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August 2005
 Chris
Kientz (Cherokee) is the co-director and co-writer
of Raven Tales, winner of Best Animated Film at the 2005
Reel to Real International Film Festival for Youth in Vancouver,
Canada, Best Animated Short Subject at the 2004 American Indian
Film Festival, and Best Native Film at the 2004 Santa Fe Film
Festival. Funded with a 2004 seed grant from All Roads Film Project,
Raven Tales has aired on Access TV in Canada and on Maori
TV in New Zealand, and is also licensed for broadcast as a television
series in Japan, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. After
winning the Best Native Film Award, Kietnz and Raven Tales
co-director Simon James donated $10,000 to establish a grant for
emerging filmmakers at the Media Rights Foundation in Albuquerque,
New Mexico. In 2005, Kientz and Colin Curwen published CGI
Production for Video, Film, and Games. Kientz has written
articles on digital animation techniques for magazines such as
ITEA, Keyframe Magazine, National Defense Magazine,
and Ones and Zeros. He works at the White Sands Missile
Range producing high-fidelity animation and interactive media,
and is a member of the Creative Media Interdisciplinary Task Force
at New Mexico State University. He has a B.A. in mass communications
and journalism from the University of New Mexico and lives in
Las Cruces, New Mexico.
"I think computer animation is the perfect medium to tell
First Nations stories, especially the Raven tales. There is a
certain visual freedom and sense of reality that is unique to
the medium and compliments the playfulness of the Raven tales.
The only limit to computer animation is your imagination. Nothing
else comes close. I also like computer animation as a medium for
First Nations stories because it shatters expectations. It tells
people outside the First Nations community that there is no restriction
on which medium First Nations people can adopt to tell their stories."
Screened by NMAI
Image credits: Chris
Keintz - courtesy of the filmmaker
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