Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Lately, Disney’s book divisions have done some wonderful work. The Archive series: Animation, Story, Design and soon to come Layout & Bg are all stunningly attractive books. These are top of the line items from Disney Editions. John Canemaker‘s Two Guys Named Joe also comes from the same division, and it’s a beautifully designed and attractively produced book.

But what about the lower end of the Disney Publishing empire? In the bygone days the animated features would be made into Little Golden Books utilizing artists from the studio. Mary Blair, Al Dempster, Bill Peet, and Eyvind Earle all contributed to books for the Western Publishing offshoot. Today there are still some Little Golden Books being made from Disney material. The Pixar product, such as Toy Story and Wall-E, as well the Disney Princesses and The Princess and the Frog all have editions.

However, I came upon something even lower down the pipeline. Here are three books that were produced for Walgreen’s pharmacy megastores. Heidi bought them 3 for $3.98. None of the books gives a hint of illustrator or writer. The illustrations, on a very cursory glance, look as though they might have been frame grabs pulled from the movies.

Bambi

Bambi’s cover. It’s a nice watercolor evocative of the film. Though one
wonders why they played with the logo’s type. The “m” now has a
little swoosh on its lower right. Not part of any other version of this title.

Our first interior illustration looks like it might
have been a frame grab from the film, itself.

This tries hard to look like it might have come from the film.
But all the characters are moved around differently.

They do a nice job of layout using this iconic image against the type.
Looking at this book, I’m amazed how many well-know still images there
are in the original feature. Those old guys knew what they were doing.

Here are a couple of double page spreads. I like the way they
handle them in these books. You can see that there is a plan.

By now, the illustrations look more like Bambi 2 than the original.

The characters were obviously done on separate levels. Notice the
mother’s leg doesn’t match the background. She’s out of place.
Something you might have seen back in the days with the use of cels.

Two pages covers the climax of the film, Faline’s encounter
with the dogs and the fire rates one illustration.

The final illustration takes us into “Bambi’s Children” and
has nothing to do with the original film, anymore.

Peter Pan

Peter Pan gets off to a bad start with a RED cover
and an action illustration. Not quite the film.

Get to the title page, and Peter is WAY off model.
Oh well.

When I think of that beautiful opening shot in the film, it isn’t
quite this. I’m afraid, the Bambi book will be the best of the lot.

The double-page spreads do still play a bit with the form.

Not much magic left in this Neverland.

Some nice action.

Most of the book is done in Long Shots. I’d say that’s
not the best choice for smallish illustrations. And the
airbrushed white is too opaque to work as a border; it
gets to look like a virus in the air.

The book is too much on the red side. Everything here is
violet and yellow. Not quite the colors invoked by the
orinal designers.

101 Dalmatians

Uh oh, we’re in trouble.

The title page makes for a good composition with bad colors.
The technique, using gouache starts to peek through.

They’ve captured the pose and lost the film.
Where’s that beautiful cut-glass rose in the door?

Too bad they’ve ignored the wonderful background styling
of Ken Anderson and the painting of Walt Peregoy.

A lot of action. Not a bad image though Cruella’s been simplified.

We’ve ignored the great design of the film and have gone to “storybook 2009″.
(The books were done in 2009.)

The two page spread makes use of its format, I have to say that.

Gone the xerographic look, this is how they end this book.

All in all, I’d have to say it’s probably not a bad deal for parents looking for cheap books to entertain their children. The Bambi book holds up nicely. Peter Pan wastes a great story and 101 Dalmatians works hard to reduce their story into a small book you’d buy in a drug store.

The art and delicacy of the Little Golden Books is gone. Take a look at this, or this, or this. They all varied wildly from the film, but with a sense of originality and design. These three Walgreen books all try doggedly to resemble the film while losing the artistry in the book.

- I’ve known Jeff Scher for quite some time. In the NY animation front, he’s come to represent what I think of as the truly Independent animator. His work touches abstration, live action filmaking and an absolute love for film animation. Essentially, he’s creating Art in film.

The outlet for his work had grown enormously when he started appearning in the NYTimes. There, for a year, he did a monthly video editorial for their internet site. After the year, they reduced it to a less frequent schedule. Now his videos appear more arbitrarily. (The Times is looking to make money, which means cutting back, yet charging the readers.)

These videos are short, lyrical, animated essays all made with a strong purpose of design in Jeff’s studio in Chelsea. Most of them have music by Shay Lynch. The two artists couldn’t be a better matched pair; their work together seems inseperable.

