Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– This will be my last post until I return from Ottawa on Sunday. I look forward to meeting a lot of new folks there and seeing some great films.

This has been a difficult week, and I’ll be glad to get away for a few days. Hopefully, the Yankees will clinch the pennant while I’m gone. I’ll miss the champagne celebration.

While I’m gone, I’ve decided to be emotional and let my Claude have the spotlight.

Today, was his Dancing Day. He died in my arms this morning.

- In 1976 the first edition of the Ottawa Animation Festival was held. I attended with a contingent of people who were working on Raggedy Ann & Andy, and we were there to be inspired, see a lot of great films and have a good time. One of those times when you felt connected to everyone there.

Bruno Bozzetto‘s , Allegro Non Troppo was a special midnight screening on the program. A surprise screening; a feature none of us had heard about.
(Click to enlarge.)

Of course, we all knew the work of Bruno Bozzetto. He was undoubtedly a master of comic animation. His films had won enormous prizes everywhere, and his output was large. There’d been many screenings of his films through ASIFA-East, and they were always popular.

The screening was one of the brightest I’ve ever sat through. It was hilarious, beautifully animated, and intelligent. The audience came out excited about animation, alive, and encouraged to party. It was a memorable night and it helped make that festival one of the stand-out Festivals I’d ever attended. I’m sure many there would say the same.

Now the question I have is whether the films of that 1976 festival were as great as I remember or that specific Festival so great? Or was it both? Caroline Leaf‘s masterpiece, The Street, won the grand prize and most of the films were brilliant (including Caroline’s other film The Owl Who Married a Goose.
Allegro Non Troppo just served as the enormous cherry on top of the cake. It was a grand festival and I always hope that others I attend will reach that level.

I look forward to the coming Ottawa Animation Festival starting Wednesday, Sept. 20th. Bruno Bozzetto is both a judge and the recipient of a retrospective of his work. Maybe this will be the one that will match the first.

Tonight ASIFA-East will present a screening of Allegro Non Troppo.
I was scheduled to moderate a Q&A with Bruno Bozzetto, but due to some personal problems of mine Candy Kugel will host it. She’s graciously stepped in to help me out at the last moment, and I have to thank her enormously.
At 6:30 pm – The School of Visual Arts, 209 East 23rd Street, 3rd floor amphitheatre. Admission is FREE.

– In 1988 the Festival Int’l Del Cartone Animato in Treviso, Italy sponsored a retrospective of a number of my films. (Many were dubbed into Italian; it was hilarious watching Dr. DeSoto with a Mickey Mouse sound-a-like for his Italian voice.) There was a very full audience.

My film, Abel’s Island was almost complete, and I was showing a rough cut with a separate soundtrack. The obvious happened; the film was projected out of sync. It was maybe ten frames out. I knew the film was mostly VO narration and sync wouldn’t be too critical once lip sync stopped. I was prepared to accept the inevitable.

However, five mins. into the film, in the dark, Bruno Bozzetto whispered loudly to me that we had to fix it. Together we ran out of the theater – film still playing.

Bruno led me up two flights of stairs – running all the way – to the projection booth. He loudly and excitedly made the projectionist understand. The film slowed down to a stop when the projectionist shut the film off. Together we worked and reworked and reworked – as quickly as we could – getting the two separate soundtracks into sync with the third reel, the picture. The projector was turned on again, and Bruno and I ran back to our seats.

The end result was that I had a memorable screening. Bruno Bozzetto, after all, was concerned and took it on himself to correct the projection. A great adventure – during the screening. What a blast!
(The photo comes from Bruno’s website. He’s obviously in Disneyland.)
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– Cartoon Brew has posted a couple of images from the next feature film from Blue Sky, an adaptation of Horton Hears a Who.
(Images via USA Today and Comingsoon.net.)

I have to admit how pleasantly surprised I am with these stills. The images do look a bit like those old viewmaster slides. This was a problem many of the cgi films had. However, they broke away from that look, and it wasn’t for the better. Everything got pastel-ey with a look of little plastic dolls – see Everybody’s Hero.

It might be a good time to take a look at George Pal’s version of Dr. Seuss, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. This puppet film was nominated for the Oscar in 1944, yet the film seems to be hidden (it’s not on dvd) and stills seem to be a little harder to locate.
The original Horton

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of a cgi adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ illustration style. Having already adapted two of his books for television, I can relate to the problems inherent. These images are a plus. Let’s hope the script will be strong and the animation will be able to take advantage of the whimsical style of the book. This could be the next decent cgi feature. Undoubtedly, Blue Sky has been doing the second best cgi work out there – behind Pixar, of course. So there’s good reason to have hope. More power to them.

