Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– Sue Coe is one of my favorite current artists. A wholly political artist, it seems to me that she is the extension of the German Expressionists, focusing on man’s inhumanity to man, or Goya‘s Caprichos or Ben Shahn‘s attention to political injustice. All of her work seems to fit into this form, and I am completely attracted to it.

She is represented by the Galerie St. Etienne, in New York. Years ago, I was there, arranged by HBO, to see some paintings by Grandma Moses. While they pulled out the paintings for me, I was able to see a stack of lithographs by Sue Coe, and it made for a memorable day for me.

I’ve posted a number of other pieces about her and will probably do it again. You can view a couple here and here.

About 15 years ago, The New Yorker magazine, printed a number of pictoral essays by her, and I’ve saved several of them. Here’s her study of “Nightcourt” in the Bronx. I believe these images were represented by Galerie St. Etienne.

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– I thnk I may have been asleep at the wheel.

While going through my regular routine of blog reading Hans Bacher introduced me to Gianluigi Toccafondo on the Animation Treasures site. How could I have not noticed Toccafondo‘s work before?

Hans guided me to the Ottawa Animation Festival site as I started my search to find out who he is. I didn’t make it to Ottawa in 2004, but apparently there was a retro-spective there for Toccafondo. Obviously, the Italian filmmaker had done enough work to merit a retrospective, and I hadn’t heard of him before yesterday! How astute of Chris Robinson to have scheduled a retrospective – 3 years ago.

I was soon led to the AWN/Acme Filmworks site. He’s part of their group of directors and has a small showreel posted there. For the record, I learned that he was born in San Marino, Italy, on March 6, 1965. He studied at the Istituto d’Arte di Urbino: film animation department, graduating in 1985. He lives and works in Milan. He’s had various exhibitions in Milan and Paris.

Elwood Smith‘s site, Greenmonkey, brought me to a 16 minute short by Toccafondo called La Piccola Russia. This can be found on line at the Arte TV site.

Continuing the search, on line, I found
La Pista and
La Coda.
I’ve linked to them both and hope you’ll take the time to view them.

Not only are they beautiful films, but the use of music within all is excellent. The composer, Mario Mariano, has his own home page.

The work looks as though it uses live-action film as a jumping off point to distort, reconstruct and recreate the images depicted. The blend of film and music is tight and exciting. Every frame I’ve seen looks like a oil-painted masterwork. Lucian Freud meets Francis Bacon. As Hans Bacher stated on his site, I haven’t located a dvd of Gianluigi Toccafondo‘s work, but I’ll keep looking.

Gianluigi Toccafondo is an artist who happens to use animation as his medium, and I’m thankful to Hans Bacher for waking me up to this work. Isn’t that what great sites do? They link you to great art.

- As I mentioned earlier this week, I whisked through London to record Hugh Dancy for my film, POE. The recording took only a couple of hours on Tuesday. That meant I had Monday, half of Tuesday, and most of Wednesday to waste time – anxious to get back.

It also meant I did an enormous amount of walking and riding the Underground. I wasn’t really in the mood for touristy things, but I got caught up in it on the last day. I had to check out of my hotel at 10am, and wasn’t taking off until 6pm. So I wandered.

I went to the National Gallery of Art, searching for something to excite me.

Daumier‘s DON QUIXOTE, of course, did the job.

Leaving the museum, I stepped into Trafalgar Square, and decided to go to the Tate. Hugh Dancy had told me there was an excellent exhibition of photos there, so I aimed for it.

This meant I got to see the changing of the guard as I went pass at noon..

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Big Ben sat in the distance so I headed for Westminster, figuring if I walked past it, I could easily aim for the Tate.

As with every other trip I’d made to London, it was all about the weather. You start out on a beautiful day, and the clouds move up around you as the sky darkens. It begins to rain, and then the sun is beating down on you. The only more changeable environment I’ve exper- ienced was in Adak, Alaska. Actually, I’m not sure the weather was much different at all.