In a recent conversation with Jeff, I learned that he is self-distributing his DVDs, which collect the many films he has done. These sales are done through his own website, Fezfilms.net.

His enthusiasm for his art has always been an inspiration for me. Jeff seems to find new and adventurous ways of doing animation, and that, no doubt, keeps him alive.

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He also has a blog which talks about the making of his current films. The blog has the wonderful title, Reasons to be Glad. The image above comes from a Paul Simon video he did called “Getting Ready For Christmas Day”. You can find that video on the blog here.
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The website also features a gallery where you can watch some video and see art from many of the films (all of which is for sale.) I take pleasure in the beautiful piece of artwork Jeff gave me from his film “L’ Eau Life”.
It’s painted with watercolor on bristol, like all the other frames of this film.

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Jeff teaches in New York at the School of Visual Arts and at N.Y.U. Tisch School of the Arts.
There’s an excellent interview with him, discussing process, here.

- Mike Barrier recently posted two interviews on his website: Robert McKimson and John Hubley. On Saturday, I added a few small comments about the interviews. This caused a couple of comments from readers who got into the McKimson interview with some strong statements about McKimson’s treatment of animator, Rod Scribner. Scribner had taken a 3 year break from animating to treat his Tuberculosis. When he came back to the studio, he no longer was able to work in Clampett’s unit – he’d left the studio -, so Scribner found himself, ultimately, in Robert McKimson’s group. Seen as a wild animator by McKimson, Scribner was molded into something much less violent. It seemed the juice was taken out of his animation.

The question was whether it was the TB, heroin, electric shock therapy, or just McKimson that caused this enormous change in Scribner’s style. If we go back to the interview, I think we can find the answer. In McKimson’s words:

I had one animator, who thought he was better than he was, and I’d just flip it through, and I’d say, well, this has got to be changed, it won’t work this way. He said, “I think it will.” I said, “All right, Rod [Scribner], you go and test this”—cheap negative testing—”and we’ll run it on the movieola, and I’ll show you what I mean exactly.” He said, “All right, but I know it’s right.” Every three to six months, he’d come up with one of these things. So I’d just tell him to go ahead and shoot it. We’d put it on the movieola and run it through and through, on the loop; every time, he’d say, “Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean.” And then the next time, he’d say, “Well, I think it’s right.” But that was the only way it worked against me. I had to take guys with a little less ability and try to make something out of them.

McKimson, the director, couldn’t work with the strong presence of Scribner – in fact he saw it as bad animation – and had to train Scribner into settling down to a less noticeable style of movement. Perhaps, Scribner was well ahead of his time and McKimson was behind the times?

The two animators I see closest in style to what Scribner did were Bill Tytla and Jim Tyer. All three worked in very different ways, and Scribner had more in common with Tytla and Tyer than Tytla and Tyer had with each other.

I believe there are two very different styles of animation: in one, all movement and thought is designed for the development and construction of the character; in the other, 2D animation is seen as a graphic challenge, and the shape and graphics of the character are above and beyond even the character, itself.

Bill Tytla worked at Disney for all his famous years. Within those walls the character was EVERYTHING. Tytla found that by distorting the character, in a very malleable way, he was able to accent traits of the characterization he was aiming for. Hence, a Stromboli would completely distort between two poses to accent a bit of violence. The character would come back together, on model, as soon as the strong gesture was made. Normal viewers, not looking for the distortion, didn’t see it but probably felt it. The strength of the movement was successful. I think Tytla saw this as a way of getting his animated character into the model Stanislavsky had suggested. This theory of acting was just starting to break through the Hollywood gates.

At least, this is my theory. John Hubley once told me that “… a small group of them at Disney were strongly into Stanislavsky. The rest,” he said, “couldn’t spell it.” I know that Hubley and Tytla were friends as was John Hench, and I’m sure they are who he meant. All you have to do is look at the Devil in NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN for obvious evidence of this.

Rod Scribner seemed to have an innate sense of this, but took it a bit further. I don’t think he thought of Stanislavsky, but he did think of graphics. In Barrier’s masterpiece of a book, Hollywood Cartoons, he tells a story about Scribner and Clampett. Apparently, Scribner approached Clampett and asked if he could introduce a “Lichty” style into his animation.

