The Milpitas Monster was produced in the early 1970’s by the community of of Milpitas, California, and directed by Samuel Ayer High School photography teacher Robert Burrill. The result is a one-of-a-kind of cinéma vérité monster flick that oozes entertainment. The roles of the Mayor, the city council, the police and file departments, the garbage collectors, and the High School students and faculty are enthusiastically played by themselves.
The monster, spawned by pollution, terrorizes the city of Milpitas by stealing its garbage cans. The Milpitas Monster’s environmental message addressed the booming populations of nearby Silicon Valley communities, whose nearby landfills gave Milpitas a smelly reputation.
Kozy Kitchen restaurant miniature built by Duane Walz
The competent miniatures (including a particularly fine miniature of the Kozy Kitchen restaurant) and the monster suit were constructed by students and parents from Samuel Ayer High School. Stephen Wathen contributed polished character animation with his stop-motion effects of the monster.
The Odorola portable monster detector
I’m impressed with the talent and enthusiasm behind this 16mm amateur production. The bizarre tale of garbage, teenage “hoodlums,” George the loveable homeless alcoholic widower, and a 50-foot tall monster is just too charming to criticize. And everyone looks like they’re having a great time.
KTVU channel 2 Creature Features horror host Bob Wilkins in his cameo appearance as monster expert Dr. Lindford of the U.S. Pollution Control Board
BlueSpill’s server logs show a lot of people searching for Flesh Gordon, so here’s another clip to compliment Jim Dansforth’s masterful Beetle Man sword fight: Flesh Gordon’s final stop-motion sequence, featuring the Great God Porno (also known as the Nesuahyrrah).
Like the Beetle Man swordfight, the armature for the Nesuahyrrah came from Pete Peterson, who built it for his test reel The Las Vegas Monster.
The Great God Porno is among the most inventive stop-motion characters from feature films of the era. Not just a lumbering monster, he’s one of the few stop-motion actors with dialogue and a distinct personality. That Flesh Gordon is an X-rated sex romp makes the talent that went into animating the Great God Porno even more remarkable.
The Great God Porno is never actually called “Nesuahyrrah” in the film, although it’s often refered to by that name in books. If anyone knows the story, I’m curious to learn where the nickname originated (but I do know what it means — just spell it backwards).
I originally posted the scene complete and unedited, but someone at YouTube actually found it offensive and yanked it. This edited version should prevent damage to impressionable minds.
When I was twelve, the cover story of CineMagic #23 teased me with photos of an extraordinary mechanical animation rig synchronized to an Apple IIe home computer. Tron was already in theaters, and I had healthy interests in computers AND animation. But, poring over the article’s black & white reproductions, I struggled to imagine the two technologies merged.
I immediately recognized the clip when BoingBoing linked to Jim Leatham’s recent YouTube post. It looks better than I imagined – colorful, energetic, and considerably more sophisticated than I expected from an Apple II. Jim also posted scans of the original CineMagic article on Flickr.
The setup to film the computer animation is a remarkable DIY marriage of an 8-bit microcomputer and 16mm stop-motion animation. These photos, scanned from my well-read copy, illustrate the mechanical genius of Jim’s rig. It consists of a 16mm Bolex camera, an electric motor, photodetectors, a 45 rpm single, a 33 1/3 rpm LP, and an external black & white computer monitor. It’s set up in a closet eliminate ambient light; the board games are a nice touch.
An Apple IIe can’t display graphics fast enough to make a movie — such power came only recently to PCs. As Jim Leatham relates in the video’s voiceover, each frame, stored on floppy disks, took about 2 minutes to render on screen. Jim’s computer synchronized the camera, color wheel, and monitor to photograph each individual frame, and the rich color palette was expanded by multiple exposures. The result is a vibrant and fluid abstract animation.
Bolex 16mm camera
Electric motor, connected with a chain drive to the camera’s shutter mechanism and a 45rpm record. The computer sends a signal to the motor, which opens the shutter and rotates the 45rpm record.
Stickers attached to the 45rpm record act as sensors for a photocell. The stickers are oriented so that, when a sticker is detected, a signal is sent to the computer that the shutter is closed. The computer stops the motor.
