Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

It’s Christmas!

The baby Jesus was placed in the manger early this morning, protected by the chicken wire. The local church on Bleecker Street and 6th Ave. is all aglow.

And here are two great Christmas photos taken in Queens by friend, Steven Fisher.

Enjoy the day.

- Looking back on yesterday’s images from Norstein/Ivanov-Vano’s Battle of Kerzhenets, made me go back to earlier posts I’d done on Norstein. I came upon some photos we took a long time ago when Feodor Khitruk and Norstein came to my studio for breakfast. This is a bit of a rehash:

– Back in 1985, master Russian director, Feodor Khitruk, escorted the brilliant animator/director, Yurij Norstein, on a trip to New York.
My friend, Charles Samu, who was playing host to them on the trip, asked if I’d like them to visit my studio. I suggested a breakfast meeting so that I could call in a couple of additional people who would like to attend. Specifically, I was thinking of Tissa David who was an enormous fan of Norstein’s film, Tale of Tales.

I must admit I was over the top since Norstein was nothing short of a hero to me. His film had completely changed my thoughts on animation and its importance in the world. I find his film the answer to anyone who questions whether animation can live up to what live action can do. The answer now is, YES. (Of course, I haven’t seen anything remotely comparable to this 1978 film since seeing it – despite the invention of the computer.)

In short, I think it’s a GREAT film of the highest order.

So they came, and here are some photos of the meeting.

My studio, at the time, was on 38th Street off Fifth Avenue. This is facing a windowed
wall we had that looked out onto the rear of the building. (You could see the Empire State Building from there.) The studio also had a large skylight overhead. Liz Seidman works to the Left and Greg Perler, my editor, works to the Right (far in front of Liz.)

Norstein (L) and Khitruk (R) arrived on time with Charles (taking the picture.)

We set a table full of lots of food, but I don’t think any of us were interested in eating.
L to R:Norstein, Khitruk, Tissa David, Greg Perler (standing in the back, editing), Lisa Crafts, me, Bridget Thorne (hands visible). Charles Samu sat opposite Lisa and took the pictures. Others were there but didn’t make Charles’ camera lens.

I had plenty of questions about Norstein’s style and production methods. He tried to respond, and Khitruk acted as the interpreter and had to draw his answer at one point.

I followed up by drawing my next question.

There was quite a conversation despite the fact that we were speaking two languages.
(And I don’t remember a word of what was said.)

Khitruk packs up as they prepare to leave.

Norstein and I exchanged little souvenirs of the meeting.

Tissa and I posed for a picture before the break up.

After everybody left, we got back to work. Bridget Thorne (left) had to run an errand and Liz Seidman (who was supervising) & Mary Thorne went back to work on Lyle Lyle Crocodile.

Immediately after, I had an in-house meeting with Mark Sottnick (above), one of the producers of Santa Bear, which was also in production, and one of the producers of Rabbit Ears videos.

- My piece, posted Dec. 6th, on Rowland Wilson brought a couple of responses via email.

Thanks to George Griffin, I was able to post a caricature of the staff of the commercial studio, Focus, done by Bill Peckman, in the style of Rowland Wilson. To remind you, let me post that drawing again here.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

This prompted Rowland’s wife, Suzanne Wilson to send me this message in a note:

Enjoyed the Focus on Focus soooooo much!

Thought I would pass along the two Rowland B. Wilson originals that Bill Peckman’s caricature was based on. (Love the “No Credit” sign in the Malamute Saloon!)

Mountie

Saloon

It’s great seeing how Bill adapted Rowland’s work, and I thank Suzanne enormously for sharing the artwork.

Then I heard from Borge Ring, who wrote a lengthy comment that was just great to read:

I knew Rowland Wilson well during the 1970s. We both worked at Dick Will1am’s delightful London studio, often at the same commercials. Rowland was very good company, and his interest in the craft had as many antennas in the air as your blog which is my number one art gallery.

