Who originated clay animation?
Many people think that Will Vinton was the inventor of clay animation. He first used clay in the 1970’s short film “Closed Mondays” and later registered the name “Claymation”. But clay had been an animation medium for decades. It appears that one of the very first animators to use clay as an animation medium was Willis O’Brien, creator of King Kong. The following excerpt is from CINEFEX magazine number 7, page 9 “Determined to follow through on his idea, O’Brien engaged the assistance of a newsreel photographer and set out to shoot a brief one minute test film atop the Bank of Italy building in downtown San Francisco. First he fashioned miniature dinosaur and caveman from modeling clay shaped over crude wooden skeletons and then placed the figures in a makeshift setting fabricated from small bits of rock. His prehistoric diorama thus prepared, Willis set up the camera and exposed a single frame of film. Then he moved the dinosaur and caveman slightly and exposed another frame. The move
