Cinefamily restores George Lucas’s 1983 produced animation Twice Upon A Time

I sure don’t remember this gem from my youth and it’s a damn shame cause it looks weird and I am a fan of weird animation. Then I find out it was produced by George Lucas…awesome! I must see if my boys down at Paradise Video in Chandler have a copy. I’m about three minutes in and I already love the vibe.  The film is indicative of more hippy-ish animation of the time evidenced by their use of cut out stop motion figures. Films like these only got seen on children’s shows like Pinwheel on Nickelodeon or The Great Space Coaster. You gotta remember that in the eighties Disney Animation was in full swing and if your film didn’t look like a Disney joint, it just didn’t get recognized. That’s insane right? Especially when you think that Disney recently announced that they were no longer producing hand drawn films. Choosing instead to only distribute CGI flicks.

Taken from Cinefamily

This is the stuff of legend: endlessly bootlegged and traded amongst astonished animators since its tragically limited original release, Twice Upon A Time now comes to the screen in 35mm, for the first time in three decades! Plus, co-directors John Korty & Charles Swenson will be here in person for a Q&A, and to screen their other animation rarities! The towering, feature-length achievement in the “Lumage” stop-motion process, this lighthearted triumph of eye-popping visual design is ESSENTIAL viewing for Yellow Submarine diehards, Allegro Non Troppo ‘toonheads, animation aficionados of all colors, and quirk-tastic kids of all ages. After animating for Sesame Street, filmmaker John Korty perfected “Lumage”: the coloring, collaging and lighting of translucent fabric characters. Co-directed by fellow animation auteur Charles Swenson (Dirty Duck) and assembled by a small army of dedicated craftsmen (including David Fincher, Ratatouille’s Harley Jessup and The Nightmare Before Christmas’s Henry Selick), this timeless tale of sweet dreams and nightmares finds our heroes attempting to re-calibrate the cosmic clock and restore the flow of time. Join us as we rekindle the luminous, all-natural glow of Twice Upon A Time, finally giving Synonamess Botch, Scuzzbopper and Ibor the Video Gorilla their deserved place on the silver screen.
Dir. John Korty & Charles Swenson, 1983, 35mm, 75 min.

These and other things are the reasons I wish I lived in California. What an astounding night this is going to be. For more info on the film and Cinefamily, checkout their website after the jump.

CINEFAMILY WEBSITE

Twice Upon A Time (trailer) from Cinefamily on Vimeo.