Rowland had fallen in love with animation and joined Dick’s studio to follow Art Babbitt’s lectures. He was intensely busy because next to his work for the studio, he drew well paid advertising cartoons – complicated ones – for a NY ad agency. He always came in early and he worked Sundays but rarely at night. “He said: “That which takes you three hours to get right in the night, you can do in twenty minutes in the morning”

Blake Edwards ordered a 5-minute title for his coming Pink Panther film. It got built “straight ahead” as it were, like at a story conference by a threesome: Dick, Rowland and Ken Harris. So Rowland based upstairs under the roof did a lot of stairs-running in the little old building carrying papers with ever changing concepts. Meanwhile Ken animated the Panther doing a tap dance with straw hat and cane, He confided that: ” If the body movements are right, it does not matter what the feet are doing, as long as they do a lot.” And Dick invented – among other things -how to do Black and White neonsigns for the occasion.

His business partner appreciated the creative euphoria but looked worried because: “Dick is going to spend all the money polishing the animation.”

Rowland designed the famous VODKA commercial, you mentioned, on large celluloids using the broad side of his crayons. He also animated one of the scenes with a locomotive stoker in silhouette throwing a shovelfull of coals into the furnace. His draftsmanship made the short scene look like a piece of live action.

Rowland was helpful to everyone. I once saw him showing a young artist the difference between drawing Disney style figures and “New Yorker style” cartoons. “On the one you whittle away until you get it right. The other one must be there at first stroke, If it isn’t right you don’t whittle. You do a new one”.

“Borg,” he announced, sliding the door to my cubicle. ” The client wants another broooad in thaare” meaning that there would now be four housewives instead of three in the scene. Rowland was a Texan and it was fun to hear this gentle person sound like Hopalong Cassidy.

Rowland cherished the company of Grim Natwick. “He certainly does”, said Dick. “Because he and Grim can talk for hours about …ART. Grim is good, but he is full of bullshit.”

Dick pretended to be allergic to “intellectualism”. He and Art Babbitt shared an office. “Don’t worry … Art is on a culture kick,” he said with a grin. “He has been talking to me for months about a man he calls Moliere; and he hasn’t found out that I don’t know who that is”.
Putting Moliere’s comedies on film was an early dream with UPA when they started.

I think that Rowland’s stint at Dick’s studio was a high point in his career, and his girlfriend Skeesik informed us that, “Life is an acquired taste.”

ps

Rowland and I were having Timsum in Chinatown, and I said: ‘All you guys who draw cartoons in Playboy and the New Yorker. I suspect that your innnermost desire is to draw and paint with light and shadow like they did during the Italian Renaissance. You cannot sell Madonnas and Jesuses, so you opt for illustrating intelligent jokes in elite publications”

He stopped eating and gazed at me.
“Can YOU see THAT?

“Well. a blind chicken finds a grain once in awhile, my dear Watson.” I said trying to hide my own surprise at having scored.

yukyuk

- Here’s a surprise gift from George Griffin. It’s a studio caricature of the commercial studio Focus (this predates even Phil Kimmelman’s own company, PK&A). I’ll let George’s own words inform us about it:

I came across this copy of a drawing by Bill Peckman you might want to share on your blog. It shows Bill’s adaptation of Rowland Wilson’s design into caricatures of the staff at Focus Design. Wilson had just designed a spot we had all worked on. Phil Kimmelman is the Mountie/authority figure and to the right, Sid Horn, Jerry Dvorak, yours truly, Victor Barbetta, Sal Faillace, Bill, Agnes Cannata and Jack Schnerk. The likenesses are very accurate but the character of each person was inverted: Phil was very sweet and easy-going, Bill and everyone else was very happy, not at all like these scowling toughs.

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I’ve split the drawing up and used George’s key to mark up and identify the people within the caricature to make it a bit easier to read.

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Michael Barrier has just reviewed both Madagascar 2 and Bolt. His review, as expected, is from a singular perspective though I think he touches on thoughts we’ve probably all had. I look forward, always, to his honest comments.

