Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

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- Xeth Feinberg has recently been doing comic strip panels. He and his witty strip can be found on The Huffington Post – some pretty wide exposure. Quite a coup for Xeth. The only other animator involved with The HuffPost is Bob Blechman who did some animation for their original masthead and has had several commentaries posted there.

Xeth, of course, is famous for his early Flash animated pieces that flew across the internet in the early days of such things. Bulbo In The 20th Century is a brilliant piece of filmmaking that came out of this period.

Queer Duck, his biggest character, grew out of this work. The Queer Duck shorts poayed on Showtime with the Queer As Folk show; Xeth went on to make a DVD feature (called Queer Duck).

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- Another animator who has his own blog is Doug Vitarelli. Doug has created a character named Olifant, a dinosaur who lives in New York City’s Central Park. The site is dedicated to Olifant. As Doug points out, “It’s a website for kids, 2-6, with stories, games and activities.” This is a good place for animators to turn when they have children.

Doug worked for me years ago. In 1987, he interned on a film I did called Santa Bear’s High Flyin’ Adventure. It was a monster of a picture that struggled throughout its entire lifespan. One of those.
At the same time, we were doing Lyle Lyle Crocodile with another staff in another space. That one was the dream that just was fun to work on and flew out easily as a great film.

One of these days I’ll write more at length about those two films. We had 86 people working on Santa Bear and only about 15 on Lyle.

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- And speaking of other blogs, I thought I’d take a moment to promote another blog that I have that doesn’t change much but has a lot on it. Poestory.net features a lot of art bits from the preproduction of my Poe feature. The Production Updates page is about all that’s been changing lately. I write infrequent notes about Edgar Allan Poe and the film several times a month. When the film actually does get into production I’ll do it more regularly and frequently. (We’re expecting the funds to come through soon, as expected, and we can get our hands into the work.)

Here’s a QT of a short bit of test animation for the inner story MS. IN A BOTTLE.

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- Here are the last of the drawings of Frank Thomas‘ scene from The Laughing Gauchito. This was a short that was stopped mid-production in 1942. Thomas animated this, the most emotional of scenes in the film. Bill Tytla and Ollie Johnston were the other animators assigned to director, Jack Kinney on this film.

Go here to see part 1, here for part 2.

Many thanks to John Canemaker for lending me these drawings.
As usual I begin with the last drawing from the last post.

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Here’s a QT of the scene with all the drawings from the entire scene.

- I recently completed Steve Martin’s autobiography, Born Standing Up, and I recommend it to anyone in the entertainment business – that means all of you reading this.

The theme throughout is his love for the work he’s doing. Fine tuning his comedy (which started out as a magic act, then a magic act with jokes, then just the jokes), took years and years of serious dedication, hard work and fine focus. His life was about little more than the act, and he eventually got it right and became an enormous success.

Like many such books, he predominantly writes about the lean years and the unapproving father who remained cold and distant to him throughout his life. Naturally, there’s plenty of funny material to read here. The short book, 206 pages, zoomed through my hands and was a great inspiration. I heartily recommend it. (it’s real cheap in paperback on Amazon.)

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- Michel Ocelot talks to the Hollywood Reporter from the Berlin Film Festival where his latest feature, Tales From the Night is playing. (There’s also another, much longer, interview with him on Ghibli World.)

The interview is candid and interesting, as usual for Michel. He speaks his mind about animation, and that always makes what he has to say worth listening for. Because he started as a 3D cutout animator,who now works in cgi, it’s worth listening to his take on the medium.

I first met Michel back at the Ottawa Animation Festival in 1980. We were both over the moon for Tale of Tales, the Grand Prize winner of that Fest. The film made its North American Premiere there. The two of us spent the rest of the Festival talking about Norshtein’s film and were pleased when it won the deserved prize. It gave me another chance to see it projected. It was wonderful to have someone so articulate and animation-informed with whom I could discuss the film’s merits at length. I knew Michel would do well after that week’s encounter.

Reviews of Tales of the Night can be found at Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Screen Daily

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On February 24th at 6:30pm, animation writer, Joe Strike, will interview animation filmmaker, J.J. Sedelmaier at the Society of Illustrators.

Here’s the press release that was emailed to me:

Interview with an Animator: J.J. SedelmaierThursday, February 24, 2011
6:30 – 8:30pm
Hollywood may be home to the big animation studios, but there’s no shortage of
cartoon creators in New York City, the city that gave birth to animation. Join Joe
Strike for “Interview with an Animator,” a multi-part series of live, in-person
conversations with some of New York’s best known and most creative animation
professionals.

