Will Vinton Studios on "48 Hours"

The news magazine "48 Hours" did a story on advertising which featured Will Vinton Studios. This is only the Vinton story, "Superstars" by John Blackstone. Lots of good behind the scenes material.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Will
• Vinton
• 48
• Hours
• Larry
• Bafia
• Chuck
• Duke
• Hal
• Hickel
• George
• Hood
• claymation
• California
• Raisins
• Pons
• Marr

[v3dee]

That was probably the most common tool used. It was a standard clay sculpting tool you can get at any good art supply house. They were modified though. The handle cut shorter and the pointed tip ground rounder. Every animator had their own customized set of tools. Dental tools, hand carved and polished wooden tools, plastic, and "Friendly Plastic".

I liked the Friendly Plastic because you could quickly make a tool that would take much longer to make from wood.

[v3dee]

When Will walks onto the set the animator in the white t-shirt is Chuck Duke. Hal Hickel is the animator in red and the animator behind the camera is Vince Backeberg. In the Roman ship set, Jerold Howard and Carol Ashley are in the foreground and Larry Bafia is in the background.

The reference film actors for the falling candy are animators Craig Bartlett, Kyle Bell and Vince Backeberg.

Actor/mime Pons Marr also appeared in "Return to Oz" and "The Blob.

[eagle45147]

Ray Harryhousen did a lot of stop motion for the scifi movies in the 50s and 60s and 70s.. The flying saucers in The Earth vs the Flying Saucers was stop motion.

[Skullgrin140]

Will vinton needs to do Stop motion again, Aardman are still going strong and I think stop motion needs to be brought out of the shadow abit.

[kebler823]

The only time Dan Rather came to Portland I can remember is when the Koin Tower opened up and broadcast the CBS NEWS to the country in 1984

[magicpegasus81]

I think Will Vinton and his team of animators where genius' of their time. I'm a huge fan, it's unreal how talented everyone was, it's a shame stop animation isn't done like this anymore. It was extremely entertaining to watch!

[stereodust3]

4:22.....epic

[screamingskull]

There are a couple of wax/clays like that. Pongo is a brand that we used to use at Vinton's. I think the Harbut's clay that Aardman uses is more waxy. The later Van Aken clays that we used had a lot of bleedy pigment and got very chalky. The older stuff under the Leisure Clay label was better. In my own work I would always blend in Van Aken's ivory clay and mineral oil to both cut down the color saturation for the camera and to get a better consistency.

[screamingskull]

I hope so... Aardman is still doing it big time. I think clay and cel animation are the greatest of the animation mediums because they put total control of the expression and shapes in the hands of the artist. I would probably come out of retirement for that. That is, my current clay animation retirement - I'm doing CG and cel animation these days.

[screamingskull]

That was a joke. Actually I never saw Mr. Rather. He never came out to Portland. But I did see George W.'s brother (Jeb) once in person at Electronic Arts when I was working there in 2002.