– Speaking of pastel/doll cgi features, Everyone’s Hero quietly moved into theaters yesterday. A review without anything positive to say appeared in the NYTimes; a *** positive one appeared in the NYDaily News and a ** mixed review appeared in Newsday.

The Christopher Reeve connection is an interesting one, and I’d like to know more about it. I understand that he lived through much of the storyboarding process, but I wonder how much more involved he was.

– On Tuesday evening ASIFA-East will be celebrating the work of Bruno Bozzetto, Italy’s Master of Animation, with the screening of his film, Allegro Non Troppo, the animated parody of Fantasia.
I’ll be hosting a Q&A afterward, and we hope there’ll be a good turnout for this film.

Mr. Bozzetto is on his way to Ottawa as a judge. They’ll also be hosting a more extensive retrospective of his enormous output. Any of you heading to Ottawa should attend as many of these screenings as you can. His work is brilliant.

The ASIFA-East screening will be held at: The School of Visual Arts, 209 East 23rd Street, 3rd floor amphitheatre on Tues, Sept. 19. Admission is FREE.

(pictured: The cover to a small booklet I own written in 1972 by Giannalberto Bendazzi, entitled: Bruno Bozzetto, Animation as a First Love.

Go to the Bruno Bozzetto website and explore the flash films. They’re great.

– At first I noticed the number of images of the Brooklyn Bridge that appeared in the work of some artists that I respected enormously:
Georgia O’Keefe, Joseph Stella, John Marin, and Albert Gleizes among others.

It tooktime for me to realize that this was part of a competition held to honor the bridge, and the images that were created as a result were extraordinary.
Nocturne 1913 – a photo by the extraordinary Karl Struss)

I have always been fascinated with the futurist artists, and, as a result, was attracted to Joseph Stella‘s work. He, among other artists, is most closely associated with the Brooklyn Bridge. There are quite a few paintings and drawings and preparatory sketches he’d created of the bridge. They dominate the one book on his work & life that I own.

In fact there is one interesting bit of writing he’d done to describe the experience of painting right on the bridge. The piece is, itself, almost futurist:

To realize this towering imperative vision in all its integral possibilities [he wrote] I lived days of anxiety, torture, and delight alike, trembling all over with emotion as those railing[s] in the midst of the bridge vibrating at the continuous passage of the trains. I appealed for help to the soaring verse of Walt Whitman and to the fiery Poe’s plasticity. Upon the swarming darkness of the night, I rung all the bells of alarm with the blaze of electricity scattered in lightnings down the oblique cables, the dynamic pillars of my composition, and to render more pungent the mystery of the metallic apparition, through the green and red glare of the signals I excavated here and there caves as subterranean passages to infernal recesses.

A bit emotional, perhaps, but he tries desperately to describe his emotions which are articulated so well in the paintings.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

– I’m pleased that John Mavroudis (who, with Owen Smith, created the New Yorker‘s 9/11 cover) left a comment on my site detailing the development of his image. I’m also pleased that he didn’t seem offended that I questioned his originality in the creation. It’s obvious from his work that the idea was his, and I was wrong to have challenged him.

Mr. Mavroudis also left information about his site which goes into the development process in greater depth and offers other variations on the theme. It gives a good presentation of what goes into one of the magazine’s covers.
Also, take a look around at his other illustrations; he’s a fine artist with a lot of excellent work on display at the site.

- Speaking of originals, Michael Barrier reviews Monster House and A Scanner Darkly. He always has astute, intelligent and interesting things to say, and his review of these two films is no exception. Conjoining these two films in the one review is particularly apt since one was “scanned” via some rotoscoping/computer technique and the other used a motion-capture/computer technique.

- AWN has a good interview with NY Independent, Patrick Smith. Worth a look.

By the way, isn’t AWN able to put these articles on one page so we don’t have to keep clicking forward? This is something that many papers like doing, and I’ve never quite understood it. At least, with the NYTimes you can request have it all on a single page. The only way to do that with AWN is to click on the printable version, but that is missing any illustrations. (Just a pet peeve. Sorry I bothered you with it.)

- I’ve just been asked to be involved in a retrospective of my work at the Seattle Children’s Film Festival. A nice way to start the day. Of course, I’ve said yes. At the moment, I can’t believe the Ottawa Festival is bearing down on me. My schedule is getting intense, and all my attention is really only with my Claude cat at home.

(The images enlarge when you click them.)

