Claymation!

Well, let's start by clarifying that this video is not Michael Jackson's, Michael Jackson is a dancer, is not an Stop Motion modelist or photographer . The author of this scene from the film Michael Jackson Moonwalker (as well as the head of the special effects throughout the film) is Will Vinton and, in bold .

Will Vinton is an architect and filmmaker influenced by Antoni Gaudi, who began making documentaries with political themes in the 60s, until he made Culture Shock, their first short animation.

At the 70's he met Bob Gardiner, a modelist, who founded Clay animation, an animation company in the cellar of his home, and together made a half minute short test film called Wobbly Wino. In 1973, they bought a team of 16 mm, and combined the qualities of Vinton photography and Gardiner modelist skills, in 1975 they completed their first real short: Closed Mondays, which won the Oscar for best short animation film.



Vinton and Gardiner broke rellations in 1976 during the filming of his second short: Mountain Music. Gardiner produced political advertising, while Vinton created his own studio: Will Vinton Studios, and with a new team of animators he made dozens of ads.

As a new producer and with only a handful of workers on the payroll, Vinton made a trilogy based on folk tales: Martin the Cobbler (1977), Rip Van Winkle (1978, nominated for an Oscar), and The Little Prince (1979 )










The three chapters were premiered in film together, under the title Trilogy, and on video with the title: The Little Prince and Friends. They filmed a documentary of the making off process titled: Claymation .

In 1971 they changed again to 35 mm with the short Legacy and a series of short films such as Dinosaur, The Great Incognito and The Creation, nominated for an Oscar in 1981. Also made video clips and animated A Christmas Gift for Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary and Vanz Kant Danz for the former Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Fogerty. These shorts were collected on VHS as Festival of Claymation and Son of Combo II.

Vanz Kant Danz @ Yahoo! Video

Vinton no longer make animations by him and devoted himself exclusively to produce special effects, especially for TV series such as Divine Madness, Moonlight (which won an Emi) and the opening and closing titles of the series Brain Donors .




In 1985 he produced the feature film The Adventures of Mark Twain, and that same year was nominated for an Oscar for best special effects for the Disney movie Return to Oz.

As a producer of animation for advertisement, Claymation was very prolific, and created characters such as M & M's or raisins from California.




Ads of California raisins were so successful that they released two specials for the CBS: Meet the Raisins and Raisins sold out, after that, they published two albums of music.








CBS produced 3 more Claymation specials: A Claymation Christmas Celebration (who won an EMI in 1988), The Claymation Comedy of Horrors (a special Halloween 1991) and A Claymation Easter.




In the 90s they produced the FOX series: The PJ's, a series that was going to be produced by Eddie Murphy. And Gary & Mike, considered a series of worship for the UPN network. For this series, Claymation forgot plasticine as work material and changed it by the foam, much more versatile and clean, creating a new technique of stop motion that Vinton named "Foamation".



In the 90s, apart from the productions of 400 animators and technicians of Vinton studios, they gave the facility to other small producers of animation in what they called "The Walkabout," where came out creations like Arnold Escapes From Church by Craig Bartlett, who won an Oscar in 1987, which led to the Cel-animation series Hey Arnold, broadcast on Nickelodeon, and the Claymation short: The Arnold Waltz (1990) and Arnold Rides a Chair (1991).




In the lates 90s, They added CGI animation effects to their creations, as can be seen in advertisements of M & M's, also began to create short films in 3D, like Fluffy, or Doug Aberle. They developed a new 3D animation program by partnering with a computer company , and rthey published the animated series for Internet: Ozzie the Elf.




In the 90s, to feature films, he had to seek investors, among which was the company Nike, whose son of the president: Phil Knight, had worked in Claymation.

