On the Hudson River in the Hudson Valley, the village of Tarrytown “abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions.” Its most famous spirit, “the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head,” comes to life just north of its border each Halloween, made real by an 1819 story written by author Washington Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
What happened to Ichabod Crane, the greedy, vain, and superstitious schoolmaster who vanished one fateful eve?
This classic American ghost story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, is told with shadow puppets in the artful Historic Hudson Valley short film above. It was created by puppeteer and children’s author and illustrator David Hyde Costello. Malik Work narrates.
Then go behind the scenes with Costello as he shares how some of the film’s scenes were made:
Watch these handpicked videos next on TKSST:
• The Skeleton Dance, a 1929 Silly Symphony
• Animating a Jack-o-Lantern, from cute to chilling
• The Dark Art of Shadow Puppetry
• Whale Fall (After Life of a Whale)
• Animated Life: Seeing the Invisible
• Flower Dance (ផ្ការាំ), the Cambodian folk song animated
• The Story Of King Midas, a stop-motion classic by Ray Harryhausen (1953)
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