Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– Last night, I saw the Dreamworks/Seinfeld concoction of an animated feature. Bee movie. The title is meant as a pun on “B” movie; unfortunately, that’s what this really is – a second rate film.

I should keep my opinion to myself, but I can’t. I have no intention of putting down any of the excellent artists, designers, or animators that worked on this film. They did what they could given the circumstances.
Let’s talk about what I see as “the circumstances” given the fact that I know NOTHING about the making of this film other than what Jerry Seinfeld said on Charlie Rose or that I was able to guess from the movie, itself.

The story is pathetic. If it had been just a mass of uproarious, funny jokes, I’d have been happy. In fact, I didn’t hear too much laughter in the theater, and I wasn’t brought to smile even once. It wasn’t funny. In fact, about midway through the film, I felt that I was watching some kind of bastardized Industrial or Educational film about bee pollination. The only problem was that the information was so simple that I knew that wasn’t the case. Jerry Seinfeld should be ashamed of his role in this product, and I believe that was probably the problem.

Now, the problem with the “craft” of the film. It was all at the top.

For some reason, the actors were directed to push their performances way – I mean WAY over the top. Renee Zellwegger has given many fine performances during her career – including King of the Hill and Shark Tale. Her acting in Miss Potter was extraordinarily subtle and nuanced. However in Bee Movie, she shouts her lines, overperforms every word and telegraphs every simple sentence. Yet, alongside John Goodman, she’s the maestro. His performance as a prosecuting attorney allows him to don a Southern accent and pretend he’s doing Inherit The Wind in some regional dinner theater where he’s trying to shout over the clinking tableware and devour all of the scenery. It’s an embarrassing performance. Even Patrick Warburton, not the greatest actor is fine in many other animated films including The Emperor’s New Groove, yet here he’s required to scream his every line. I don’t get it; it’s as if they were all forced to give heightened performances to try to make the poor writing funnier. It didn’t work.

The poor animators, saddled with these readings, animated what they got. Hence, the shouted lines were overanimated – that’s the only way they could work – with an aggression that I haven’t seen in quite some time.

The film was dreadful. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend anyone out there who’s worked on it, but I did not enjoy the experience. Of course, it’s only my take on the thing, and my opinion is just that.

By the way, why is it that these animated features consistently rob the insects of two of their appendages? Bug’s Life and Bee Movie choose to illustrate bugs as having two arms and two legs, unlike real insects which have six. At one time, the Jerry Seinfeld character comments on the eight legs of spiders, making us even more aware of the shortchanged bees in this movie. For Pete’s sake, even the ugly Nasonex bee has six legs, though for some reason he has an hispanic accent. Who’s making these choices?

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- Now let’s talk about ART in animation.
The ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archives is currently displaying an exhibit of early Grim Natwick art. There are photos of the exhibit at their site and a couple of excellent scans of Grim’s early animation drawings. If you haven’t seen these, you ought to visit their site – or the archive, itself.

GRIM NATWICK’S SCRAPBOOK
An Exhibit Presented By The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Blvd
Burbank, CA 91506
Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

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- This month, Jeff Scher reworks a 1945 musical film, Yours, for the NYTimes. Kudos to Jeff for another fine piece. One a month for The NY Times. Would that other newspapers would take it on to support a bit of animated art. Support it by adding your hit to their post.

Today’s NYTimes also includes a review of a number of animated DVDs including: “Ratatouille,” “Pixar Short Films Collection: Volume 1,” “Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5,” “Chuck Jones Collection,” and “Fantastic Planet.”

If they’re animated, they must be connected.

- Persepolis was very much the film I expected to see. The story was more sophisticated than can usually be found in animated features, and the artwork was more daring. It didn’t look or feel like any other film I’d seen. However, this also created problems that I expected, albeit none that really undermined the positives to be found in the film.

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud have crafted a thinking and thoughtful film about some very real problems in the world. In its finest moments, it speaks volumes about the problems of independent-minded women and is particularly interesting for this reason.