In 2002 Will Vinton losed power on the company, Phil Knight became the main shareholder and Vinton, by failing to attempt a Hollywood production, was fired from the studies that he had created. In 2005 studies changed the name of Will Vinton Studios to Laika House, and got as art director of the study Henry Selick, the director of Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, and James and Giant Peach

View article on James and the Giant Peach

After this capitalist game, Vinton founded a new company: the Will Vinton's Freewill Entertainment, which works by order, as the graphic novels of Darkhorse: Jack Hightower. Is devoted to production for film, TV, and all kinds of short films, and in 2005 he completed his first animated short of its new venture, this time in computer animation mixed with real image, The Morning After

Total, one of the greatests men of Stop Motion animation,he invented foamation, he was part of the latest generation of artists from traditional special effects, was the first to perform a mixture of stop motion and foamation with digital effects, he knew all sorts of animation skills, styles, genres and media, won an Oscar in a film shot in his garage! As the only producer of Oregon who has never won an Oscar. He launched to fame and influenced dozens of artists from Stop Motion, including Henry Selick, regarded by many fools as the second best Stop Motion Animator after Tim Burton. Nominations for the Oscars, a Golden Lion, several EMIS ... and what happened to this man? robbed and minimized by capitalism as an artist.

The world of plasticine is harder than it seems.

Jackson Animation

I think: At this point you're not going to leave this person alone?
Okay, you're right. But I wanted to point out one thing, this man as a singer could be better or worse, but there is no point of the quality of their video clips, although the best known, have no more animation than those of the special effects, he had animated videos since the beginning:



And before anything, I wish to point out that MJ is the point of start of this article, we will ignore the life of this man, whom we know already too much, and we will tell for example about Robert Balser, the director of the animated series of theJackson 5ive, for the Rankin & Bass Company.

This company ceased production in 1987 with hudge funds, and for years they kept the offices open but without making anything more than merchandising tasks, and Mr. Rankin & Bass were living among New York, Paris and Bermuda, in 1999 decided to enter the production of animated feature films, with the trilogy "The Swan Princess"



and "The King and I", a movie that was a fail due to critics that he accused of using racist stereotypes. Someone can explain me how can be racist who was collaborating with Motown producer and who launched to the fame a whole generation of Japanese animators?

Total, now, Rankin / Bass is dedicated to publishing children's stories and Christmas special for TV.

And what about Jim Blashfield? An artist who has made short films music videos for pop groups of the 80s and 90s as Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Joni Mitchell, Nu Shooz, Paul Simon, Tears for Fears and Marc Cohn. And he is also the author of this 1987 video with a mixing of stop motion and cut-out with some real image, with spectacular results:



Blashfield was already known by his interesting art films as Suspicious circumstances, a surreal 1985 short about a marriage that is invaded at home by two flying Donald Duck heads:



Recently he has worked with videos of Bill Frisell, Oregon Symphony, and Weird Al Yankovic. He won a Gold Lion at Cannes, a Grammy and numerous awards EMI.

Recently he has also worked in films like Bunnyheads, SuctionMaster, The Tassel Loafers, or Dream of a Witch's Sabbath and has also created multi-image spaces installations for Liminal Performance Group.

Back to animation and CGI, we have the short film Ghosts of 1997, also available as limited edition video. A short film made no more and no less than by Stan Wiston, edited to VHS. A short that was a failure, being held in an already decadent era of the singer, and he tried to keep the same criteria when performing the marketing of Thriller.









Considering that the fat old co-star of the short is actually Michael Jackson, I think it is more than clear that Stan Wiston is the best specialist in make-up special effects of the world, in this case the makeup was done by the makeup specialist of the film of Stephen King Thinner, but we can remember other Oscar winners Stan Wiston's makeups , as is the case of Jurasic Park, Alien, Predator or Terminator.



Stan Winston started working for Disney in the'70s, winning an EMI in 1972 for the production of the movie Gargoyles. He made numerous collaborations, including the WOOKIE costumes in the Star Wars Christmas Special of 1978

In 1998, teamed up with James Cameron and Scott Ross to create the special effects company Digital Domain, immediately after the success of Titanic, Stan Winston did not stop to make special effects for movies like The Ghost and the Darkness, Terminator 3D, Artificial Intelligence or Ironman.



