Michael Sporn Animation - Splog

- Animation has completely done a big turnaround in the past 10 or so years. The medium has evolved so drastically into something else that I’ve come to feel that a lot of the past has become or is getting lost.

Yes, this is going to be one of my usual rants, but I think I have something that’s worth going on about. Maybe a good long conversation can start. I don’t really want to talk about how we got here, but I do want to talk about where we are.

Live action movies aren’t live action anymore. Go to Indiana Jones 3 or Hancock or The Hulk or Journey to the Center of the Earth or most other fare at the local theater, and you maybe get the idea.

In 1979, the Museum of Modern Art had a special exhibit complete with chat and Q&A from Peter Ellenshaw.
A lot of his matte paintings were displayed, and he talked in front of a projected screening of shots he worked on from many of the films. Mary Poppins, Treasure Island and Polyanna were discussed.
I was struck with how impressionist the paintings were up close, yet on screen they looked so absolutely real. I asked about this, and he said that he found that the paintings had to feel a bit ____________________What’s real?
out of focus to achieve the effect
of reality. When he painted in a very realistic mode, the paintings didn’t work.

His glass paintings, which were painted on glass, originally sat between the camera and the scene. They were designed to add to the background being filmed. Ships in a harbor were painted or a skyline was altered to more closely match the historic film being shot; these were painted on glass and matted out things in reality. These glass mattes eventually were just matted into the scenes optically, though Ellenshaw didn’t change his process.

The paintings were a bit more impressionist than the reality on the screen, but since it was only about a third of the image, we bought it.

Today these paintings, of course, are painted on computer. Paul Lasaine beautifully details this process on his blog. The matte paintings have, in many films, superceded the reality being photographed. That “impressionism” has come to overwhelm the images we’re watching. When George Lucas talks about having his actors act against a blue screen with all the world being painted in by artists and animators, the film has become something else.

You can see this in the Indiana Jones films. The first had a tactile approach to the effects and the world of Indy. It DID resemble the cheap “B” movie serials it was imitating. Indiana Jones 3 completely lost that with this painted world. There are scenes where the actors are so obviously not in a real world on a real set. They’re acting against a blue screen. The scene in the grave of the aliens, where the 13 skeletons sit above them, is so obviously painted. The actors have no connection to humans in a cave or a grave; they’re not. It’s completely fake and feels it. This is one of the problems with the entire film. There’s no reality; nothing we can touch.

Every film, from Adam Sandler’s Zohan to Get Smart depends too much on the computer and robs the films of interacting humans on screen. They’re not in reality; we can’t buy or accept or understand their situations?

The Harryhausen effects were not real, but the tactile nature of his puppets allowed us, at least, to feel them. To know that something REAL was on the screen. Compare the original Yoda, the Frank Oz voiced puppet, with the digital thing of later films. One felt real, and it wasn’t the digital version of the character. Life for Lucas was made easier, a new animated world opened to him, but the experience for filmgoers was diminished. There was no there there. The real effects of the earlier film allowed us to stay in the film; the fake effects of the new film doesn’t even allow the actors in.

The computer has also changed animation. Obviously, when you have those 13 skeletons animated by computer in Indiana Jones 3, or any of the Harry Potter films or The Hulk,
and when that looks not too different from the animation from the latest Pixar film, what is the difference? Wall-E’s reality had nothing to do with me. It was a robot/compacter and another egg shaped robot (that I had even less connection to) interacting. I never entered the film; it had no relation to my life. I watched filmmaking choices, scene cuts and storytelling. I caught all the obvious and pedestrian biblical references, all the intended “depth,” and felt the film go completely haywire once it left what was supposed to be earth. (Why didn’t they just stay on earth and let all the fat humans come to Wall-E so that we could watch them try to rebuild? This is the real story isn’t it? Not the running back and forth throughout the spaceship.)

The film felt too connected to all the other films I see on the screen these days, films that I cannot connect to. This is pretty much all I feel for most other computer animated films.