I finally did get past all of these crowded tourist sites as I got to the Tate Museum. (Not the Tate Modern.) I never did see the show of photos that Mr. Dancy had recommended. There was a show of Turner watercolors as presented by David Hockney. It was a stunning show, and it was all I needed for the day. I didn’t love the book/catalogue they had for sale, so left with only memories. Turner is enough of an inspiration for anyone. Certainly, enough for my trip.

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- I returned from London late last night after a very successful recording with actor, Hugh Dancy. His performance, as expected, was a fine one. I’m pleased, after all these years, to have finally recorded Edgar for my film, which moves foward in leaps and bounds.

On my production blog for this film, I’ll detail the recording in detail later today. Perhaps as soon as we get one of the poems edited down, I’ll put an MP.3 up on that site.

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– The NYTimes Magazine, this coming Sunday will interview Matt Groening for his PR push on the Simpsons. (He’ll be on Conan O’Brien tonight, Thursday. It’ll be curious to see how O’Brien acts with his former boss.) The short Times interview by Deborah Solomon (the art critic not the animator) is, as I said, for the most part PR. However there are one or two questions I’d like to post. The responses have to do with animation.

“The Simpsons Movie,” opening on Friday, reminds us of your substantial role in giving masterpiece status to cartoons and animation. Do you see yourself as an A-level artist?
No. Cartooning is for people who can’t quite draw and can’t quite write. You combine the two half-talents and come up with a career.

How much of the movie is hand-drawn?
We used a combination of cheap labor and computers.

What does that mean? You outsourced the film to animators in China?
No. When I say cheap, I mean there’s no amount of money that an animator can be paid — they deserve our eternal gratitude. I would give them back massages if they would take them.

There are also a couple of questions about politics I found cute:

In your film, a character named President Arnold Schwarzenegger occupies the Oval Office. How did that happen?
We needed a president that would make people laugh. And Schwarzenegger was the obvious choice.

You’re known to be a fairly active Democrat.
I’ve rarely voted for a winner in my political life, with the exception of Al Gore.

Note that he didn’t find George Bush funny. Now that we’re a few weeks into the run, is Comedy Central going to wake up to the fact that Li’L Bush isn’t funny? Or maybe the 18-35 year old males are still coming back for more?

Hopefully, they’re watching for the same reason I used to read the Ernie Bushmiller Nancy comic strip in the daily papers. I knew SOMEDAY it was going to be funny, and I didn’t want to miss it.

Ultimately, looking at all those Nancy strips, I kinda became a fan. I have a book which collects Ernie Bushmiller’s strips, and I like Guy Gilchrist‘s take on the strip. There are a couple of good articles on the site, Interesting Ideas, about the strip and its history. I also found a crazy article on How to Read Nancy. Huh?

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- The excellent site, Blather from Brooklyn has a wonderful post about Piet Mondrian and the influence NY had on him (and perhaps his influcence on the City.)

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- Speaking of art, if anyone out there is interested in who was nominated for prime time animation emmies, here are the nominees:

Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour)
Avatar: The Last Airbender • City Of Walls And Secrets
Nickelodeon • Nickelodeon Animation Studio
Robot Chicken • Lust For Puppets
Cartoon Network • ShadowMachine Films
South Park • Make Love, Not Warcraft
Comedy Central • Central Productions
SpongeBob SquarePants • Bummer Vacation / Wig Struck
Nickelodeon • Nickelodeon Animation Studio in ass’n with United Plankton Pictures, Inc.
The Simpsons • The Haw-Hawed Couple
Fox • Gracie Films in association with 20th Century Fox

Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming One Hour Or More)
Good Wilt Hunting (Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends)
Cartoon Network • Cartoon Network Studios
Hellboy Animated: Sword Of Storms • Starz
Starz Media in ass’n with Revolution Studios
Secrets Of The Deep • Discovery Channel
Impossible Pictures in ass’n with Discovery Channel
Where’s Lazlo? (Camp Lazlo)
Cartoon Network • Cartoon Network Studios

- One thing about New York is that there are a lot of statues. Lots of parks filled with lots of statues of late Presidents, generals, soldiers. As we saw in Balto, there’s even a statue of a dog that saved some lives. Not too long ago I posted some steel silver statues of trees as they grew in Madison Square Park. I have a fascination with a lot of the old guy statues that also fill up that park and how they’re all staring at the center – those steel trees.

