There was a time, back in my Will Vinton days, that we seemed to be going to every award show every year. Clay was big back in the day and Will Vinton was constantly nominated. This happened at one Emmy Award Ceremony in Los Angeles California. After sitting for long stretches of time, and after several cocktails, I had to hit the men’s bathroom. I was the only one in there and I had been standing there for a few moments letting the Bushmills and soda drain from my screaming bladder. The door burst open behind me and the sound of a very familiar laugh bounced off the tile walls. He walked up and shadowed the porcelain I was staring into. I looked over. It was him. That laugh was straight from the Bandit. Standing right next to me at the urinal was Burt Reynolds.
End of Day
When I find myself animating a personal project or a feature film, I have one frame that I will never end the day on. If I want to stop for the day and pick up the animation again tomorrow, I will make sure that I either pass frame 13 or stop before frame 13. I will never walk away from the stage if I am on frame 13. Of course, once I pass frame 13, I’m comfortable and will end the day on whatever frame it happens to be. I did have one very long stop-motion shot that challenged that superstition.
That was frame 666.
Movie Sauté
When you think back to the movies that shaped you when you were at your most impressionable age, I'm talking from the age of 8 to 26. A good 18 year span of growing up in school and in the world. I will never have the same experience watching a movie in the theater like I had when I was 12 to 17 years old. There was something very magical about the theater. The smell of the popcorn, the seats of velvet, the huge screen and curtains that would slowly open to the screen. Mostly alone but on occasion, I would go to the movies with friends and family. I think the simple aspect of watching most of these films by myself cemented me to the world on the screen. No distractions and complete emersion. There must be a correlation to these movies we watched at this time of our lives and the way we looked upon and acted in the world. These movies must have some influence on the directions we choose to take in life. At least from my point of view the movies I saw definitely shaped who I am as a person. I've made a list of the films I saw during these years. And, yes, I was 10 years old when I saw The Exorcist thanks to my sister. She also took me to see American Graffiti because cruising was still quite a thing in the 70’s.
In fact, I saw quite a few films at a young age that maybe should have been saved for later years. Once I found the Art house cinemas of the 80's, the whole world of film opened up to me. Sub titles were not just for Godzilla films anymore.
These were the films that made me. Who ever I am and whatever that means.
The 1970's
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
Alien (1979)
Caligula (1979)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Coma (1978)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Duel (1971 TV Movie)
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1976)
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)
Deliverance (1972)
King Kong (1976)
Grease (1978)
Superman: The Movie (1978)
Manhattan (1979)
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
The Exorcist (1973)
The Sting (1973)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Mad Max (1979)
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
Sleeper (1973)
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
The Towering Inferno (1974)
Being There (1979)
Moonraker (1979)
Jaws (1975)
What's Up, Doc? (1972)
Airport '77 (1977)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Papillon (1973)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
American Graffiti (1973)
Looking over these films is like looking at cooking spices on a rack. Each film added a certain spice that change the taste and direction of the final dish. I was served up into the 1980's with a perfect base and the final sauce was poured during these years.
The 1980's
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Amadeus (1984)
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Platoon (1986)
Rain Man (1988)
Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Raging Bull (1980)
The Elephant Man (1980)
Ordinary People (1980)
Batman (1989)
Fanny and Alexander (1982)
Gremlins (1984)
Das Boot (1981)
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Top Gun (1986)
The Goonies (1985)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
The Killing Fields (1984)
Aliens (1986)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Back to the Future (1985)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Pretty in Pink (1986)
The Shining (1980)
Beetlejuice (1988)
Stand by Me (1986)
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
Blade Runner (1982)
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989)
Die Hard (1988)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Legend (1985)
Witness (1985)
The Color Purple (1985)
Scarface (1983)
The Thing (1982)
Dune (1984)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
A Christmas Story (1983)
The Terminator (1984)
Brazil (1985)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Tootsie (1982)
Wings of Desire (1987)
Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Love Streams (1984)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
The Karate Kid (1984)
Poltergeist (1982)
That was where the magic stopped. I have never had the same feeling in a movie theater like I had when I was growing up in the 70's-80's. Now, like a cold splash of water to the face, we are in the age of Covid 19. Even when society ventures back into the theaters, the magic of cinema will always fail. We will constantly be pulled out of the dream world up on the screen and focused on the strangers elbow touching ours and the virus that the news says is gone.