Kung Fu Panda is filled with beautifully drawn and painted backgrounds, much more pleasing than Wall-E. But the little viewmaster-puppet-characters are constantly moving in clichéd poses and actions. (Does every scene have to end with the some character arching their eyebrows?) I know this is a parody of Kung Fu movies, but who cares? What does it have to do with REAL human experience?

I also feel that every character moves identically to others. Tex Avery gave us snap animation, and Bob Clampett gave us blurred positions from A to B, but that doesn’t mean every film and every character has to imitate this. (I saw one page on Cartoon Brew from Eric Goldberg’s new book Crash Course in Animation. It advises young animators to use this blurring technique! Not good advice in my mind. I’ll have to see the book to decide if that’s the norm.)

I haven’t seen Horton yet, but at least that LOOKS different than other computer animated films. The Jim Carrey voice over kept me away, but I’ll watch it eventually. I like some of Blue Sky’s work and still hope for the best.

To be concluded tomorrow.

Happy Fourth o’ July

- The Alice In Wonderland dvd contains a storyboard sequence of Alice daydreaming in the park. This sequence didn’t make it to the film (for good reason), but they’ve re-assembled it for the dvd. I’ve taken some frame grabs to show off the drawings. They’re on screen for such a short time.

My favorite’s the last.

(Click any image to enlarge.)__________

- An interesting aspect of Disney’s Alice In Wonderland, deserves some attention, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone write about it.

Once Alice is in Wonderland, she immediately comes upon the woods, and from there she steps in and out of the woods to meet up with new crazies and her peculiar adventures. The effects department was used to signal this move in and out of the dark world of wonderland. She constantly steps in and out of shadows.

This, as anyone who did animation in the pre-computer age, knows that it was a complication to add shadows. Not only the shadows under the characters but the shadows over and around the characters. It meant filming the scenes twice, just for the shadows. Since the camera, during the filming of Alice, was not computerized this double shooting had to be done by hand VERY CAREFULLY. Every frame had to exactly match.

Hence, this was an important part of the design. The directors and Disney took these shadows seriously; after all they cost twice as much - just to photograph. Never mind animating them, coloring them or planning them.

I’ve put together a number of frame grabs which illustrate the move into or out of shadows, and I’d like to share them.

Here, Alice steps out of a shadow for the first time, and meets up with
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. They’re partially covered, themselves, by shadow.
This variant of the shadow is a hard line of darkness that moves over her.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Soon, Alice moves toward the Duchess’ house. We cut from her
standing dark in shadow, to her walking in a brighter light.

As she moves toward the Caterpillar, Alice is covered with shrubbery and shadow.
She is next seen struggling through the foliage to talk to the Caterpillar, in full light.

This variant of the shadow is a total shift in color as her entire body moves into darkness.
It was done by dissolving one Alice into another - meaning the cels were painted twice.

In the woods, Alice walks into and out of and into shadows.

She slowly moves toward the Cheshire Cat who directs her to the tea party.
As she does she moves from shadow and cuts into light as she appears at the gate.

This is a particularly nice effect wherein the entire area gets spotlighted -
led by the character. The area outside of the spot darkens slowly and beautifully.

Once leaving the tea party, she wanders around the Tulgey Wood trying to find any direction. Shadows aplenty as she moves endlessly through the woods.

Alice moves into and out of shadow via dissolves.

Alice passes by many crazy characters, going in and out of darkness.

Just prior to meeting up with the Cheshire Cat, and has an extended conversation
which just about ends her stay in the woods.

Finally, Alice steps into the Cheshire Cat’s tree and
into the light of the maze of cards to meet the Red Queen.

- Yesterday, I referred to the MMPAA screening of Sleeping Beauty which is up and coming. For information about the event, let me post the invitation I received the other day from the Academy.

________________________________(Click any image to enlarge to a legible size.)

I’m going to try to get the NY chapter of the Academy to screen the film here. You never know, the power of the Disney publicity machine might be helpful.

Here’s the Academy’s website page about this event for more info: Academy

There’s also another exciting event, “The Art of Hand Drawn Animation,” on display at the Academy. This is a free exhibit on view in the Academy’s Grand Lobby Gallery. Here’s the info from the Academy monthly bulletin.

