Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Yesterday, the Academy had the NY screen off of the animated shorts entered for competition. Some 40 short films were projected for about 25 people – 15 members and the rest guests. The program started at 10 am and continued up to 8 pm – a V E R Y long day. A couple of members came down from Montreal to vote, some from upstate NY and the rest city dwellers.

There were a lot of mediocre films, some very bad films and a couple of excellent films. The usual for animated short collections.

Here’s a list of the films screened in the order that we saw them. I tried to find links for some of them and had difficulty in locating the directors for some of them.

Boar Attack Jay White/Canada 4 mins
Bridge Kaaren Stang/Norway 1 mins
I Have Seen the Future Cam Christiansen/US 6 mins
La Maison En Petits Cubes (The House of Small Cubes) Kunio Katō/Japan 12 mins
Mutt Glen Hunwick/Aus 7 mins
Oktapodi Gobelins Student film/France 2 mins
Secrets of the Furious Five Raman Hui, Dreamworks/US 24 mins
Sea Monsters – A Prehistoric Adventure Sean MacLeod Phillips, Nat’l Geographic/US 40 mins
Hot Dog Bill Plympton/US 6 mins
I Am So Proud of You Don Hertzfeldt/US 22 mins
Lavatory Lovestory Konstantin Bronsit/Russia 10 mins
Le Noeud Cravate (The Necktie) Jean-François Lévesque, NFB/Canada 12 mins
Retouches Georges Schwizgebel/Switz. 6 mins
Veterinarian Signe Bauman/US 19 mins
Hot Seat Janet Perlman 6 mins \
The Phantom of the Cinema Erik van Schaaik/Holland 11 mins
Botnik Jacqueline Smessaert Brennan, Calabash/US 11 mins
Chainsaw Dennis Tupicoff/Aus 25 mins
Chick Michael Socha, Poland 5 mins
The Cracked Pot 4 mins
The Crumblegiant John McClasky/Ireland 5 mins
Ergo Géza M. Tóth/Hungary 12 mins
For the Love of God Joe Tucker, NFTS student film/UK 11 mins
Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor Koji Yamamura/Japan 21 mins
The Girl Who Cried Flowers Umesh Shukla/US 25 mins
Glago’s Guest Chris Williams, Disney/US 7 mins
Hungu Nicolas Brault, NFB/Canada9 mins
A Letter to Colleen Carolyn and Andy London/US 9 mins
Monster Coins Vance Yang, SOFA studios/Taiwan 10 mins
Over the Hill Peter Baynton/UK 8 mins
Perpetuum Mobile Enrique Garcia, Rubén Salazar/Spain 11 mins
Skhizein Jeremy Clapin/France 14 mins
Surviving Sid Galen Tan Chu, Karen Disher/Blue Sky/US 8 mins
Tadeo Jones and the Basement of Doom Enrique Gato 18 mins
This Way Up Smith and Foulkes/UK 9 mins
The Weatherman Will Becher/UK 3 mins
Descendants Heiko van der Scherm; Patrick Cunningham/USA-Germany 14 mins
Varmints Marc Craste/UK 24
Presto Doug Sweetland, Pixar/US 5 mins (shown out of order)

- Today is the once-a-year hell that I complain about but totally enjoy.

The Academy is having the viewing of all animated short entrees, and from the 40 films submitted, we’ll help to select the 10 or so that will be on the short list.

This year’s event promises a lot of long flms and 9 solid hours of screening. Hopefully and expectedly, there’ll be one or two films I like. I’ll try to give a longish breakdown tomorrow.

-Karl Cohen‘s email led me to this article about Gene Deitch‘s appearance at ASIFA SF for a chat about his life’s work. (Part 1 and Part 2). It’s an engaging piece.

I know you all know about the animation autobiography Gene Deitch has on AWN, but in case you don’t I strongly suggest you read it. The man has so much to tell, and he does it in a very engaging way.
The book is free from AWN or you can buy a hard bound copy.

- Mark Mayerson has completed his Mosaic for 101 Dalmatians. I have to give him great praise and kudos for the task he’s completed. These are great tools for us all, and I’m enormously thankful.

- Let me scream out the good news: Paul Spector has begun a blog that will feature the artwork and information by and about his father Irv Spector.