Attic
My grandmother had a big old three-story house in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. The house had a dark musty attic that was full of boxes and stacked furniture from past eras. There was a clothes rack that had two of my Grandfather’s suits draped on hangers. Those two suits hung right in front of a tiny window in the back wall of the attic. They were perfectly backlit so, when reaching the top of the attic stairs, it looked like two men were standing against the attic wall. The last time I was in that attic I was 16 years old. I was alone. I thought I was alone. It was right over my shoulder and I was paralyzed to turn my head to see what it was. It was very close to me like someone up against you in a subway car. I have never seen it but to this day it has always terrified me. Years have passed and I know it is still in that attic. The house is now owed by my Aunt and someday, I will slowly climb those steps to that attic again.
38 years for a Game of Chess
I was 14 years old when I first saw Star Wars.
It was 1977 and I was sitting in the fabulous UA150 Cinema in Seattle Washington. When I saw the Chess scene and the animated monsters on screen I thought that Ray Harryhausen had done the stop-motion animation. I was a big fan-boy of Harryhausen and had watched and studied his animation since I was 12 years old. I actually studied his animation frame by frame from films I ordered by mail. On the back cover of Famous Monsters Magazine, the selected clips of Ray Harryhausen movies were available on 12 minute reels of Super 8 film. I had the cyclops and dragon animation from the 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Also in my collection of Super 8’s were the films, “20 Million Miles to Earth, Jason and the Argonauts, Earth vs the Flying Saucers, and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. All of these films were scrutinized frame by frame on my little Super 8 film editor. I would reel them back and forth to watch the animation one frame at a time. When I did occasionally project these movies on the wall they were unwatchable for the amount of scratches that the Super 8 editor had made. The editor wasn’t the most gentle piece of equipment and as time went by, there was no image left on the film.
Anyway, on my second viewing of Star Wars I realized that the stop motion animation was done by Jon Berg and Phil Tippett. They became my newest heroes in the world of film animation.
I never thought I would ever do Stop Motion Animation for a Star Wars film. By the time I got to work for Lucasfilm at Industrial Light and Magic the studio was turning all digital and the remaining model shop was on it’s last legs. Stop Motion Animation was not the preferred effect any longer. Then in 2015 I was in the right place at the right time and Phil Tippett asked me to work on the new chess sequence for, “Star Wars The Force Awakens”. It took 38 years but I finally got to do some Stop Motion Animation for a Star Wars film. The luck continued when I was again asked to have another go on the chess table for Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker. I was very lucky to be able to be a part of these films and I have Phil Tippett to thank for it all.
Here are the Super 8 movies that became my personal film school when I was a teenager. Watching the animation frame by frame from these movies then trying to duplicate those actions with my own puppets.
Testors High
My room had plastic models everywhere. It was the 70’s and I was 12 years old and plastic model building was my favorite hobby. There were models on my window sill, on my dresser and night stand. Submarines, Jets, Planes, Cars, Tanks, Spaceships and the prize of my collection, the Aurora Monster series. This included the Wolfman, Dracula, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The only problem I had with this hobby was the simple fact that I sucked at making models. They never quite turned out like the glossy finished images on the box. I never took the time needed to construct a showpiece plastic model. I rushed the build to get the entire model completed in a day. Skipping over instructions and gluing part “A” to part “C” when it should have been glued to part “B”. Before the glue dried, I would pull off the piece and stick it in the right place. The amount of model glue used was phenomenal. The glue was called Testors. Come to think of it, that might have been the only brand available in the States. It was the only model glue I bought. I would make sure to buy a new tube of Testors plastic cement with every new model I purchased. Way too much glue. One tube to one model kit was definitely not the recommended amount of glue. My models where covered in the stuff. Cement would be all over my fingers as I tried to stick the clear plastic canopy of the F-14 Tomcat to it’s fuselage. My fingerprints in the dried plastic cement seemed to be my trademark, my signature on every model I ever made. Every plastic windshield on every car, jet and spaceship was completely fogged and imprinted. Even if I did spend the time to