05/10/2018

Stop-motion and claymation legend Will Vinton passed away

He was the American Animator who raised the stop-motion animation and the claymation (he created) to the state of the art. He left us at the age of 70 after a long battle against cancer.

Oscar winner, he opened the celebrated Will Vinton Production, then Will Vinton Studios, in Portland, Oregon (USA), where he created and recorded the term "claymation", stop-motion animation with clay characters.

Animations that has contaminated TV commercials, music videos and theaters, creating icons like California Raisins or Domino's Pizza Noid or the popular M&M's characters. Who don't remember the amazing video clip of the song Speed Demon by Michael Jackson (1988) that we will propose tomorrow in our musical appointment.

In the early-2000’s, Nike co-founder Phil Knight became an investor in Vinton’s studio, placing in few years his son Travis as chief and changing the name in the current Laika Entertainmet (Paranorman, Boxtrolls, Kubo).

Condolences from the entire animation industry with animators who remember him as a mentor and father of an animation style still in use.

Here the trailer of a feature length documentary currently in production:

[ Source CartoonBrew ]

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