Sunrise Tippeconnie has been working professionally in the film industry since 1999, and has been an I.A.T.S.E. Local 484 member since 2015. Tippeconnie started in the art department on films in Oklahoma City in 1999 before pursuing an M.F.A. at Temple University, where he developed narrative directing skills and a personal voice within American Indian-focused content while simultaneously refining professional skills in gaffing in Philadelphia and New York City.
Tippeconnie returned to Oklahoma City in 2006 to pursue freelance work and has primarily worked in the electric department on commercials and television as well as gaffed feature works, including Yen Tan’s “Ciao”, Todd Lincoln’s contribution to “V/H/S/3”, William H. Macy’s “Rudderless”, Sterlin Harjo’s “Mekko” and Sophia Goodhart’s “My Blind Brother”. His directorial work has played at the Heard Museum in Arizona, imagineNative Film Media Arts Festival in Toronto and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C.
Tippeconnie has also regionally taught courses in film production since 2008 at Oklahoma City Community College (OCCC) and the University of Oklahoma (OU), where he currently teaches in the Film and Media Studies department.
“I have the privilege of seeing an interesting cross-section of Oklahoman filmmakers from the classroom to the on-set freelance environment to the production and exhibition of self-produced and directed works, and I have always been pleased to see a collaborative and supportive nature in Oklahoma that it feels as though it’s a great place to grow and be nurtured,” Tippeconnie said. “With the blossoming of contemporary production and exhibition circumstances it makes for even more possibilities for supportive circumstances, an occasion towards which I know Oklahoma can rise.”
Tippeconnie is currently developing paranormal fiction works with collaborator David Burkhart and has rekindled his exhibition programming interests with the Native Crossroads Film Festival in 2017 and recently as a shorts programmer for the deadCenter Film Festival.
“There has certainly been a great development in the level of professionalism of the freelance film production community, for which Oklahoma should take pride, but it’s always been the commitment to each other and the enjoyable relationships that make the Oklahoman on-set environment worthy of a career and lifestyle,” Tippeconnie said.
For more information, please visit Sunrise Tippeconnie’s listing in the Oklahoma Production Directory.