- Here’s the Academy’s website page for this exhibit: Academy
- Here;s the Academy’s link to some photos in the show: photos
- Here’s a good review of the show: Alternate Film Guide

Exhibitions like this are the difficulty with living on the East coast. There are many that I’ve missed. (I even missed one I participated in.)

- Hans Perk has chosen to post the drafts to Sleeping Beauty in response to the upcoming Academy screening (in LA) of the feature film which is in response to the reissue of the video with new special additions. I thought this a good excuse to bring back these older posts:

- I’ve enjoyed sharing some of the animation drawings I own via this site, and I hope to keep doing it. The drawings, to me, are so valuable in that they reveal the personality of the animators, even more than the finished films.

I have a bunch of copies of drawings by Frank Thomas from Sleeping Beauty. It’s the sequence in which the three fairies, within the hidden cabin in the forest, use magic to create a dress for Aurora.

Below, on the right, are some of the roughs from this scene. On the left are the final cleanups.
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- These are frame grabs from the very same scene in the cottage featuring the Frank Thomas drawings posted above.

Frank Thomas often complained about Eyvind Earle’s color design. He disliked the fact that Merryweather had a black bodice. He was especially peeved over this sequence, and I heard him talk about it at least three times. He felt this anchored her too much to the ground and weighed her down. I’m not sure I agree with him; I think the character moves beautifully and retains the weightlessness he sought.

There rwas quite a bit of friction between Eyvind Earle, who seemed to be Disney’s star on that film, and the animators who felt ignored.

- As you may have noticed in past photo pieces, I have an interest in signage. I’m a type freak, so I look at type all the time and read everything in my eye’s path. As such, I’ve always had a fascination for hand painted signs that look as though they’d been printed. Generally, they’re indistinguishable from the traditional poster.

This sign for The Incredible Hulk recently appeared in the Village at
Houston and 6th Ave. It looks like any other Hulk poster around town.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

However getting closer you get to realize that someone had hand painted this
on a brick wall. One wouldn’t have been able to paste a poster.

Take a look at the type at the bottom of the sign.

The copyright type turns into blobs of paint.
I wonder if the copyright holder realizes that
this is what they were paying for.

Here’s another painted wall I found on line.
No story behind it that I can find, but it’s a great hand painted image.

Many of the posters in the Village aren’t hand painted; they’re screens that are bound to brick walls by wires.

You can see, in the closeup, that this sign is a screen.

This sign completely hides the small building behind it.
There don’t seem to be any windows being covered by the screen.

In these two closer shots you can see the hardware better.
Yes, it does say, “I love TOUS, Kylie Minogue.”

This sign for the Museum of Modern Art hangs over a playground area.

Up close, you can see that it’s a screen bound to the wall.

- Yesterday, I had the opportunity of meeting Satoshi Kon prior to the first screening of the retrospective being held at the Walter Reade Theater in NYC.

In the brief 10 minute interview I was given, I had prepared a number of questions to send in advance for the sake of the interpreter. We brought along a small camera to video tape and record the session. I had hoped to transcribe the interview and post it today. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a problem. The interpreter’s voice was just above a whisper and barely recorded. We have to redigitize the track and work on it to get her voice audible enough to transcribe. We’ll post the interview later this week.

There was some still art framed and mounted in the hall, though. I photographed it and caught a lot of reflection off the lights in the hall. Regardless, here are some of the images I shot. The photographs don’t do justice to Mr. Kon’s beautiful artwork. There are plenty of others I didn’t have time to shoot.

Go see the exhibit and films if you’re in NY. The full schedule is posted in my initial writing on this series. Here.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The above three images are all “Key Art” for Millenium Actress.

Me, the interpreter and Mr. Kon

The two images above and the two below are from
the storyboard of Tokyo Godfathers.

My apologies to Mr. Kon for the poor reproductions. I’m hardly what I would call a photographer, however I did want to give a sample of what fine work visitors would see at this exhibit and program.