It doesn’t follow the Hollywood formula with heightened climaxes and overmodulated set pieces. There aren’t many phony emotions on display, and I can’t tell you how enjoyable that was for a change. Live action and animated films, these days, bring nothing less than the predictable, so it was nice to see something quieter and more valuable.

The film, of course, is an adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel. (Since it’s very much the real-life story of Ms. Satrapi one wonders if it should be called a “novel.”) The story takes its cues from this novel, and in the big picture it is an enormous task to have pulled off. As we follow young Marjane growing up and her relationships with her parents and grandmother, we also see the political changes in Tehran, Iran as that country twists and turns politically.

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The adaptation from graphic novel to screen created the biggest complaint I had with the film. Like all graphic novels, the story develops in chapters, and the film closely follows suit. Each chapter has its own climax, and I’m not sure many are significantly larger than the other. Hence, there is a sameness that comes across as we move through the film. The art style also heightens this constancy to the point where it gets a bit tiring. One truly welcomes the few scenes done in muted colors whenever they slip into the story.

The art style faithfully adapts the art in the book, though it’s obvious that some of the illustration has gotten significantly more sophisticated enroute the big screen. There is often a level of transparent textured whites overlaying the characters giving it some real depth. Images in mirrors, for example, are depicted via this texture. Smoke and haze are also designed using these whites.

Some of the backgrounds are lovely in their own simplicity with textured off-whites over gray buildings. It takes on a look all its own; at times I felt a hint of some of Hubley’s more impressionist work. None of this seems to come across in the graphic novel nor in the film stills I’ve seen. These small sparks of strong graphic art were welcome in the otherwise stark black and whites. It’s amazing how far they were able to push this style. However, the art style doesn’t do much to allay the problem I had with the story; there’s an overall sameness to the style – however beautifully controlled it is.

The screening I saw was of a film in French with English subtitles. Matthew Clinton, a leading animator in my studio saw the film with me. He commented afterward that he had problems enjoying the graphics because he had to continuously read the subtitles. He felt the graphic style of the subtitles was jarring with the hard-lined style of the animated film. I, on the other hand, wondered if this made the film’s visual style richer because my brain had to take in two visual elements at the same time. Of course, I’ll see the dubbed version when it’s released and will let you know if it changed for me.

The film is a film; it’s not a cartoon. (Although there are a few annoying cartoon moments that pop up from time to time as they try to exaggerate the character, Marjane’s, emotions for comic effect.) The voices were excellent, particularly Danielle Darrieux as the grandmother and Catherine Daneuve as the mother. Of course, with those two actresses one would hardly expect less.

The animation moves quite fluidly, though I never quite felt that there was real personality in the movement. (That, however, is a complaint I have with even the highest budgeted film these days.) Vincent Parronaud was more the director of the animation than Marjane Satrapi, and Marc Jousset was the Art Designer. Christian Desmares was the Animation Director. There were twenty animators who drew the film in France. All of them should be proud of their accomplishment. The film was done for about 6 million Euros ($8.5 million).

This film takes animation in a direction it should be headed. It doesn’t try to revisit the mold that Disney developed nor does it try to cash in on cheap theatrics. It’s the best animated film I’ve seen in some time, and I hope it does well at the box office. Perhaps, then, there will be another film by this group.

- I am a lunatic for the work of Lewis Carroll.
As such, naturally his Alice In Wonderland has always intrigued me. The book, itself, has inspired so many artists since it was written that we have to recognize it as a great work of art.

I think I’ve seen a dozen film versions and have seen at least four theatrical versions. I must say that some incredibly inspirational moments have come for me out of the best of these. Off the top of my head I think immediately of Alice by Robert Wilson. This was a theatrical version which dealt with the relationship between Alice and Charles Dodgson. I think of Haddock’s Eyes by David Del Tredici as performed by Tom Hulce. This was a small show that somehow touched me; I’ve thought of it often since I saw it in 1987. Or I think of David Del Tredici‘s Final Alice, a stunning piece of music. There’s the beautiful film Dreamchild, which includes some stunning puppetry by the Henson group. I think of moments from the Lou Bunin film, or even Disney’s version. I think of some of my favorite illustrated versions, led by Ralph Steadman‘s book. When I see a version on line, any version, I’m conditioned to stop.

