The Ranch Project was an art installation in the foothills of the Rockies, which Steve DeNure and I filmed over the course of year, through the 4 seasons, with his ingenious time-lapse 16 mm Bolex photography. In the film-on-art genre, ‘Ranch’ is a clever mix of old Westerns, TV news, and gorgeous experimental film making with a very cool soundtrack. Jay Scott in the Globe called it “a stunning documentary about a work of art… that actually has become a work of art.” The artist is Alan Wood.

In 1984-85, I also produced a Punk rock doc for TV called Not Dead Yet. Peter Wintonick (Manufacturing Consent), writing in Cinema Canada, called it “a model for all documentarians.” During this period I also started a publishing company, Razorback Press, to produce a satire of men’s magazines and advertising called The Best of Playboar which sold over 500,000 copies worldwide.

Ranch: The Alan Wood Ranch Project, a film by Steve DeNure and Chris Lowry (1985, 25 min.) is available on DVD from Ecotone.