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Sunday’s NY Times features a good article on Tom Sito ’s new animation series for PBS, As The Wrench Turns. The show premieres July 9th.

- Rico LeBrun, an established Italian artist, was employed at the Disney studio in the late ’30s to help teach the studio’s artists to learn how to draw animals. Bambi was in process, and Disney knew that he had to train his artists to reach to a new level.

In his preparation for the job, LeBrun created a book of some 50 or so pages of the skeletal system of deer for the artists to use as reference in learning to manipulate the animal characters. His art was copied onto animation paper with typed notes added.

Sky-David had contacted me after a recent item I had posted about the drawings on Bambi. Sky told me that he had a copy of all of the pages of LeBrun’s study. He shared it with me and I posted the first 18 pages several weeks back. (Here’s part 1.) This is a second installment, thanks to Sky’s generosity, for those who’d like to see them.

18
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19

2021

2223

24

2526

27

2829

30

3132

33

I’ll post the remaining 16 drawings soon.

- Something tells me this post will get a lot of people angry at me.

There was a bit of a conflict for me on Tuesday night in New York. Bill Plympton screened his film, Idiots and Angels, for much of the animation community here. While Wall-E played at the Academy at 6PM, Plympton’s film started at 4PM. It was a tough hustle to get from one to the other. What was more of a problem for me was having to leave work at 3PM to see Bill’s film. I couldn’t make it work, and I’m sorry I missed it.

I wasn’t as sold on Wall-E as every review I’d read to date. The film, to me, felt less like an animated film than a special effect film.

Spoiler Alert

The story of Wall-E, for those of you who don’t know, is about a robot who has been left on earth (presumably for about 700 years) to try to gather the residue of the planet left behind by the humans. They’ve made earth inhospitable for their own survival. Wall-E is the robot left, with a companion roach, to gather the garbage and compact it into large piles of cubes. He eventually falls in love (robot love) with a more modern robot sent to earth to search for signs of vegetation. Wall-E finds a plant and gives it to her.

Humans have moved to a large spaceship and are treated much too well. They’ve all grown enormously fat not moving from their lounge chairs. The machines are in control, until one human takes charge with the help of Wall-E and brings people back to earth.

Watching the film, it was starting to get claustrophobic while they were on on earth, so I was glad to see them leave. Something had to advance the story. The new world on board the spaceship ends up with robots chasing other robots back and forth, up and down the large ship. It gets awfully tiring, quickly.

The technical abilities are high, and the film is done with the greatest professionalism. But they’re machines being animated, and I never felt close to them. The Iron Giant, from that film, was a hostile, war machine and was supposed to stay a machine, but I felt more for that character than I did for Wall-E or his cutely developed girlfriend, EVE.

The film has a better concept than story. It’s the bane of all movies these days. If you can narrow the story down to one sentence, it’s more concept than story and has a harder time being successful. Wall-E feels a lot like Short Circuit 3 with no humans - for at least the first half.

I was, again, impressed with the incredible artistic abilities of the Pixar people, but I didn’t feel as though I were watching an animated film. It felt like a live action film (until the balloony fat people entered) with high effects. Perhaps that’s a positive; I’m not sure anymore.

Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo, Snow White. These films were magic to me as a child. I imagine Wall-E is like every other effects film to today’s children. I can’t imagine it will inspire future generations to get into the field. Maybe, you never know.

I’m sorry I missed Idiots and Angels; I’m sure I’ll see it in Ottawa.

Today’s NY Post gives Wall-E a four star review which ends with, “Some day, there will be college courses devoted to this movie.” The Village Voice’s glowing review says, “a film that’s both breathtakingly majestic and heartbreakingly intimate.” I can also understand their POV. See it for yourself.

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- I wanted to remind those in the New York area that the animated films of Satoshi Kon will be playing at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater.

The complete retrospective starts tomorrow, Friday, and continues through next Tuesday. Go here to see my recent post including the schedule and other information.

I hope to meet Mr. Kon tomorrow and will report on that this Saturday.