This is good news for those of you, like me, who crave solid information and goodies about animation’s past. Irv Spector was an artist who worked at Mintz, Flesicher, Paramount, and a dozen other top studios. He did every sort of animation job imaginable as well as writing stories. On top of that he did a successful comic strip.

There’s a wealth of material that’ll show up on this site, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Today there’s a great little introduction, soon some material from Linus the Lionhearted. (Despite the overly commercialized show, it was great among the Saturday morning programs for kids like me.) ____________________________Irv Spector at Mintz.

This site will offer plenty, and I urge you to keep it on your watch list. I’ve added it to my blogroll.

- Tony White‘s festival, 2D or not 2D, has just ended, and there’s an excellent account of it – including pictures and vid clips – at Ken Priebe‘s site, The Boundaries of Fantasia.

On further search, the official website of the Fest has a great view of the entire event; they show it in pictures. It was fun touring this Festival vicariously. It sounds like a true animator’s festival in an ideal location, Seattle.

Congrats to Stephen Neary for winning another award with his excellent and funny film, Cowboy Chicken.

The Award I won at this festival back in 2006. It sits among some other awards and is not as close to the camera as it looks here.

- And speaking of not 2D, Bolt opened today.

The reviews were mixed.

AO Scott in the NY Times says: With brisk wit and impressive visual brio, “Bolt” explores an existential predicament that it also shares. It is at once a knowing, satirical sendup of the Hollywood fame-and-fantasy machinery and a sleek, expensive product of the Disney-Pixar industrial complex.

Joe Neumaier *** in the NYDaily News says: Disney animation has been let off the leash with “Bolt,” and proves that even those who’ve led know when to follow. In this case, it’s Pixar, which uses the Mouse House as its distributor, whose footsteps are the guide and whose visual precision is copied down to a dog’s hair, though the heart of Pixar’s simple stories – their gentleness – is missing.

Rafer Guzman in Newsday *** says: Familiar territory, but the Disney team still knows how to bring a story to life.

Variety‘s Todd McCarthy said: “Although it seems like a workable notion on paper, onscreen the fundamental premise feels a bit shaky.”

- And speaking of new blogs, Eddie Fitzgerald – Uncle Eddie to many of us – has a new blog called Love Nerds. This is something at least interesting and possibly ingenious.

You can post your own YouTube videos searching for a job or a date, love or work – maybe both. There’s going to be a wealth of wonderful material to view on this site, and it’s in my radar with great expectations.

- Here are the last of the color stats of art from Toot Whistle Plunk & Boom. They were loaned me by John Canemaker to whom I’m enormously grateful.

As with past posts, I’ve interspersed some frame grabs from the film to show what the final designs looked like for comparison’s sake.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Ward Jenkins has many more frame grabs from the entire film on his site.

- Today marks the official date of the release of the Boxed Sporn. My distributor, First Run Features, has compiled six dvds (12 films) into a boxed set and released it. (Amusingly, Steisha Pintado left a comment yesterday pointing out that today is also the birthday of Mickey Mouse – or at least the first screening of Steamboat Willie at the Colony Theater, NY.)

To commemorate this event, I’ve decided to post an old article about the making of The Hunting of the Snark as published in HOW Magazine back in the early 80′s.

The film adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s poem was in the works for seven years – done in between other jobs when there was spare time – and was completed in 1989. This was years after this article came out.

John Canemaker wrote the article, and just as I love that film I love this odd bit of press. I have it permanently on my official studio site but thought I’d enjoy posting it here. My hair is long and I’m thin, what’s not for me to love.

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(Merely click any image and it will enlarge so you can read it.)

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- Next week there are a couple of animation events to look forward to.

- Sita Sings The Blues will show at MOMA on Thursday and Saturday upcoming. The film is better than any of those eligible for Oscar nomination this year (but for some reason is not on the list.)

The film won the top prize for animated feature at Annecy this year. It was written, directed, and animated by Nina Paley. Using Indonesian shadow puppets, torch songs of 1920s and the finest use of Flash animation on record, the film sparkles. If you haven’t seen it, go.

Nov. 20, Thursday: 6pm
Nov. 22, Saturday: 3pm

- Don Hertzfeldt will be in town next Wednesday, November 19, accompanying several showings of his films at the IFC Center (323 Sixth Avenue). The two scheduled shows have already sold out, but a third, late show, may be added. If so, tickets will go on sale soon. His new film, I Am So Proud of You, will debut with this package of shorts.

