Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Rambling News:

– The Pixar buyout by Disney has all the message boards soaring and the blogs guessing. I’ve already put my two cents worth of thought into the pot and find that there’s nothing much more to say about it. However, it has made for some entertaining reading; let’s hope it’ll make for entertaining films.

- I found a great site well worth visiting linked to the Sundance website: Daniel Sousa’s Fable. This site offers a couple of clips and links to Daniel’s primary site. It features a lot of beautiful artwork worth a trip.
I’d like to see the whole film.

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I illustrate this page with a couple of puppet designs by Jiri Trnka for his film, A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

– The Jacob Burns Film Center Presents
Early Silent Animation
February 5th, Sunday 3pm
All the films will be accompanied by music composed
and performed on the piano by Ben Model.

The Burns Film Center will show five rare silent animated shorts as well as a very special treat – film historian Steve Massa’s reenactment of the live stage show that accompanied Winsor McKay’s groundbreaking film,
Gertie the Dinosaur (1909).
A Q&A with host, Steve Massa, and pianist, Ben Model , will follow the screening.

Jacob Burns Film Center
364 Manville Road
Pleasantville, NY
914.747.5555

- Speaking of Gertie, John Canemaker‘s revised book is a gem: Winsor McKay, His Life And Art. Like all the other books he has written this one is gloriously illustrated and adds an enormous contribution to animation history. This book is a rarity, and every animator should own a copy. We have to stay linked to our roots.

McKay fans should also know (and probably do) about the book: Daydreams & Nightmares This is a collection McKay’s political and editorial cartoons.

You can also find a nice collection of Little Nemo strips in Little Nemo in Slumberland – So Many Splendid Sundays. Of course, Little Nemo was McKay’s first comic strip; this book reprints the Sunday color strips in a large format.

Tonight at 8:00 ASIFA-East, the local chapter of the organization, is having a holiday party. (Wasn’t Martin Luther King’s day yesterday?) At Gonzales & Gonzales, 625 Broadway off Houston Street. (It’ll be like old-home week. For years members of my studio would cross the street to gather and drink margaritas after work at the restaurant. Then we moved.)

For over twenty years, the ASIFA-East Animation Festival used to be held on the last Thursday of January. This was always a good reason for a big party in the dry part of the month. After the Festival was moved to May (for warm reasons), there’s been this gaping hole in January which this party should resolve.

I am an ardent fan of Nina Paley‘s work. She taught me to never say never, which is how I viewed flash animation until seeing her films. She has been working on a feature version of The Ramayana, one bit at a time, and infrequently releases short, musical segments from that film. If any films have bridged the gap between East and West, these are those. You can see them and other works from her on-line as well as read letters from interested viewers of the site at: www.NinaPaley.com. If you don’t know Nina’s work; go.

Ramblings too:

As I started to express in yesterday’s comments, Clare Kitson’s book on Tale of Tales has had me thinking a lot about storyboards. I must say my studio has a unique way in dealing with storyboards in that there is no unique way in dealing with them. All aspects of the film are organic; the film continues to grow and develop until it’s completed. Since mine is a small studio, I can easily oversee any aspect I want. Since I have a large part in the animation, I can even alter things at that phase. I also work with animators I trust, and I like to give those animators a large say in what they want to do.

When I did the film CHAMPAGNE, I had the chance to play. The film’s soundtrack was an interview with a young girl who had been raised in a convent. Her mother had committed murder, and the girl travelled back and forth to the prison to visit her mother. We recorded more than two hours of interview, cut out the questions and saved the answers. We shaped a track into a 15 minute piece (ultimately adding back some leading questions). There was no script except the finished track.

I decided the next phase should be to start animating. I’d made a lot of decisions – based on the track – in my head, and I had designed a character. There was no storyboard. No storyboard reel/animatic. All there was was a soundtrack (which I had, by this time, mem- orized.) I simply started animating and coloring as I went through the soundtrack. Midway through the film, jobs intervened, and I had to put down my pencils. I asked my background artist, Jason McDonald, to continue what I had done by storyboarding the last half of the film.

The first half of the film – the completed half – focused on the physical aspect of the girl’s life: how she got where she was. The second half would be about the emotional part of Champagne’s life. Once Jason had finished his board, I animated it sticking closely to what he had done. If I changed anything it was to pull out the meaning of the scene more or to play on the action in the soundtrack. Jason dealt with the girl’s emotional life in a more abstract way than I would have, but I made it my own and followed it.

Once the film was finished, it was impossible to tell where the storyboarding had started. Unless I refer back to the board, I couldn’t tell you today. Of course, my experience in all phases of the production allowed me to construct the first half of the film in my head and put it on paper as I animated. I knew whether the scene would work or not, whether the construction of scenes would work.

