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IMDbPro

Harrod Blank

  • Producer
  • Cinematographer
  • Camera and Electrical Department
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Harrod Blank
Official Trailer
Play trailer2:40
Why Can't I Be Me? Around You (2019)
3 Videos
4 Photos
Harrod Blank is a California native who grew up in the Bonny Doon Mountains of Santa Cruz, where he attended high school and college. In 1989, he moved to Berkeley, where he currently lives part-time.

When Harrod Blank first realized that his '65 VW Beetle could be treated as a canvas, the result was "Oh My God!". Painted like a beach ball with a bumper of plastic fruit & rubber chickens, a chalkboard on back and a TV on the roof, the car was the catalyst for his remarkable career.

Initially, Blank thought he was the only one in the world with an Art Car, and at times felt quite alienated. This would change, as he gradually learned from supporters that there were other such cars, spread out across the country. Drawing from what he had learned from his father, filmmaker Les Blank, and the BA in Theater Arts/Film he earned at UC Santa Cruz in 1986, Blank began photographing other Art Cars. Subsequently, he raised money through private investors and took out loans as needed to finance the 64-minute documentary he dreamed of making: Wild Wheels (1992).

To his credit, over 55 million people worldwide have now seen the film. Blank initially distributed "Wild Wheels", featuring 46 Art Cars and their respective artists, by driving "Oh My God!" with the film to 50 cities across the country. Publicity from the tour gained the interest of PBS, which broadcast the film repeatedly as a National Special in 1993. The following year, Blank's photography was featured in a companion book, "Wild Wheels" (Pomegranate, 1994; Blank Books, 2001), which was named "Best Book for Young Adults" by the American Library Association.

Blending his passion for Art Cars and his love of photography, Blank was inspired by a dream to attach 1,705 cameras to a 1972 Dodge van. Cleverly hiding ten working cameras among the rest, Blank had finally found a way to capture on film the public's candid expressions of awe and delight. In 1995, Blank drove the "Camera Van" to New York City for its official "debut" and shot over 5,000 photographs for a photography exhibit, "I've Got A Vision".

In 1995, still enthusiastic about the beauty and power of Art Cars, Blank began production of a feature-length sequel to Wild Wheels (1992). A short version of the film (Driving the Dream (1998), 29 minutes) was broadcast on TBS's National Geographic Explorer in October 1997 to help raise money for the epic feature-length film, Automorphosis (2009), was premiered January 2009 at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Thirteen years in the making, "Automorphosis" is considered Harrod's life's work up to this point.

Blank made his third Art Car in 1998, an interactive mariachi-themed music mobile called "Pico De Gallo", later unveiled in his new book, "Art Cars: the Cars, the Artists, the Obsession, the Craft" (Lark Books, 2002). Gene Shalit heralded the book on the Today (1952) Show as his favorite holiday gift suggestion. The Petersen Automotive Museum hosted a major exhibition of Art Cars in Spring 2003, of which Harrod Blank was Guest Curator.

As of July 2010, Blank is releasing Automorphosis (2009), and is editing "Burning Man: the Movie", a documentary film thirteen years in the making about the radical arts festival.
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Photos

Harrod Blank and Leon Russell in A Poem Is a Naked Person (1974)
Harrod Blank and Leon Russell in A Poem Is a Naked Person (1974)
Harrod Blank and Leon Russell in A Poem Is a Naked Person (1974)

Known for

Automorphosis (2009)
Automorphosis
7.5
  • Producer
  • 2009
Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
6.2
  • Klown Performer
  • 1988
Why Can't I Be Me? Around You (2019)
Why Can't I Be Me? Around You
6.5
  • Producer
  • 2019
In the Land of the Owl Turds (1987)
In the Land of the Owl Turds
7.1
Short
  • Producer
  • 1987

Credits

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IMDbPro

Producer

  • Harrod Blank and Richard Zimmerman in Dugout Dick (2022)
    Dugout Dick
  • Why Can't I Be Me? Around You (2019)
    Why Can't I Be Me? Around You
  • Les Blank
  • A Film's Forty-Year Journey (2015)
    A Film's Forty-Year Journey
  • Thailand Moment (2015)
    Thailand Moment
  • How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock at his Farm in Normandy (2014)
    How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock at his Farm in Normandy
  • Automorphosis (2009)
    Automorphosis
  • Driving the Dream (1998)
    Driving the Dream
  • Wild Wheels (1992)
    Wild Wheels
    • (produced by)
  • I Went to the Dance (1989)
    I Went to the Dance
  • In the Land of the Owl Turds (1987)
    In the Land of the Owl Turds
  • Lydia Mendoza in Chulas Fronteras (1976)
    Del mero corazón
  • Los Alegres De Teran in Chulas Fronteras (1976)
    Chulas Fronteras
  • A Poem Is a Naked Person (1974)
    A Poem Is a Naked Person
  • Dizzy Gillespie (1965)
    Dizzy Gillespie
    • (2K digital master 2018)

Cinematographer

  • Harrod Blank and Richard Zimmerman in Dugout Dick (2022)
    Dugout Dick
  • Why Can't I Be Me? Around You (2019)
    Why Can't I Be Me? Around You
  • Thou Shall Not Tailgate (2018)
    Thou Shall Not Tailgate
    • (documentary segments)
  • Mind the Gap
  • Celebrating a City
  • Warriors of Joy (2014)
    Warriors of Joy
  • Mauro: To Love and to Live (2014)
    Mauro: To Love and to Live
  • Automorphosis (2009)
    Automorphosis
  • Oh My God! It's Harrod Blank! (2008)
    Oh My God! It's Harrod Blank!
  • When I Came Home (2006)
    When I Came Home
  • Driving the Dream (1998)
    Driving the Dream
  • Wild Wheels (1992)
    Wild Wheels
    • (cinematography)

Camera and Electrical Department

  • Why Can't I Be Me? Around You (2019)
    Why Can't I Be Me? Around You
  • How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock at his Farm in Normandy (2014)
    How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock at his Farm in Normandy
  • Art Car: The Movie (2012)
    Art Car: The Movie
  • Gerald Gaxiola in The Maestro Rides Again! (2005)
    The Maestro Rides Again!
    • (uncredited)
  • Francisco Aguabella in Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella (1995)
    Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella
  • Ry Cooder & The Moula Banda Rhythm Aces: Let's Have a Ball
  • Keely Shaye Brosnan and Huey Lewis in Huey Lewis and the News: Be-FORE! (1987)
    Huey Lewis and the News: Be-FORE!
  • Gap-Toothed Women (1987)
    Gap-Toothed Women
  • Werner Herzog in Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)
    Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

Videos3

Why Can't I Be Me? Around You
Trailer 2:40
Why Can't I Be Me? Around You
Automorphosis
Trailer 2:01
Automorphosis
Oh My God! It's Harrod Blank!
Trailer 1:35
Oh My God! It's Harrod Blank!

Personal details

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    • Official Site

Did you know

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  • Trivia
    Son of Les Blank

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