And speaking of Michael Barrier, Kellie Strøm pointed to a Phil Kimmelman ad on the back page of Funnyworld 20. This was a comment on my Ads for Ad Companies post. Though Kellie links to the ad, I thought it worth post here on its own. It’s a Rowland Wilson illustration.

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A blog I’ve just stumbled upon is Ian Lumsden‘s Animation Blog. It’s a British blog with some astute commentary; most of it involving British animated films. The posts on this blog have introduced me to several animators whose work I was unfamiliar with, and whose films I find worth watching out for. The most recent filmmaker under discussion is Ivan Maximov.

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-The NYTimes, yesterday, featured an article about Ari Folman and his feature film, Waltz With Bashir. The film’s about to be released this next week, and this is the start of the relatively small PR run. Here’s hoping this adult film will be noticed by the Academy voters. This is one of two animated films eligible for Oscar nomination in the category of Best Animated Feature that is considered an Israeli film. The other is $9.99 now playin in LA and soon to be released in NY.

- For those of you who haven’t seen it, there is a blog devoted to artwork and photographs and some film clips of animator, Fred Moore. It’s a Spanish site run by Pedro Daniel. (Thanks to Matt Jones for directing me to it – again.)

And speaking of Matt Jones, he has a great post on his Ronald Searle tribute blog. it tells of his “pilgrimage” to meet Searle. it’s a great read.

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Oswald Iten‘s blog offers intelligent and thoughtful consideration of a number of films, but his writing on 101 Dalmatians is excellent. Currently, he discusses the voice of the narrator throughout the film as it changes perspective. this has been one of my principal concerns in making and watching films. Who is telling the story? Whose perspective are we supposed to be viewing? When films slip in and out of this, I grow too easily annoyed. Lately, there’s been a lot of lax storytelling; many film makers have gotten lazy and are not telling the story properly. It makes for a good read on Oswald’s blog.

Also, if you haven’t read some of his consideration of the color design of the Dalmatian film, you should take the time to read.

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- For some reason, I have this photo/clipping in my folder. These are Walt Disney’s hand prints. The image came from a Life Magazine issue. I’m not sure if I actually scanned this from the magazine (I think I did since I own the issue) or if I lifted it from someone else’s blog. If I did, I apologize, but the image is a great one.

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- My friend Stephen MacQuignon has his first two published children’s books for sale on Amazon.

I’d like to congratulate Steve and direct you to the link. It’s been a long time coming, and he deserves a little praise for the fine work he’s done for so many years. Steve was THE principal colorist on my film,
The Red Shoes and many others.

Go here to check them out or buy them.

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- Finally, it’s always fun watching the year’s choices for the Film Bests of the year. The LA Film Critic Assn chose Wall E as Best Picture of the year, but Waltz with Bashir was the Best Animated Feature. Is that telling or just confusing?
The NY Film Critics Circle named Wall E as Best Animated Feature.
We’ll hear from Boston and Chicago in the next week.
I have to admit that there was a good crop of features this year. I’d call Waltz with Bashir the best Flash animated feature I’ve seen, but that honor belongs to Sita Sings the Blues. Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues is certainly the best of the lot though it’s $220,000 away from the possibility of a release. Bill Plympton’s Idiots and Angels is possibly his best feature and deserves more attention. Officially, though, it won’t be released until next year.

Kay Nielsen’s preparatory sketches to inspire Tytla.

- This sequence of animation drawings by Bill Tytla is undoubtedly available elsewhere on the internet, but who cares. Thumbing through John Canemaker‘s beautiful book, Treasures of Disney Animation Art, one can’t help but be struck by these drawings, printed at their finest. Large reproductions with beautiful color (that didn’t scan as well in my scanner, but they aren’t bad) show off Tytla’s glorious work. This surely is one of the highest moments in animation’s history.

(Click to enlarge any of these drawings.)

Not only are the drawings stunning, but the movement, timing and rendering couldn’t be better.

