A documentary about the career of clay animation guru Will Vinton, which made its premiere at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, is now making its way to college screenings and indie theaters.
Released last weekend and now playing in NYC, L.A. and Portland, this film by Marq Evans covers the 30 year clay-cinematic career, the rise and fall of the stop-motion innovator, best known for The California Raisins.
The successors to the often wonderful 1950’s clay animation of Art Clokey and the predecessors of our favorites, the stop-motion mastery of Nick Park, Peter Lord and others at Aardman Animations - the claymation films were tremendously popular.
By the mid-1970's, Will Vinton Productions proved quite ubiquitous in the 16mm animation programs sought out by aficionados of the art form. There were documentaries on claymation produced as early as the late 1970's.
Many of us who started schlepping 16mm projectors around to university screening rooms, tiny art-house/repertory cinema spaces, as well as the homes of our fellow animation and stop-motion enthusiast friends back in the 1970's pre-VHS days to watch MOVIES ON FILM remember the Will Vinton Studio’s work fondly. The film that introduced this writer and many other film buffs to clay-mation was CLOSED MONDAYS by Will Vinton and fellow stop-motion animator (as well as the inventor of the clay-mation technique), Bob Gardiner.
CLOSED MONDAYS won the Oscar for best short subject in 1975.
Vinton and Gardiner followed this one with MOUNTAIN MUSIC, which makes one wonder if one animator at the studio was playing acoustic folk music at work, while the other was listening to Black Sabbath.
The 1980 Will Vinton Productions film DINOSAUR recalls the stop-motion coolness of Willis O' Brien, Ray Harryhausen and prehistoric Gumby adventures, such as THE EGGS AND TRIXIE.
Favorite Will Vinton production? Hands-down, it's Super Seinfeld!
The Will Vinton Studio made so many noteworthy films from the 1970's through the mid-1990's, it's tough to know where to start or stop.
The documentary's Claydream press release elaborates: Structured around interviews with this charismatic pioneer and his close collaborators, the film charts the rise and fall of the Oscar® and Emmy® winning Will Vinton Studios. It’s an astonishing journey, rich with nostalgia and anchored by a treasure trove of clips from Vinton’s life’s work.
Documentarian Marq Evans (The Glamour and the Squalor, 2016) brings to life the battle between art and commerce, while inviting us to fall in love with his subject, making this an affectionate, insightful portrait of an artist who put so much of himself into his craft."
We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog were actually not aware that Laika, the production company which produced Coraline and other stop-motion films we like a great deal, actually was the former Will Vinton Studio, lost after prolonged legal battles to the owners of Nike, the Knights.
There have been several comprehensive pieces about Marq Evans' documentary on clay-mation. From Variety, ‘ClayDream’ Review: A Lively Look at Stop-Motion Maestro Will Vinton for Vintage Toon Geeks by Peter Debruge, Documentary Explores Will Vinton's Claymation Heydey and two pieces from The Oregonian: Claydream Tells The Story of Portland Animator, and (from a few years ago), Squabble in Toon Town: How Vinton Lost His Animation Studio To Nike's Phil Knight.
Will Vinton passed in 2018, but not without leaving behind a memorable 4-decade legacy in short films, features, television shows - and some of the best animated commercials!
Have not seen Claydream yet, but look forward to at least two viewings, start-to-finish, soon.
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