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

, 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 ''

'', 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 ''

'' (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