The artwork in this sequence is the highlight of Fantasia.
Animation is an art form here. The acting (without depending on a voice) is probably the best ever done in the medium – to date. The drawings, when studied, couldn’t be more beautiful. The rendering of the scene is every bit as good as the Nielsen illustrations done in design of the film.

The piece takes Modest Musorgsky’s ballet and performs an animated poem – a dance by way of Stanislavsky. It hints at the potential of the medium – a potential that was never fulfilled. I’d urge you to take these drawings one better, and look at the film again. Be inspired by Tytla and try to do as well.

- Nothing makes New York City feel more like a small town than Christmas and some of the Christmas decorations.

Sure there’s Rockefeller Center with their 2000 ft. glossy tree, but on the other side of town things get a bit tinier and significantly more personal.

This week the City started to dress up for the holiday, and I began to take some pictures. I’m a sucker for some of this stuff. (It’s obvious, since I probably posted the very same story last year.) Of course, Madison Square Park always gets my attention; I walk through it every morning, early, on my way to the studio.

The tree stands on its little wooden box, which will probably end up hidden and surrounded by a bunch of smaller trees. They’ll all be lit with big round ornaments that look like styrofoam during the day hours, but will light up blue at night.

I like seeing Madison Square Park develop so slowly and exactly.
This is the first sign of their big tree in the “reflecting pool.”

The tree is held upright by these cables. Last year there was a violent storm.
Rain, sleet and heavy winds didn’t knock down the trees or decorations.

Meanwhile, on the Southern side of the park they’re setting up
more trees and some tables. I’m not sure what this will be.

The art piece – treehouses – will look down on the new installation.

The usual tree stores have been set up outside of many of the bodegas.
A tree can be bought any time of day or night from many of these 24 hours stores.

I have to admit that I enjoy the pine scented areas
as I pass them on the way to the subway.

The local Portuguese church has already set up their Nativity booth.

Christ will join them on Christmas Day. Something about the wire mesh and
the glass casing takes a bit of the glory away from the setup.

Also caged is the hay poodle wearing eyeglasses sitting in front of twinkling lights.
This is an eyeglass store, and the late night gate guard is down.
I like the home grown decorations.

- There were a couple of great blog posts this past week.

Amid Amidi, on Cartoon Brew, gave us one of the blockbuster pieces of the year. He catalogued a number of Asian-Americans who worked in animation during the golden years and offered a brief bio of them as well as links to more information on all. It’s quite a serious bit of writing and I’ve saved it for my own records. I don’t think anything comparable has been done before re animation’s history.

The amount of work Amid put into this could only have been enormous, and my gratitude couldn’t be stronger. I assume most of the readers of my blog have seen that post; if not go. Here’s the link again.

- Speaking of Amid, he’s also updated his other site, Cartoon Modern. He’s started the Cartoon Modern Tumblr where he intends to post a picture a day of art from the period. The drawing to the left, from the Tumblr is by Ed Benedict.

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- Mark Mayerson pointed us to the upcoming celebration of Chuck Jones’ work on TCM next March. This is all centered around the new documentary Chuck Jones Memories of Childhood, directed by Peggy Stern. The film records a conversation with Chuck Jones as he reminisces about his childhood in 1920′s Los Angeles. The half-hour program blends family photos, clips from classic Jones shorts and original animated sequences directed by John Canemaker, drawn from drawings Jones made during the interview filmed in 1998.

Some of the Jones shorts to be screened include: Prest-O, Change-O (1939), Sniffles and the Bookworm (1939), Elmer’s Candid Camera (1940), Duck Amuck (1953), One Froggy Evening (1966), What’s Opera Doc (1954), and The Dot and the Line (1965). Mark gives the complete schedule.

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– Over the Christmas holidays the Film Forum will be screening a beautiful 35mm print of Fleischer’s second feature, Hoppity Goes To Town.

