Friday, February 18, 2011

THE WAR - clay animation from 1982

Back in '82 and '83 my cousin David, my brother Kevin and I made several animated clay movies using a Super-8 film camera. Even though we were frustrated with all the film scratches and washed out colors we couldn't figure out how to make it any better with the equipment we had at the time. It's funny because nowadays professional movie studios pay big bucks to artificially reproduce this scratchy film look.

We made this film one Sunday afternoon after church. Even though it's less than a minute long, we probably spent five or six hours making it. From the all the blood and violence it doesn't appear we learned too much in Sunday School that day.



The animation in this video was by my cousin David and me. The music was recorded by my brother Kevin and me.

We kept making movies up until the day the $50 bulb in the lamp burned out. Since we only got $1 allowance each week (and usually I'd lose mine as a punishment for something) we never replaced the bulb, and the filming ended.

8 comments:

  1. Very impressive for a 6-hour shoot. I really loved your BOOM TUBE that transported the evil horde into the fray.

    What's with the eerie headless dog at the end ? Was he rescued from the Human Centipede's House ?

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  2. hahah! its awesome! too bad your bulb burnt out would love to see some more. i love the soundtrack too so cool!

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  3. Lysedxicuss
    Thanks! I don't remember why we did that to the dog. There was a dog, and there was a sock in the vicinity. We were two sinister kids who encouraged each other to be evil. It just adds up.

    Brad,
    Thanks sir! It does seem like it would be fun again. Now with digital cameras you don't need to go out and buy some expensive bulb. The only thing preventing me now is laziness.

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  4. Love the music!!!!! So wonderfully wonky and weird in the best way possible.

    The animation was fun as well....is there anymore we haven't seen?

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  5. Willy thanks! There are some more animated things. As I dig them out I'll get them posted.

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  6. that soundtrack is pretty rad Keith!
    I love when they pick up the butter knifes as instruments of warfare.. And Art Clokey would be proud of the way the clay spelled out The End!
    I envy you, me and my pal had to use a much inferior 8mm Bell & Howell...we longed for Super 8 :)

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  7. R/E
    We started with 8mm and it was trickier. You had to load it in the dark so you didn't expose the film. Super-8 was a lot easier with that cartridge system. I got my Super-8 camera at a yard sale for about $8. It had built in fades and other gizmos. I still have it but I can't get film at K-Mart anymore. I remember a roll of 50 feet was under $10, and developing was under $2. Cheap, but I only got $1 allowance. I had to save for a while, or sell something for cash.

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  8. That's pretty dman good for working with Super 8. Really smooth. That sounmdtrack was perfect. Really greasy, slinky guitar. Reminds me of the garage bands playing in the 60s.

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