Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Usually, I’m linking to articles I’ve found in the NYTimes. It’s strange to have the NY Times link to articles in my blog! That’s what happened yesterday when the Times Artsbeat column picked up my reprint of John Canemaker‘s Print magazine article about Finian’s Rainbow and wrote about it. Now that’s a kick for the day.

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Speaking of something sorta grandish, I forgot to mention that my studio passed its 30th Anniversary on February 15th. No wonder some of the paint is peeling; we’re getting grander by the day. We’ve done a lot of films in that time, though I wish there were a lot more.

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Tom Hachtman recently sent me a couple of brilliant drawings. You’ll remember that he and I were involved in trying to jump start an animated feature version of his comic strip Gertrude’s Follies. Either it was too daring for backers or I didn’t locate the right backers for an animated film about artists and their lesbian supporters.

At any rate, Tom had sent a drawing to the New Yorker (which has published some of his cartoons in the past) which ultimately rejected it. Their tough luck, my fortune.

Than there’s the image he sent a couple of weeks ago in the middle of the media’s scourge of Tiger Woods.

This was originally posted on NowWhatMedia.com where blog owner Martin Kozlowski colored the original B&W image after Tom made a couple of small alterations in cleaning up this drawing. It ended up looking like this:

I love the loose quality of the original picture, so I had to post it.

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- As you may have read, Sylvan Chomet‘s The Illusionist has been racking up glorious film reviews since it’s recent premiere in Berlin at the Berlinale. The Hollywood Reporter, though, wasn’t so kind in its review yesterday.

“. . . theatrical exposure outside Europe might be scant. Chomet’s name alone assures some level of distribution on several platforms, but buyers might be wary this time.”

“Tati never committed this downhearted tale to film, choosing instead to end his career with light, satirical fun.”

It does say of the film, “The real beauty of ‘Illusionist’ lies in its drawings. Chomet is a traditionalist here, insisting on hand drawings where 3D computer animation is all the rage in the animation world. The story moves from Paris to London to Scotland, and its cityscapes and landscapes are gorgeous. A final swirling crane shot of Edinburgh, where the camera seems to fly up and over the city, is sheer magic.”

It sounds glorious and beautiful, and I can’t wait. The one animated film worth following.

- I just heard of the passing of actor/director, Lionel Jeffries. Just a year ago, Feb. 8, 2009, I posted a piece on the death of actor, James Whitmore. I’d tried to hire him as the voice of Gower in my film, Abel’s Island. When I couldn’t get Whitmore, I turned to Lionel Jeffries.

And now, Lionel Jeffries has died. I’m sad. This is what I wrote in that piece, last year.

- Too few are the photos I have of the recording sessions done for my films. On Abel, I have just two. Both are of Lionel Jeffries who played Gower, the frog.

Mr. Jeffries is a very big name in England and deservedly so. Americans probably remember him best for his performance as “Grandpa Potts” in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or as Pellinore in Camelot. In England, his reputation as a director was sealed with The Railway Children, an overwhelming success in that country. In this film, he directed Jenny Agutter in her first role. (I worked with her on my short, Max’s Christmas.)

Mr. Jeffries, like all of the Brits I have worked with was extraordinarily professional. The session was relatively brief, and the performance was more than I ever imagined.
_______(All images enlarge by clicking on them.)

My biggest regret, on this film, was that I didn’t take a camera to London to snap shots of Tim Curry. His performance as Abel was the rock on which the rest of the film was built. Lionel Jeffries‘ voice worked well with Tim Curry‘s. The only other voice heard in that 1/2 hour show, was Heidi Stallings‘. She also gave a solidly first rate performance as Abel’s wife, Amanda. (No photos of that session either!)

Sterling vocal performances from all three actors really pushed the film off on a good journey.

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These are the first of the obituaries I’ve seen:

NYTimes, The Guardian, BBC News

- Yurij Norshtein will appear tonight at The School of Visual Arts Theater (333 W. 23rd Street, between 8th/9th Ave). 6:30pm.

