Mattel Place, 1975

"Mattel Place" - a Super8 movie made in 1975 for Film Class in my senior year of high school, using stop-motion animation with Barbie dolls, a Johnny West doll, a Skipper doll, a Francie doll, and other plastic people and assorted accessories such as my *official* Barbie doll convertible sports car, some fireworks that happened to be handy, and a very small model gun.

Filmed in my childhood home's basement using sets made from cardboard boxes; also filmed in various outdoor locations such as the street in front of our house. Created very painstakingly over the course of three weeks. Transferred from the original (degraded, yes, the original footage was much sharper than what you see here) Super8 footage to DVD, with some sound added (music from "The Young And The Restless"), in 2004.

It may seem rather crude, but this was filmed in 1975 with rather crude technology, including the dolls themselves, who had an extremely limited range of motion.

This was before computer animation etc, and the dolls I had weren't very "bendy". So I used a Johnny West doll as the man in it, since he had more bendable parts. The mustache is something I drew on with a permanent Sharpie when I was even younger. And unfortunately his "clothes" were permanent. No chest-baring scenes for him!

For anyone who doesn't "get" the title, it's a take-off on the classic "Peyton Place" which was a book, a movie, and also went on to become the first TV soap opera, starring Mia Farrow.

You can see my Monty Python-esque humor was fully developed at a very young age.

Anyway, enjoy!

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• mattel
• place
• stop
• motion
• barbie
• ken
• billie
• mann
• hotel
• johnny
• west
• dolls
• experimental
• short
• film

[collinwoodresident]

Thanks so much for posting! I'm so happy I stumbled upon this and it's great you still have it. It's so wonderful and nostalgic. And I always knew Johnny West looked mean!!! Have you ever seen The Karen Carpenter Story on here using Barbie Dolls. If not, I think you'd like it!!!

[markmarchillo]

THAT WAS A VERY SAD STORY.

[Hejira66]

That was great :) Really well done!

[poohbearwms]

WOw, thats also very good job!! :)

[pacorocknirvana]

awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

: )

[tapthat12]

nice. well done. i wish i still had my art project from the the 70s--it was a take off of the sinbad movies. i never got to see it. thanks for posting.

[danearl2001]

Very brilliant!! Amazing!! You really did a great job on showing emotions from the dolls even though they're just plastic.

[ripley84]

great job!

[xenakiddle]

REALLY cute. I'm happy you saved this and even happier that technology has come to the point that you can share this with the world now.

A+ for you!

P.S. Love the Liddle Kiddle Zoolery

[paperbacknovel]

Great movie. Really well done. Love the plot, the humor, the irony, the action..