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- Nonsenselit.org features the entire comic book 1951 Unbirthday Party with Alice in Wonderland. The art is quite interesting and the layout of the comic book is certainly creative. Once they get to Wonderland, the boxed format of the traditional comic book is out the window, and the strip is more chaotic. The inking for the strip is beautifully done, and the magazine is worth viewing for that alone.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- A favorite site, the Blog of Bosh led me to the site of the Bavarian State Opera. There I found a lot of information about an operatic version of Alice which they produced in June of this year. It was written by David Henry Hwang and composed by Unsik Chin. This is obviously a creatively produced theatrical version of the story. There are many stills on the site and a stunning little video with clips from what is obviously an imaginative production. I urge you to look at the video if you have any interest in Alice or creative theatrical productions.

Despite the imagination and creativity on display in the video, there seems to have been some in-fighting between the composer and the designer. Some reviews have called the staging static. You can read a positive review from the LA Times which gives a full history of the show. There’s a negative review in the International Herald Tribune. I’d like to see a production for myself.

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New Yorkers and puppet theater fanciers might take note of the Alice In Wonderland Puppet Festival underway at the Here Arts Center.

Drama of Works presents this festival of puppetry now performing through Oct. 7th. As the program states: “…this production takes a look at (Dodgson’s) diary as well as Alice’s memoirs. It weaves together these texts and also real snapshots taken by Carroll of Alice, poems of his turned into songs, and fragments of Wonderland.”

It includes free film showings of Svankmajer’s Alice and Lou Bunin’s Alice In Wonderland.
The Here Arts Center, 145 6th Avenue (Spring St.) New York, NY 10013

Curiouser and curiouser.

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Talking about another Alice, my friend Tom Hachtman has sent me a nice drawing featuring his Gertrude and Alice characters. I always like sharing these since they usually cheer me up.
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What’s happened? Is Joanna Quinn no longer doing these spots? This is ugly and unfortunate and criminal! Here’s an ad agency without any real taste. MoCap is going to kill me; I know it.

- An interesting game of politics is happening in this year’s Oscar race. Persepolis, which will obviously be eligible for the Best Animated Feature Award, has been chosen by France, the film’s native country, to represent France in the Best Foreign Film Award. A country is allowed to select only one film to represent itself for this award, and it’s an exciting development that it is representing France.

Sicne the creation of the Best Animated Feature Award, animators in the academy have come to realize that this not only gives animation a pat on the back but also isolates animated films from other categories. It’s as if they were saying, we’ve given you your own award, now why should we put you up for Best Picture (as only Beauty and the Beast has done in the past.) The animation ghetto seems to be opening up,if only a little, by France’s decision.

Good Luck to Persepolis in Ottawa. It played there on Wednesday. It will be the closing night film at the NY Film Festival on Oct. 14th. The film opens, nationwide, on Dec. 25th.

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– I recently posted an article on the history of Mickey Mouse straight from the pages of Cinegram Magazine, a small magazine published in the late ’70′s from the University of Michigan.

In the issue, Winter 1976-77, there was a second interesting article about the Eastern European animation scene. This, of course, meant only one thing in 1976, Zagreb, a studio that had alreaday won the Oscar and was turning out exceptional art films that were getting a lot of attention on the world stage. The article is by Frank Beaver. He is a noted historian, critic and essayist on film, his publications include On Film: A History of the Motion Picture and 100 Years of American Film and Oliver Stone: Wakeup Cinema .

Here is his article on Zagreb films:

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- Really Rosie was produced in NY back in 1975. It was an uncom-fortable fusion of Maurice Sendak‘s artwork, Carole King‘s songs and performing, and some real story and design problems. Somehow this trifling show has had very positive reviews and a good reputation, but I was never able to get through the whole thing in one sitting. I do have some of the animation drawings from it, and at another time I’ll post a bit of it.