George Lichty was a well-known comic strip cartoonist (Grin and Bear It) who had a very loose, linear style. Scribner, obviously, was going for a two dimensional graphic style that he thought would work well in animation. Clampett understood what Scribner wanted and decided when to go along with it. It would take some careful editing to get it to work. Consequently, Clampett would reserve specific scenes and times to use the style which Scribner developed for those particular scenes the director gave him.

Lichty’s style

Consequently, Clampett was using Scribner, just ast Tytla designed for himself, getting the most out of the graphics without calling attention to the wild change in stylization. This first appeared in A Tale of Two Kittens then in Coal Black and de
Sebben Dwarfs. For me, The Great Piggy Bank Robbery is one of the highlights of this wild style as Daffy Duck transforms violently before our eyes – for frames only – before returning to himself. Even then, it isn’t quite the same Daffy that other animators drew. The two, Clampett and Scribner, used it outrageously in many of their films together; some work, some don’t.

Robert Mckimson was a mundane and lackluster director who, quite frankly, didn’t understand the stylization that Clampett and Scribner had developed. It’s no wonder McKimson broke it out of Scribner’s art when he became the director. To him it was just distortion, for its own sake.

Jim Tyer was a different animal. His distortion seems to be completely and wholly graphic. He doesn’t use it to develop a character; he uses it as the embodiment of the character. The character starts off-model and goes from there wildly and totally beyond the model sheet. It’s wholly graphic embellishment, and character be damned. This is something that Bill Tytla would have disliked, and many others within Terry’s studio as well. I remember Johnny Gentilella telling me that they couldn’t keep Tyer on model. Another assistant animator told me it was a hell of a job for her to bring Tyer’s character back, closer to the model sheet. I can imagine.

All three of these animators have gained fame in the current state of the art. Young bloggers post frame-by-frame detailed distortions by Tyer, animators break down Scribner’s work with Clampett to see how exactly he did it. Tytla’s work is praised to the hilt drawing by drawing with delight taken in every distortion.

I have to say that I have always been a fan of Tytla’s and Tyer’s work. When I started doing animation professionally, I found people praising Tytla and putting down Tyer. I kept my love of Tyer secret. Over time, I grew to love Scribner. With all three I studied their animation frame by frame over and over. I was pleased that the folk who did The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse on CBS had found Tyer and used him as a model. To me it was the perfect model for series animation, and, no doubt under the influence of Ralph Bakshi they glorified their model.

It is interesting how many try to imitate the styles of all three and very few approach the level of any of them. I hope those imitators keep triying. To me, it’s the essence of 2D animation, and perhaps within this graphic medium one of those imitators will break through and we can relish such achievements. Achievements which are virtually impossible in the puppet-computer animation of Pixar and Dreamworks. But within that imitator, 2D animation will stay alive.

A couple of screen grabs were borrowed from the sites of
Thad Komorowski and Kevin Langley. My appreciation and thanks.

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- On his website, Michael Barrier has been offering some of the many interviews he and Milt Gray recorded in preparation for his seminal animation history book, Hollywood Cartoons.

Two of these interviews have recently surfaced: Robert McKimson and John Hubley. Something comes across in these two interviews, something that doesn’t quite make it to the history books that try to include all the facts and figures, statements and theories. Personality is what is evident in these interviews.

I’d read about Robert McKimson for years, but I never felt much about him. To be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of the films he’d directed for Warner Bros. They’ve always seemed a bit overanimated and don’t always take the shortest route to the gags. I’ve felt a flatness in these films, something even Friz Freleng’s films don’t have. There’s a tightness to Friz’ cartoons, a tightness that shows off the director’s mastery of timing.

McKimson, to me, did incredibly beautiful artwork in those early model sheets for Bugs Bunny (well displayed on a sidebar piece on Mike’s site.) His animation certainly stood as strong in those shorts directed by Freleng. There was a bit more of a drive to the scenes he animated.

Reading the interview, I found a distinct personality. There was someone who needed to be in control, who had to take charge, yet never made waves when it didn’t happen. He quietly groused about the problem. A curiously complicated person. Suddenly, I felt more about McKimson the man than I had with all I’d read about him in the past. It makes me want to back up and revisit the shorts he’s directed. (Though not the Foghorn Leghorn films; I just flat out don’t like that character.)

The John Hubley interview is different. I knew Hubley and knew this interview. Mike gave me a copy of it many years ago, and I’ve read it over some half dozen times. However, I can attest to John’s personality being right there.

