Amazing Mr. Bickford

April 1, 2005 9:16 AM

The Amazing Mr. Bickford. Most Zappa fans know of Bruce Bickford for his claymation work in Baby Snakes and other Zappa movies. Recently a documentary was made of him and now he has his own web site which features a small sampling of his story board work. For some other claymation samples (not by Bruce Bickford), try here.
posted by KevinSkomsvold (10 comments total)

Apologies in advance for my hitting the Zappa tag like a crack bunny.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:21 AM on April 1, 2005

I'm the webmaster for the Bickford site. I was going to post it to metafilter last month when we finally finished the site, but figured I'd wait until we were able to get a new video out on the market for him (since the extra attention might help move some copies). His work is incredible, and I wish we had some video for people to see it in action.
posted by inthe80s at 9:58 AM on April 1, 2005

The truly amazing thing about Mr. Bickford is that he serves breakfast any time.
posted by Mayor Curley at 10:03 AM on April 1, 2005

Brett Ingram (one of the "Monster Road" filmmakers) was a grad student in the UNCG Cinema department while I was an undergrad. He's a great guy, and he's poured years of hard work and personal dedication into this film. Wonderful to see him (and Bickford) getting well-deserved recognition.
posted by Dean King at 10:17 AM on April 1, 2005

Swinging fire, baking cookies, stop-motion claymation-- this guy's a hero!
posted by Quixoticlife at 10:57 AM on April 1, 2005

Also, Bruce (an acquaintance) has an uncanny command and recall of the names of bit part character actors in old movies.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:03 AM on April 1, 2005

The truly amazing thing about Mr. Bickford is that he serves breakfast any time.

I think you have him confused with Denny's.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:04 AM on April 1, 2005

This is great. I've had an old cassette copy of "The Amazing Mr. Bickford" for years, and it's truly amazing. My only gripe is the apparently random and shoddy editing (FZ is listing as "director"), not to mention the incongruous orchestral Zappa music scored throughout. Man, I'd kill to see some of Bickford's work unadorned.
posted by ghastlyfop at 12:46 PM on April 1, 2005

If Jim Haverkamp and Brett Ingram had not taken the time and effort to create Monster Road and it had not shown at the film festival in Boston, inte80s and myself would have never been so moved as to offer Bruce a website and all that goes into it.

Bruce is one "Amazing" character.

I want to thank Jim and Brett for my introduction into Bruce's life and work, also, congratulate them as rumor has it... Monster Road will be Premiering on the Sundance Channel this summer.
posted by Davy Boy Smith at 7:42 PM on April 1, 2005

I was a grad student at UNCG while Brett was there. He's a great guy and a supremely talented filmmaker. His video for Geezer Lake's "Spent" is still one of my favorites of all time.
posted by hyperbolica at 9:01 PM on April 1, 2005