Oscar-winning Portland animator Will Vinton dies at 70

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – The Oscar-winning animator who brought the California Raisins to life has died.

Will Vinton died Thursday at the age of 70 following a lengthy battle with multiple myeloma.

The Oregonian reported that Vinton invented Claymation, a style of stop-motion animation.

The former McMinnville resident won an Oscar in 1975 for the short film “Closed Mondays.” He founded Vinton Studios in Portland the next year and won three Emmys there as a producer.

Stop-motion is an old-fashioned technique that requires animators to shoot puppets a single frame at a time, adjusting them slightly between frames to simulate movement. Claymation used putty or clay for a textured, somewhat cartoonish feel.

Vinton Studios was best known for the 1986 California Raisins campaign featuring Claymation raisins dancing to “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

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Information from: The Oregonian/OregonLive, http://www.oregonlive.com