The Adventures of Mark Twain
When I was a kid I used to watch Will Vinton Claymation films and specials every week, forwarding with the remote one frame at a time, making a half-hour piece last hours as I studied the animating decisions the sculptors had made. A few days ago, Will Vinton Claymation's overlooked masterpiece, "The Adventures of Mark Twain," was been released on DVD. This is going right onto my wish list.
As is typical of the Vinton studios (as opposed to Aardman's Wallace and Gromit/Chicken Run), the faces are incredibly well-sculpted and express themselves by constantly resculpting their shape instead of swapping out rigid polymer mouths and eyes in the Aardman style. The Vinton animators were fantastically expressive actors.
Twain has a flying riverboat and flies with Huck, Tom, Becky and their jumping frog to meet Halley's Comet. I will never forget how they animated the character of the frog by distorting its shape into a squirt of green clay when it jumped; how they made characters walk through intangible walls; the funny depictions of Adam and Eve and the heaven for alien beings; and the chilling disembodied mask of "The Mysterious Stranger" who sculpted happy little clay people and then smashed them with godlike power.
As is typical of the Vinton studios (as opposed to Aardman's Wallace and Gromit/Chicken Run), the faces are incredibly well-sculpted and express themselves by constantly resculpting their shape instead of swapping out rigid polymer mouths and eyes in the Aardman style. The Vinton animators were fantastically expressive actors.
Twain has a flying riverboat and flies with Huck, Tom, Becky and their jumping frog to meet Halley's Comet. I will never forget how they animated the character of the frog by distorting its shape into a squirt of green clay when it jumped; how they made characters walk through intangible walls; the funny depictions of Adam and Eve and the heaven for alien beings; and the chilling disembodied mask of "The Mysterious Stranger" who sculpted happy little clay people and then smashed them with godlike power.