- Speaking of films eligible for Oscar consideration, here’s the list of those submitted and eligible:

Bolt – Disney
Delgo – Fathom Studios
Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! – 20th Century Fox/Blue Sky
Dragon Hunters – Futurikon/Peace Arch
Fly Me to the Moon – Summit Ent./nWave
Igor – MGM/ Weinstein Co./Exodus
Kung Fu Panda – DreamWorks Animation
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa – DreamWorks Animation
$9.99 – Regent Releasing
The Sky Crawlers – Production IG./Nippon/Sony Pictures Classics
Sword of the Stranger (Stranger Mukoh Hadan) – Shochiku/Bones/Bandai
The Tale of Despereaux – Universal
WALL-E – Disney/Pixar
Waltz with Bashir – Sony Pictures Classics

It’s a tough choice, and I suppose I’d probably go with $9.99 just for its being independent and individual. Of the studio films, Horton Hears a Who looks the best to me, despite Jim Carrey. It’s going to be a case of closing my eyes, holding my nose and throwing a dart. I don’t even WANT to watch some of these, nevermind vote for them. But I will, and I’ll pick what I think is the best of the lot. (For what it’s worth.)

- A site that keeps getting better is Ben Price‘s blog. A lot of news seems to show up there before I see it elsewhere. Much of it comes directly out of Variety, but it’s hard to find it at times.

Yesterday alone he offered a new poster for Coraline – this looks like a feature worth seeing – , a piece about Linda Woolverton and her WGA Award, the studio Image Metrics, Christmas dvds, Ridley Scott, Emru Townsend, a Wizard of Oz cgi feature directed by John Boorman, and more.

It’s a read, an informative one. This is a blog worth watching.

- An article appeared in yesterday’s Variety and then was picked up in the NYTimes announcing a new musical for Broadway. It’s being called the “Betty Boop Musical” at the moment, and it’ll be interesting to see what title they do arrive at. The show is expected to open during the 2010-11 season.

The music for the show is being composed by David Foster, the pop master who has written for Whitney Houston, Barbra Streisand and Josh Groban, among others. The book for the show will be written by Sally Robinson and Oscar Williams.

The show was originally announced in 2003, and Foster is the third composer attached to it. Jason Robert Brown and book writer David Lindsay-Abaire were originally attached. Andrew Lippa replaced Brown a year later and is now replaced by Foster.

- In many ways, Princess Mononoke is one of my favorite of Myazaki’s films. The spirituality behind the film keeps me coming back to this beautiful animated epic. In many ways it synthesizes all that is great about Myazaki’s body of work.

Now, a series of videos which details the making of this film has made it to YouTube. These videos have been collected by Daniel Thomas MacInnes into three seperate posts.

You can find them on his site, Conversations With Ghibli.
They’re broken into three groups. See:
Part 1,
Part 2, and
Part 3.

– Early animation art has always been a source of great inspiration for me. If you haven’t checked Bob Cowan‘s site recently you’ve missed the magnificent drawings he’s displayed from the Mickey short, The Mail Pilot. There’s a wealth of treasure on display with these beuatiful pencil sketches.

If you haven’t scrolled through this site, I urge you to do so. The Cowan collection is a gem. Production art for everything from Make Mine Music to Lady and the Tramp, Gulliver Mickey to Tarzan or Snow White. It’s all great and all worth drooling over.

I find it a bit odd that the link to a review for Madagascar 2 has been on the NYTimes front page since Thursday morning. I suppose I should be pleased that Dreamworks is obviously paying for this, but I’m disappointed in the Times.

By the way, is there any reason that animators these days can only do the fast-paced generic popping action for their characters. In cgi do you have to worry about how many drawings you make? There is virtually NO character animation being done anymore. All characters move the same way.

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- Many years ago, Edith Zornow was my guardian angel at Sesame Street – I mean CTW. Whenever my tiny company was in desperate trouble and one short step away from crumbling, Edith would pop up with some spots for me to do, and things became just fine again. I have to say I loved Edith; it wasn’t the usual client relationship. She suffered from Parkinson’s Disease which slowly grew worse over a few short years. Eventually, she died, and I felt my world was doomed.

Arlene Sherman took Edith’s place, and was just as supportive. I worked with Arlene for many years producing lots of animated bits for the show and other shows. One time we even did a number of films in Arabic for a Mid-East version of Sesame Street.