On February 24th, Joe will interview J.J. Sedelmaier,
writer/producer/director/designer, Beavis & Butthead (MTV), Harvey Birdman ([adult
swim]) Saturday TV Funhouse and The Ambiguously Gay Duo (Saturday Night Live) and
many award winning TV commercials.

Tickets
$15 non-members, $10 members, $7 students
RSVP@societyillustrators.org or call Katie Blocher 212.838.2560

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Sam Borenstein is the father of Montreal-based animator, Joyce Borenstein. On Sunday, February 27th at 2pm, Yeshiva University Museum will be showcasing paintings by Sam. Joyce’s Oscar-nominated short animated documentary about her father will be screened and she will attend the opening. Here’s the press release:

Yeshiva University Museum, in the heart of New York City, is proud to announce the very first American exhibition of the acclaimed master of post-war expressionism in Canada, Sam Borenstein (1908-1969).

You are cordially invited to the opening reception of

“SAM BORENSTEIN AND THE COLORS OF MONTREAL”
on Sunday, February 27, 2011,
at 2 PM.

Following the landmark retrospective at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which also toured across Canada, thirty-five of Borenstein’s most vibrant works will be on display at

YUM’s SELZ GALLERY, 15 West 16th Street, NYC
from February 6 to May 8, 2011.

We hope to have the honor of your attendance and you are welcome to invite your colleagues and friends.

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- Guillermo Del Toro has written the story with screenwriter, Matthew Robbins, and will co- direct a new 3D puppet version of Pinocchio. Set to take a darker turn than Disney’s film, the film should be an interesting mix.

Del Toro, a live-action director, is responsible for the Hellboy franchise, and he also directed 2006 the fanciful Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006. Gris Grimly will co-direct with Mark Gustafson in London. The two were previously involved in The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, and the upcoming Frankenweenie. The film is being produced by the Henson Company.

To read more about this go here.

- Continuing on with the Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure drafts, we move onto seqeunces 7, 8 and 9. This involves the Loony King, the Loony Knight and Babette at sea.

Animators for these sequences include: George Bakes, Gerry Chiniquy, Doug Crane, Dick Williams, Chrystal (Russell) Kablunde, Hal Ambro, Charlie Downs, Art Vitello, Jack Schnerk, Corny Cole, Tom Roth, Irv Spence, Bob Bemiller, and Warren Batchelder.

A lot of talent in one place; too bad the film doesn’t hint at it.

To dress up the post I’ve added five of Tissa’s key drawings from an early scene.

Sequence 7

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Sequence 8

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For some reason this bad drawing of the “Greedy” was attached
to the drafts. So I just iuncluded it here, as well.

Sequence 9

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Happy Valentine’s Day

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- As I wrote last week, The Laughing Gauchito was to be a stand alone short for Disney in 1942. It wa one of the first products of the group that had just returned from the South American trip. The film was to be part of a series that featured the “Little Gauchito”. They’d already completed one film. That film was originally The Flying Donkey, but they turned it over to the boy, and retitled it The Flying Gauchito, and it was added to The Three Caballeros.

To read more about this series, I suggest you go to J.B. Kaufman’s excellent book, South of the Border with Disney.

The story concerned itself with a boy who could not laugh. We see in this scene the boy trying to laugh in the mirror.

Ultimately, Disney, himself, put a stop to The Laughing Gauchito. Under the direction of Jack Kinney, some animation had already been done by Ollie Johnston, Bill Tytla and, particularly, Frank Thomas, to be well into the film. It took years to find some of the animation scenes in the morgue.

This dramatic scene is by Frank Thomas.

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Here’s a QT of the scene with all the drawings from both posts to date.

- William Benzon is probably the only writer – on the internet or off – who has connected Hosni Mubarek with an animated character. Wile E. Coyote. It makes for a good read, and you should check it out on his site, New Savannah.

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Dustin Grella is out to make a film a day for the month of April. He’s basing these films on inforation contributed to him. Let me allow him to speak for himself; here’s what he wrote me:

I’m working on new project called the Animation Hotline. I’m going to do this for the month of February, maybe longer if the response is good. I’ve set up a voicemail service where people can leave messages. Then I am going to select a few of these to animate. I’m going to try to do one every day. I’ll try. They should definitely be under thirty seconds, but preferably around ten or fifteen seconds. Just a few sentences, an idea, a word that you think sounds cool, a line from a book that you like, something you heard in the hall that afternoon, a secret that you don’t want anyone to know, or maybe you do, something that bothers you, something that… you get the idea, right? Basically anything. You can do more than one, you can do as many as you want. You can do it a few times a day. If it
runs long term, I might have regulars that I do often. I don’t know. Of course, the idea is in its infancy and will change ten times by the end of this email. Everything will be anonymous, unless the person leaves his name and wants to be recognized.

