rise. creative

TONIC: The Legend of Woolly Creek is a stop-motion animated film that tells the story of a young miner named Tom, and his struggle to overcome his insecurities and lack of confidence that are preventing him from meeting the women he admires from afar. This story is framed around the Colorado folktale about the fur-bearing trout, which says that trout started growing hair after a salesman dropped a few bottles of hair tonic into a river.
About the filmmaker....
Kevin Vasconcellos is a media artist, stop motion animator, and filmmaker. As of May 2006, he has completed his Masters of Fine Arts degree in Design & Technology at Parsons School of Design in New York City, where he had been experimenting with various forms of animation utilizing tangible objects including foam latex puppets, wood cutouts, clay, and more. As an animator on The Dwarski Circus, a stop motion animated film created by a team of Parsons students; he had his first experience with that animation technique. Since then he wrote, designed, and animated the Hawaiian wood cut animation Huakai Po based on the legend of the night marchers of Hawaii.
Kevin grew up in culturally rich Hawaii and Colorado, and has a great appreciation for the mythology and folklore of those regions. As with Huakai Po, his current animation Tonic is based on one of the folktales he heard growing up. Kevin says, "People from outside of these areas have never heard many of these great legends. I enjoy creating my stories based on them since I gives me an opportunity to share what was near and dear to me as a child."
As a filmmaker with a BA in cinematography from Columbia College Hollywood, he developed an eye for creating a variety of interesting visual aesthetics in his work. Whether it is the attention to details spent when finding a subject with just the right density or texture or his choice of technology for capture, his choices always create a unique experience. With Tonic, he experimented with frame capture via consumer level digital still SLR cameras and created a more efficient workflow for stop motion animation while maintaining the quality of a 35mm film print.
Get TONIC on the Independent Film Channel (IFC)!
Watch IFC in the month of September to see Tonic: The Legend Of Woolly Creek featured on their new half-hour show Media Lab Shorts Uploaded.
SHOWTIMES ARE EASTERN TIME (Check your listings if in other areas):
Monday, September 4th 8:35 pm
Tuesday, September 5th 2:25 pm
Saturday, September 16th @11:30 am
Friday, September 22nd @ 2:00 pm
Saturday, September 30th @ 7:00 am
And be sure to go on the web version of IFC's MediaLab and vote for the film to keep it on television!!
Please Click Here And Vote For Tonic (rank it a 10)!