You get the feeling that it’s tough for Hubley to spare the allotted hour for the interview. He’s answering all the questions, but you feel like he wants to run to do something else. That was definitely John – always on the run. The only time he seemed at peace, to me, was when he was painting. For animation, when I knew him, that meant rushing out the Bgs for whatever piece we were working on. Given the short amount of time planned for each bit of artwork, it’s amazing how masterfully they all turned out.

The couple of times I made a comment to John about his past work – usually UPA, I was stopped. I remember riding high the day after I’d seen ROOTY TOOT TOOT for the first time. There was no doubt in my mind that I’d seen one of the great animated shorts of my lifetime. So I told John. He just looked at me for a couple of seconds, then turned and exited the room. I don’t know what was behind it, but I knew I wouldn’t get much about his past from him.

It’s amazing, then, to see how much and what detail Mike pulled out of Hubley, and it seems so effortless. In so many words, John tells Mike that he wanted no interference from others over his direction. You’re not quite sure he always fought for it, but there’s no doubt he wanted it. Information, I thought I knew, was clarified in the interview. I was and still am impressed by that information gathering.

Read these two interviews. They’re important. These people are the backbones of our industry, and we can only learn from them.

To that end, you should also know that Mike has quite a few more interviews on his site: Hugh Harman, Joe Grant, Brad Bird, Fess Parker, Frank Tashlin, John McGrew, Art Babbitt and Ward Kimball are all there, as are more. Just scroll down toward the bottom of Mike’s blog, and you’ll find quite a few links to the right of the screen. There’s a lot there on this site.

- Word is that Salma Hayek is trying to turn Kahlil Gibran‘s The Prophet into an animated feature. It would have many directors. At the moment, these have been contacted: Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville), John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), Chris Landreth (Oscar-winning short Ryan), Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells), Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues), Bill Plympton (Guard Dog and Your Face) and Kunio Kato (Oscar winning short The House of Little Cubes).

The film should be an interesting one, once they get into production. Can you imagine the blend of styles, going from Nina Paley to Chris Landreth to Bill Plympton to Sylvain Chomet? I’ll buy my tickets now. All they have to do is raise the money.

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- Carnegie Hall, in Zankel Hall, will screen two shorts by Hayao Miyazaki March 26th. There will be two screenings on March 26, the first at 6:30 PM and the second at 8:30 PM. Tickets are available now for $15 here.

The films, House Hunting (2006, 12 mins) and Mon Mon the Water Spider (2006, 15 mins) will have their U.S. Premieres that night. Neither of them, written and directed by Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki, has ever been seen outside of Japan. They were produced for the Ghibli Museum, in Japan.

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A Cat in Paris will premiere in NY at the NY International Children’s Film Festival this weekend. Today at 6 m at Symphony Space and tomorrow at 11:15am at the IFC theater. The film is a 2D animated feature from France, directed by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli.

A Cat in Paris is a 2D hand-drawn caper film, set in the shadowed alleyways of Paris.

Date Theater Buy Tickets
Sat Mar 5 SYMPHONY SPACE 6:00
Sun Mar 13 IFC CENTER 11:15

Here’s the link to the Facebook page for this film. (It’s in French.)
Here’s Cartoon Brew‘s note about their distribution through G-Kids in the U.S.

And here’s a clip to give you a sense of the style. (The clip is in French.)

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-ASIFA-East has a good interview on their website: Biljana Labovic interviewed by Dayna Gonzalez.

Biljana has become a mainstay on the NY front. She was a Producer on Bill Plympton’s feature, Idiots and Angels. She started work with Bill as an intern and ended up as his producer. In this interview talks about her work with Bill Plympton (from 1999-2010) on his many shorts and features.

She also is about to work on Dash Shaw‘s feature, The Ruined Cast. This film is about to go into pre-production in Brooklyn with John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole) as one of its Producers.
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- In his blog, the New Savannah, Bill Benzon wraps up his commentary on Robert Clampett‘s short Porky In Wackyland.

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The Arludik Gallery has a show of art from The Illusionist. If you visit on line, you can see some of the animation drawings from the film, and the prices aren’t horrible.

One of the good things about 2d animation is that there actually is ARTWORK that you can purchase. I’d recently gotten a notice that Dreamworks is selling prints of some of the frame grabs from Megamind. Don’t worry if I don’t show up soon. The film was not good and the artwork is not art; it’s just work. For $250 you can buy a Giclee!