33 1/3 LP. Holes cut in the LP are covered with color filters. A motor, controlled by the computer, rotates the LP until the correct color filter is in front of the lens. Stickers along the edge of the LP, like the 45, are used by a photosensor to detect when the filter is in position and sends a signal to the computer to stop the motor.
A 9″ white-phosphor monochrome monitor displays the animation frame to be photographed. Multiple exposures are made for frames with more than one color. The entire setup is synchronized and computer controlled.
Marshall, Will and Holly get up close & personal with stop-motion dinosaurs in the ambitious 1974-1976 kid’s TV series Land of the Lost, thanks to an ingenious video compositing technique.
The sheer volume of dinosaurs that crowd episodes of Land of the Lost is impressive, considering the expense of stop-motion effects at the time. Unprecedented is the tight interaction between actors and dinosaurs. In many episodes, dinosaurs and actors mingle and even physically interact with each other.
The technical challenges of economically animating dinosaur effects for a low-budget weekly children’s TV series were solved with a unique marriage of chroma-key video compositing and filmed stop-motion animation. In the early 1970’s, the techniques of mixing dinosaurs and actors on the same screen were well established. The most common techniques included rear-projection (like Ray Harryhausen’s Dynamation technique, where puppets were animated in front of a translucent screen), or mattes pulled from a bluescreen background (sometimes it was green, or even magenta). These film-based techniques were highly refined, but required detailed planning and time-consuming execution that wasn’t practical for a weekly television series.
This production photo of Phil Tippet animating an ED-209 puppet for the 1987 movie Robocop illustrates a traditional rear projection setup. The stop-motion puppet is placed in front a translucent screen. Projected behind the screen is previously shot background film with actors. The rear projection is incrementally advanced for each frame shot. For budgetary and schedule reasons, techniques like this weren’t suitable for Land of the Lost.
For traditional stop-motion composites, actors are filmed first, pantomiming their reactions to unseen creatures. Land of the Lost’s chroma-key mattes turned this process upside down. Uniquely, the animation was completed first, on film. Later, the show’s actors were videotaped in front of a bluescreen, and directed to respond to the existing animated footage. On a video editor, a chroma key filter extracted the actors from the blue background, replacing it with the footage animated on film. Gene Warren, Jr. (now at Fantasy II Film Effects), who with his father Gene Warren Sr., Harry Walton and Pete Kleinow animated the dinosaurs in the series, reflected on this technique in Filmfax magazine #114:
We did the effects before the live-action was shot. It never had been done that way, and it probably hasn’t been done since. To do the video compositing it had to be done backwards… The characters had to match what the dinosaurs did. It was a hellof a lot of work, but also a lot of fun, and creative.
Chroma-key, still common in television production (TV news weather forecasters are chroma-keyed in front of weather maps) is explained on Wikipedia.
The chroma-key matte technique proved fast and flexible, and permitted a wide variety of camera setups. Vast landscapes shot from many angles, including many high-angle shots that would be too costly to shoot on full-size sets, are common in Land of the Lost. But chroma-key mattes weren’t without problems. The integration of the actors with the miniature sets isn’t entirely convincing; actors don’t cast shadows, and the limitations of video resolution surrounded them in a (ahem) bluespill halo. A significant technical hurdle was synchronizing the 24 frames per second film footage with video running at about 30 frames per second, which causes some interlaced ghosting between frames on the animated footage. And since video resolution is significantly lower than that of film, it was unsuitable for use in cinema. Nevertheless, Land of the Lost remains visually distinctive thanks to chroma mattes.
Technical achievements aside, Land of the Lost’s character animation is competent. The dinosaurs are distinct characters (with names like Grumpy, Dopey, and Torchy), not merely decorations. Gene Warren Sr.’s Excelsior Animated Moving Pictures studio, best known for its work in television commercials, carried out the show’s special effects, with animation by Harry Walton, Pete Kleinow, and Gene Warren, Jr. Wah Chang designed the dinosaurs, injecting a fantasy element common to his designs (the dinosaur’s long, narrow necks and oversized heads are distinctly Chang). Hand puppets were used for close-ups and physical contact between human and dino, shown at 0:04 and 0:53 in the video.
As a boy, this show terrified me. Excelsior’s dinosaurs and their chroma-key matte technique, in spite of its visual limitations, was clearly effective enough to terrify small children. Today, Land of the Lost retains a visual style that’s all its own.
