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The Adventures of Mark Twain - Claymation - Clay Animation
Man! This was a long time ago. Let me tell you about a hectic year. 1982.
I owned a movie theatre in Enumclaw, Washington, and a Print Shop, and was a DJ, playing music and comedy on the local AM radio station. That was on weekends.
Most of the week, I did a 300-mile commute to Portland, Oregon, and built computers and cameras for an animation company, making an animated Mark Twain theatrical feature.
I fooled away the rest of my time, sleeping. Sometimes, I slept as I drove.
Will Vinton, Portland Claymation tm Producer, had won an Oscar for an 8-minute animated film he made with Bob Gardiner, seven years earlier.
He had read about my 35mm feature film, and my Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I computer motion-control animation system, and my software. He hired me to design and build one for him. So I began the commute.
It was all very creative. A house full of Artists! Sweet and funny Patty (Matt Groening's sister) answered the phone, and managed the office.
The script was amusing, sculptors were insanely talented, and the Twain anecdotes were funny. Modeled in clay, and photographed one frame at a time.
It was one very cold wet year in Portland, building cameras and projectors and motion-control, and writing software, just before I went Hollywood. The coldest and wettest year on record! I'm still shivering.
All I could think was, "Next year, I want to be somewhere WARM." Luckily, the movie got done, and I went to Hollywood, and everything moved forward...warmly.
I didn't know anybody had even seen this film until recently, because it had a poor distribution deal at first, and Independent Distribution is so iffy.
I'm gratified so many have seen it, and that they like it.
Now "The Adventures Of Mark Twain" is on DVD and blu-ray!
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Tales of Hollywood - Ray Harryhausen Lunch
In 1983, I was working "Ghostbusters" and "2010," for Boss Film, and the stop-motion guys were fun to lunch with. They had done some of the best stop-motion anywhere. Phil Tippett, Jon Berg, Randall William Cook, Jim Aupperle, and some others.
They were very funny guys, and I was was very pleased to be in their company. I was fresh off an animated clay movie in Portland, and my 35mm Seattle feature, now I was building 65mm camera equipment in Hollywood.
My friend Jerry Jeffress had told me Ray Harryhausen had a unique way of speaking, and Jerry could imitate it perfectly. He was great at it. So, I could mimic Jerry imitating Ray, which I did to the amusement of the stop-motion guys at lunchtime.
To my surprise, they ALL could imitate Ray's speaking voice! It was clear they loved him. He was their hero, the reason they got started animating. That was fun!
In the next couple of days, some amazing things happened. A magazine writer asked if I could do a favor. Ray Harryhausen was in town, and could I take him to lunch? And then bring him to Showscan, where the writer also worked, to see the Showscan demo presentation?
(Showscan was a 65mm 60fps system, at Doug Trumbull's company near Boss Film).
Then Mr. Harryhausen would be interviewed for the magazine. Did I say yes? Yes, indeed!
I picked up Mr. Harryhausen, and we chatted a bit. I took him to the restaurant, where the stop-motion guys were. I asked if we could surprise someone, and he grinned yes. As he waited outside for a minute, I went in.
"Guys, our last lunchtime, my Ray Harryhausen imitation wasn't very good. I've been working on it, and it's better. I want to show it to you. I just need a moment to prepare." What a setup. Such eager, expectant faces.
I went outside, and sent Ray back in. Hubbub! Tumult! Somebody yelled "Sam, that's a fantastic imitation!" And that was a fantastic lunch.
2010
Boss Film
Showscan
Ghostbusters
Sam Longoria
Doug Trumbull
Clay Animation
Ray Harryhausen
Tales of Hollywood
Stop-Motion Animation
First Stop-Motion Feature?
The usual yammer how a movie is the "first" at something.
But the "First Stop-Motion Animation Feature?" C'mon guys.
I'd think the Editors Guild would know better,
and it's in their professional magazine!
Okay, it's first to use still-cameras to shoot a feature's worth
of digital frames, and it's the first digital stop-motion feature
edited with Final Cut Pro. On a Thursday.
Okay...so what?
This Article says it's the "First Stop-Motion Animation Feature,"
right over the title.
A shockingly ignorant assertion, when you know how long stop-motion's been around. "Humpty Dumpty Circus" was made in 1898, "Modelling Extraordinary" brought clay to life in 1912, George Pal and Jiri Trnka worked throughout the twentieth century, Willis O'Brien's "The Lost World" was stop-motion in 1925, and his "King Kong" was mostly stop-motion in 1933.
The great Ray Harryhausen did lots of movies with lots of stop-motion, Cosgrove/Hall's 1983 "The Wind in the Willows," Tadahito Mochinaga was in Japan animating those Rankin/Bass stop-motion Christmas specials.
There was that Pogo Possum feature from 1980 (third screen role for Pogo), Art Clokey's "Gumby and Pokey" and "Davey and Goliath," (ran for 17 years!), Nick Park's brilliant "Wallace & Gromit" and "Chicken Run" were feature-length, as was the Claymation (TM) Mark Twain 35mm feature I worked on for a year, in the early '80s.
Tim Burton did another stop-motion feature,
"The Nightmare Before Christmas,"
before this one, for cryin' out loud!
Maybe it's Tim's "First Stop-Motion Feature"
...since Tim's last stop-motion feature.
Interesting article, though.
