Documentary filmmaker, animator, and interactive media creator Eli Noyes died of cancer on Saturday (3/23) at the age of 81 in San Francisco, surrounded by family. 

The son of modernist architect Eliot Noyes and Mary “Molly” (Weed) Noyes, Eli Noyes grew up in an environment imbued with art and music. In 1966, while an undergraduate at Harvard, Noyes was nominated for an Academy Award® for his eight-minute animated film, Clay, or the Origin of Species.  The short is credited as establishing the genre of clay animation and remains a classic of stop motion filmmaking. Subsequent animated films employed diverse techniques such as sand animation (Sandman, 1973) and pixelated stop motion (Peanut Butter and Jelly, 1976).

In the early 1970’s Eli Noyes and Claudia Weil filmed a number of documentaries, many of which are still shown in film schools today, including This Is the Home of Mrs. Levant Graham (1970). Accompanying his father to the Aspen Design Conference, Noyes teamed with Weil to document the confrontation between established architects and the new generation of socially conscious young talents of the era in Aspen: 1970.

An independent artist and animator, Noyes brought his playful creative talents to shape the look and spirit of children’s programming in the early days of cable TV, especially for the Nickelodeon network. Noyes was one of the first creative contributors to Nickelodeon. Pinwheel, Nickelodeon’s first show, featured Noyes’ animated pinwheels made with sand. In 1983, Noyes and Kit Laybourne started Noyes & Laybourne Enterprises, an independent studio located in NYC’s Soho. In the early ‘80s Nickelodeon was filled with content it acquired, with a variety of styles and looks. Packaging was the only way to express a personality. Noyes & Laybourne contributed to the look of Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite with playful network IDs. They subsequently created the original shows, Eureeka’s Castle and Gullah Gullah Island. For MTV they also produced network graphics and created a showcase of independent animation in “Liquid Television,” which launched series like Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butthead and Peter Chung’s Aeon Flux. Other clients included HBO, IBM, Scholastic, ABC Sports, Reebok, and Xerox.

In 1988 Noyes and Laybourne joined (Colossal) Pictures. Known for the variety of special effects and animation techniques (Colossal) was the ideal home for the wide-ranging curiosity that Noyes brought to projects. In 1991 Noyes and family moved to San Francisco, where he directed animation, live action and interactive projects for commercials and TV development. Always early to embrace technology, Noyes created Ruff’s Bone (1994) at (Colossal), a groundbreaking interactive CD-ROM product for Broderbund Software. He moved on to work on interactive projects at Pixar, and with programmers at the Disney Channel and The Disney Imagineers to create one of the first program blocks that combined TV and the internet, ZOOG Disney. Noyes subsequently brought that experience to the first “convergence network” Oxygen, as creative director in the late ‘90s.

Noyes partnered with Toy Story producer Ralph Guggenheim in 2003, forming Alligator Planet, where he created film, print and media works including short films, and animated segments for documentary films including Oscar® nominee The Most Dangerous Man in America (2003). His 2011 “Go Green” stamps for the U.S. Postal Service featured simple actions everyone can take to conserve natural resources and promote the health of the environment.

Noyes loved music, mastering the oboe, accordion and--most of all--jazz piano. He is survived by his wife Augusta Talbot, son Isaac, daughter Abigail and granddaughter Esme. Donations in Eli Noyes’ memory can be made to International Rivers or the Coalition of Natives and Allies.