At last, the whole story of Will Vinton and Claymation is
going to be told by filmmaker Marq Evans in the new documentary “Welcome To My
Daydream”
This link from Cartoon Brew goes more in
depth about the film and its importance in animation history: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/documentary-2/exclusive-first-look-will-vinton-documentary-welcome-daydream-153840.html
I’m not sure where I
first saw “Rip Van Winkle” but it touched me emotionally with that strange
beauty good animation has.
I remember
these surreal moments in the film where Rip is dancing in the sky with pulsing
color blobs set to the beat of the music, and how affecting the song Rip sang
to his friend at the end was.
Later, I
ran across a 16MM print of the early documentary made in the 70's about Claymation and saw a young
Will Vinton with long hair and a full beard, along with Barry Bruce, and I
think, Bill Fiesterman, and Joan Gratz.
It
must have been during the shooting of “Martin the Cobbler” because it had this
great scene where a clay crew of stage hands is frustrating the clay actor
playing Martin. The door to the miniature set opens and the giant head of Will
himself peeks in to ask how things are going on set.
I knew then and there these were people after
my own heart and wanted to work for them one day.
Not only is Will one of the sweetest people I know, but so
many good things have come from the opportunities he made possible for me and many others. Thank you Mr. Vinton, I look forward to
seeing your story continue.