This remarkable film opened Dec 4th, 1941. Pearl Harbor occurred three days later, and the fate of the feature’s financial success was settled. Paramount closed the studio and fired the Fleischer brothers.

Dec. 24th through Jan. 1st you can see the film paired with “Betty Boop’s Rise to Fame,” a 1934 short starring Betty and Max Fleischer.

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Tatia Rosenthal‘s feature, $9.99, is about to make its debut in LA with an Oscar qualifying run at the Laemmle Theater. The film is a stop-motion feature done in Australia. It stars the voices of Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush (“Shine”) and Golden Globe winner Anthony LaPaglia.

You can watch the trailer here.
The film’s website can be found here.

If you live in LA, make the effort. Support the film, check it out.

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- There’s a newish blog in town (meaning NYC) that’s worth the visit. It’s an addition to the ASIFA-East website. Called The Exposure Sheet (do studios other than mine still use these things?) it reports on business and events involving NY members of ASIFA.

The most current of these articles is the big lay-off of workers at Nickelodeon and the shutting of the doors of this last big network studio in NY.Linda Beck writes an informative piece about the actual events occurring here, and for a reality check it’s worth the read.
The article listed above has been removed from the blog. There’s no given reason. Perhaps Linda felt she’d misstated something. Perhaps someone will post something more.

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- Finally a big congratulations to Nina Paley. Her film, Sita Sings the Blues, won the Gotham Independent Film Award. Theater Near You category. It took home the $15,000 prize from Artists Public Domain and D.R. Reiff & Associates.

Nina’s also been been nominated as “Someone to Watch” for this year’s 24th Independent Spirit Awards. That’s a brilliant coup for Nina. I believe this is the first time an animated film has been nominated for a ‘Spirit” in any category, and if there’s any justice in the world she’ll win. I’ll be watching on Feb. 21st with fingers crossed.

-Thanksgiving, of course, is a time for saying words of thanks. I thought it also a good day for admitting some recent things found on line that pleased me and for which I am grateful. So here are a few things that come to mind.

- As a big fan of Bobe Cannon‘s work, I was ecstatic to see a couple of his rough extremes on the TAG Blog. Boy I love the internet; bits and pieces like this would never have come my way otherwise. I have a few of his drawings from a scene from Moonbird, with inbetweens by Ed Smith. I’ll post these sometime soon. ____________________Not by Bobe Cannon;
__________________________________________it’s from Herky Jerky Turkey.

- I’m pleased to see a number of the children of great animation artists who have established sites to honor their parent’s work.
I think of Roberta, Judy, and Jon Levitow offering us the site for their father, the brilliant Abe Levitow, or
the recent site hosted by Paul Spector for his father, the excellent artist Irv Spector.
Just today I heard from Peter Svochak that he’s put up a MySpace page for his father, the fine NY animator, Jan Svochak.
I’ve established permanent links on my blog to all three of these memorial sites.

- There are a couple of videos that appeared in the last couple of days that encouraged me to feel that there is still art in the world of animation:

. I’m thankful for Cartoon Brew which led me to the films of Stephen Irwin. After seeing the first one on the Brew, I went to Irwin’s site and watched all of the rest of them. They’re all fine films, some are great. I’ve gone back to the site some four more times to watch the films anew, and all of them hold up for me. I urge you to check them out.

. I look forward to the NYTimes‘ posts of the monthly video by Jeff Scher. This month’s film, Newscycle, is a good one – or, at least, I think so. It just went up this week.

. The Chicago Tribune also posts cartoons by Joe Fournier though the last one posted was at Halloween. Fournier’s work is worth looking for. He employs a muscular drawing style somewhat similar to the work of Bill Plympton.

- Mike Barrier‘s site has gotten down to some serious nitty gritty of animation history. The photos he’s been posting are just impossible to see elsewhere. (Where else could we have seen Walt in a gondola in Venice. He seems giddy, carrying an award he obviously won at the film festival, while his wife and daughter look sober – if not bored.) Mike’s many years of committed study of the art is certainly paying off for the likes of me. I look forward daily to checking out any new posts on the site, and continue checking daily even when there’s an announced break.

