By Lucas Wright, Hoodline.com
Portland is set to recognize its first annual day honoring Will Vinton, the animator whose clay characters put the city on the map for stop-motion filmmaking, with Mayor Keith Wilson proclaiming Tuesday, Nov. 17 Will, Vinton Day.
Two days earlier, the Museum of Stop Motion Animation is throwing a free public celebration at McMenamins Mission Theater, complete with original puppets, vintage equipment and screenings of the Portland animator's award-winning short films.
According to the Museum of Stop Motion Animation, “On Nov. 17, Portland will recognize its first annual day honoring the life and legacy of Will Vinton as proclaimed by Mayor Keith Wilson.”
The museum, a nonprofit founded in 2022 by president Brian Capati, says it is working toward establishing a permanent stop-motion museum in the city. Capati discussed Vinton's work in Portland and the city's animation history on KOIN's AM Extra, according to a KOIN.com report.
A celebration party at McMenamins Mission Theater will feature displays of pioneering stop-motion equipment from Will Vinton Studios alongside screenings of Vinton's award-winning short films.
Event listings disagree on the exact hours: EverOut Portland lists the gathering for 2-5 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 15, while the museum's own site lists 3-6 p.m. the same day. The event is free and open to the public, with pioneering equipment from Will Vinton Studios, screenings of his awardwinning short films, and discussion of his impact.
The man behind the legacy
Vinton moved to Portland in 1970 after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, according to the Oregon Encyclopedia. He founded Will Vinton Production in the the Northwest District in 1975, later incorporating it as Will Vinton Studios in 1984.
Vinton and Bob Gardiner launched “Closed Mondays” in 1973. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1975. Per Portland Monthly, it was the first stop-motion film to win an Oscar and remains the only film produced in Portland to do so. Vinton died in Portland in 2018.
Still shaping the craft
The museum describes Portland as widely considered an international epicenter of stop-motion animation, a reputation built in part on studios like LAIKA continuing the craft Vinton helped establish. A 2020 Portland Monthly article reported that three stopmotion feature films were once in production in the city simultaneously, a feat Laika animation supervisor Brad Schiff called unprecedented, saying, “Three feature films in production at the same time in the same city has never happened before. Not anywhere.”
That tradition continues with LAIKA's “Wildwood,” which opened in theaters on Oct. 23 and had earned about $32 million at the domestic box office in the first two weeks. OPB described it as LAIKA's longest film to date, running 2 hours and 12 minutes, and as the longest stop-motion animated film ever released.
The production team recreated real Portland landmarks — including Powell's City of Books, the St. Johns Bridge and Voodoo Doughnuts — as large-scale sets for the film. “Wildwood” is based on the 2011 fantasy novel of the same name by Colin Meloy, illustrated by Carson Ellis, and is set in forests bordering Portland, according to Smithsonian Magazine.