Bruce Bickford

Bruce Bickford

Born: February 11, 1947
Died: April 28, 2019
in Seattle, Washington, USA
Bruce Bickford (February 11, 1947 - April 28, 2019) was a maker of animated films who works primarily in clay animation. From 1974 to 1980 he collaborated with Frank Zappa. Bickford's animation was featured extensively in the Frank Zappa videos Baby Snakes and Dub Room Special. Zappa also released a video titled The Amazing Mr. Bickford, which was entirely composed of Bickford animations set to a soundtrack of Zappa's orchestral music.Bickford's animations depict surreal scenes based on his unique worldview. Often outwardly seeming to be somewhat disconnected from the world around him, Bruce Bickford's work is extremely subjective in its content and concepts, making for some disturbing and shocking imagery. Much of his video work depicted fast-moving, fluid-like transformations of human figures and disfigured faces into odd beasts on surreal structural settings with impressive camera effects (moving around within his stop-motion animation).His life and work were featured in the 2004 biographical documentary film Monster Road, directed by Brett Ingram, which has won numerous film festival awards and garnered acclaim in many countries.He is currently working on Boar's Head/Whore's Bed (line animation, 4500+ frames and counting), Tales of the Green River and Castle 2001, a feature-length film which is animated using 3D shapes made out of bits of paper.A new DVD was released by Bright Eye Pictures in early 2008, titled Prometheus' Garden. It includes the first film that Bickford had complete control over, the 28-minute Prometheus' Garden, originally completed on 16mm film in 1988. The DVD also includes Luck of a Foghorn, a new 30-minute documentary about Bickford by the director of Monster Road. Mr. Bickford was the first ever guest to appear on the internet radio show Pussyfoot.

Movies for Bruce Bickford...

Zappa
Title: Zappa
Character: Self - Animator
Released: November 27, 2020
Type: Movie
With the help of more than 10,000 dedicated Zappa fans, this is the long-awaited definitive documentary project of Alex Winter documenting the life and career of enigmatic groundbreaking rock star Frank Zappa. Alex also utilizes in this picture thousands of hours of painstakingly digitized videos, photos, audio, writing, and everything in between from Zappa's private archives. These chronicles have never been brought to a public audience before, until now.
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Stupor Mundi: Livre 2, Les Hommes qui mangèrent la montagne
Title: Stupor Mundi: Livre 2, Les Hommes qui mangèrent la montagne
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: March 13, 2016
Type: Movie
A mental journey - historical, political, musical and metaphysical - in contemporary times, from the Sixties until nowadays.
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The Comic that Frenches your Mind
Title: The Comic that Frenches your Mind
Character: Narrator
Released: September 17, 2008
Type: Movie
A 5 minute, 2D, straight-ahead animated film by Bruce Bickford.
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Luck of a Foghorn
Title: Luck of a Foghorn
Released: January 1, 2008
Type: Movie
Luck of a Foghorn is a documentary featurette about the late Seattle underground animator Bruce Bickford (1947 - 2019), former collaborator of musician Frank Zappa and creator of Prometheus’ Garden, one of the most original stop-motion films in animation history. Interweaving Bickford’s pulsing, violent, magical, and mesmerizing clay animation with atmospheric 16mm and Super 8mm cinematography, home movies, and sparse interviews, Luck of a Foghorn takes viewers behind the scenes and deep into the garden of Prometheus.
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Monster Road
Title: Monster Road
Character: Himself
Released: January 1, 2004
Type: Movie
Explores the wildly fantastic world of legendary underground clay animator Bruce Bickford. Traces the origins of his remarkably unique sensibility, journeying back to Bickford's childhood in a competitive household during the paranoia of the Cold War. Finally, the film examines Bickford's relationship with his father, George, who is grappling with the onset of Alzheimer's Disease.
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The Amazing Mr. Bickford
Title: The Amazing Mr. Bickford
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 1987
Type: Movie
Several pieces of Frank Zappa's music are set against clay animation by Bruce Bickford.
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Baby Snakes
Title: Baby Snakes
Character: Self
Released: December 21, 1979
Type: Movie
Rock artist Frank Zappa hosts a concert in New York City. This movie contains tons of on-stage footage, off-stage footage, and animation.