commercial animation 13 Feb 2012 06:17 am
John Wilson – part 6
- This final post featuring the work of John Wilson and his company, Fine Art Films, covers many varied film projects. Unfortunately, I found relatively few images available for posting especially considering the amount of film done.
The Sonny and Cher Show was a long running Variety program on television in the 70s. Most weeks featured an animated music video as done by John Wilson. Some examples of this include:
Helen Reddy’s song “Angie Baby”
Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”
Sonny Bono’s version of “The Candyman”
The Kinks song “Demon Alcohol”
Fine Arts Films also did some movie titles and trailers. We saw, recently, the long theatrical trailer done for Irma La Douce. Here are a few stills done for the main title sequence for the 1978 musical, Grease.
storyboard sketch for Grease.
Produced and Directed by John Wilson
Story and Layout by Chris Jenkyns
Music by Barry Gibb
John Wilson also directed a number of short films which appeared on television on the NBC program, “Exploring” between 1964-1966.
“Casey At the Bat”
Narrated by Paul Frees
“Johnny Appleseed”
Narrated by Dan Blocker
“The Fish and the Burning Stones”
Narrated by E.G. Marshall
Finally, for MTV’s “Liquid Television” in 1992 John Wilson directed some of the 10 episodes of a series called “The Specialists.”
1
2
Go here to see other episodes.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 2:50 pm 1.Charles Brubaker said …
Ah, so it was Wilson who did “The Specialists”?
I like ‘em. Probably the most stylish cartoon MTV ever aired.
on 15 Feb 2012 at 7:46 pm 2.Dagan said …
Absolutely LOVED ‘The Specialists.’
As a 16 year old, I credit that and a few of those other ‘Liquid Television’ series as the catalyst that really pushed me into animation for good!
Sooooo, Mr. Wilson directed some of the episodes, while Joe Horne directed the others, very cool!
But it was Joe Horne that created the series, am I correct?
Did John Wilson have anything to do with that other bit of genius, Stevie and Zoya?
As always, great stuff Michael!
on 16 Feb 2012 at 2:10 am 3.Michael said …
I believe John Wilson directed a couple of episodes of THE SPECIALIST. I’m not sure how much f the initial creative work was his. My only information comes from his website, and his role in the series is not really defined there.
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