Until the last minute reneged on Alien vs. Predator, as he considered the Alien Queen as his favorite daughter, and this film as an aberration.

Stan Winston died last year during the filming of Terminator IV Salvation , he was an artist bigger than other whom we where talking about before. Following rumors says he was preparing material for Jurasic Park IV, and he was agreed to cooperate in the forthcoming film of his friend James Cameron: Avatar.

And finally, another very interesting animation video, this time on stop motion, Speed Demon, by the Will Vinton's Claymation animation studio, actually this is not an official video but it was performed for the film Michael Jackson Moonwalker.



Vinton ya habia trabajado con Michael Jackson para Disney en los efectos especiales de la atracción de 3D Captain EO, de Disneyland.


But Vinton is a master of Stop Motion whom we will tell about.



CLAYMATION ARTICLE

Drawn Together

Drawn Together, this animation jewel, was produced for the channel Comedy Central between 2004 and 2007 by Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser, these are well known producers of TV series of acid thematics, and Drawn together was made by the Rough Draft Studios animation studios in California, and its branch in Korea. These studios are responsible of TV series like The Maxx, Star Wars Clone Wars or Futurama.




This show has a reality show format featuring 8 recognizable parodies of famous people from the animation, video games and even internet flash animations, and many extras too recognizable characters and stereotypes of reality shows. Comedy Central would be the first channel to launch an animated reality show, and that is, the characters live in a sort of Big Brother house and compete among themselves in similar tests.




Comedy Central thought: "Let's see what happens when cartoons are no longer clean and turn it into something dirty" for this reason, the pilot chapter include a lesbian flirt between Foxy Love and Princess Clara, who became a cliché of what were to become the series. A scene that shocked but paradoxically was a cliché of the reality shows, as well as other details of scabrous humor that plagued the series as scenes of homophobia, racism, black humor, sex, incest and other coarse salt jokes that make the series politically incorrect and exclusive for adult audiences. The pilot chapter had very bad critiques, which include that the chapter exceeded the limits of good taste, was racist and had rough and disgusting humor. For producers, it was all a joke. It treats several chapters to homosexuality, as well as references to bizarre sex, constant paraphilias, sado-maso, masturbation ... Same with violence, in almost every chapter one of the characters dies in the series (although they always reborn) and often we see killing and mutilation carried out by the characters.




The first 4 chapters included some false scenes of "... And on the previous week ..." as imitation of soap operas, in which it's told a false story to get situated. These scenes were not released, but were included on the DVD.

The controversy over the inclusion of taboo topics was served, and caused many critics which compared this series with South Park, both series explores the limits of good taste, but the TV-MA (warning adult content) was not exhibited by South Park until 2004, while it was exhibited by Drawn Together from its first chapter.




The series, as imitation of The Simpsons, Family Guy or Father made in America, makes multiple references to popular culture, whether to other animated series, movies or comics, there are many cameos and references from the world of cinema's clichés .



Characters come from different worlds (video-games, the fairy tales, comics ...) each with its own laws of nature, and there is no explanation of why all coexist simultaneously . In addition, the series has no continuity, each chapter contradicts the previous chapter, in a chapter Foxxy Love tells she is 20 years and in another she appears living in the 70ies, Raccord mistakes are beastily multiplied, and as the Producer, Bill Freibergerit, says , if someone tries to establish a universe of fiction based on Drawn Together, he will become mad.



The animation is done in Cell Shade, imitating the style of "manual color and ink," which it use to be Comedy Central's animation stylel, but despite wanting a retro atmosphere, they wanted a style where was possible to combine many different styles of animation too. Each character imitated the style of the reference parody.



There were a total of 3 seasons, the second season was interrupted and the third one was finally banned before it was over.




