Edwin Gillette (August 11, 1909 in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

– September 30, 2003 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

) was a cameraman and inventor notable for the development of the

Syncro-Vox Syncro-Vox (sometimes spelled Synchro-Vox) is a filming method that combines static images with moving images, the most common use of which is to superimpose talking lips on a photograph of a celebrity or a cartoon drawing. It is one of the most ex ...

technique of limited animation, which was used in the series ''

Clutch Cargo ''Clutch Cargo'' is an American animated television series created by cartoonist Clark Haas and produced by Cambria Productions, and syndicated beginning on March 9, 1959. The series was notable for its limited animation yet imaginative storie ...

''.

Early life

Born to a Chicago architect, Gillette grew up in Pasadena, California, graduated in 1929 from the Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and studied engineering at Stanford University. His interest in film led to his first job in the entertainment field at

Paramount Studios Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldes ...

, where he was

Preston Sturges Preston Sturges (; born Edmund Preston Biden; August 29, 1898 – August 6, 1959) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and film director. In 1941, he won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the film ''The Great McGinty'' (1940), his ...

' secretary. After producing training films as an officer with the Army Air Corps in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he returned to take a degree in cinema at USC.

Career

Gillette developed the Syncro-Vox technique of animation which was first used in "talking animal" commercials of the early 1950s. He filed a patent for the technique in 1952, and obtained patent #2,739,505 for it on March 27, 1956.Method and Means for Producing Composite Talking Picture
(PDF format) a

After working as the undersea cinematographer on the

1957 1957 (Roman numerals, MCMLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday, common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, t ...

film
Undersea Girl
', he joined Clark Haas'

Cambria Studios Cambria Productions was the West Hollywood, California animation production studio most famous for its wide usage of the Syncro-Vox technique of animation developed by Edwin Gillette, who was a co-partner in the studio. Owned by Clark S. Haas, J ...

, where Syncro-Vox was put to use in their animated series, ''

'' (1959), ''

Space Angel ''Space Angel'' is an animated science fiction television series produced in the United States from early 1962 through 1964. It used the same Synchro-Vox lip technique as '' Clutch Cargo'', the first cartoon produced by the same studio, Cambria P ...

'' (1962) and ''

Captain Fathom ''Captain Fathom'' is an animated television series produced in 1965 by Cambria Studios. Like Cambria's other productions, ''Clutch Cargo'' and ''Space Angel'', it was produced in Synchro-Vox. At least 26 30-minute episodes, all in color, were fi ...

'' (1965). He retired as a partner in Cambria Studios in 1964.

Notes

External links

* 1909 births 2003 deaths People from Chicago Stanford University alumni American animators American inventors History of animation 20th-century American inventors {{Authority control