It was supposedly directed by Maurice Sendak, but in reality the artwork was supervised by Ron Fritz and Dan Hunn who received the credit of “Animation Director.” It was done out of their studio, D&R Productions, for CBS television.

The animation was good, but the composition always seemed off, to me. I remember back in 1975 (I was still in college at the time) thinking that the show looked like it was done in one long shot on 12 fld artwork. Then they seemed to move the camera in tight for all the poorly executed camera moves. The line work got unpleasantly large in close ups and the detail wasn’t good. The film just isn’t smooth.

Animation for the show is credited to:
Lu Guarnier, Marty Taras, Willis Pyle, Doug Crane, Jack Schnerk, Cosmo Anzilotti, and John Svochak.
Asst animators included:
Jim Logan, Gerry Dvorak, Helen Komar, and Joe Gray

Here are some frame grabs from the first few minutes of the show.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The Maurice Sendak credit fades off and the image gets lighter, then pans across to
the guy leaning over the rooftop.

After a bit, the camera pans across the other windows visually introducing some of the
other cameras. After it hits the end, the camera moves down to a lower window where . . .

. . . Rosie appears again and continues to sing.

They soon move the cast to the front stoop to sing endlessly. Unfortunately, Carole King – as talented as she is – sings and speaks for “Rosie.” It’s hard to accept her as a child when she has a woman’s voice.

Lots and lots of back and forth and back and forth. It couldn’t be less creative or less interesting to watch. Very flat despite the hard working animation. It all gets to look the same.

Look at the framing of the image on the right. How can you cut off the head of the lead character? Maybe Maurice Sendak did direct it.

Sendak is a brilliant illustrator who loves animation. There are times when you have to assume you’re not all-knowing and look for help from professionals you respect. Either he didn’t get good help on this show or his ego got in the way.

___________________________I’ll return to this film again. There’s a lot to look at here.

- In the “No matter how much things change, they always remain the same” department, I’d like to share this cartoon by Daumier done in 1870.

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___ Under a tent, the German Chancellor, Bismarck, is shown asleep in his armchair.
____Death points out the politician’s accomplishments, a field of corpses. _________________________
– I offered Daumier’s cartoon by way of introducing a story found on line. Go here or here to read the original.

The Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, was placed in hiding by the local police after the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, offered a bounty of $100,000 for the murder of Vilks. He said the bounty would be upped to $150,000 if Vilks was “slaughtered like a lamb.” A bounty was also offered to anyone who killed the local editor who published the cartoon. Sweden’s secret police called in extra personnel over the weekend to work on the case.

Haven’t we been here before? Would the wrath of these people be so vehement if George Bush hadn’t chosen to attack Iraq? Would there have been an al-Qaida in Iraq? Would cartoonists or personal opinion be so vilified?

The pile of hatred grows ever larger daily.

– Wade Sampson has another probing article that should be read about The Sweatbox, the documentary directed by Trudie Styler, Sting‘s wife, about the development of The Emperor’s New Groove. The documentary has been closeted since completion; Disney will not give permission to show any of their film or artwork. They see it as an attack on the empire, and would like to keep the film under wraps. Sampson tells the history of this documentary and gives a thorough review of what’s in it. (His column may be as close as we come to previewing it.)

Steve Hulett also offers some nice comments about the film on the TAG Blog. He and I don’t quite agree on the completed film, The Emperor’s New Groove. I very much did not like that film.

There are a number of pieces on the internet that give a good indication of the turmoil that followed this film. If you haven’t read Dave Pruiksma‘s letter of resignation from Disney animation, I encourage you to.

When I met Trudie Styler in 1994, at a film festival in Indianapolis, she had just screened the documentary she’d produced with the fine director, Michael Apted. Moving the Mountain was a film about the demonstrations and confrontations between students and police in Peking, 1989, for more democracy in the People’s Republic of China. Kingdom of the Sun and The Emperor’s New Groove weren’t even on the horizon at that time.
On the opening day of Tarzan‘s showing at the Guild theater in Manhattan, I took my small studio to the first screening. As we exited, Sting was outside buying a ticket for the second show. Somehow we caught eyes, almost as though he’d known me; an odd moment, I continued on. It’s obvious, look back on it, he was about to get entangled with the Disney machine and was checking out the work Phil Collins had done for Tarzan.