They will screen The Hedgehog in the Fog and The Overcoat, his long-in-progress film. Norshtein will also have an extended Q&A with the audience.

The man is one of the great animation masters, and I hope that there will be a good turnout for him. I wonder if the copy of The Overcoat that will be shown will be a more current version than the one that’s been screened a couple of years back. I’d read that he was planning to break the film in two and release the first part at the end of 2009. Perhaps that is the case, and we will be seeing this version.

In any event, for me, this is a big event and I’m looking forward to it.

A sketch for The Overcoat.

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– I think I was hit with a fascination of the Multiplane Camera when I first read Bob Thomas’ book, The Art of Animation, back in 1959. (See graphic to the right.) After that book I just searched out all the scenes described within it – the flying scene from Peter Pan, the town awakening in Pinocchio, and the entire Old Mill short. I was entranced and paid attention to every use of the device in Disney films. Of course, I saw what Ub Iwerks did with his machine, even before Disney, in all his very odd animated shorts. I even watched Don Bluth develop his own smallish multiplane camera for his films.

My father and brother-in-law teamed to build a multiplane stand for me when I was a kid animating and shooting my own 8mm films. The thing handled 12 levels of glass panels 18″x36″ and had some 5000 watts of lighting spread throughout. It got hot but enabled me to make some interesting films. Not
necessarily good – just interesting. It enabled so much invention in those short film fragments.

Hans Bacher this week has posted a collection of photos of the camera setup from the Disney studio. The collection is thrilling for those of us who have been entranced with this invention.

However, if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of the machine, you have to visit a number of posts on Hans Perk‘s website A Film LA. There he has posted several extraordinary documents which detail William Garity’s plans for the invention of the Multiplane Camera. You can see these documents here: 1, 2, 3

Then there are another three with many photos of the multiplane, some taken by Hans Perk, himself: 1, 2, 3.

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- Starting Friday on HBO The Ricky Gervais show premieres. This is an animated program built around podcasts that Gervais has been distributing on-line. The voice tracks are animated in LA predictably utilizing Flash for the lowest budget. The style is out of the predictable cookie-cutter mold we’ve been seeing lately. You can catch a couple of segments here.

The NYTimes has an article in their Sunday paper about the show, but, as might be expected, nothing about the animation is actually discussed. Star driven vehicles aren’t about the animation. Though the Times does offer an excellent interactive feature that showcases a lot of the artwork.

It’s difficult to find out much about the actual production. Media Rights Capital is co-producing the animated HBO show along with Wildbrain. The credited animation director is Craig Kellman.

The review in Variety wasn’t glowing:
. . . employing a stiff “The Flintstones”-type look and visual template.
Animation would seem to be an ideal vehicle for this, but there’s only so much it can do — in part because there’s no adhesive to the episodes. The three guys sit and bullshit for 20-some-odd minutes — at times entertainingly — until the program simply ends. Perhaps that’s why the effect diminishes as the episodes wear on, though Glyn Hughes’ jaunty score does play them out on a high note.

If you’re a Ricky Gervais fan, I suggest you check out his blog. It’s actually entertaining without being too “me me me”.

- On Sunday night, Valentine’s Day, Debra Solomon‘s show, Getting Over Him In 8 Songs or Less, premieres on HBO 2 at 7:30pm. The film offers a musical trip through the last couple of years of Debbie’s life as she regroups from a divorce with her husband. (Animation as therapy.)

On her site, she writes this synopsis:

In my new film, I animated myself out of heartbreak. The animated journey was also my emotional journey. In GETTING OVER HIM IN 8 SONGS OR LESS the main character is caught in a
woman’s worst nightmare, wandering around the neighborhood undressed and exposed after being left by her husband. Through the use of brightly colored patterns that wash away section after section of the film, mimicking the ebb and flow of feelings, the viewer passes through the crisis with the main character.