Arlene just died this past week, and I’m tremendously sad.
We hadn’t worked together in a number of years, but she lived in the neighborhood of my studio, and we often passed on the street. Always an embrace, always I felt things were right in the world after meeting her.

I found this “Paid death notice” in the NY Times. I haven’t found any obits other than the one on AWN. At least there’s the one. I just had to report this, though I wish I had more details.

I also have to admit sadness on hearing of the death of Studs Terkel. It was comforting just knowing someone of his calibre was in the world.

I’ll be sad to see King of the Hill go, now that it’s been cancelled. I don’t watch every week, but I watch it often enough. However, we do have to make room for The Cleveland Show. Sunday will soon be an all Seth McFarland night. It’s interesting that the NY Times felt it important enough to deliver an article.

- Emily Hubley informs me that her feature film, The Toe Tactic is going to have a number of screenings upcoming for the local area.

Please take note of dates and times, and get out to see an exciting and different kind of movie.

Here are some places, dates and times:

Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville NY
November 5th, 7pm with Producer Jen Small and Emily Hubley in attendance.
Go here to order tickets to this event.

92Y Tribeca (200 Hudson St, NYC)
November 20th, 8pm
Discussion follows with Emily Hubley and friend Judith Helfand.
Go here to order tickets for this event.

Clearview’s South Orange 5 (NJ)
December 4th with a 7pm Filmmaker Reception and Q&A with Emily Hubley to follow.

Clearview’s South Orange 5 (NJ)
December 10th – 7pm
Go here to order advance tickets.

The Toe Tactic will have its theatrical premiere at The Museum of Modern Art from January 28th – February 2nd, 2009 (screening times vary).
MOMA’s schedule doesn’t have this program listed, as yet. Check here next month.

Tell one and all!

- Nina Paley tells of some upcoming screenings of her feature, Sita Sings the Blues. These are as follows:

There are two matinees at the New York Children’s Film Festival which screens at the IFC theater on Sixth Ave and 3rd Street:
Saturday, Nov. 8, 11:00 am
Sunday, Nov. 9, 11:00 am

There are two screenings at MoMA, as part of IFP’s Gotham Awards series for nominees in the category “Best Film Not Playing At A
Theater Near You” (undistributed features):
Thursday Nov. 20, 6:00 pm
Saturday Nov. 22, 3:00 pm

Michel Ocelot‘s animated feature, Azur & Asmar: The Princes’ Quest, has quietly opened in NYC at the IFC theater for a limited run. It plays daily at 5:20pm (and at 11 pm on Sat & Sun).

The too few reviews have been quite favorable. Read here:

the NYTimes says “…the movie has a terrific flair for arabesque patterning, a gemlike luminosity of surface and a handsome, classical cast of mind.”
Time Out NY says “…Azur & Asmar is absolutely gorgeous, as the director integrates visual elements and techniques drawn from medieval illuminations and Arabic art…”

The Weinstein Co. will release the dvd for this film on Nov. 11th.

Harvey Deneroff has an excellent piece on this film on his site.

- The following letter came from Jennifer Jeremich at CalArts re sending money to support Corny Cole, whose home was destroyed this week in the Marek fire:

Thank you for contacting CalArts about helping Corny Cole recover from the loss of his home in the Marek fire earlier this week. Your compassion is deeply appreciated not only by Corny and his wife, Linda, but also by all of us at CalArts who care about their well being.

For those of you who have asked for advice on how to get financial assistance to Corny, we have designated a primary point person who will collect funds for him. Any checks should be made payable to Cornelius Cole and sent to the following address:

California Institute of the Arts
ATT: Trish Patryla, Office of the Provost
24700 McBean Parkway
Valencia, CA 91355

On behalf of Corny and Linda, thank you so much for your concern and well wishes.

Jennifer Jeremich

This letter came by way of Roberta Levitow, and I thank her for sending it to me. Once again, let me post this Paypal link which I posted yesterday, in case you want to contribute that way: PayPal link.

- A week after the DVD release of Azur and Asmar, on November 18th, First Run Features is going to release the boxed set of my films on dvd. This is something I’m particularly proud of.

They’ve just sent me a press release to approve. It’s quite amazing that I allow people to say such wonderful things about me at this stage in my life. Here’s a small part of that two page release (that eliminates some of the overly positive hyperbole.)

