I made a short film in 1964. It was a 12 minute surrealistic film about romance gone wrong. It was 16mm black & white. It was the beginning of a 10-year career as an underground filmmaker. I guess I made about 7 or 8 films. I did everything on those films, camera, sound, and editing. I even did my own optical printing with a homemade printer. It was a great time to be an art-based filmmaker. I never made a nickel doing it, but it didn’t matter. I did all sorts of odd jobs to pay my lab bills. I worked as a camera assistant on an animation stand, as a cameraman shooting high-school football games, freelance stills photographer, lab technician, longshoreman, welder, and carpenter. At some point I got tired of the art scene. I never liked Andy Warhol.

I left the big city and lived on Quadra Island for several years. I built houses and worked on fishing boats. It was a lot more satisfying than making art films. I realized after a while that I was destined to work for a living. Then I met Ron Orieux. Ron is one of Vancouver’s top DOP’s now, but in 1973 he was just getting started. He was making a CBC documentary about the arts scene on the Gulf Islands. We hit it off. I looked him up when I moved to Vancouver. He told me about the SFU Film Workshop. I went there and met a great group of Vancouver Filmmakers and basically got on my feet in the Vancouver Film scene.

Our friend and former Vancouver store manager, Rick Patton, passed away January 10, 2012. We wish his family, friends and fellow sound compatriots fond memories of Rick and solace in his passing.

Rick was born in Nashville, TN and moved to New York and San Francisco while exploring the art and craft of filmmaking. He “embraced the back-to-the-land movement” for a period in the late 60s/early 70s while living in minimalist style on Quadra Island and filming only occasionally. In 1974 he resumed his filmmaking career making Vancouver, BC his home base as he worked on documentaries for the CBC and PBS and dozens of features like “Bird on a Wire,” “Happy Gilmore” and “Seven Years in Tibet.”