I know firsthand how intensely Debbie worked to pull this show together. She singlehandedly animated the entire show in Flash in a sort of stream-of-conscious linear style that pulsates with a nervous energy (not unlike her own). The entire story is told through a pastiche of funny songs that she wrote, performed and produced. In short she bares her soul via a quick moving, funny animated film. It’s an animated diary of Debbie’s life in the year after her marriage. She lived through it as she animated it.

It’s brilliant that HBO helped finance this animated and personal film. This is a bittersweet bon bon of a tv show. Tune in.

Here are a couple of other images from the show:

(Click any picture to enlarge.)

There’s a short interview with Debra in MovieMaker Magazine.

This is the complete show schedule for the rest of this month:

7:30pm Sunday Feb 14th HBO2
9:30am Tuesday Feb 16th HBO Signature
6:00am Friday Feb 19th HBO2
10:00am Sunday Feb 21st HBO Signature

- VISA has taken over Grand Central Station with an enormous display focussing on the Winter Olympics, the centerpiece of which is a number of 3D ads, one of which is animated. You can get a good idea of how all-encompassing this display is with the following video:

Initially they handed out 3D glasses, but many of the people took the glasses and didn’t stay for the films. When I went through there were no glasses, but it didn’t seem to hurt the appearance of the movies (although they weren’t noticeably 3D anymore.)

Heading from the street to the subway
you’re hit with Visa’s name everywhere.

You can’t avoid the stairway signs.

If you head off to the Shuttle train
you run into the film in the connecting tunnel.

This is what the exhibit looked like. Stuck within a tunnel between
the IRT subway and the Grand Central Shuttle it’s not quite conducive
to good film watching. A lot of buildup for a couple of commercials.
Most people passed it by at 11pm on Friday night.

Here’s a still from one of one of the live action spots.
The guys handing out the 3D glasses didn’t have any;
they just stood about talking to each other.

The animated piece was done in the style of children’s drawings.
I haven’t been able to locate who produced the animation, so if you
know please leave a comment. Here are a couple of stills taken with
my small camera – bad lighting=bad pictures. Sorry.

Here are a couple of frames from the animated piece.

I’m curious to know how THIS worked in 3D.
It seems a bit flat. Not quite AVATAR.

The animated graphics, above, appears designed for maximum 3D effect.
This was produced by a company called Superfad.

Happy Heidi Birthday

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- The NYTimes now covers the Annies, at least in its blog roll if not in print. Brooks Barnes, in writing Intrigue at the Annies talks about the deadly serious competition between the animators at Pixar and those working for Jeff Katzenberg at Dreamworks. Animators get “really cranky when it comes to the public lauding – or not – of their work. ”

The tally of wins gives the overall plus to Dreamworks (5 to Dreamworks, 2 to Pixar.)

It’s good to hear that animators (described as “generally dorky and polite, guys [and overwhelmingly so] who offer an aw-shucks counterbalance to the preening of the rest of Hollywood”) can be as bitchy as actors when collecting the gold – despite our being “dorky.”

Apparently, William Shatner hosted the awards presentation and kept things moving at a good clip. It sounds like the program, itself, was worth attending.

Maybe if the ASIFAEast awards went bigger, we’d become more high strung on the East Coast. At least we don’t have to wear tuxedoes to collect our slip of paper, but then the NYTimes doesn’t cover us.

By the way, I appreciate that Jerry Beck had the list of winners posted by midnight (NY time) on Saturday night. There’s someone who’s dedicated to his blog and his readers at Cartoon Brew. Thanks Jerry.

It’s doubtful that any of this will have an effect on Oscar picks. To start with, the nominees are different. (For one, there are no TV shows running in the Best Animated Short category – unless you count the most recent Wallace & Gromit film.)

