OWEN O'TOOLE

O'TOOLE OWEN SINCLAIR O'TOOLE O'TOOLE, OWEN Sinclair, beloved and loving father of Evan (10), husband of Pamela Wylie, brother of Tom, Ellen O. Hubbard and Peter, son of Vitaline M. O'Connell O'Toole and Thomas P. O'Toole (d. 2003), uncle to Emily (21) and Annie (19) Hubbard and Jack (10) and Violet (7) O'Toole, and half-brother of Ryan O'Toole, passed away peacefully at his home in Monrovia, California on July 14, 2017 after a long illness. He was 56. A renowned artist working in film and sound, Owen was born on May 20, 1961 in New York City, living his first years next to, and playing in, Gramercy Park. He attended Rye Country Day School before his family moved to Washington, DC. in 1966, where he graduated from Landon School in 1979. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Literature from Tufts University in 1985 paired with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Film, Animation and Sound from the Boston Museum School. A multi-instrumentalist, he employed unique collage techniques with turntables and effect boxes. His favorite planet was Jupiter, writing later in life: "Its size and great red spot captivated a child concerned with the majestic." A born draftsman, Owen came to motion pictures through animation and progressed into original music and sound design for soundtracks for the entertainment industry, including commercials for Reebok and IBM, films and the web. To the end of his life he remained a prolific reviewer of music and film and his long history of audio production and music study made him a valued source for global artists, academics, journalists and others researching the deepest corners of world music and film history. His encyclopedic knowledge of and experience in the Super 8 film medium led to his 1988 globally-sourced Super 8 project "Filmers Almanac," which was screened at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1998 as part of MOMA's "Big As Life: An American History of 8mm Films" retrospective. His collaborations with the celebrated Los Angeles filmmaker Jeffery Plansker reached from WMFO Radio at Tufts University to the television pilot "Jalopy Hour" (1998), "The Lion Still Has Wings" (2005) for Sony Dreams and Pocket Radio films. Owen also collaborated with Los Angeles-based HiFi Project and German film groups Alte Kinder and Schmelzdahin on "The Flamethrowers," which traveled the world in the Goethe Institute's "German Experimental Film of the 1990s" program. Owen also cofounded the film performance group Wet Gate, which toured festivals around the world. When he and Pamela became parents to Evan on July 18, 2007, Owen wrote, "It is amazing to feel myself drawn to re-learning love." As life accelerated and became more complex, he wrote, eight years later, Evan's "flying at a million miles an hour past Jupiter and Saturn and I'm scrambling to keep up." Today, Owen is flying at a million miles an hour past his favorite planet, too - to a majestic destination that all who knew and loved him can imagine. A selection of Owen's writing on fatherhood and his fight against disease can be found at https://tinyurl.com/yd4u3v5p. A selection of his composing, performing and soundtrack work is available at https://soundcloud.com/oeinotoole. The original trailer for "Jalopy Hour" can be seen at https://vimeo.com/127522078. And other commercial work resulted in the CD project "Belief System: Possible Music for Television," which can be heard at http://www.geodesic.tv/belief-system On August 26, a memorial will be held at Lacy Park on Virginia Road in San Marino, California. In lieu of flowers, kindnesses may be made to the Multiple System Atrophy Coalition. Also, Owen would wish you to support NASA's work.