Animated short film Oscar winner is also known for the breakthrough California Raisins ad campaign
Will Vinton, an Oscar-winning animator who invented Claymation, a style of stop-motion animation, and brought the California Raisins to TV, has died in Oregon. He was 70.
Citing a family statement, The Oregonian reported that Vinton died Thursday following a lengthy battle with multiple myeloma.
He won an Oscar in 1975 for the animated short film "Closed Mondays" then founded Vinton Studios in Portland the next year and went on to win three Emmys as a producer.
Stop-motion is a technique that requires animators to shoot puppets a single frame at a time, adjusting them slightly between frames to simulate movement. Claymation used putty or clay for a textured, somewhat cartoonish feel.
Vinton Studios was best known for the 1986 California Raisins ad campaign featuring Claymation raisins dancing to "I Heard It Through the Grapevine."
"He saw the world as an imaginative playground full of fantasy, joy, and character," Vinton's children wrote on his Facebook page.
Rose Bond, a professor at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, said Vinton single-handedly established the city's animation community.
"He put the city on the map as far as stop-motion in America," Bond said.
Vinton, with his distinctive handlebar mustache, was among the city's best-known artists.
Vinton Studios at its peak in the late 1990s employed 400 people with annual revenue of $28 million.
Vinton, however, acknowledged that the business was a financial mess and he sought out Oregon's richest man, Nike founder Phil Knight, for financial assistance.
Knight purchased a stake in the company for $5 million in 1998. He asked for monthly financial statements from Vinton and suggested the studio hire his son, Travis Knight, as an animator, the newspaper reported.
The company's financial woes continued, and Knight eventually seized control. In 2003, the studio laid off Vinton without severance. Knight renamed the studio and put his son in charge.
Vinton remained active after leaving the studio and taught at the Art Institute of Portland.
He is survived by his wife, three children and two sisters.
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Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More