- I was sad to learn that Jan Svochak passed away yesterday at the age of 80. He was a gifted animator. There’s a nice notice on Cartoon Brew written by J.J.Sedelmaier. Most people initially connect him with the Hawaiian Punch commercials he animated, but I immediately think of the Electric Company spot he did for John Hubley: Milt’s Guilt.

“I’m Milt, and I’m filled with guilt.”

I’m Milt, and I’m filled with guilt.” . . . I’m Milt, and I’m filled with guilt.”

I’m Walt, and it’s not your fault.” . . . I’m Walt, and it’s not your fault.”

. . . I’m Walt, and it is not your fault.

. . . It’s his fault.” (Pan image to innocent looking puppy.)

- Charles Solomon discusses some of the Oskar Fischinger films on NPR. This can be viewed (and heard) here. There are also a couple of excerpts from the films Allegretto, an excerpt from Fantasia and Spiritual Constructions. The silent film, Spiritual Constructions, uses the Liquid Liquid tune, Cavern, as background music. This is an interesting choice. I once did a music video to this tune way back in 1983. Richard McGuire, a member of Liquid Liquid is now co-directing Fears of the Dark, an animated feature in France.

- Jim Hill Media posts some “concept art” for Meet The Robinsons. It looks like another pastel-colored cgi film using a little-doll “concept” for the characters that bend and shape oddly. Maybe the script is good.

- For some real concept art, turn once again to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. Stephen Worth has another gem of a posting – this site shows up almost daily with some new treasure!

Some beautiful model sheets from Pinocchio and Hiawatha have been posted. These are the work of Albert Hurter and Charles Thorson.

- By the way, this site also led me to a book, Cartoon Charlie: The Life and Art of Animation Pioneer Charles Thorson by author, Gene Walz. I hadn’t heard about this and will certainly try to get a look. Thorson was responsible for a number of Disney model sheets as well as some early WB models of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

There’s a critical look at the book and an extended version of Thorson’s bio on Take One, the film journal. There’s also a review of the book on AWN by Fred Patten. The book, of course, is available on Amazon.

- Didier Ghez‘ site, Disney History, also has some great info by Jim Korkis about the uncredited backup singing by the Hall Johnson Choir in Song of the South and Dumbo.

- Last week Cartoon Brew posted a link to I Get Mad, a Sesame Street spot on YouTube. The spot was directed by Derek Lamb and animated by John Canemaker. I’ve been thinking about this piece all week. Actually, not just that piece but all of John’s work.

I’ve been a friend of John’s since about 1973 when we both entered the world of animation. We met the year John had done a couple of short films Lust and Greed, both of which won awards at the ASIFA-East festival. I gladly helped John with the cut & paste part of his next film, Street Freaks and have followed his work as a film maker, writer and Oscar Winner through these many years. I watched from the sidelines as John did quite a few Sesame Street spots, not only for Derek Lamb but for Bruce Cayard as well.
(Emily Hubley, me, my Mother, John C.
at a party in my studio 10 yrs. ago)

I’ve now got a collection of great books, magazine articles, and dvd’s that John has produced, and I have to say his is a singular talent.

I don’t think there’ve been any other animation historians who have been so wide-ranging in taste and so wide-reaching in publication. John has written tirelessly about:
some of the important figures in early silent animation – Winsor McCay and Otto Messmer come easily to mind;
some of the most commercial figures – look at the array of volumes John has done on Disney and Disney artists;
and some of the most Independent of animators – articles on everyone from Dali to Kathy Rose to Oskar Fischinger to Suzanne Pitt.

The odd part about it is that all of the writing – despite the variety – is authoritative, well researched, and easy reading. John has a casual and entertaining way of slipping the reader into a very informative article about even the most eccentric of animators. Undoubtedly, this is the reason he and his work is so beloved in animation circles.

His many lectures given around the world from MOMA to Zagreb to Telluride (where John is currently speaking and screening films) are entertaining, informative and colorful.

Yesterday, I did a bit of writing about Amid Amidi and his new book, Cartoon Modern. I discussed Amid in comparison with Michael Barrier, and I expressed my enormous respect for them both. I wanted to include John Canemaker in there, but I felt that John was a different breed of historian. Both as a writer/historian and as an Independent film maker/animator, John has trod a solitary path in animation history. His writing is certainly unique in that it is so widely varied and so sensitive to the artist’s visions and feelings. His films are unique in that you can easily spot one with the very first frame you watch; he has a style all his own that has been imitated by many of his students but never captured by them.

Expressing his own voice in his own Independent films has colored John’s writing and made it so unique, and seeing I’m So Mad again has me wanting to say as much.