Too bad Sting’s collaboration didn’t turn out as well. I suspect it wasn’t his fault.

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Ever busy animator, Patrick Smith, has an art gallery opening and showing coming up this next Tuesday. About the work, Patrick had this statement:

Using the figure as a building block, intertwining with other figures, is a powerful method of constructing a broader configuration. The concept of people supporting others to achieve something larger than themselves can have a sublime result, and it’s something that I enjoy illustrating.

It sounds a bit like he’s describing the animation studio process. Not a bad model to emulate in his art.

Patrick Smith – Configurations
CVZ Contemporary Gallery
446 Broadway(below grand) 5th floor, NYC.

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Once again, I have to point out the excellent work Mark Mayerson is doing on analyzing Pinocchio. This has been a monstrous feat to accomplish, and Mark continues earnestly, now approaching the final climax. Coupled with the beautiful BG reconstructions on Hans Bacher‘s site, we can reappreciate the brilliant work done at Disney’s studio back then.

I bow to both Mark and Hans for the work and attention they’re giving this treasure of a film.

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Can someone tell me how in hell we went from . . .

_____________________this . . . __________________ . . . to this ?

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Jeff Scher‘s monthly animated piece has been updated for August, and the new episode now appears in the NYTimes on the Opinion page.

This month it’s Lost and Found a play on animated films of the early Thirties. In Jeff’s words:
“This film is made of more than 2,000 watercolor paintings and drawings in a style I call “psychadelichrome,” in which the color varies wildly from frame to frame while the forms remain consistent. The result is a kind of percussive shimmer.” Check it out.

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- Slate, the on-line magazine, has an article calling for Disney to continue their straight-to-DVD sequels.

The author, Dan Kois, cautiously tries to argue that Bambi II is better than Bambi (and just about lost me in doing so), but what their thesis seems to be, at least my interpretation of it, is that 2D painterly animation is more powerful than 3D cg animation. Basically, he’s suggesting that there should be more 2D animation, and these sequels present the best opportunity. This, certainly, wouldn’t be true if the executives at the various studios would wake up to the fact that both forms of animation can co-exist profitably and productively in the same marketplace.

If you do read the Slate article, note that there are some fine comments on the site responding to the article.

I am not sure that I was ever upset about these knock-off dvds. Obviously, it shows a lack of imagination and daring on the part of the executives, but can anyone seriously tell me that Treasure Planet (a futuristic reworking of Treasure Island in space) took significantly more imagination than Scamp’s Wild Adventure (or whatever Lady and the Tramp II was called)? Note also that Lady and the Tramp II made more money than the original Treasure Planet.

Is there any difference between Bambi II and Toy Story II? Should there be no Cinderella II when there’s Lilo and Stitch the tv series or Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, the tv series? Or what about the countless sequels to Aladdin? Or that short sequel to Monsters Inc., Mike’s New Car? Or how about the hideous tv series that were done featuring Mickey and gang or even those new shorts using Goofy. Where and how do those fall in?

John Lasseter is trying to preserve the integrity of the Disney library, but he’s marketing his own films somewhat more voraciously. If you want to preserve the esteem of those films of the “Golden Age” why not re-release them in theaters? Didn’t we see that scheme once worked for Disney putting them out theatrically every 7 years? Has the presence of the five remastered dvd versions of Peter Pan made that film less valuable theatrically?

CG is popular with executives for financial reasons. They can see a product that they can better control while it’s in production. Why is this any different from exploiting the hits of the past? If you can put Belle or Tarzan or Mary Poppins on the stage or dancing around the theme parks, why not be able to rework them in animation? Isn’t it a variation of the same thing?

Marketing.
Money making.

I don’t think anyone is thinking about “Art” (with a capital “A”) these days.

Why hold the old films in such esteem when the animators of today don’t hold their own work up to the same standard?
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I so desperately want to critique this image, but I have to
hold myself back. The knowledge just isn’t there.
Suffice it to say, that this is evidence enough that
the new doesn’t equal the old.

