at UWM's 61st Student Film and Video Festival!
The film was also featured in an article in
the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Filmmaker winning the West shot by shot
By Stanley A. Miller II of the Journal Sentinel
The West was won with blood, sweat, tears and an undeniable pioneer spirit. Slapstick comedy also played a pivotal role.
So says the creative vision of Tommy Simms, creator, model-maker, set-builder, cameraman, editor and director of "The Legend of Leatherface Larry," a stop-motion animation piece premiering Friday at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Film and Video Festival.
The festival begins at 7 p.m. in the Union Theatre and includes 15 features in its lineup.
"As of right now, I love it," says Simms, who graduated from UWM in the spring. "It's great, and it is everything I was hoping it would be."
"Leatherface Larry" is an animated comical adventure of a cowpoke who - while minding his own business, of course - runs into a bit of trouble when he tries to help a friend. High jinks soon follow as Larry and his posse exact some frontier justice, culminating in a daring action sequence, fisticuffs and lighthearted mayhem.
"It incorporates a lot of stuff I watched from my childhood like 'Blazing Saddles,' " Simms said. "I remember the Wild West Stunt Show, Warner Bros. Western movies, stuff like that."
In an animated moviemaking industry that is dominated computer graphics, painstakingly moving handcrafted clay models shot-by-shot is, well, pretty old school.
"Claymation and stop-motion animation is something you don't see too much nowadays," Simms said.
It also takes a lot of time. Simms said he's spent countless hours building several sets, molding more than a dozen characters and then positioning them shot-by-shot, culminating in a 12-minute movie.
"I started in the fall of 2009 and have been pretty much working on it nonstop," Simms said.
Stop-motion is still relevant and has it charms, Simms said, noting the success of "Coraline," a stop-motion children's film released in 2009.
"I feel like there is a future for it," Simms said, noting he wants to work on a 2-D animation project next. "People enjoy seeing old-fashioned stuff. They remember the Christmas claymations every year. I think they appreciate that someone took that much time in drawing scenes.
"There is a bit more magic," Simms said, noting the characters offer a unique visual texture on screen. "There is this little wiggle to the lines."
IF YOU GO
What: Fall 2011 Student Film and Video Festival
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Union Theatre, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd.
Cost: Free
