Pinocchio in Portland

It had been a while since I visited the Portland Art Museum. This was the last weekend of a special screening for us Portlanders; we got to see the sets, armatures and a full walkthrough of the movie production magic that became Pinocchio.

Every once in a while a magical film comes around. Groundbreaking animated features. First came Bambi , then Disney pushed new technology with Beauty and the Beast . Tim Burton with Nightmare Before Christmas showed the world that armature animation could be marketable. The animated feature that I think was the best of a blend of old school and new was Iron Giant . Well, there is a new innovative animated film to see, and that is “Pinocchio” .

I first came to Portland Oregon in 1989 from Aspen Colorado. While Aspen had its local characters, so did Portland. In Aspen it was artsy folks like Tom Benton , Lou Willie , and Judy Hill and in Portland it was folks like Will Vinton , Jim Blashfield and Joanna Priestley . At that time, Vinton was the main studio that everyone passed through with some sort of gig here and there.

Before I got to work at the studio I got to meet a few folks on the basketball court after work around 6 pm during the summer of 1991. Key players were Hal Hickel, now with ILM, who also worked with an old Aspen grade school friend Ivan DeWolf on “Pirates of the Caribbean” . Ivan is the kid on the cover of my book about growing up in Aspen during the 70’s and 80’s. I also got to meet some other Will Vinton studio masters like John Ashley, Chuck Duke and Mark Gustafson. These were all folks from my Gen that were the grease behind the studio projects.

On the court I got to meet Mark Gustafson who back in the indie day created the short film, Mr. Resistor , and now Pinocchio. Back then I had no idea where my fellow court players would end up. I must say I managed to catch Portland at just the right time of artsy independent quirk. I started my own studio Happy Trails Animation in 1991 here in Portland, Oregon. While I was building a studio and focusing on productions, my Colorado family time became the Telluride Film Festival when work permitted.

In 2001 I remember being very impressed with Guillermo del Toro’s festival film “Devil’s Backbone” , Telluride was premiering it that year. He had just come off of a big summer studio film “Blade” and wanted to do an artsy indie fun project. With this film I could see the crafter that was inside of Guillermo. With Mark Gustafson coming off of “Fantastic Mr. Fox” it was rumored his next project might possibly be a new version of Pinocchio. When I finally found out that it would be the super team duo of Mark and Guillermo I was excited to see what they would do.

Not only is the movie out on Netflix for all to view, but living in Portland which is where the main production house Shadow Machine resides and they created this amazing show. Not only were a lot of old Will Vinton Studio folks working on this project but a load of new folks came to town as well. The best part is the studio had a private local screening at the Portland Art Museum of puppets, sets and all kinds of behind the scenes material. I am not sure if they are planning to travel the show but I felt like it was so impressive that I wanted to share some of the images from the show.

What I noticed by going through the exhibit is how much animation has changed in the last few decades. Back in the day everything was clay, and fingerprints became an issue unless you worked at Aardman in the UK. The studios soon took to 3D printing multiple replacement elements; mouths, eyes, entire head expressions, even the fabric back then was made out of clay but are now perfect miniature outfits sewn by seamstresses. However the one thing that did not change too much were the cool sets designed for animated puppets.

What I loved about this new version was how Guillermo’s grittiness worked so well with this story. The original Pinocchio was a story about a man who wanted a child and created one with the backdrop of Mussolini and Italian politics of the time. Disney was too timid to play with the subtle messages and stood on just the basic story. What I like about this Mark and Guillermo version is that it’s not afraid of any topic, in fact the design, styles and color palettes were based around that era and modeled after all that old propaganda art. This film is a true art film in that it was crafted to resemble a specific time and place and watching all these puppets come to life is just magical. This was a huge team and included a few studios in other countries; it was a real united front that pulled this magic off.

Watching Mark grow from those early California Raisin days to now has been a blast. I remember sharing the stage at Mill Valley Film Festival with him. Mark was there with “Joe Blow” and my wife and I were there with our tribute to Edward Gorey, “Winter” . If I remember correctly Mark had a few great 3 pointers on the court but this film is Michael Jordan level. This is definitely not your “Care Bears” type of movie and the messages and how it all unfolds is amazing.

If you have not seen Pinocchio, go see it now!