Stage Fright

Stage Fright (1997)

A vaudevillian's act involving the juggling of dogs is no longer a hit. He and his partner must face a brutal villain and assorted obstacles in order to secure their future.

Date of release
1997-11-19
TMDB
6.5 / 10 (15)
Runtime
12m
Genres
Drama, Animation, Horror
Director
Steve Box

Casting

Interesting facts

Stage Fright is a 1997 stop-motion short film produced, directed, and written by Steve Box. The story follows Tiny, a vaudeville performer, Arnold Hugh, a silent film actor, and Tiny's co-worker Daphne, as they attempt to adjust to the coming age of film. All of the characters are voiced by Graham Fellows. The short film is eleven minutes in length, and won the 1998 BAFTA Award for Best Short Animation.

Production

When the movie screen comes down on Arnold Hugh's head and kills him, he kicks a bucket that was standing in front of him on the stage ("kick the bucket" meaning to die). This gag was inspired by a clip from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World where Jimmy Durante's character, Smiler Grogan, dies and literally kicks a bucket.

The Organist that appears at the beginning of the short and later near the end, who shows his spectral self and beckons Arnold Hugh's ghost to the underworld, bears a strong resemblance to Oogie Boogie from Tim Burton's 1993 stop-motion film, The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Classic stock sound effects were used at several points throughout the short.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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