I stumbled upon these wonderful old video clips of The Mike Wallace Interview from the late 50’s. So far I’ve watched interviews with Salvador Dali, Ayn Rand, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Sanger. But there are many more, including: Henry Kissinger, Pearl Buck, Aldous Huxley and Kirk Douglas.
Not only are the subjects of the interviews fascinating, but the videos themselves are incredible and a wonderful slice of history. I especially love the earlier videos where Mr. Wallace starts things off by saying, “ My name is Mike Wallace. The cigarette is ___________ (usually Philip Morris but sometimes Parliament).” After which he lights up and then launches into a promotion for the cigarette.
Below is his interview with Margaret Sanger, leader of the birth control movement and founder of Planned Parenthood. I think the sound is misaligned so you may want to click through on the link above. Or to view the full library of Mike Wallace interviews click here.
I was delighted to happen upon Keith Loutit’s videos last week. Keith is an Australian photographer and maker of short films, specializing in tilt-shift. Before this fortuitous stumble, I had never heard of tilt-shift. At first I thought his videos were created through hours of model manipulation using stop motion. Instead, tilt-shift uses focus distortion techniques to create a shallow depth of field, giving the illusion of miniatures.
I’m crazy about all of Keith’s video’s, but ultimately chose Bathtub IV to post because there are two parts that I’m simply infatuated with. Around time-marker 00:41, a fisherman falls into the water. The video soon cuts away, but returns again at 00:57 to show the miniature figure being thrust around by choppy waves and dragged out to sea. It’s captivating and a little terrifying once you realize that this was a real person (participating in a rescue training exercise). A few moments later, at time-marker 01:22, there is a stunning shot of a rescue helicopter floating backwards into the air and then stalling like a fat bumblebee surrounded by an atmospheric halo. Then suddenly, it zips over the water in a stealthy zig-zag.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
My next two favorite videos of his are The North Wind Blew South and Bathtub III. The North Wind is a beautiful and swaying video (coupled with a perfectly matched audio track), in which ocean tides and cloudy skies move in ever-changing directions. The Bathtub III pulses and vibrates, treating the ships in Sydney Harbor like oil on a hot skillet. Small figures lounge on a swimming platform, periodically jumping into the water and propelling themselves in frantic loops around the harbor. All of this to a track that samples the Knight Rider theme song. It’s kinda brilliant. I highly recommend watching them both.
If after this you’re still hungry for tilt-shift, you can purchase one of Keith’s still shots.
In the past month I’ve seen two films that have caused me to fall helplessly in love with stop motion animation. The first was a Sundance opener by Adam Elliott called Mary and Max.
Mary and Max is a hilariously written story about “friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, trust, copulating dogs, sexual and religious differences, agoraphobia, and more” (according to the film-makers). Max is voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mary by the Australian actress, Toni Collette.
The film was in production for 5 years. A crew of 50 people and 6 animators, were able to create about 2 1/2 minutes of animation a week. 133 sets and 475 miniature props (including a functional typewriter) were designed for the film. The team also constructed 212 clay puppets with 1026 mouths and 886 hands, to give the characters full expression. The list goes on and on and can be found in the “Behind the Scenes”->”Production Fakts” section on their site.
Mary and Max is a wonderful, insightful film and seems to me, a true accomplishment (although the quality of this trailer is pretty shoddy).
The second movie that tethered my heart to the craft of stop motion was Henry Selick’s 3-D film, Coraline, which is based on a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman (The Sandman).
There are very few moments in my adult life that I’ve been able to completely commit to my imagination. Coraline evoked feelings of wonder that I haven’t felt since watching Alice in Wonderland and The Never Ending Story, as a child.
Coraline employed around 450 crew members including 30 animators. A woman who specializes in knitting miniatures was hired to construct clothing for the tiny models. Each model had tiny flexible joints and interchangeable parts. Innumerable attachable parts were created, including 1000 different pairs of hands for the characters, as well as 38 hair pieces for Coraline alone.
The set was also made of interchangeable parts and spanned about 25 square feet. My favorite moments were spent in the other father’s garden, where the colors were highly saturated and everything moved with a life of its own. Nearly 1000 flower models were used to create the fantastic floral landscape. The night sky was fabricated by layering a dark blue backdrop in front of artificial lights to create an eerily realistic twinkling sky.
Coraline was filmed in both digital and 3-D. When interviewed, Selick credits digital for improving the process since shots could be viewed and deleted immediately if they weren’t quite right. He also admits to using CG, but only for a small number of the shots, including the mice circus and for some of the in-between face forms, to create more fluid expressions. Creating human-like expressions is one of the major challenges noted when constructing a stop motion film.
I found this cool clip that shows a small amount of the behind the scenes filming. Hopefully there’ll be a longer one when it comes out on DVD.
Mary and Max is a hilariously written story about “friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, trust, copulating dogs, sexual and religious differences, agoraphobia, and more” (according to the film-makers). Max is voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mary by the Australian actress, Toni Collette.
Battle Bunny 