Mike Jittlov
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Mike Jittlov (born June 8, 1948) is the creator of many inventive short films and one feature length movie using many forms of special effects animation, including stop-motion animation, rotoscoping, and pixilation. The Wizard of Speed and Time feature-length film, released to theaters in 1987 and to video in 1989 and based on his 1979 short film of the same name, is his best-known work.
Jittlov has been called a "wizard" since age 12, when he impressed audiences of professional magicians with his original illusions. Though listed in Who's Who, Jittlov's range of jobs, hobbies and eccentricities would probably better qualify him a listing in Ripley's Believe It Or Not.
A Los Angeles native with an impish humor, Jittlov allegedly was once responsible for half the UFOs seen over the city (and perhaps attracted the other half), while working weekends at Hollywood Wax Museum as a mechanical Grim Reaper. He has hitchhiked across the U.S. with a giant hand on a stick, then across Europe for three months on $500 - thus preparing him for the frugal, and sometimes lonely life of an independent filmmaker.
While a math-language major at UCLA, Jittlov took an animation course to satisfy his art requirement. Having made a super-8 mm film, THE LEAP (enlarged to 16mm to participate various film festivals in the early 70s), the 16mm film made for the UCLA class, Good Grief, was entered by them into Academy Awards competition, and made it to the professional finals for nomination, the first of several of his short films to do so. After that, Jittlov bought his own a 16mm movie camera, designed his own multi-plane animation system for $200, and began a career as a professional dream-spinner.
Some of his other original film shorts, including The Interview, Swing Shift, Animato, and Time Tripper (released separately and as a collection called Animato) won many top awards and repeat film festival screenings, bringing him to the attention of The Walt Disney Studio. In 1978, Jittlov co-starred on Disney's two-hour TV extravaganza, Mickey's 50th, with the short film Mouse Mania, creating and animating the first stop-motion Mickey Mouse, along with 1,000 other Disney toys marching around a psychiatrist's office. The short is now featured on the Disney DVD Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Volume Two. In late 1979, he co-starred again on Disney's Major Effects television special - this time introducing the world to the 500mph Green "Wizard of Speed and Time" via the short film version. With an improved soundtrack, the short was released to 16mm film collectors in 1980, along with four of his other short films.
Jittlov also created the inaugural short film played on the cable TV Disney Channel. It featured an animated satellite shaped like Mickey Mouse's head, which was later reproduced for the special features of the DVD version of Disney's 1937 film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The Mickey Satellite film played to park-goers waiting in line at Space Mountain for years, and is still shown to Walt Disney Parks and Resorts employees during orientation. The prop was also used in a scene in The Wizard of Speed and Time.
After working as Producer, Director, Writer, Editor, Actor, and Key Shlep on the feature version of The Wizard of Speed and Time (as well as nearly 125 other jobs, in tandem with a regular film crew, and a handful of long-time loyal friends), Mike Jittlov claims to have finally gotten filmmaking out of his system. This claim is somewhat belied by his subsequent work as a special effects technician on the movie Ghost and in fan films including Darth Vader's Psychic Hotline.
Jittlov distinguishes himself in terms of appearance at science fiction conventions by wearing his traditional green jacket and green shoes like the ones seen in The Wizard of Speed and Time. He was an early Internet user, with his own website, and frequent poster to his own Usenet group, alt.fan.mike-jittlov. He is also a prolific practitioner of origami.
[edit] Quotes
- "I was always available, very affordable, and I'd do everything the director wanted me to." (Jittlov on acting in his own films)
- "Finales are always memorable because they're at the end of a movie, and everyone knows they can leave soon."
- "He is, I think, a genius." (Regis Philbin, speaking about Jittlov on his early L.A. talk show.)
- "A superb creative film making talent equal to the best misunderstood and mistreated film talents of the past, including Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Orson Welles. His stunningly excellent work should be seen by EVERY aspiring AND established filmmaker, as well any anyone with any sense of fun and joy for life." (Dan Fiebiger - Writer - Cinefantastique Magazine.)