paint the interior of the model and the figure of the pilot, it would never be seen. I wish I could say that my paint work was grade “A” but that sucked as well. Of course, Testors model paint was used on all of my work. This was very thick gloss enamel paint and if there were small details on the model, they would never be seen. I slathered the paint on like I was icing a cake. Very thick and very sloppy. I guess all of this didn’t matter that much to me. My room was filled with models. My ceiling alone had over 20 models of aircraft and spaceships swinging from fishing line. Every time I finished a piece, it was hung up for display. When my friends would come into my room, eventually the Starship Enterprise or a Fighter Jet would end up smashing against my closet door from an overly excited gesture that teenage boys are known for. I didn’t care if a model was broken. I had spent so little time making it that it wasn’t a huge loss. In the back of my mind I saw an open space in the ceiling that a new, maybe better model could be displayed. I would sometimes make room myself by taking a model down and burning it in the back yard. Lighting plastic models on fire was another past-time of mine. Lighting a plastic battleship on fire and floating it down to the sewer drain was a treat. I became aware of my addiction after I stopped burning my models and just burned plastic model cement. I would squirt out a line of glue that snaked around the backyard, then I would light it. Once, I snaked the path of glue right into an ant hill. How awful is that, but to me as a 12 year old monster, I loved it. I realized that it was the smell that made me want to assemble these models. The glue, the paint, the turpentine, all of these vapors filled my room, and my door was always shut. On my record player was spinning Pink Floyd’s Dark side of the Moon as I opened the box to another project with a brand new tube of cement and a tool box full of Testors paint.
One of my favorite kits. I bought this kit 3 times before I got it right.
I loved kits that had chromed parts. If you didn’t scape the chrome off the side to be glued, the bits would just fall apart. That happened on my first go with this kit. The second kit turned out better but on this attempt I over-glued the front end making the propeller’s spinner useless. The third go of this kit was a success and turned out to be one of the best model builds I had ever done.
Recently I found this kit on eBay and I was able to relive the construction and high this model gave me many years ago.
AnimSHOES_01
The years have put many miles on the treads of my shoes. In an 8 hour day I can walk up to 12 miles all within a 8x10 shooting stage. I am very much like a gerbil in a cage, spending the entire day enclosed in a habitat custom built for me.
Professional foot ware
NIKE Air Jordon’s 1981 where my everyday work shoes while animating the California Raisin commercials at Will Vinton Studios in Portland Oregon.
There was also a basketball hoop set up in the garage area of Will Vinton Studios. It was usually a 3 on 3 game play that most often would end in some sort of injury. I jammed my toe pretty bad one game. JD Alley, a large man too big to be a storyboard artist, landed his full weight on my big toe after he made a shot. I immediately left the game and went home with the throbbing pain in my foot. Around 2am in the morning I woke up in a sweat and realized that my heart had moved from my chest to my big toe. The pressure of it beating was explosive. How could a heart fit inside of a toe? Somehow it has and it did. When I turned the light on I could see that my toe had swollen up. The pressure behind the toe nail had forced the skin to balloon. I wanted to pop my toe to relieve the force of the beating. I grabbed a steel pin, a bottle of tequila, a box of matches, pliers, and a drill with a small bit. I first struck a match a and held it under a pin that I was holding with the pliers. When the pin turned red hot, I stuck it under my toe nail. Pushing it in. I found this odd that I felt no pain. When I pulled the pin out, a good deal of ooze and blood and puss streamed out. My next try was to get as much of the juice out of my big toe. I picked up the drill and placed the drill bit on the top center of the toe nail and made a little mark on the nail. I put the drill back down and took a few nice gulps from the bottle of tequila. Again, lining up the drill on my toe, I slowly squeezed the trigger and the motor strained to rotate at such a slow rate. The bit started to scape then shave into the toe nail. All that was needed was for the bit to slowly bore it’s way through the nail hoping to hit a geyser moment of release and pressure. My finger slipped. The drill motor engaged full speed ripping the nail clean up and off. The toenail spinning on the end of the drill like a gruesome propeller of blood and puss. The spray hit the white wall and machine gunned across my cheek. I released the trigger and look down at the toe. The exposed meat looked like the wet sand under an overturned stone. The pain was gone,