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Here are a few photos from the Annie’s “red carpet” found on the web:

1 2
1. Tom Sito – Thomas Wilson – Seth Green
2. Antran & Katy Manoogian – Bruno Coulais & Raya Veleva

3 4
3. Ron Clements – Neil Gaiman – Lacey Chabert
4. Jen Cody – Jeff Katzenberg – Deep Roy

- Don Marquis‘ book, Archy and Mehitabel, garnered fame quickly and not least because of the extraordinary illustrations of George Herriman, the creator of Krazy Kat.

The first book was published in 1927 and others followed in 1933 and 1935. It wasn’t until the third book that Herriman took over the characters created by Marquis in his book of short stories, developed mostly, in poetry. An on-again off-again love affair, the story had two principal characters: a cat, Mehitabel, and Archy, cockroach. (You can read these poems on line here.)

In 1953, writer Joe Darion along with composer George Kleinsinger (the creator of Tubby the Tuba) created a musical theater piece. Tenor Jonathan Anderson played Archy and soprano Mignon Dunn was Mehitabel. At about the same time a recording of the showtunes was recorded with Carol Channing as Mehitabel and Eddie Bracken as Archy. The record was a success.

With the help of the young writer, Mel Brooks, they were able to get their show to Broadway in 1957, but it was now named Shinbone Alley. After 49 performances, the show closed, but the original cast album was recorded that same year. The songs stayed in the permanent repetoire of Carol Channing and Eartha Kitt.

In 1971, John Wilson directed an animated feature starring the voices of Channing and Brackett and using the songs from the musical. The love affair between Archy and Mehitabel was penned by Archy, the cockroach; his poems tell their story.

The film suffers from its music. The songs are simple and sound as if they’re written for children, but the lyrics pull from the poems which are definitely designed for adults. It gets a bit confusing, as a result, and is a bit picaresque; the poems are short and illustrating them in animation would take more adaptation than seen here.

John Wilson had developed his studio, Fine Arts Films, on the back of the weekly, animated, music videos he did for The Sonny and Cher Show, an enormous hit in the early 70s.

These music videos were loose designs animated quickly and lively around the songs Sonny & Cher would schedule each week. There would always be one or two of these pieces, and they were highlights in the weekly one-hour musical/variety program.

The graphics of Shinbone Alley aren’t too far from these Sonny & Cher videos. Loose design and animation with a design style not too far from the Fred Wolf’s made-for-ABC feature, The Point. This was the first feature made for television and featured the songs and story of Harry Nilsson, although Shinbone Alley featured a wilder color pallette.

Jules Engel, Corny Cole and Sam Cornell all worked in design on the film. The long list of animators included Barrie Nelson, John Sparey, Spencer Peel, Eddie Rehberg and Jim Hiltz. Mark Kausler was an assistant on the show.

The film wasn’t an enormous success, but that was probably explained much by the limited distribution and the poor marketing of the film.

The Jacob Burns Film Center will host Shinbone Alley on Tuesday Feb. 16th. The screening will be at 5:30 & 7:25 pm.

Here are some frame grabs from the first 1/4 of the film:

We’re introduced to Archy right off the bat as he
flies out of the river onto the dock. He realizes that he,
the poet, tried to kill himself and was sent back as a cockroach.

He soon finds a typewriter and goes straight back to work.

Mehitabel is a performer – with Carol Channing’s voice.

The two meet cute.

She has another boyfriend, voiced by Alan Reed,
who is also the voice of Fred Flintstone.

A song video takes us outside.

pan down.

Another music video brings us into Peter Max’s style.

Life in Shinbone Alley.

- One of my pet peeves in animation – 2D animation (it’s something you rarely see in cgi) – is, what I call, the moving feet syndrome.

In this, layout artists create dynamic poses/drawings for animators to animate. Their drawings don’t always offer the best path to good animation, yet doggedly faithful animators obligingly follow the images at hand without questioning the logical sense of the drawings handed them. The feet positions end up moving without reason, yet the animator chugs ahead giving without noticing the needs of the character being drawn.

