Susan Carol Shadburne (December 16, 1942April 24, 2018) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, and filmmaker, best known for her collaborations with her husband,
claymation animator
Will Vinton
William Gale Vinton (November 17, 1947 – October 4, 2018) was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his work a ...
. She wrote the screenplay for ''
The Adventures of Mark Twain'' (1985), directed by Vinton, and wrote and directed the supernatural thriller film ''
Shadow Play
Shadow play, also known as shadow puppetry, is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated cut-out figures (shadow puppets) which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-ou ...
'' (1986). In addition to feature films, Shadburne wrote and directed several
short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
s. Two of the short films Shadburne wrote that Vinton directed—''Rip Van Winkle'' (1978) and ''
The Great Cognito
''The Great Cognito'' is a 1982 Oscar-nominated claymation short directed by Will Vinton.
Plot
A monologist talks about war, adopting the faces of World War II-era figures.
Accolades
*1983: Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short ...
'' (1983) –were nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Biography
Shadburne was born and raised in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
, and graduated from
Lincoln High School in 1960.
She later attended
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
.
[
Shadburne began writing films in 1978 while married to animator ]Will Vinton
William Gale Vinton (November 17, 1947 – October 4, 2018) was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his work a ...
, first a documentary short about Vinton's filmmaking process titled ''Claymation: Three Dimensional Clay Animation''. She subsequently wrote the screenplay for Vinton's short film ''Rip Van Winkle'' (1978), which was nominated for the Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
for Best Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards (with different names), covering the year 1 ...
.[ In 1982, she again wrote the screenplay for Vinton's short '']The Great Cognito
''The Great Cognito'' is a 1982 Oscar-nominated claymation short directed by Will Vinton.
Plot
A monologist talks about war, adopting the faces of World War II-era figures.
Accolades
*1983: Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short ...
'', which was again nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.[
She collaborated with Vinton on the 1985 animated feature '' The Adventures of Mark Twain''. Shadburne researched ]Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
extensively while writing the screenplay, adapting it from his autobiography
His or HIS may refer to:
Computing
* Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company
* Honeywell Information Systems
* Hybrid intelligent system
* Microsoft Host Integration Server
Education
* Hangzhou International School, in ...
and integrating direct quotes from him into the dialogue. The following year, she wrote, produced, and directed the supernatural thriller film ''Shadow Play
Shadow play, also known as shadow puppetry, is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated cut-out figures (shadow puppets) which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-ou ...
'' (1986) starring Dee Wallace
Deanna Wallace (née Bowers; born December 14, 1948), also known as Dee Wallace Stone, is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Mary Taylor, the mother in the 1982 blockbuster film ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial''. She is ...
and Cloris Leachman.
In her later life, Shadburne worked as a medical intuitive
A medical intuitive is an alternative medicine practitioner who claims to be able to use their intuitive abilities to find the cause of a physical or emotional condition through the use of insight rather than modern medicine. Other terms for such ...
and energy healer.[
]
Death
Shadburne died on April 24, 2018, in Vancouver, Washington, aged 75, after a decades-long battle with multiple sclerosis
Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...
.
Filmography
Accolades
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shadburne, Susan
1942 births
2018 deaths
American women film directors
American women film producers
American women screenwriters
Filmmakers from Portland, Oregon
Lincoln High School (Portland, Oregon) alumni
Stanford University alumni
People with multiple sclerosis
Writers from Portland, Oregon
21st-century American women writers
21st-century American writers
20th-century American women writers
20th-century American writers
American writers with disabilities
Film directors with disabilities