I can’t get enough of King Kong. I even watch the monkey suit movies. But the “real” King Kong is stop-motion, the breath of life that gave Kong his powerful personality in 1933.
In 1972, David Allen animated this legendary Kong sequence for a Volkswagen commercial. And he nailed it.
Kong stands atop the Empire State Building, exactly where he belongs. Kong looks beautiful. The face is that of the Kong I love, the doll-sized 1933 version, and he’s as ferocious and innocent as I remember. And it’s in color!
The collected stop-motion animation sequences from Sam Newfield’s 1951 feature Lost Continent. Edward Nassour was the animation supervisor on this film, and may have animated some of the sequences himself – there isn’t much information published about the making of this film. As far as I know, this is one of two stop-motion features with Edward Nassour’s involvement (the other is The Beast from Hollow Mountain, from 1956).
In Lost Continent, a group of scientists and military men voyage to a mysterious plateau in search of a lost rocket, where they discover a lost world teeming with dinosaurs. The plateau scenes are tinted green to emphasize the eerie prehistoric jungle, and perhaps to mask some seams. Lost Continent enjoys a terrific cast, including Cesar Romero, Hugh Beaumont, and Acquanetta.
The dinosaur effects in this 1951 feature are strictly tabletop animation – the stop-motion puppets are shot in front of a painted backdrop with miniature set pieces. I don’t think there’s a single rear-projection setup or matte in the picture. The arthritic inflexibility of the Triceratops in battle (3:00) makes me wonder how the dinosaur models were built. Too much sponge in the body, perhaps? On the tabletop diorama, they look like toys.
The scene of the charging Brontosaurus at 0:41 in the clip echoes the vastly superior Stegosaurus charge in King Kong, as does the hapless explorer stuck in a tree.
There’s nothing impressive about these dinosaur effects, but they’re interesting in context with Ed Nassour’s next stop-motion project, the much more ambitious The Beast from Hollow Mountain.
Go ahead and watch the whole movie. The story is silly and entertaining, and a bit of titillation is good for your soul.
A highlight of Flesh Gordon is the beetleman sword fight sequence, animated by Jim Danforth. You’ll recognize the character design from Pete Peterson’s bettlemen test reel. Danforth restored and upgraded one of Peterson’s stop-motion puppets, and it shines in Flesh Gordon (literally – it’s painted gold). His masterful animation of the sword fight outdoes even the sword-fighting skeleton from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. I’m particularly impressed by the miniature staircase, which is more convincing than the corny plaster rocks that decorate the live-action set.
When I was eighteen I rented this movie from Captain Video on Market near Castro. I dubbed it onto a Betamax tape and (mostly) ignored everything except this scene.
Here’s another fantastic clip from Pete Peterson’s personal projects. This clip was discovered, along with The Las Vegas Monster, in a trunk from his former residence. Pete Peterson died in the 1960’s, before his work found much appreciation.
In his story for the film, the beetlemen are humans who mutated while hibernating in suspended animation.
Behind the scratches and damage to this short length of color footage lies an atmospheric scene that exceeds its simple concept. A lesser animator might approach this demo as a straightforward walk cycle, but Peterson evokes tremendous personality from each beetle-man. His long, evenly-paced style applies perfectly to the skulking mutants, and makes the appearance of an entire horde of bettlemen even more startling. This is a superior example of character animation.
Pete Peterson must have built several articulated puppets to support the multitude of characters in this short film. How many? I imagine that, when a puppet exited the frame to the left, Peterson immediately repositioned it to re-enter the frame from the right. I don’t believe it’s likely that Peterson optically composited puppets to create a crowd, especially considering that this is color film. Nevertheless I count four bettlemen on screen thirty seconds into the clip. I don’t know if Pete Peterson had assistance machining and skinning the armatures, but manufacturing four detailed, highly articulate stop-motion puppets is its own accomplishment.
At least one beetleman stop-motion puppet saw life in a feature film. A sword-fighting beetleman, animated by Jim Danforth, makes a strong impression in the 1972 feature Flesh Gordon.
