Portland represents at the Oscars once again this year. Last year we sent two directors: Gus Van Sant for Milk and Irene Taylor Brodsky for The Final Inch. This year we sent animators- lots of them. Coraline employed a small nation state of caffeine fueled Portland obsessives. As it happens, both Coraline and one of its competitors, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, showcase the stop motion work of graduates of Will Vinton Studios.

Top Photo: Travis Knight, lead animator on Coraline. Bottom photo: Mark Gustafson, working on The PJ’s at Will Vinton Studio. Gustafson is the animation director on The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Gee…..thanks, Will!

This post brought to you by the Oregon Cartoon Institute.

Cameron obviously intends Avatar to be a critique, however broad and simplistic, of American money and militarism—after all, his hero is an embittered veteran insurgent. But it’s hard to entertain seriously the proposition that the Most Expensive Movie Ever is on the side of the underdogs, let alone the angels. When judged against scrappier pictures like Fantastic Mr. Fox and Coraline, and their respective modest budgets, Avatar more closely resembles the unsavory, disproportionate strategies of Michael Bloomberg, our billionaire mayor who recently bought his own re-election, another king of the world. Benjamin Strong, in The L Magazine

When Benjamin Strong isn’t using James Cameron’s latest film to address the need for campaign finance reform in New York City,  he uses it to discuss CGI vs stop motion.

It’s worth noting, though, that 2009 has seen not one but two outstanding animated films—Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox and Henry Selick’s Coraline—both of which were made with stop motion, a technology that’s supposedly obsolete, at least as compared to what Cameron is doing. These two films—Fantastic Mr. Fox, in particular—have natural, fully immersive settings, material worlds that appear as if they were handmade in actual three-dimensional space (and not on a computer) for the reason that they were. Benjamin Strong, in The L Magazine

Thanks for the shout out, Benjamin! Readers of Oregon Movies A to Z instantly recognize that both the “scrappier” pictures he cites were made by animators – Travis Knight and Henry Selick for Coraline, and Mark Gustafson for  Fantastic Mr. Fox — who originally worked for Oregon born and raised Will Vinton, the godfather of feature length stop motion animation.

Oregon’s contribution to Avatar, however, is on the live action side of the equation.

Kristi Turnquist, an honorary research associate of Oregon Movies, A to Z, broke the big story: Joel David Moore, the actor who plays scientist Norm Spellman in Avatar, is from Portland.

That’s Moore, catching flies, to the right of Sigourney Weaver.

Avatar is James Cameron’s second Oregon film, after Point Break, which he executive produced.

Anyone seen this film?

I hereby claim Avatar as an Oregon film, on the basis of Oregonian Joel David Moore’s presence in the cast.

Whatever the mysterious forces are which bring Oregonians to animation success, they were especially powerful in the mid-1980’s, when Will Vinton made the first feature length Claymation film in Portland. The following year, Matt Groening debuted The Simpsons and Brad Bird debuted Family Dog, both on network television, and Bill Plympton, working in NYC, was nominated for an Oscar for Your Face.

All four men are animation geniuses. If you are unsure that a successful advertising man like Will Vinton belongs in this group, see The Adventures of Mark Twain to appreciate just how miraculously odd he is as an artist.

If you remain skeptical of the size of Vinton’s contribution to American film, just watch the credits. Count the names who went on to other things — animator Mark Gustafson (The Fantastic Mr. Fox) and sound editor (now a director) Kelley Baker are just two.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It was Vinton who modeled the passionate engagement with technique which paved the way for Coraline.

I hereby claim The Adventures of Mark Twain as an Oregon film, based on many qualifying factors. It was made at the Will Vinton Studios in Northwest Portland, and written, directed, produced, animated — you name it— by Oregonians.

This post brought to you by the Oregon Cartoon Institute.

Kristi Turnquist adds some more names to the “What would Wes Anderson do without Portland?” list.

FOXY PORTLAND TALENT
Wes Anderson’s animated feature, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is getting some of the best reviews of the year. No surprise, then, to see the names of talent with Portland roots showing up on the crew list. Among them: animation director Mark Gustafson, a longtime luminary at Will Vinton Studios; production designer Nelson Lowry, who worked on the Vinton studio-animated series, “The PJs”; and animator Brad Schiff, who worked on “Coraline,” from Laika studio.

To clarify: All three above named Oregon exports worked on the television series “The PJs” , made here in Portland.