I plan to start showcasing a bunch of examples of this in both current and historic animation scenes. I’ve noticed this bad animation in two recent slick spots on television. Both look like decent animation, but both fail the moving feet test.

Here’s a recent GEICO spot which cleverly uses Elmer Fudd in what almost looks like a classic scene. It’s not animation that Ken Harris or Bobe Cannon would have done, because they’re not layouts that would have come from Chuck Jones or Fritz Freleng, and Bobe and Ken would have questioned the layouts.

Here’s the spot, as seen on YouTube.

A 30 sec spot including live action intro.

Let’s look at some frame grabs:

fr 410
Every time Elmer comes to a stop his feet move.
As he goes into action, they either pop or
quickly inbtween to the next pos.

fr 418
You’ll notice in the spot during the first 1/2 of the
animated segment he keeps repositioning in every hold position.

Here’s a closeup of the feet blown up.
They move imperceptibly, but they move.

fr 600
In the last half of the spot he gets into a good postion.

fr 655
Two seconds later he moves to another postion.

fr 668
1/2 second later they’re in a new postion.

fr 707
One second later back to the previous position
before Elmer walks out of the scene.

Here’s a CU of those feet moving like crazy:

From this –

- to this –

- to this before he turns and walks out.

Let’s turn to look at a Flash animated spot, the “Switch and Save” spot for Esurance.

Look at the guy painting the wall on the right, 8 secs into the spot.

Unlike Elmer, in the GEICO spot, this painter is more active so there is a bit more justification for some of the moves. But there are too many for too short a bit of screen time.

fr 261
He starts here and . . .

fr 267
. . . throws paint on the wall.
The foot movement is certainly justified.

fr 287
But then he goes to this hold position
only 1/2 second later.

fr 292
. . . then to this hold postion 5 frames later.
The animator’s trying to make two very different
foot positions work within such a short time.

fr 374
Two seconds later we’re into a new position.
More action might justify it, but why did you
go into pos fr 292 in the first place?

fr 381
And might as well end his bit with another move.

Here’s a closer look in case you missed it (sorry for the bad copy of the blowups.)

fr 261
Go from here . . .

fr 267
. . . to here . . .

fr 292
. . . to here . . .

fr 374

fr 381

And it’s not even a dance move.

Remember animators, if you’re moving those feet have a reason.

My most embarrassing moment

- There was a news story that was in all the papers yesterday. A woman visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with a study group, accidentally tripped and slammed into a Picasso painting tearing a hole in the lower right hand corner of the painting. They’ve determined that it can be repaired without too much pain, and it will most likely not be noticeable.

I’m sure that woman has gone through a small bit of hell since Friday. Lucky her, she’ll always be reminded of the incident every time she visits the Met. I know this because a similar thing happened to me many years ago.

I was a freshman in college. The teacher took the class, about 20 students to the Met to look at a small group of paintings. Like most dumb freshman, I was laughing and joking with friends on the periphery of the group, ignoring the teacher.

She had gathered the class in a corner around a small Rembrandt. I realized that it was time to stop fooling around and get in there to hear what the teacher was telling the class. I saw an opening against the wall and thought I could maneuver my way to the front.

Well, there was an opening because there was a small platform to keep visitors away from the painting. I didn’t see it and tripped.
I grabbed the first thing I could to prevent me from falling – the Rembrandt.

It was hanging by two wires, and I had a hand on each side of the painting winging back and forth. It prevented my fall, but it took a split second for me to realize what I was doing. Guards came running. The entire class, including the teacher, were aghast. I quickly let go. The painting continued to swing left to right and back again.

The Rembrandt to the (Right) wasn’t the painting I grabbed, but it looked not too different in my memory; it was a portrait. (I’ve completely blocked out the name of the actual painting.)

I didn’t rip anything but a hole in my brain that remains with me every time I go near the Met. So . . . I know what that poor woman felt, though her damage was quite a bit greater. She ripped a Picasso canvas; I just tested the wires that hung the Rembrandt. Luckily for me, they held up.

