Attention festival goers: Get to your films early. Sit down. Don’t be in the loo when the trailer comes on or you’ll miss 15 seconds of pure clay and animation joy.

Expect to like it the first time you see it, but don’t expect to take it all in, this opening panorama for the 1995 Toronto International Film Festival created by 31 members of the film and commercial production community. Don’t think you’re going to spot the Highway 61 sign or the beaver hood ornament or the maple leaves on the backside of Mother Earth. Maybe later, the fifth or sixth time you see the quarter-minute fly by, you’ll catch the subtle Canadiania, but it doesn’t really matter. What hits you between the eyes is just as great.

In slow motion, it’s this: a Charlie Chaplinesque film sound track opening the first frame, which is filled with flecks and grains (the kind post-production folk spend hours getting rid of), backdropping the line, ‘Celebrating 20 years of film.’

Trumpet sounds are broken up by thunder, lightning, then a woo-woo noise, as a really fake ufo flies over what looks like a scale model of the Hollywood hills.

King Kong, looking as realistically simian as Roddy McDowall in Planet of the Apes, pops up from behind the hill, takes a swipe at the ufo, roars, then falls back behind the hills.

The camera pans back, revealing a truly great witch at the bottom of the hill with wild orange-red cotton hair and a screeching cackle, squelched only as the house falls on top of her, leaving her legs sticking out underneath (red shoes, naturally).

A red convertible moseys around the hill on the Yellow Brick Road, driven by a Martian, with a horse riding in the passenger’s seat that blurts out ‘hoah’ as they pass the miniature saloon. Just when you thought things were slowing down – ahh! – a huge yellow and blue clay snake comes out of nowhere, filling the screen, smiling, hissing, blocking the view of the car. Pure, wonderful schlock.

Moving still farther out, the camera reveals the head and shoulders of reclining Mother Earth (actually actress/model Tina Sengar, who spent 11 hours inside the belly of the plaster and Styrofoam set) on whose body this whole scenario is taking place. A big red apple with a bite out of it lies beside her.

The whole thing wraps with an explosion – the Big Bang theory in reverse – and a shot of Earth floating in space wrapped in film. Logos for sponsors Air Canada, Rothmans and Bell Canada close the spot as the apple bounces across the screen for a final appearance.

You may feel bombarded by images the first time out, but Michael Clark, writer and director on the spot, says that’s the idea. ‘People are going to see this thing over and over again. We wanted to create a roller-coaster ride that leaves them saying, `What the *!#* was that?’ so that next time, they look harder, and it reveals itself over time.’

The project was first presented to Clark early in August by Ron Chapman, executive producer at Brandworks International, who asked him if he wanted to do something wild and crazy. ‘I said no because I know how long that takes,’ says Clark.

But that night, he bumped into writer/animator Philip Marcus and Rebecca Timmons, an illustrator and sculptor, and a bottle of wine later, the three were high on ideas for the spot. ‘Besides, how are you going to turn down showcasing your work in front of a festival audience at every gala?’

So with two weeks, a zero budget and free rein with the creative, the group put out a call for volunteers. Set builders, special effects and scenic artists, cgi animators, motion-control technicians, dops and producers, a music composer and sound designer ‘miraculously’ showed up at a town hall meeting, prepared to put in time and effort free of charge (‘Okay, they were promised beer, food, and some free clay,’ says Clark).

From that point on, it was the Rock Soup story revisited. People went off and made things. They scrounged old set pieces from projects they were working on, they dipped into their personal craft supplies and made a volcano, and a horse, and a snake, and a Yellow Brick Road. Magic opened the doors of 60 Sumach, making the motion-control camera and studio facilities available. Somebody brought a cloud rig, scene painters showed up at midnight when they finished their day jobs. ‘It was incredible how people were willing to give,’ says Clark.

About 50 hours went into the stop-motion work and another 50 in animation at Dome Productions, culminating in what Clark says is a piece of film that tries to bring back the feeling of classics like The Wizard of Oz and King Kong, and tie it in with the festival poster girl and the theme of the world coming together on-screen for a shining nine days and nights in Toronto.

Space doesn’t permit the listing of everyone who lent a hand, but key players also include Scott Hamilton (sculptor/animator), Chris Berry (dop), Denis Brown (motion-control operator), Shannon Coppin (hair and effects makeup) and Derek Howard (sculptor and set maker).

Companies lending time, brain power, and equipment are Magic, Dome, Brandworks International, The Canaz Corporation, Quack/ Quack, dmh, Laird McMurray Film Services, Jigsaw Casting, Film Effects, Deluxe Labs, PFA Labs, pos, Ulysses, Jam Productions and Cracker Creative. AV