- Actually, the same is true of a couple of other sites that offer thoughtful discussion of the medium. Hans Bacher‘s site is a daily must see, as are Mark Mayerson, and Hans Perk. For a daily smile, Eddie Fitzgerald‘s site can’t be skipped.

- One site feeds my love of NYC. Blather from Brooklyn is an excellent photo site hosted by Annulla. Her recent post on NY Prayer Booths,
was a gem. (The photo to the right comes from her blog.) These are street booths that could be mistaken for telephone booths placed around the city. My mouth dropped when I saw these photos. Annulla’s wry sense of humor and love of the city can’t be faked; it’s wonderful.

I say a prayer daily in thanks that America has finally selected a literate, organized, intelligent guy into office. His recent optimistic statements have done nothing less than given Wall Street a reason to have a bit more confidence in the system. I look forward to more of the same once he gets started. Just think, he has no authority as yet, and still he’s doing more than the fool occupying the White House at the moment. (For a while, I was begging god to stop Bush from making public comments on the economy. Every time he appeared, the market dropped precipitously.)

The future does look hopeful.

- In trying to put together yesterday’s links to the Oscar contenders, I consulted a lot with the Ottawa Animation Festival catalogue for info. In looking at that magazine, again, I came upon the piece about me, my studio and our work.

Written by Richard O’Connor, a principal in the Asterisk Pictures animation studio, the piece is one of my favorites of anything I’ve seen about me. So, with all lack of humility, I’m going to post that here. I hope you don’t mind this seeming self-promotion, but I like the writing and enjoy seeing it out there. (I guess I could be railing about politics, instead. Would that be worse or better?)

PROGRAM:
Sunday, Sept. 21, 11:00 am
(Museum of Civilization)
The Man Who Walked Between
__the Towers [2005] 10:17
The Marzipan Pig (1990] 26:23
Doctor DeSoto [1984] 10:15
The Hunting of the Snark [1989] 18:54
Reel of miscellaneous works 8:00

Turning off Seventh Avenue onto a tiny street, then another even tinier street, the New York of now – of the Real Housewives and the Gossip Girls, of the luxury condos and highrise hotels – recedes. The crassness of reality draws back, pulling forward thoughts of New York as we want it to exist In our imagination, Audrey Hepburn is sipping coffee at the corner cafe and Gene Kelly swings from every lamppost; Bob Dylan is busking in the subway and Joey Ramone incites teenaged riots down the street On this storyboard storybook street an innocuous, easily missed sign in a passageway next to a fortune teller – where a psychic fat cat suns in the window, tail snuggling a crystal ball with a deck of tarot cards as a pillow – marks the way: “Michael Sporn Animation”.

A short tunnel leads to a garden — maybe Audrey Hepburn will drop a serenade from the surrounding fire escapes. At the end of the garden is (knock loudly) Michael Sporn’s studio. Conspicuously absent its own cat to match stripes the gatekeeper’s (his previous space had an amiable feline resident), the large semi-subterranean space has a comfort, a warmth that fits with the films made there. The previous space on Broadway, now most likely a bank or an American Apparel outlet, had the practical, efficient feel of a Henry Ford operation. As a producer, Michael is practical and efficient, but here, here in this low-lit grotto, in this bustling part of the city that real estate speculation and corporate claptrap seem to have forgotten, he has found himself in a sort of Bauhaus in which the hand hewn careful construction of his work is matched with an urban rusticity that has also disappeared from our landscape.

Michael walks through the studio filled with a mixture of moviolas, Macintosh computers and lighiboxes. He’s all bushy, unruly hair. He’s all still eyes and lips that turn unexpectedly warm and smile with ease – looking every bit the part of an animator. Not surprisingly, a little like the Unabomber too, another solitary spirit out of place in the Walmart economy.