Here are some of The Illusionist art for sale:

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- Happy President’s Day. This gives me the chance to talk about a show I’ve been doing for HBO. It feels like I’ve been working the last ten years on it, but it’s really only 2½. The show is scheduled to air next year on President’s Day, and we’re in the throes of completing it now.

This is basically a program where we’ve asked some kids to tell us what they would do if they were President. The kids gave us some funny ideas and brought a lot to the table.

However, the show took a wrong turn somewhere in the beginning, and we went down a path that wasn’t what Sheila Nevins, the head of Family Programming, was looking for. We’d done a half hour of finished-looking animatic to sell our work, and a lot of it went out the window.

I tried to make some small QT movies of a couple of the outtakes, but I couldn’t get the files down far enough, and they took forever to load. So forget that. Instead, let me show off some of the great caricatures Tom Hachtman did for me.

We were going to tell some quirky stories about some of the Presidents, when they were kids. And we’d assembled some interesting ones. So Tom had to give me drawings of the Presidents as adults AND as kids.

Here’s some of the art that went out the window:

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At first, Tom did a lot of scketches in his notebook to see
what I was looking for. He hit it on the mark first time out.

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Then he produced a bunch of portraits of
random Presidents that might inspire something.

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And more.

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And more.

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And as kids.

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Teddy Roosevelt was heating up for us,
so Tom did quite a few sketches.

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And more.

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We had this story about Teddy, as a kid, finding
a dead seal. He took it home and performed an
autopsy, bisecting it to analyze its contents.

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I colored one for presentation.

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I also liked the idea of doing a story about Nixon,
especially after Tom came in with a funny drawing
that I colored strictly for presentation.

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We did do an animatic on John Adams and his son, John Quicy Adams,
crossing the Atlantic to go to France – where they stayed for more than a year.

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It was a tough voyage. Storms,
invading British ships and seasickness.

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We also did a piece on FDR going to White House
as a child where he met Grover Cleveland and
was advised never to run for President.

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FDR narrates it as if it were a “Fireside Chat”.

But all this work was for naught. It was removed from the show. We didn’t talk about past Presidents (with few small exceptions to comment on the conversations the kids have.)

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The one full piece that did make the show was
George H.W. Bush angry about eating broccoli.

The show’s taken its own shape and I’m really proud of it. Matt Clinton and Katrina Gregorius did a magnificent job in handling a lot of the animation. It’s really funny and poignant, too.

Look for it next year.

- 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.

Since I’m currently posting the Raggedy Ann & Andy drafts (on Mondays) I’ve been thinking about the film. One of my favorite stories happened early on in the production. I wrote about it here, September 2009, and I’m recapping it now.

- Steam is the secret energy that runs my city. There’s an article in a local paper called The Gotham Gazette which describes the system in full detail. It’s a good read, so I urge you to go there if you’re interested in further understanding the system.

Atop ground we get to see steam leaking out of sewers, see giant pipes spewing steam into the air, and read about exploding steam pipes that cause damage. (There was a recent explosion at 42nd Street near Grand Central Station. Another in Murray Hill, a couple of years back, destroyed a building and closed a city block for several weeks.)

We pass by these steampipes and stewing manhole covers without thinking about it. It’s like some primeval force out of the Rite of Spring hiding underground.
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(Click any image to enlarge.)

For the times Con Edison is working on the system at specific locations, they construct barber-pole colored pipes which emit large bursts of steam into the air. That wonderful scent you get when walking into a dry cleaners often surounds these pipes.

Back when Raggedy Ann started, there was a very large construction and similar pipe steaming up the entire front of the Brill Building in which we were located. I seem to remember we were originally on the fourth floor, so any offices that faced the front of the building saw nothing more than steam flowing all day long.

Dick Williams had one such office; the conference room was another.

The steam would make a very loud SHUSSSHHH-ing sound as it flowed out. This was often accompanied by workers jackhammering their way underground.

There was a Saturday rush to complete the art for the rough animatic. Dick and Gerry Potterton and I were in the conference room for at least 8 hours madly coloring storyboard drawings with colored pencils. We had a great time laughing and joking and gossipping about everyone under the sun. I was a lowly Asst. Animator, but they treated me like an equal. It was fun, needless to say.

All day long that incessant SHUSSSHHH; all day long that steam flowing up and pass our large bank of windows. It was crazy-making.

Dick finally broke from a conversation we were having to scream out at the steam and the workers. He was sure that New York was ready to burst out and blow up underneath us. Gerry and I had a good laugh at the rant.
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Obviously, not all of these pipes are striped in the Con Edison orange and white. I found
this black, short pipe.