First Run has long been a fan of Michael Sporn, and when made available we’ve eagerly released his beautifully crafted, socially aware films. Thus we’re proud to announce this new Collector’s Edition Box Set, which brings together in one package all twelve Sporn films that we’ve released over the years.

Based on stories from such acclaimed writers as William Steig (author of Shrek), Russell Hoban, Hans Christian Andersen and Lewis Carroll, the 12 films in the Box Set are considered among his best – and most personal – works, and feature a stunning cast of voices, including James Earl Jones, Ruby Dee, Tim Curry, Amanda Plummer, Danny Glover, Linda Lavin, Regis Philbin, Ossie Davis and F. Murray Abraham.

The six disc set also comes with copious bonus materials created by Sporn especially for these DVDs, including short films (In the Animation Studio, etc), animatics (storyboards), art galleries, and audio commentaries.

THE COLLECTOR’S EDITION BOX SET FEATURES THE AWARD WINNING FILMS
• Whitewash • The Talking Eggs • Champagne • The Hunting of the Snark •
The Marzipan Pig • Jazztime Tale • Abel’s Island • The Dancing Frog • The Red Shoes • The Little Match Girl • The Emperor’s New Clothes • Nightingale

- I received emails from both John Canemaker and Roberta Levitow about Corny Cole‘s home burning down in the recent fires in California. He says that 90% of his artwork saved from over his many years has all been destroyed. Even worse is the loss of his numerous pets – cats and dogs – that all died in the fire.

I understand that a fund raiser is being formed to help Corny out. When I hear anything more, I’ll pass it on.

The FOX report reads:

The Marek Fire destroyed more than three dozen homes in a Lake View Terrace mobile home park. One man, a noted animator, lost not only his home, but his life’s work to the fire.

You can check out a Fox video here.

The piece, naturally enough, appeared soon after I learned about it on Cartoon Brew. (They’re always ahead of the curve.) I don’t mind repeating the info in case anyone’s missed it.

For those who don’t know who Corny is, let me repost this piece I did back in 2006:

- I have quite a bit of artwork from the film, Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure, the 1976 feature film by Dick Williams. Hence, it’s always an easy decision to post some of it. Unfortunately, every animation drawing is so large, it takes a lot of time to scan and put it together.

____________(Click any image to enlarge.)

I think in many ways, the unsung hero of Raggedy Ann was Corny Cole. He was there from day one working with Dick Williams and Tissa David – once the one minute pilot had secured the job for Dick. Corny was brought in as the key designer, and Gerry Potterton came on as Dick’s Associate Director.

I was hired soon thereafter, even though I had no idea what I’d be doing. For the first couple of weeks, while they were recording, I just moved furniture and read the script and whiled away the time by drawing Johnny Gruelle‘s characters.

I helped Dick and Gerry add spot coloring to the storyboard as the animatic was being shot. We spent a long Saturday coloring like mad with colored pencils. We worked on the last section of the animatic to be shot. I’d say 90% of the board was done by Corny. Dick and Gerry added spot drawings as needed, while we built the animatic.

Corny then did lots and lots and lots of drawings to give to animators.
Some of those drawings are posted herein for a scene at the beginning of the “taffy pit” sequence. These drawings were also used in the animatic.

After Corny finished feeding the animators, he started animating, himself. He took on a sequence that filled the screen with a pirate ship full of dolls floating around some rough waters. The large sheets of paper were filled with Corny’s black bic pen lines. Doug Compton eventually worked with Corny to finish this overworked sequence.

- John Celestri sent me a clipping from the Cincinnati Enquirer re the kidnapping of Ann & Andy. Hence, I am prompted to post the following layouts and storyboard drawings by Corny Cole.

This first Layout marks the introduction of Raggedy Andy. He’s under the box. This drawing gives you a good idea of the detail Corny put into every drawing.

The following images come from the first shots of the Pirate Captain. He espys the new doll, Babette, and falls madly in love.

The first four stills are 8.5×14 copies of the storyboard; the remainder come from the director’s workbook. They’re all sequential.

I think the parrot, which was added in pencil, is the work of Asst. Director, Cosmo Anzilotti. The bird just shows up later, so Cosmo probably tried to give him some business.

It’s here that the Pirate goes into his song (everybody sings in this film) and concocts his plot to kidnap the French doll.