Final Farewells • Mark Gustafson, Animator

RIP - he did plenty of work, starting with the California Raisins, eventually ending with the Oscar for Del Toro's Pinocchio.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235813498/

Mark Gustafson, Stop-Motion Veteran and Oscar Winner for ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,’ Dies at 64


He also worked on the California Raisins characters and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr. Fox.'

Mark Gustafson, the stop-motion specialist who won an Oscar this year for his work on Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, died Thursday. He was 64.

Del Toro announced the news Friday on social media, posting: “I admired Mark Gustafson, even before I met him. A pillar of stop motion animation — a true artist. A compassionate, sensitive and mordantly witty man. A Legend — and a friend that inspired and gave hope to all around him. … Today we honor and miss him.”

The Oregonian newspaper also reported his death.

Gustafson also worked on the stop-motion California Raisins characters early in his career and served as animation director on Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), another Oscar-nominated stop-motion film.

When del Toro took on the task of retelling Carlo Collodi’s 1883 fable about a wooden puppet who longs to be a real boy, he tapped Gustafson as his directing partner. The duo also earned BAFTA and Annie awards, among other accolades, for the Netflix release.

His long career in stop motion began in the 1980s at Will Vinton Studios in Portland, Oregon, on the California Raisins — the stop-motion group of singing and dancing raisins that became wildly popular after they appeared in a California Raisin Advisory Board commercial singing, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

He also served as an animator on Planters’ Mr. Peanut campaign.

His work included The PJs, a series co-created by Eddie Murphy and set in an inner-city housing project. Gustafson won a 1999 Annie for directing a “Bougie Nights” episode and earned one of his four Emmy nominations for the series.

He won an Emmy for the 1992 special Claymation Easter, a comedy about the kidnapping of the Easter Bunny that he directed and co-wrote. He also wrote and directed the 1994 animated short Mr. Resistor.

Del Toro said Gustafson “leaves behind a titanic legacy of animation that goes back to the very origins of Claymation and that shaped the career and craft of countless animators.”

Accepting the Oscar on stage at the Dolby Theatre in March, Gustafson said, “It’s so good to know this art form that we love so much, stop motion, is very much alive and well.”

Here is his Mr. Resistor short:
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And the Raisins!
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statistics: Posted by Dr Acula — 4:25 PM - 1 day ago — Replies 3 — Views 289

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