Chrystene Ells, MFA
writer / director / producer

(photograph by Collin Stumpf)

Chrystene was born in California, moving as a young child to Canada where she spent her youth on an Alberta cattle ranch. At 21, Chrystene’s interest in film and animation led her to San Francisco, California, where she spent nearly 20 years working as a traditional special effects artist, fabricating creatures, models, and stop motion puppets for George Lucas’ ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) and on films such as The Nightmare Before Christmas (Disney/Touchstone Pictures).

In addition to her film work, Chrystene was a puppeteer for dozens of national television commercials, with performances ranging from appearances on Oprah to over 20 national spots for Nike. She also worked as a stilt-walking mime, clown, puppeteer, mask and physical performer, appearing in street festivals and theatres across Canada and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1989 she co-founded Bindlestiff Studio, a San Francisco live theatre currently celebrating two decades in existence, where  she  worked as a stage actress and director for the next 15 years. She also volunteered for 8 years with San Francisco youth, including founding, mentoring and directing at-risk youth project Riot Act Theatre Company.

With the sudden near-extinction of the traditional special effects industry in the digital revolution, Chrystene re-trained, earning a BA in digital animation and an interdisciplinary MFA in film, theatre and visual arts. In 2000 Chrystene began translating her theatre directing and puppetry skills into directing films and animating, making several films of various lengths. During this period she also worked fulltime as the Director of the Fine Arts Department at Ex’pression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville, California, where from 2001 until 2006 she taught drawing, concept art, storyboarding, preproduction, design, painting, and sculpting, and spearheaded the creation and early development of the Fine Arts Department.

After the drawn-out nature of her father’s death from cancer in 2004 following three years of care-giving in her San Francisco home, Chrystene was inspired to pursue her passion and go for broke in taking her work and vision to a larger scale. She delved into one of her many long-time dream projects: Sisu – the death of Tom Sukanen, a feature film based on a true Depression-era story set in Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2006 she left California and moved to Saskatchewan to immerse herself in the prairie culture and mythologies, meeting people who had known Sukanen and having immediate access to the local history. The final edit of the film was completed in late 2009.

Chrystene's artistic skills encompass a wide range of styles. She paints, sculpts, draws, and is a proficient user of digital design, editing, 2D animation, and compositing programs. She has 20 years of professional directing and producing experience, having directed dozens of professional theatrical shows, as well as short films and documentaries, and several short animations. The 2002 film Goodbye, Guy Guy, a collaborative effort with several writers, directors, and the cast, screened at festivals in California and New York. The Making of Toozle and Tinkle, a feature-length mockumentary comedy about the making of a low-budget children's television pilot, is currently in post production. She is creating a series of drawings and paintings as preproduction for Crow's Nest, her next project, visualized as an animation, graphic novel, and installation.

Chrystene is now a Canadian resident, in the process of immigrating to Canada, currently making her home in Saskatchewan.

For more on Chrystene, please visit chrystene.com
To view her curriculum vitae, please click here

(photograph by Raul Viceral)