With such a ranging intellect, I would prefer to talk with Michael about anything instead of the mundane simplicity of animation. Our first ever conversation was at a dinner following a tribute to Tissa David at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. He confessed that he read several books a week, usually devouring the work of a single author in the matter of a month. He modestly attributed this to insomnia. Other insomniacs are pros at Grand Theft Auto and channel changing. At that time he was burning through John Updike. Updike, inspired by James Thurber, had wanted to be a cartoonist; writing novels, it turns out, was easier.

At that first conversation, just like now sitting across from the studio’s picnic style lunch table, Michael’s mind ranged the arts and sciences, always pulling back to animation -politics and animation, literary adaptations, Flash as a production tool (to be avoided, in his opinion), motion capture and its shortcomings. No matter how you try to avoid it, animation is inextricably tied up in his thought system.

Intelligence – book learning – is simple to relate to. Anybody can pick up a second hand “Rabbit, Run” and a study guide and join the book club conversation. Experience is a sharper fanged monster, What librarian, even one who knows every decimal of Dewey’s system, can claim to have stood side by side with Tolstoy as he plotted “War and Peace” or Dickens rhapsodizing on the French Revolution?

There’s no way to phrase this, other than to just say it: I’m slightly (…just a little…) jealous of Michael’s career. That dinnertime conversation took place a few years after we were first introduced. There was something daunting, slightly intimidating about his resume, something so cool in his demeanor that made him seem unapproachable. In the early 70s, John Hubley hired him as an intern. In short order he graduated (or was demoted) to production manager, taking large responsibilities for the films from “Everybody Rides the Carousel” to the Letter Man series for Children’s Television Workshop’s “Electric Company”. Letter Man, along with several shorts produced by Hubley and animated byTissa David rank with the most compelling and charming short films.

After Hubley’s passing he moved on to New York’s next legendary production, Richard Williams’ “Raggedy Ann and Andy”. Several years with John Hubley would teach anybody how to make films, and several months woodshedding with Williams and his assembled team of masters could teach anyone a few things about how to animate.

Michael often claims that he primarily does “work for hire” -making films for other people on other people’s dime. While that may be true in an economic sense – in much the same way that Richard Williams’ best work, it could be argued, is his commercial work, or that without CBS, Hubley never would have produced “Everybody Rides the Carousel” – Michael’s works for hire all bear his personal touches and are as “independent” as animation gets with regard to style and substance.

Amongst these notable commissions are two adaptations of William Steig books, the Academy Award nominated “Doctor Desoto” and 1988′s “Abel’s Island”. Adapting a complex and ironic artist like William Steig can be particularly difficult. The story and the illustration all have to make sense on different levels of intellectual engagement. These pieces demonstrate a rare ability to understand inner tonalities of an illustrated story and translate that feeling to film.

The credit list of “Abel’s Island” is a snapshot of influential East Coast animators. Rob Marianetti, John Dilworth, Doug Compton, Lisa Crafts, Tissa David, Steve Dovas all contributed to this (and other) films, thus perpetuating the cycle of influence and education that has made animation in New York an easily identifiable yet qualitatively indescribable art form.

Two centerpieces of this program, “The Marzipan Pig”, and “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers” share the same softness and stylistic integrity demonstrated in Michael’s two William Steig films. Much of that can be attributed to the touch of Tissa David who has worked closely with Michael since his time with Hubley. Levity, respect, inquisitiveness -a space opens in these films, as though the artists are in communion with the material and we are all brought privy to their understanding of the world.

“The Hunting of the Snark” also anchors the Festival’s program selections. This film was completed over the span of several years and was animated entirely by Michael in between projects. A Lewis Carroll poem recited by James Earl Jones, the film leaves off with a looming question, its characters teetering on the verge of new age. It’s almost certain they’ll all be devoured, a fate the film’s director has managed to avoid as the brighter-than-neon signs of “progress” encroach.

Richard O’Connor is a producing partner of Asterisk in New York. He hopes that he is intimidating.