The final chapter was a compilation of many parodies of television programs, which showed scenes like Big Brother, music competitions between the characters, and projections of the highlights of the program. In the chapter they talked about the cancellation of the series as if it were a joke, but the series had been officially canceled, and the third DVD pack refers to himself as "the third and final season." Following the cancellation, the series has been issued as Sketchs in the uncensored Comedy Central's brodcast Secret Stash, and on the adult channel Logo. In fact, on Secret Stash nake is the only censorship, and Drawn Together is the escepcion to this norm.

Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser left Comedy Central and Fox TV hired them for 2 years forreleasing new series, working on existing projects or continuing a fourth season of Drawn Together, however, they have any project released.




There currently is a feature of Drawn Together under production and this year will be released directly to DVD.




An impressive series as the first animation production of Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser, good visual quality, with a chaotic but well thought out scripts, it explored the limits of good taste, and they didn't heard critics until they were canceled. Possibly the most ruthlessly eschatological animated series never issued. I'm sorry about it was canceled but I am not really surprised, I just hope tehy could release more projects.

Any Bonds Today?

Robert Clampet 1942 USA

Short of U.S. Army propaganda starring Bugs Bunny with Elmer Fudd and Porky, to sell war bonds.

It is one of the 5 shorts where Elmer Fudd is not even a villain. The spot was commissioned by the American government and then was branded to the public domain, released 8 days after the attack on Pearl Harvour, the scene where Bugs comes to parodying the comedian Al Jonson was always contested by racial issues, and Cartoon Network opted for eliminate it from the Brom theugs Bunny's marathon and the special Toonheads.

Litle Black Sambo

Ub Iwerks' ComiColor - USA 1935

Animated version of the controversial 1899 same name Helen Banermann's book. The book today is censored from the libraries of the USA, the film version as well, because of showing racial stereotypes.

It was the first Comicolor studio's movie, who made 26 films between 1933 and 1936 based on children's stories.

As a curiosity, the soundtrack was used as sample in the disc Fear of a Black Planet by Public Enemy.

The Jackson 5ive Series

Robert Balser's Jackson 5ive's series opening:

The Jackson 5ive (Five)


Robert Balser, who is him? A catalan who lived in America who directed the 23 chapters of the Jackson Five series from 1971 to 1973, made both by the studies Halas and Batchelor in London and studies Moro from Barcelona. The series were made for ABC, produced by Motown and produced by Rankin / Bass animation too, a producer who has worked mostly with Japanese stop motion, cel animation and lucrative Christmas specials, with productions like the Lord of the Rings 1980 version, The Wind in the Willows or the Thundercats.

If you want to know more animation material related to Michael Jackson,PRESS HERE

Afro Samurai

Tommy Blacha, Metalocalypse's producer, in 2007 was involved in the production of the American edition of these Japanese series Afro Samurai. An anime about a funky samurai that at the American edition voices of Samuel L. Jackson and Ron Perlman are featured and it has more blood than in a black pudding factory led by Dracula. Despite been so cool, I can not write anything good about anime, so I'm going to explain the plot: in a feudal Japanese world like Samurai Shamploo (instead of been hip hop it is a funky world), a gunman kills Afro samurai's father, a warrior to be the No 1, Afro Samurai swears revenge with the help of the Bronx's ninja: ninja-ninja, to kill anyone who dares him in the most brutal forms.

The Cleveland Show

Series that replaced The King of the Hill, in 2008. The Cleveland Show, the blacksploitation spin-off of Family Guy.

Blacknimation

From the beginning, the world of animation has dealt with the African American population, although at first merely with humorous characters of marked racial stereotypes, such as Buggs Bunny's Any Bonds Today, or Little Black Sambo or some Betty Boop's shorts



It was needed the phenomenon of Blacksploitaition to produce series with Afro-American characters treated with respect, because the world of animation has not been free of the Blaxplotaition phenomenon , and there were productions as Jackson5 the animated series.

Read about Jackson 5ve.