- The BAFTA Award nominations were revealed yesterday. The nominees for
Best Short Animated Film are:
THE GRUFFALO Michael Rose, Martin Pope, Jakob Schuh, Max Lang
a half hour tv special for BBC1. It features the voices of Helena Bonham Carter, John Hurt and Tom Wilkinson. More info here.
THE HAPPY DUCKLING Gili Dolev – View a clip at their website here.
MOTHER OF MANY Sally Arthur, Emma Lazenby A 5 min short. Info here. View a clip here.

The nominees for
Best Animated Feature are:
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
UP

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- Screen Daily magazine has an excellent encapsulation of Eric Rohmer’s life work and accomplishments.

Within the article I was reminded that Rohmer did a film, The Lady and the Duke, which made extensive use of cg work for a period piece. The film’s exteriors were shot on blue-screen backgrounds with 18th-century paintings superimposed during the editing process. I didn’t get to see this film (with a very limited release in the US) but Slant Magazine’s review states:

His exteriors recall Zbigniew Rybczynski’s famous Tango and forces the spectator to question that which is most visually important in the frame. Rohmer’s interiors are considerably less evocative though they’re the perfect setting for what plays out like 18th-century Jacobin pornography. The effect is disorienting, mildly humorous, and sometimes taut

And J.Hoberman in his Village Voice review wrote:

The movie’s look is authentic, but—as suits an epoch that predates photography—in no way naturalistic. Commissioning a series of paintings based on period engravings, Rohmer has contrived a glorious Méliès effect: Once they leave their drawing rooms, his actors are keyed into these virtual locations as though they were moving through 18th-century panoramas and tableaux.

This will be my next Netflix selection, and I’ll undoubtedly post something about it after I see it. I remember being impressed back in 2006 when I’d read about it.

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- As I, and probably you, learned this week from Cartoon Brew, Pat Smith and Bill Plympton are now collaborating on a new blog called Scribble Junkies.
Pat, on the site, writes of the blog’s purpose: This is where Bill and I will share our opinions, techniques, photos, drawings, and films.
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I’m looking forward to seeing how this will vary from the sites each of them already hosts: Pat Smith Blend Films (Pat states that he is phasing out his personal blog for the new one) and Bill Plympton Plymptoons._________________.
- The publicist, Yana Walton, sent me a link to a new animated piece done by Oxfam America to question the big bucks going into big oil. Oxfam turned to Talking Eyes Media to produce the piece which seems to be a sterling and masterful collage of AfterEffects moves.

I found it interesting enough to share. Their agenda is front and forward, but I have no complaint about that. Perhaps in the future they’ll go a step further and use real animation to get the message across more forcefully. Perusing the Talking Eyes site, I found myself curious about some of the documentaries they’ve made.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- The Tempe Center for the Arts in Tempe, Arizona will host an exhibition celebrating the work of Chuck Jones. The show, called “Chuck
Amuck, a Legacy of Laughter,” will open February 26 with a free-to-the-public opening event. The show will run through June 18th. The opening night reception will be held from 7 to 9:30 PM in the TCA Gallery. It will be hosted by Jones’ grandson Craig Kausen and will include a screening of some of his cartoons. Seating is limited.

Their press release states:

This exhibition of original sketches, paintings and animation production art highlights the life and art of legendary artist, animator and director Chuck Jones who not only helped bring to life famous cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, but also created the iconic Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, along with many more. This exhibit will be the largest and most comprehensive exhibit of art by Jones since his retrospective held at the Capitol Children’s Museum, Washington, D.C. in 1988.

The Tempe Center for the Arts is located at 700 W. Rio Salado Parkway, Tempe, Arizona. For more info go here.

By the way, if you’re at all a fan of Mr. Jones’ work you should be regularly visiting the blog established which has been posting many of the letters and illustrations Chuck sent to his daughter, Linda. There’s some spectacular material here.