and Mark Hamilton to produce and score a short film about Alberta's Waterton Lakes National Park
Waterton Lakes National Park
Waterton Lakes National Park is a national park located in the southwest corner of Alberta, Canada, and borders Glacier National Park in Montana, USA. Waterton was Canada's fourth national park, formed in 1895 and named after Waterton Lake, in turn after the Victorian naturalist and conservationist...
.
Acclaim
His feature debut, Project GrizzlyProject Grizzly
Project Grizzly is a 1996 National Film Board of Canada documentary about the lifelong project of Troy Hurtubise, a man who has been obsessed with researching the Canadian grizzly bear up close, ever since surviving an early encounter with such a bear....
(1996), is one of the most successful Canadian documentaries of all time: It won best-of-the-festival awards in Toronto, Vancouver and Sydney and was one of the top ten Canadian theatrical releases of 1997. It even had a fan in Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
, who declared it his favourite documentary of the year. The Herd (1998), about the six-year Canadian Reindeer Drive of the 1930s from Alaska to the Northwest Territories, Cyberman (2001), about technology activist and University of Toronto professor Steve Mann, and A Whale of a Tale (2004), about Lynch's quest to discover the origin of a whale bone unearthed in downtown Toronto, all premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to enjoy festival screenings and television broadcasts around the world.
His short film Arrowhead, starring Don McKellar
Don McKellar
-Personal life:McKellar was born in Toronto, Ontario to a lawyer father and teacher mother. He attended Glenview Senior Public School, Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute and later studied English at the University of Toronto's Victoria College...
, won the prestigious Genie Award
Genie Award
Genie Awards are given out to recognize the best of Canadian cinema by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. From 1949-1979, the awards were named the Canadian Film Awards...
.
Project Grizzly, one of the most acclaimed Canadian documentaries of all time, was referenced the next year on The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, in the episode "The Fat and The Furriest".
Filmography
- Chinese Concoctions Not Good for TV
- Toronto Symphony Orchestra making-of process (1992)
- St Bruno, My eyes As a Stranger (1994)
- Arrowhead (1994)
- The Artist and The Collector (1994)
- Project GrizzlyProject GrizzlyProject Grizzly is a 1996 National Film Board of Canada documentary about the lifelong project of Troy Hurtubise, a man who has been obsessed with researching the Canadian grizzly bear up close, ever since surviving an early encounter with such a bear....
(1996) - The Herd (1998)
- CybermanCyberman (film)Cyberman is a 2001 documentary film about Steve Mann, inventor of the EyeTap. It was directed by Peter Lynch, but much of the material in the film was also shot by Mann himself, through his EyeTap. Thus Cyberman may well have been the first film in which the subject incidentally or existentially...
(2001) - Soccer Fever—A Passion Play (2002)
- Animal Nightmares (2003)
- A Whale of a Tale (2004)
- Dem Bones (2004)
- Bloodlines (2004)
- Things that Move—Helicopters
- Habbakuk Ship of Ice (2006)
- Who Shot General Wolfe (2007)
- The Archivist's Handbook(2007)
- The Robotic Chair (2007)
- A Short Film about Falling (2007)
- Three Chords From the Truth (2008)
- Trend Hunter TV (2008)
- Hamilton Scourge-Shipwrecks
- City SonicCity SonicCity Sonic is a documentary series about Toronto-based musicians and the places that influenced their music. The first five City Sonic films were previewed at Toronto's 2009 North by North East Music and Film Festival.-Films:...
(2009) - IFC Media Project
- Love Is A Dirty Word (2010)
External links
- Peter Lynch on citysonic.tv
- Music Video for Jason Collett
- National Film Board Portrait of Peter Lynch
- Robotic Chair video
- NFB article on The Herd
- Trailer for Project Grizzly
- Project Grizzly full-length film
- Website for Whale of a Tale
- Analysis of Lynch's work
- History of Lynch's artistic career
- Review of Cyberman