The story: An American in rancher, investigating the disappearance of his cattle, discovers a prehistoric tyrannosaurus — the Beast of Hollow Mountain. Eventually the Beast appears, in an extended (over 10 minutes) dinosaur battle at the end of the film, until it’s dispatched by quicksand. Fortunately the story about the stop-motion dinosaur is much more interesting than the movie plot.
Willis O’Brien sold the story for The Beast from Hollow Mountain to producer/director Edward Nassour, but wasn’t involved with the animation. The similarities between The Beast from Hollow Mountain and another, unfilmed O’Brien project, Gwangi (later adapted by Ray Harryhausen as 1969’s The Valley of Gwangi) are obvious. Both concern American cowboys in Mexico who battle a carnivorous dinosaur that the locals interpret as a curse. I can’t help but think that this would have been a better film with more of Willis O’Brien’s involvement. Compare The Beast from Hollow Mountain to another low-budget O’Brien effort, The Black Scorpion, which conveys his aptitude for deep, detailed miniature sets, moody lighting, and creepy monsters in spite of its budgetary shortcomings. O’Brien’s active hand is apparent in The Black Scorpion, a quality that’s missing in The Beast from Hollow Mountain.
The actual animation on this picture was completed by Jack Rabin and Louis DeWitt, and supervised by Edward Nassour. Nassour’s worked on two stop-motion pictures (Lost Continent is another Nassour production with stop-motion dinosaurs), and he seems to have had a passion for the technique.
Nassour’s patented “Regiscope” process is what gives the film its visual interest. Regiscope doesn’t appear to be anything more than replacement animation – animation with multiple, rigid models instead of one articulated puppet – but Nassour marketed it as some kind of animation revolution, and it’s used extensively in The Beast from Hollow Mountain. Replacement animation is best suited for repetitive motions like walk cycles, and as a result the tyrannosaurus does a lot of walking across the screen. Other actions were animated with a less-convincing stop-motion puppet.
Producing the effects in color and CinemaScope was an ambitious decision. It’s not surprising that many of the process shots suffer from poor focus and color shifts. The Beast from Hollow Mountain is actually the first feature film in color and widescreen to feature stop-motion composites. A superior example of composites on the color stock available in the 1950’s is The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
The most successful shot, and my favorite scene, runs from 6:45 to 6:57 in this clip. It’s a rough but effective sequence that uses both the stop-motion and Regiscope techniques. The tyrannosaurus slides controlled down a steep embankment (stop-motion), falls and rights itself (stop-motion), finally sprinting forward (replacement animation). In spite of the inconsistent motion, I think it’s the most inspired part of the movie.
Edward Nassour doesn’t get much credit for his contributions to stop-motion special effects. This clip may represent his greatest work.
Pete Peterson’s stop-motion animation is greatly underappreciated today. As Willis O’Brien’s production assistant, he was responsible for memorable scenes in Mighty Joe Young, The Black Scorpion, and Behemoth the Sea Monster. The grace of his animations contrasts with the crippling arthritis he developed at the peak of his career. Peterson valiantly worked through his physical pain on the animation set, even while bound to a wheelchair.
The Las Vegas Monster is a test reel created by Pete Peterson for an unrealized motion picture. You’ll recognize the set and low-key lighting from The Black Scorpion. Peterson designed the monster and built the armature. Years later, the monster’s armature became the backbone for the Great God Porno (sometimes called the Nesuahyrrh) in the 1972 feature Flesh Gordon.
The monster – a mutated baboon – creeps along with a four-limbed simian gait that’s a refreshing change from King Kong’s, and the articulated feelers protruding out the nose are effectively bizarre. (They also sell the concept of the monster’s body reacting physically as it swings its body around, particularly at the end of the clip.) I’m also impressed with the monster’s extended pitch when hurling objects – it’s a motion that can’t be achieved by an actor in costume.
This clip’s pace seems slow to me. In contemporary animation, shots of the monster hurling cars and boulders would be photographed in just a few frames for more energetic actiont. But the pacing works with the long duration of each animation cut. This 2:19 clip is made up of only eight cuts (excluding the actor who briefly sticks his head out a door), and the longest is an astonishing 52 seconds, approximately 1,248 frames. Peterson must have been gifted with intense patience and memory.
The Las Vegas Monster demonstrates Pete Peterson’s innate talent for stop-motion animation, and I want to learn more.