Of course, this was an experiment for me. It was a way to make a challenging film more exciting. It also shows the nature of the storyboard in my studio: some have a lot of flexibility; some are tightly rigid. I try to make the end product not feel any different, but it often does.

A reminder for those in the area that tomorrow evening at the Museum of Modern Art there will be a program of films by Emily Hubley .

The program includes some new pieces, such as: Bubble Boy (a work in-progress directed by Barak Goodman and John Maggio); and some old pieces, such as: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001, directed by John Cameron Mitchell), Her Grandmother’s Gift (1995, cowritten by Emily and Faith Hubley), and The Tower (1984, codirected by Georgia Hubley).
It also includes a live performance by Tactics of Desire (2005), with animation by Emily Hubley and music by Sue Garner is performed by Angel Dean, Sue Garner, Ted Reichman, and Megan Reilly.
Program 90 min. Wednesday, January 4, 8:00.
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Also concluding today and tomorrow is the tribute to Musicals at Lincoln Center programmed by Greg Ford. This includes:

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Trey Parker
The uproariously funny animated musical.
Tue Jan 3: 1:30

Independently Musical
An entertaining and impressive grouping of musicals by Independent animators.
Tue Jan 3: 9

More Warners Cartoon Musicals: Looney Esoterica and Merrie Marginalia
The third and final package of twelve music-skewed WB animated shorts
Wed Jan 4: 2:45

George Pal’s Tunes For “Puppetoons”
Animated puppet musicals from this original artist.
Wed Jan 4: 1

And my #1 bit of animation inspiration from the past year is an oldie but goodie:
Twenty-six years ago, at the third animation festival in Ottawa, I was struck between the eyes by Yuri Norstein’s brilliant masterwork, Tale of Tales. I had to own it, and it took me about two years to locate a 16mm print (this was before the ease of vhs tapes and certainly long before dvd’s.) I watched that film again and again and again. When I was able to get a vhs copy, I got one, with subtitles translating the dialogue I’d already understood on an emotional level. Now that the dvd is available I have one of them.
(Note: the vhs tape had all of Norstein’s work on one tape. Now Tale of Tales is on one dvd Masters of Russian Animation: vol 2, and all of his other films are on vol 3.)

It took a couple of months for me to learn about Clare Kitson’s book, Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales: An Animator’s Journey. Now I have that, and I’ve just started reading. With my reading, I’m watching this genius of an animator’s films again.

I have had a love affair with this film and other work by Mr. Norstein, and I have pulled so much inspiration from it that I can’t begin to articulate it. He’s a brilliant artist of a film maker, and I recommend his films to anyone interested in animation.

Admittedly, it’s an acquired taste, but it’s the real thing. The story is not told in a linear way, and some of the film is purposefully slow. Be patient; watch it again. The animation is brilliant, the design is exquisite, the story is complex and emotional and sophisticated. John Hubley’s work led to Mr. Norstein, and the tree bore fruit.

I can’t wait to see how the next apple will fall.

Whenever I feel a bit dull creatively, I force myself to think about a Hubley film or two, and that often helps. I worked with the Hubleys for a number of my impressionable, early years (I had found them as film makers much earlier – I was 16). Oddly the films done before I worked with the duo are more inspiring to me.

A site which helps revitalize some of my memories of their films is: Independent Spirits . It was developed in conjunction with a documentary film, also titled Independent Spirits, by director Sybil DelGaudio & producer Patty Wineapple. All of the work of the Hubleys is featured. Though the site is a bit outdated, it does offer lots of accurate information and stills. It also gives information about the documentary.

The School of Visual Arts last night opened its gallery to a show of animation art by five of their alumni: John R. Dilworth, Yvette Kaplan, Alex Kupershmidt, Chris Prynoski, and Tom Sito. On display was a sampling of art from each of the professionals who had formerly schooled at SVA and, in some cases, taught there. This amounted to a number of cels, animation drawings, and paintings.
Three of the four artists had worked at MTV when that studio flourished in New York. Hence, there was a wide range of material from programs for that network – everything from Beavis & Butthead to station IDs. It was quite an attractive sampling of work and showed a broad range of styles all well drawn.
It was nice to catch up with some of those I met there including Howard Beckerman, Bill Plympton and Biljana Labovic. Tom Sito and Yvette Kaplan, both of whom flew in from LA for the show, were both in good form. They and all of the artists had good reason to be proud of their work and this show.
Standout pieces for me were:
the thumbnails from Beauty and the Beast and animated-in-ink roughs of Roger Rabbit by Tom Sito;
the stunning model sheets of Courage from Courage the Cowardly Dog and cel setups from some of the independent shorts by John Dilworth; and
storyboard drawings from Ice Age by Yvette Kaplan.
Tonight, Howard will moderate a panel of the five artists discussing their careers post-SVA and answer questions. It takes place from 6-9pm in the amphitheater on the 3rd floor (where most of the ASIFA-East meetings are held). For more info follow link.