In all kinds of series, we see references to the genre of blacksploitation, like Brown boxy, the character of the Adult Swim series Aqua Teen Hunger Force:




Or the character Foxxy Love from Drawn Toggether, a fusion between Christy Love and Foxy Brown:



Read about Drawn Together

And do not forget internet Drawn Together's spin-off: Judge Fudge, who also has the TV series: The Judge Fudge Adventure Power Hour.

Another spin-off would be Family Man's blacksploitation, after the same creators, Cleveland Show.


Read about Cleveland Show

Family Man also has blacksploitation's chapters as Black to the Future or Blacktually Love, starring a black version of Peter Griffin.



Even there are references to blacksploitations in anime like the episode "Mushroom Samba" from Cowboy beebop.



Or Afro-samurai series.

Read Article about Afro-Samurai

But an animated blacksplotation to whom I have a special affection is Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.



This series was produced and created by Bill Cosby, and many of his characters, including the titanic "Fat Albert," were doubled by himself. The show was on air from 1972 to 1984 and it was based on stories about his childhood gang.

The series was targeted at children of slums, a segment of the population that was forgotten by the pictures on Saturday morning, the Cosby Kids are children who live in a suburb of Philadelphia and play in a dump, where they have organized a rithm'n blues band using instruments made of trash. Each chapter contains an educational end where Bill Cosby in real image gave advice to marginalized children.

Fat Albert first appeared at Bill Cosby's special "Buck Buck," and included it in the 1967 album "Revenge" in 1969, with the veteran Hannah Barbera's animator Ken Mundie , he made the NBC's special Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert, a mixture of animation and real image that became a jazz show. To make that special, it was necessary to create a group of friends to Fat Albert and Ken Mundie was associated with a Disney artist, Amby Paliwoda, the creator of cruel Ville, who created the characters of Fat Albert and painted a group portrait which immediately was placed on TV guides' covers, giving more popularity to the broadcast. The special was very successful and it was recordered an album at Warner with the music of the broadcast called the Fat Albert Rotunda.


Fat Albert producers, after the success of the special, wanted to edit the regular TV series, but NBC refused saying it was a very educational series (???), after that Bill Cosby was associated with the production company Filmation Associates and managed to sell it to the CBS, the series were directed by Ken Brown, and the characters were redesigned by Randy Hollar with the collaboration of the ex-Disney animator Michelle McKinney.

This series, called Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, was released in September 1972 and was 12 years on air (although the emission was not entirely continuous), there is an unedited season wrote, and many Christmas specials. The series contained recordered laughs, which were eliminated in the final season.

In 1974 they get an EMI nomination.

On 1979 they made a change, adding few shorts called The Brown Hornet, based on an African American superhero, and the series were renamed as The New Fat Albert Show.



And one final change in 1984, the series were syndicated and renamed as The Adventures of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and as they had fewer restrictions they could add more aggressive material to scare kids not to enter into krack gangs.They produced a chapter in which the characters are taken to a maximum security prison. Another new short that was added was "Legal Eagle", an avenger eagle accompanied by two police squirrels.



In 1984 the production was stopped stopped because Bill Cosby was on a new project, the The Bill Cosby's Show.

There is a total of 109 episodes and 4 specials. A comic-book series published by Gold Key Comics, and a movie, Fat Albert, starring Kenan Thompson.

In 2002, it was listed at the top 50 animated series for TV Guide, at the number 12 (IGN puts it at 82).

But this was not the only contribution from Bill Cosby to the world of animation, in 2000 he produced the Little Bill series for Nickelodeon Nick Jr children's channel , based on the same name children tales.



The series has not been canceled yet, but last season was in 2007.

Blacksploitaition is a genre that has not been as prolific on animation as on movies, but it has had few creations, with a hard love for funky music and the suburban aesthetics, as an early result, animation based on racial stereotypes has been banned, but then, despite the educational value of Bill Cosby's broadcasts, it has been unable to avoid their autoparodical aesthetic became parodiated everywhere.

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