Claydream , Marq Evans ’ Modern documentary aboutanimator Will Vinton , addresses the elephant in the room like a shot : yes , this is the guy who lost his company to his most deep - pocketed investor , Nikefounder Phil Knight . It ’s something that loom over the film , but it ’s not the only melancholy element that colors this portrait of Vinton ’s spirit and life history .
Made with the cooperation of Vinton himself , who died of Crab in 2018 but is interviewed extensively here , Claydream offer a optic history ofhis remarkable acquisition . Not only do we get a look at the progress of Vinton ’s oeuvre over the year ( from Closed Mondays , the Oscar - winning 1974 scant he create with Bob Gardiner , to his company ’s straightaway placeable commercial oeuvre from the ‘ 80s and ‘ 90s , including the California Raisins ) , we also get access to home movies , as well as firsthand account statement from friends , family phallus , and former coworkers . After actuate to filmmaking while at UC Berkeley in the sixties , Vinton ( who prized experiment and originative fulfilment above all else , and was unquestionably a bit of a hippie ) set up a small shop with his collaborators in Portland , Oregon , a location that maintain their productions purposely removed from the Hollywood simple machine — the same automobile he ’d end up pursuing years later , when Will Vinton Studios was at its efflorescence .
Most of Claydream keeps the focus on Vinton ’s work — again , this movie is a visual feast , pickle - packed with clips and other ephemera ( admit answering - machine messages from a California Raisins - obsessed Michael Jackson ) that illustrate the narration of Vinton ’s career every footprint of the way . But for all his succeeder , and for the admirable way he ricochet back from his periodic failures and missteps , he never achieved the heights of his idol , Walt Disney , whose life-time trajectory he emulate , down to plans for a never - pull in “ Claymation Station ” amusement park . Though he was well - liked as a person , not everyone he worked with is full of extolment ; there were number over the years of sharing recognition with the other animators who toiled on his projects , as well as some bad business decision that intend , for case , that Will Vinton Studios did n’t apportion in the licensing for the insanely merchantable California Raisins — and also that Vinton passed on sell his troupe to Pixar during its pre - Disney era . A contentious split with the troubled Gardiner soon after their deal Oscar win haunted Vinton until Gardiner ’s death in 2005 . But as Claydream amply illustrates , the Phil Knight slaughter terminate up being the crowing tragedy of Vinton ’s creative life .
Image: Oscilloscope Labs
Neither Knight nor his sonTravis Knightare question in Claydream ; we see them in deposit and archival footage only . Travis Knight , now a picture director known for the stop - motion featureKubo and the Two Stringsas well as the springy - natural action Transformers twisting - offBumblebee , do off particularly badly just on the basis of the fact exhibit : a failed knocker , he was charter at Will Vinton Studios after his father invested in it , where he developed his ( by all account ) true endowment and heat for animation . But there ’s no break away the “ nepotism sister ” aroma that envelops him in this context , specially when the documentary taper out that he became head of Will Vinton Studios — renamed Laika — after Vinton , who was ineffective to deliver his financially struggling company , was push out .
It ’s fat show - game stuff , for certain , but Vinton makes a compass point of turning what was obviously an incredibly devastating blow into something plus . count back several years after he fall behind his studio apartment , he sounds genuinely proud of its continued success , specifically in the way that Laika — which has since become a Hollywood ball of fire with acclaimed titles like Coraline , ParaNorman , The Boxtrolls , Missing Link , and Knight ’s Kubo — fetch stoppage - move to an ever - all-embracing audience while innovating on the graphics form . It could n’t have been easy for Vinton to make public security with the site , but Claydream sure as shooting makes it seem like he was able to . Perhaps , as in his former days as a counterculture vitaliser , it all came down to what really mattered : making an end product that was coolheaded as it could possibly be . Even if Vinton was n’t direct involved in any of Laika ’s rubric , his bequest lives on .
Claydream strike select theaters today , August 5 .
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