The Short Version: Artist/Musician/Filmmaker Ronnie Cramer has been active in the arts community for over
thirty years. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries and other venues across the country,
his music has achieved airplay on over 150
radio stations nationwide and his critically-acclaimed films have been screened at festivals around the world.
He has also been featured as a guest lecturer on art and media at numerous museums and universities.
The Long Version: Cramer founded the musical group Alarming Trends and served as the bands' guitarist
and primary songwriter. The Trends' musical history spans three decades; they played live gigs
throughout Colorado and across the U.S. during the 1980s, recorded several film scores during the
1990s, and in 2001 had a Number One song on MP3.com.
Cramer's solo musical works have also been featured on MP3.com and have been played and/or
downloaded over 500,000 times. Several of his songs have appeared on the charts (including
the Number One spot on the Experimental/Post Rock chart) and have been included in a number of
anthologies and compilations.
In addition to releasing numerous studio recordings, Cramer has appeared live at the top area
venues, including the Mercury Cafe, Herman's Hideaway, Rock Island, Boulder's Blue Note, as well as performing shows at
Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco and at legendary New York clubs CBGB and The Bitter End.
He continues to perform concerts of his solo electronic music throughout North America.
Cramer directed a series of music videos for Alarming Trends that were shown regularly on
KBDI's 'Teletunes' and were featured on similar programs across the U.S., including
'Ground Zero Video,' 'Music Link,' USA Network's 'Night Flight' and MTV's '120 Minutes.'
He also produced Final Mix, a weekly television series seen on Mile-High Cablevision in Colorado.
His first feature film, the crime drama Back Street Jane, premiered at the
Angelika Film Center in New York City and was favorably compared to Stanley Kubrick's
The Killing and John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle by Psychotronic Magazine.
Exploitation Journal praised the film in its pages and singled out the score (written by
Cramer and performed by Alarming Trends) as 'excellent.'
Cramer's black comedy Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend became a cult classic and was cited
as 'the best drive-in movie of the year' by film critic Joe Bob Briggs, who also called Cramer
'an inspired demento who's made some of the finest underground films of this century.'
Cult Movies and Blue Ryder both called Even Hitler 'hilarious,'
Adult Video News described it as 'inspired,' and Westword termed the film
'vicious, subversive satire.' It also spawned a successful sequel: The Hitler Tapes.
Ronnie's first documentary film, Highway Amazon, was called 'outrageously weird and funny' by Westword and
named Best Documentary at the New York International Independent Film Festival, the Miami Short Film Festival and at the 40th Annual Humboldt Film Festival.
Highway Amazon has also been screened at many other festivals around the world and was one of ten films selected for the 2003 Colorado Film Biennial at the Starz Center in Denver.
Cramer produced A Moment in Time for the Museum of Contemporary Art | Denver, which won a 2005 Telly Award for Cultural Documentary.
His film Pillow Girl has been an official selection at over 100 festivals worldwide and was named Best Experimental Film at the Route 66 Film Festival, the Miami Short Film Festival, the Golden Star Shorts Fest, the Big Muddy Film Festival, the Trail Dance Film Festival and the Coney Island Film Festival.
Pillow Girl was also named Best Animated Short at the Denver Underground Film Festival and chosen for the 2005 Colorado Film Biennial.
Recent film work includes Mugs (experimental animation) and
Cantata in C Major (experimental music).
Mugs was named Best Experimental Film at the 41st Annual Humboldt Film Festival and has won a number of other awards.
Cantata has been an official selection at over 70 film festivals around the world and was recently named Best Experimental Film at the Route 66 Film Festival in Springfield, Illinois.
Cramer's newest movie is Sixty in 60, a feature-length experimental film made up of one-minute works from various genres,
including abstract, animation, documentary, experimental, narrative, stop-motion, time-lapse and video art.
Sixty in 60 won First Place for Experimental Feature at the latest Indie Gathering, and garnered three awards at the recent Los Angeles International Film Festival;
it film also received the Gold Medal for Excellence at the 2011 Park City Film Music Festival.
Ronnie's films have appeared
at many venues in the USA and abroad
(click for the complete list).
A longtime Harley-Davidson enthusiast, Cramer's
Motorcycle Web Index has been a top Internet resource for bikers since going online in 1996. Ronnie was profiled in the premiere issue of Sturgis Rally News and has painted three covers for the motorcycle magazine Full Throttle.
Ronnie has lived in Denver, Colorado for thirty years, but is a native of Bismarck, North Dakota.
He appears regularly on lists of notable North Dakotans, including those published by:
Yellow Pages
Free Source
DocStoc
eNotes
IMDb
Find Target
Ask.com
Wikipedia