Come for documentary filmmaker Marq Evans’ Claydream, but be sure and stay for the bonus of Will Vinton’s complete collection of animated short films, the subject of Evans’ documentary.
Oscilloscope Laboratories has tabbed June 27 as the street date for both DVD and Blu-ray editions of this marvelous presentation.
The subject of Claydream is Will Vinton, a sort of everyman who was interested in architecture and physics … and filmmaking. He graduated from Berkeley in 1970 and one thing led to another and he eventually hooked up with fellow filmmaker Bob Gardiner, where they “invented” (for lack of a better term) the “claymation” form of stop-motion animation. By 1975 the pair had an Oscar win for their short film, Closed Mondays.
Their relationship soon implodes and Vinton soldiers on. He garners three additional Oscar nominations — Rip Van Winkle (1979), The Creation (1982) and The Great Cognito (1983) — and gets national attention with the “The California Raisins” commercial in 1986.
His career included movies and music videos and as he grew, the need for investors came up … to make movies requires money. Enter Nike founder Phil Knight … lawsuits would follow when things went south.
The film Claydream documents the rise, the fall … the aftermath and Vinton’s losing battle with cancer. A fascinating story onto itself of dreams and creativity and the ugly the side of the entertainment “business.”
It is a stand-alone and worth it, but Oscilloscope has gone the extra mile with this package and has included all of Vinton’s animated short films. These are: Closed Mondays (1974), Mountain Music (1976), Martin the Cobbler (1977), Claymation: Three-Dimensional Clay Animation (1978), Rip Van Winkle (1978), The Little Prince (1979), Legacy: A Very Short History of Natural Resources (1979), Dinosaur (1980), A Christmas Gift (1980), The Creation (1981) and The Great Cognito (1982).
Other bonus goodies include commentary by filmmaker Marq Evans (The Glamour & the Squalor), who is joined by producers Tamir Ardon (Audrey, Framing John DeLorean) and Kevin Moyer (Shut Up Anthony), deleted scenes and a rare voicemail (uncut) from Michael Jackson.
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