Take a look at Hans Bacher‘s new site to see what
stunning, well planned BGs look like.

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- Any reader of this blog knows that I am not a fan of Motion Capture; hell, I’m not much of a fan of cgi animation. I’d prefer to watch animated puppets if I’m looking for 3D animation, and I don’t think cgi has reached the level of some of the 2D animation that’s been done.

However, if I have to give a good reason for Motion Capture’s existence I would pick the Geico Gecko commercials. I think that little guy transcends animation; I totally buy it as a real creature talking to me in his Cockney accent. I like it and don’t think the same feel could be done any other way.

I started wondering about who did these spots and decided to do a little research. The spots sort of feel like some of Aardman’s work, but I never quite believed Aardman would resort to Motion Capture (but then I never thought they’d use cgi either.)

It turns out the spots are done in New York by a company called Framestore, NY. They’ve done a lot of effects work and commercials in the past. Most notably they’ve been involved with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Walking With Dinosaurs done for the Discovery Channel. They also have a London based office.

The President of the company is Jon Collins and the lead animator on the spots is Dave Hulin. Sarah Dowland is the producer, and Andy Walker is another animator involved in the commercials.

The original voice of the Gecko was Kelsey Grammar, but only for the first spot. Then Brit actor, Dave Kelly took the part. Those spots were done by Rhythm & Hues.
The current incarnation of the Gecko done by Framestore NY is voiced by British actor, Jake Wood.

Three of these spots can be seen at the Framestore website.

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A short break for a little news brief: Sean Penn and Iggy Pop have signed on to do voices for the US version of Persepolis. They join Catherine Deneuve and Gena Rowlands. The French film, which won a jury prize at Cannes, will be released in November.

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– Last night I watched a show on Boomerang. Entertainingly enough, it’s called MGM. These are the non-Avery non-Tom & Jerry cartoons of MGM. That means a lot of Harman-Ising and a few other oddities.

These are for the most part the bulk of shorts that ran on TCM’s Cartoon Alley. All of the prints are Turner-beautiful, and a good way to catch some of these cartoons. The program appears to have only been on a couple of weeks, at most, so I’ve only caught it two or three times. They seem to put up the later films from this unit – they don’t want it to seem too dated. Since the scheduled has shifted half a dozen times already, I’m not sure it’s long for the world. The programs run at 6pm or 8pm or whenever in the evening are apparently repeated early morning (last night at 4:30am) if you want to tape the shows with your timer.

Last night they ran the Chuck Jones short The Bear That Wasn’t(1967). This is an adaptation of Frank Tashlin ‘s children’s book published in 1946. The film was produced by Tashlin and Jones and was directed by Maurice Noble and Jones.

One of Chuck Jones’ most apt and famous quotes was to have called Hanna-Barbera’s (and, indeed, most tv animation) work “illustrated radio.” That is the saying that is most appropriate for this short. Paul Frees does an excellent job of speaking all the voices including the narrator (although it doesn’t sound well recorded). The only female voices are done by a chorus of females that sings all their lines. Dean Elliott didn’t do his best score for this film. The music sounds like a bad-jazzy version of a James Bond/Pink Panther impersonation.
(Click any image to enlarge. )

I’m a big fan of Maurice Noble’s work, but he was working overtime for this short, and the film is overdesigned. Too much gets in the way of the simple animation – trying, in fact, to hide the limitations of the animation. Looking at Tashlin’s book, there’s a simplicity that could have been easily relayed by anyone who just adapted the book. There was too much ego at the top of the credits here, and the film suffers for it. The end result is boring.

This was the first time I’d ever seen the short, so I was glad to have caught via the back door of Boomerang. The show today is at 9am, 8pm and 4:30am. This is what’s on today’s schedule:
Hanna & Barbera’sGallopin’ Gals
Hugh Harman’sTom Turkey and His _-_ Harmonica Humdingers
Dick Lundy’s Cobs and Robbers
and Hugh Harman’s Blue Danube.
An odd mix. (An item for sale on ebay.)