Will Vinton Leaves Studio

Just last night TikiMaxton was explaining to me how Will Vinton Studios had shrunk from 400 employees to 40. Today, the Portland newspaper reports that Vinton himself has left the company. Kinda sad.

That is sad. I'm a big fan of dimensional animation and think the PJ's was one of the best shows during it's brief run. I'd love to get those episodes on DVD - anyone know if they will ever be available?

Will's departure was long in the making. The studio will likely NOT be doing much (if any) dimensional animation again - it's too expensive and time consuming. The bean counters believe in computer animation as the key to the studio's survival, so clay and foam are out...

Sorry to hear that.

I met Vinton at some industry event back in 1980 or '81. I was an animator at the time, working with the now gone Filmation Associates. I never did claymation, being mostly a cartoonist, but really appreciated his talent.

Soon after, I left the animation biz to go into special effects work. Never have gone back to the cartoon stuff. Life goes on. I wish him luck in whatever he pursues next.

Carpe diem...

Squaker, funny - I went the opposite direction, from fx (Boss, Dreamquest) to animation (PDI, Pixar). Small world. Will is indeed a nice guy, but probably something of a dinosaur in the biz. I think he'll do just fine, though. I should give him a call...

Interesting...

I left Filmation just when the industry got clobbered with two disastrous Cartoonist Union strikes (didn't help any of us) and Filmation then launched into "Masters of the Universe". I couldn't stand the thought of working on that (yeah, I know it was popular). I was offered effects work over at Universal Hartland. You were over at Dreamquest? I did a little work for them during "The Abyss", while I was working for Brick Price.

I sometimes do full size effects work for live theater, but mostly am a magazine writer and, more recently, novelist.

Small world, indeed...

Squawker, I joined DQ when they did The Crow. My work with them was almost exclusively in the digital field, though I was a liaison with the model/motion control shop when their stuff came over to be matted and comped. Same at Boss. I miss all the big models and miniature sets...