Gumby Fest Stop Motion Festival

  

click photo to enlarge		 Gumby and I are the same age, 60, so we decided to go see what this event was all about. Yes I must admit I did have a Gumby toy when I was a little tike. Gumby was invented in the nearby city of Glendora by Art Clokey. Stop Motion animation is accomplished by taking a picture, then moving the pieces in small increments and taking another photo and then putting it altogether creating the illusion of movement. Dolls with movable joints or clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Reasons for using stop motion instead of the more advanced CGI include the low entry price and the appeal of its distinct look. It is now mostly used in children's programming, in commercials and some comic shows such as Robot Chicken.

click photo to enlarge		 They had tents of course selling everything Gumby. In today's worlds if there will be people there will be Food Trucks. Gumby Fest is held on the grounds of Citrus college and the college has a Gumby Museum in the library. I never did understand why this Mazda has Gumby and Pokey painted on it. They even had bands playing outside and it was 100 degrees outside. We also sat in on one of he panel discussions about the current state of animation. It was interesting to hear the discussion on how today's ease of computers generated graphics animation and easy of publishing to the internet and youtube dilutes the quality of animation shorts but yet the best still rise to the top.

click photo to enlarge
               click photo to enlarge