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You can see it coming out the sewer caps. Sometimes heavy, as in the left; sometimes
light, as in the right.

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Often close to invisible. I had to go closer to see the steam coming out of this cap.

This truck trailer has been parked on Fifth Avenue and 8th Street for a while. Apparently Con Edison isn’t supplying all the steam needs for the city.

I found this guide to where things are underground. It gives a good, informative view of what’s flowing underneath us in this town. Maybe it will blow up someday.

- 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.

– John Schnall has to be one of the most creative guys working on the internet. He’s made a number of extraordinary short films, but when the internet took hold, he came into his own.

His latest creation is the Zombie Tabernacle Choir. As the name might suggest you get a choir of Zombies. Move your cursor across them and they float in 3D with the foreground going out of focus as you alight on one in the rear row. Click on individual zombies and they sing for you. Then scan the scale from left to right and they shift the pitch from front to back. You move furiously trying to keep them all in song, and the faster you go the bigger the sound. It’s crazy and a lot of fun.

John Schnall has always brought a smile to me, and I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of it, too.

While you’re there, check out the rest of his site. There’s plenty to keep you occupied.

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- Others might have their version of fun by chcking out the new site Frank Forte has started. This is a blog devoted to the art of Hanna-Barbera’s feature, Rock Odyssey. Rock Odyssey is an animated feature movie produced by Hanna-Barbera that was theatrically released in 1987. The film was directed by Robert Taylor but Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera took the credit; Taylor remains uncredited. (You’ll remember Robert Taylor as the director of The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat – the non-Bakshi sequel.) Storyboards are by Pete Alvarado. Animators included: Hal Ambro, Rudi Cataldi, Chuck Downs, Spencer Peel, and Irv Spence.

To be honest I barely remember the film; I certainly didn’t see it. However, Frank says he has thousands of drawings from the film, so there could be interesting artwork posted (at least if they look like the drawing above.)

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- Emily Hubley has a lot of film showings about to happen. She sent an email, and I thought I’d just give you that post – in her own words:

I’ve recently completed a music video titled, Hail. The piece was commissioned by Vic Campos/Creative Outlet Productions, for inclusion in a full length documentary about the musician, Hamell on Trial. The song is about 3 hate-crime victims meeting in heaven.

Hail will show at 2 upcoming Black Maria Film Festival screenings:

Friday, February 4 7:00 PM NEW JERSEY CITY UNIVERSITY
OPENING NIGHT / AWARD CEREMONY
Margaret Williams Theatre, Hepburn Hall Culver Ave. at John F. Kennedy Blvd.
Jersey City, NJ 201-200-2043

Sunday, Feb 6 2pm
Essex Green Cinemas in West Orange (unfortunately, due to a family commitment, I can’t be there).

Here‘s the link to the festival website. There are many local screenings and Hail won’t show everywhere, but I strongly recommend this festival. Great and diverse work that’s hard to see elsewhere.

ALSO ON 2/6 (SUPER BOWL SUNDAY):
The Toe Tactic will screen at the Museum of Modern Art Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater) @ The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building — 4 West 54th St at 5 pm.

This screening is part of the On Line: Drawing and Film Series which accompanies the exhibit, On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century. We plan to view the art in the galleries and then attend the screening. Norman McLaren’s Blinkety Blank (1985) is the short. I know many of you have seen the film, but if you have friends who have not and won’t be watching football, send them our way!

Finally, I’ve made some interstitial pieces for the fun play In Mother Words, which starts previews at the (LA) Geffen Playhouse on Feb 15. Created by Susan Rose + Joan Stein, Directed by Lisa Peterson. Too many impressive playwrights to list. Cast: Mary Birdsong, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Jane Kaczmarek + James Lecesne.

Go here for info.

I’ll be there 2/15 and 2/16 if you want to say hi.
cheerio, emily

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– I just had the opportunity of seeing Mike & Tim Rauch‘s latest film in their StoryCorps series to be aired on the POV series. Like all the rest of the pieces, it’s a gem. Excellent animation by Tim Rauch, Bgs by Bill Wray, and production by Mike Rauch. They’re hoping to get picked up for another round; let’s hope they do. This is some of the best work coming out of New York. They mix humanity with cartoon so brilliantly, you forget that they don’t normally intertwine in today’s world.

You can watch several of these films on line here.
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