Dustin’s set up a VIMEO site for the films (which can be viewed there.) Go here.
He’s also set up an an animation hotline number is: 212-683-2490.

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- For me, the animation quote of the week came in a puff piece about Pixar in yesterday’s NYTimes.

Melena Ryzik, the author of the piece, was told: “A character in the film is kind of like a puppet,” Bobby Podesta, a supervising animator at Pixar, explained. “Imagine having Pinocchio in the computer that you move around frame by frame, but instead of having a dozen strings, you’ve got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. It gets very nuanced.” No kidding . . . ”

(The “no kidding” was part of the article, but I’ve been repeating it every time I look at the piece.) A new kind of animation Pixar does, puppet animation. I doubt Sylvain Chomet would have ever said the same about any of his work.

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Lionsgate and Hulu have gotten together to give us more Flash films. Here’s their press release:

Lionsgate Digital, hud:sun media and creative genius Todd Goldman have partnered to bring you an outrageous new animated Web series titled, “Trailer Trash,” airing exclusively on Hulu.com beginning March 7.

Every generation has its iconic animated characters and for its foray onto the Web Lionsgate enlisted the writer of classics such as “Beavis and Butthead” and “SpongeBob SquarePants” to ensure the quirky series resonates with Web audiences.

Inspired by Goldman’s cheeky David and Goliath clothing line and following “Blah Girls,” an animated Web series he co-produced with Ashton Kutcher, “Trailer Trash” depicts beer-bellied character Billy Bob and his family as they dim-wittingly pass time at the trailer park.

You know it’s good; Ashon Kutcher co-produced it.
Go here to check it out.

- Here’s a little flipbook gem. It’s part of the dance from The Three Caballeros, Animated by Ward Kimball there’s still a wild freshness about this long scene that’s been rarely duplicated. It’s obviosly one of the highlihts of the film.

I beleive these were published in one of the many Disney coffee table books, but I don’t have them at hand to try finding it. At least, if you do have whatever book it’s in, you can see these better, sincde I’m posting them in a larger size. A chance to admire the verve of these drawings.

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Here’s a QT of the scene with drawings exposed to what I think are
their appropriate frames.

Watch the number here, on YouTube.

Happy Birthday to my love, Heidi.

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- Thanks to John Canemaker, I have the following scene by Frank Thomas to post. It’s from “The Laughing Gauchito” Sc 71 of Prod # (U290) 2719.

This was to be part of a series of shorts built around the “Little Gaucho.” “The Flying Donkey” was retitled “The Flying Gauchito” to be the first release in this series. “The Laughing Gauchito” was second up to be directed by Jack Kinney with a story by Norm Ferguson and Ernie Terrazas. Animation was by Bill Tytla, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. It was about a boy whose laugh shattered glass. The climactic scene is this one where the boy tries to break a mirror in front of an audience.

The film was stopped by Disney who got tired of the breaking glass motif. Fortunately, some of the artwork was rediscovered, and happily it included this scene.

There are 197 frames expposed, so I’ll have to divide it up into a couple of parts. This is part 1.

The Background LO

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Here’s a QT of the scene with drawings exposed to what I think are
their appropriate frames.

- The Albert Hurter book, He Drew As He Pleased, continues. This book is a beautiful edition, which reminds me – in a tactile way – of The Robert Field book The Art of Walt DIsney – of drawings Hurter did while at the Disney Studio in the 30s and early 40s.

Hurter was a key designer from Europe who was allowed to draw what he wanted as inspiration for the designs of the films in production at the time. He was an enormous influence on Snow White and Pinocchio.

These pages are all scanned and sent to me by Bill Peckmann and I have to thank him. The book is not easy to scan. So here we complete the posted book.

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“Opera”

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‘When “The Reluctant Dragon” was in preparation,
these medieval studies appeared… each from memory.
Albert never resorted to “scrap”…’

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“Stalwarts”

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“Refreshments… Fifteenth Century”
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“Knighthood’s dignity never seemed to impress Albert”

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“St. George warms up”

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“Between Halves”

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“A pet character of Albert’s who never quite never reached the screen”

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“Some of his last sketches.”

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“Between serious thoughts Albert succeeded in elevating
the practice of doodling until it approached a fine art”

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- Many thanks to John Canemaker for offering this great scene by Milt Kahl from Peter Pan. The scene is made up of roughs by Kahl without the inbetweens or the Clean-up drawings. Enjoy.

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Here’s a QT of the scene with drawings exposed to what I think are
their appropriate frames.