41 Mitchells at Will Vinten in 2002

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sswitaj

41 Mitchells at Will Vinten in 2002

Post by sswitaj » Tue May 07, 2019 11:53 pm

41_Mitchells_Vinten_4web.jpg
A photo of the last hurrah, 41 Mitchell cameras at Will Vinten Studios, in Portland, Oregon, at the close of production on the stop-motion series "The PJ's", in 2002.

Probably the largest collection of Mitchell cameras still out shooting on a stage to be found anywhere on the planet this century. Studio lore is that there were a few cameras that didn't make the picture. So if you see an old photo of a Mitchell, odds are about 1 in 40-ish that it eventually found its way to Vinten.

Sadly, The PJ's was the last large project shot on film at Vinten. The Vinten commercial division stuck with film for a few more years, but the long-form side of Will Vinten Studios would be reborn as Laika, and would produce their first feature, Coraline, digitally on industrial Redlake cameras.

After the wrap most of the cameras were put in crates, though ironically, the tripods are still in daily use as is that big Raby dolly.

Portland is once again a hotbed for stop-motion, with 3 features currently crewing up, but, of course, all of them are being shot digitally.

On the other hand, we still have that giant crate of cameras in the warehouse, just in case.

mediaed
Posts: 150
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2016 3:53 pm

Re: 41 Mitchells at Will Vinten in 2002

Post by mediaed » Thu May 09, 2019 8:26 am

If you are in a position to register these cameras with our ongoing effort to list all the surviving Mitchell cameras, Please contact me: ejohnson@mitchellCamera.com.

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