I've been making experimental short films since 2003, first on Super-8 and now mostly on digital video. There was probably always an aspiring movie-maker in me. I started with my mom's super-8 camera as a kid. But the filmmaker friends I made at NYU, along with writing about film for several years, also fed my desire to pick up a camera. Portland has a vibrant experimental filmmaking community, and I owe a lot to people like Matt McCormick, Andy Blubaugh and Rob Tyler for inspiring and helping me to get started. I've also been influenced by Holland's Gerard Holthuis, New York's Peter Hutton, Chicago's Animal Charm, and Belgium's Chantal Ackerman as well as random stuff like the serene wordless montages they used to play at the end of Sunday Morning on CBS when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, or Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi.

I don't make narrative films; I've seen millions of them and feel no compulsion toward that kind of storytelling. Instead, I like capturing small details and moments and arranging them in a way that, if this were words, would seek to be poetry more than prose. But putting it that way also sounds more pretentious than I intend. These are just little three and four-minute camcorder pieces I spliced together on an old Mac.

Tsukiji 5AM, a portrait of Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, played at the 2005 Northwest Film & Video Festival. Route 23, a time-lapse of a London bus ride, played at the 2007 Portland International Film Festival and London's Exploding Cinema. More recently, Creamery Birds, a look at the pigeons flocking at a local dairy, played at the 2007 Northwest Film & Video Festival and received a special judge's award. Demolition of the Rosefriend Apartments was selected for the 2008 Portland International Film Festival, and Roppongi Crossing was chosen for the Journal of Short Film's Volume 11 DVD compilation, released in May 2008. Three films - Hello Nassau, Above & Beyond and Go For That - were also chosen for the 2008 Five Minute Film Fest in Denver. Kyoto Diner screened at the 2008 Northest Film & Video Festival. Across the Sound, portraying a boatride between Victoria and Seattle, played at the 2009 Portland International Film Fest. And The Falls, a portrait of Multnomah Falls, played at the 2009 NW Film & Video Fest, earning a Judge's Award from film critic Kenneth Turran of the Los Angeles Times, who called it "hypnotic".

A solo show of my films, called "Brian Libby: Travelogues", played at the Portland Art Museum's Northwest Film Center on June 7, 2007. Of the show, reviewer Marc Mohan of The Oregonian wrote, "Brian Libby definitely has an eye for images. His short films manage to meld the quotidian and the sublime, or rather perhaps expose the one within the other." Mike Thelin of Willamette Week wrote, "Libby does his best work charting the mundane, such as the quiet industrial landscape of Portland's Central Eastside or the flight patterns of a resident bird flock at the Darigold Creamery...The montage of images makes for an engaging exploration of physical space."

Ned Howard, Eric Schopmeyer and Elias Foley have been frequent music collaborators on many of these films, and I've also been fortunate to use (with permission) the work of French musician Colleen in two films.

A DVD collection of 13 of my films is available for a suggested donation of $10 or, if you ask real nice, for free.

FILMS

2009
Across the Sound
Seagulls and Waves
The Falls
Swift Landing
They Start As Songs
Washington-Monroe
Snow Day
Trail of Three Cities
Ocean Way
Chinese Junket
Shinkanzen Corridor

2008
Forbidden City Rewind
Kyoto Diner
Battersea to Chelsea
Range of Motion
Web Swingers
The Pelican
Benson Playoff

2007
Route 23
Tianjin Highway
Hello Nassau
Portland Project #1 (with Ned Howard)
Creamery Birds
Roppongi Crossing
Rain and Reflection
PDX-LAX
Above & Beyond
Isle of Staten
Go For That
Demolition of the Rosefriend Apartments

2006
Golden Bends
Electric City
Avenue & Interstate

2005
Tsukiji 5AM
Super Terrific Shinjuku
Nocturne

2004
Kerra Skola


2003
Western Travelogue #2
Western Travelogue #1