After all, the world-renowned Claymation pioneer has already collected the highest honors in film (one Oscar/ four nominations), television (eight primetime Emmys) and advertising (multiple Clios and Ad Age wins), along with a lifetime achievement award from LAFF and literally scores of prizes from top film festivals around the world.
Through the process of creating, developing and producing hundreds of films and thousands of commercials, Vinton and his teams popularized 3-D stop motion animation at a time when 95% of commercial animation was 2-D and ushered in a new age where animation has become a medium of adult entertainment.
While Vinton’s indelible characters have become a fixture in American pop-culture history, it seemed time to recognize these achievements and the technical breakthroughs that made them possible as Vinton and his creative teams continually pushed stop-motion animation to its limits. Among them were the frame grabber (which allows filmmakers to see what has been previously shot for jitter-free movement), stop-motion hardware and software to allow a single camera to shoot 3-D animation, and their methods for reference filming that imbues animated characters with uncanny realism.
“When I realized that 2015 marked the 40th anniversary of the Academy Award for “Closed Mondays” and the 30th anniversary of “The Adventures of Mark Twain”— both milestones in animation history—I felt it was time to acknowledge not only the influence that the California Raisins, the Noid, Dinosaurs “Herb & Rex,” M&M’s “Red & Yellow” and The PJs’ Thurgood Stubbs had on my generation, but to congratulate Will for doing it all in Portland, Oregon—instead of Hollywood, California,” says Portland film festival founder and Executive Director Joshua Leake. “Thanks to Will Vinton, Portland is not just a world mecca for gifted animators today, it’s the coolest place on the planet to make movies.”
CLAYMATION SHORTS PROGRAM
CLOSED MONDAYS - Oscar Award Winning Short - 8 minutes
LEGACY 5 minutes
DINOSAUR 17 minutes
MOUNTAIN MUSIC 9 minutes
A CHRISTMAS GIFT 7 minutes
THE GREAT COGNITO 5 minutes
THE CREATION 9 minutes
THE PJs 23m (favorite episode of Wills)
