Gumbasia

Gumbasia

Gumbasia, the first stop-motion clay animation film by Art Clokey
Directed by Art Clokey
Produced by Art Clokey
Written by Art Clokey
Music by "Don-Que-Dee" by Mel Powell
Cinematography Clokey Productions
Edited by Art Clokey
Distributed by Clokey Inc.
Release dates
 September 2, 1955
Running time
 3 minute and 10 second
Country United States

Gumbasia, a 3 minute 10 second short film produced in 1953 and released on September 2, 1955, was the first clay animation produced by Art Clokey, who went on to create the classic series, Gumby and Davey and Goliath, using the same technique.[1]

Clokey created Gumbasia while studying at the University of Southern California under the direction of Slavko Vorkapić. The film was a surreal short of pulsating shapes and lumps of clay set to music in a parody of Walt Disney's Fantasia. Gumbasia was created in a style Vorkapić taught called Kinesthetic Film Principles. Described as "massaging of the eye cells" this technique, based on camera movements and stop-motion editing, is responsible for much of the look and feel later seen in Gumby films.[2] When Clokey showed Gumbasia to film producer Sam Engel in 1955, Engel decided to fund a 15-minute short film that became the first Gumby episode—"Gumby Goes to the Moon".

References

  1. ↑ Gumbasia (available in two video formats)
  2. ↑ Art Clokey, article at KQED

External links