Claydream, Marq Evans’ new documentary about animator Will Vinton, addresses the elephant within the room instantly: sure, that is the man who misplaced his corporate to his maximum deep-pocketed investor, Nike founder Phil Knight. It’s one thing that looms over the movie, nevertheless it’s now not the one depression part that colours this portrait of Vinton’s existence and occupation.
Made with the cooperation of Vinton himself, who died of most cancers in 2018 however is interviewed widely right here, Claydream provides a visible historical past of his remarkable accomplishments. No longer handiest will we get a take a look at the development of Vinton’s paintings through the years (from Closed Mondays, the Oscar-winning 1974 quick he created with Bob Gardiner, to his corporate’s immediately recognizable industrial paintings from the ‘80s and ‘90s, together with the California Raisins), we additionally get get right of entry to to house motion pictures, in addition to firsthand accounts from buddies, members of the family, and previous coworkers. After sparking to filmmaking whilst at UC Berkeley within the Nineteen Sixties, Vinton (who prized experimentation and artistic success above all else, and was once surely a little of a hippie) arrange a small workshop together with his collaborators in Portland, Oregon, a location that saved their productions intentionally got rid of from the Hollywood mechanical device—the similar mechanical device he’d finally end up pursuing years later, when Will Vinton Studios was once at its top.
Maximum of Claydream helps to keep the focal point on Vinton’s paintings—once more, this film is a visible dinner party, jam-packed with clips and different ephemera (together with answering-machine messages from a California Raisins-obsessed Michael Jackson) that illustrate the narrative of Vinton’s occupation each and every step of the way in which. However for all his good fortune, and for the admirable approach he bounced again from his periodic disasters and missteps, he by no means completed the heights of his idol, Walt Disney, whose existence trajectory he emulated, right down to plans for a never-realized “Claymation Station” amusement park. Even though he was once widespread as an individual, now not everybody he labored with is filled with reward; there have been problems through the years of sharing credit score with the opposite animators who toiled on his initiatives, in addition to some unhealthy industry choices that supposed, as an example, that Will Vinton Studios didn’t percentage within the licensing for the insanely marketable California Raisins—and in addition that Vinton handed on promoting his corporate to Pixar all over its pre-Disney generation. A contentious cut up with the bothered Gardiner quickly after their shared Oscar win haunted Vinton till Gardiner’s loss of life in 2005. However as Claydream amply illustrates, the Phil Knight debacle ended up being the most important tragedy of Vinton’s ingenious existence.
Neither Knight nor his son Travis Knight are interviewed in Claydream; we see them in deposition and archival photos handiest. Travis Knight, now a movie director identified for the stop-motion function Kubo and the Two Strings in addition to the live-action Transformers spin-off Bumblebee, comes off in particular badly simply at the foundation of the information offered: a failed rapper, he was once employed at Will Vinton Studios after his father invested in it, the place he advanced his (by way of all accounts) true ability and keenness for animation. However there’s no escaping the “nepotism child” aroma that envelops him on this context, particularly when the documentary issues out that he become head of Will Vinton Studios—renamed Laika—after Vinton, who was once not able to rescue his financially suffering corporate, was once driven out.
It’s juicy show-biz stuff, needless to say, however Vinton makes some degree of turning what was once clearly an extremely devastating blow into one thing sure. Taking a look again a number of years after he misplaced his studio, he sounds in fact happy with its persevered good fortune, in particular in the way in which that Laika—which has since turn out to be a Hollywood powerhouse with acclaimed titles like Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Lacking Hyperlink, and Knight’s Kubo—introduced stop-motion to an ever-wider target audience whilst innovating at the artwork shape. It couldn’t had been simple for Vinton to make peace with the placement, however Claydream certain makes it look like he was once in a position to. In all probability, as in his earliest days as a counterculture animator, all of it got here right down to what actually mattered: making an finish product that was once cool because it may be able to be. Even though Vinton wasn’t without delay taken with any of Laika’s titles, his legacy lives on.
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Claydream hits make a choice theaters nowadays, August 5.
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