But I thought I’d post some pictures of two statues that fascinate me. One that I see almost daily since moving to the village is the big Picasso statue that graces NYU’s apartment complex on Bleecker Street. Unlike the massive Picasso statue in the center of Chicago, this one is not made of metal. It’s stone. Oddly it almost looks like a statue that was made by an admirer of Picasso’s – it’s almost too Picasso-like. But there’s a lot I like about it.

I like how it almost exploits the cubist thing as you walk around the statue the size and shape of the head changes. Angles are everything with this lady. As you move around her things keep changing. It makes me curious to know what it looks like from above (like from the roof of the building behind it.)

The color seems designed to almost perfectly match the buildings that stand around it. (Or maybe the buildings were designed to match the statue.) The engraved lines that shape her face use the shadows they create to make them lighter or darker depending on the overhead light.

Look how her chin looks completely different as you move around her. The same is true
of the entire statue.

As you turn from back to front the whole statue looks completely different. It’s a great piece.

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Then there’s the rabbit. This piece stands on a small traffic island at the base of Park Avenue as it reaches 14th Street. The statue stands at one of the entrances to Union Square Park. If you’re heading to the Farmer’s Market situated within this park, it’s likely you’ll pass this statue.

The statue is by Barry Flanagan. Apparently he did five of these rabbits (though I haven’t seen any of the others.)
He’s an Irish artist who has done quite a few sculptures of rabbits and other animals. He died in 2005.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

There’s just such a wide diversity of public art on display; it always stirs me.
What a creative place to live.

- Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of spam coming my way, and a lot of it gets to the blog. So for the moment, I’ve put all comments on moderation. Hopefully, I can change it back soon, but it’s smarter to handle things that way for now.

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– A short piece in yesterday’s NYTimes talked about Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson going digital to direct three “Tin Tin” animated features for Dreamworks. They’ll use the Supermarionation technique – no, I’m sorry, the “3D” Performance Capture technique (some call it animation) to craft their wizadry. Peter Jackson has already done a 20 minute test reel that all of the executives love.
I have to wonder if Andy Serkis is going to play the lead, Tin Tin.

Happy Birthday, Tin Tin – 100 years old on May 22nd.

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This coming Saturday, May 19th, NY animator JEFF SCHER will have a program of his films screened at the Millennium Film Workshop at 8PM.

Here’s a press piece about Jeff’s work and history:

Jeff Scher is a New York-based filmmaker, who defines himself not as an animator, but as a painter working in motion. He is fascinated by the human mind’s ability to create the illusion of movement from disparate images. His montages are dizzying arrays of color, light, figures and forms that flit about like unruly thoughts, tricking the
eye and revealing unexpected visual harmonies. Scher gave up his pre-med studies for film while at Bard College in the mid-1970s. He still makes use of rotoscoping, an old animation technique in which film frames are blown up and traced individually onto animation cels. In Scher’s case, he painstakingly hand paints and shoots each frame of film, sometimes substituting clay, paper models or found materials for his paintings.

Jeff was one of the final judges at last year’s Ottawa Animation Festival. Some of you may have met him there.

This Saturday’s program is the following:

LIGHTTIDE (12 min.-1974)
GARDEN OF REGRETS (8 min.-1994)
WARREN (3 min.-1995)
POSTCARDS FROM WARREN (1 min.-1995)
NERVE TONIC (3 min.-1995)
YOURS (4 min.-1997)
GRAND CENTRAL (15 min.-1999)
THE JACOBSONS (3 min.-2000)
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING (3 min.-2001)
LOST AND FOUND (3 min.-2004)
YOU WON’T REMEMBER THIS (2 min.-2005)
DOUBLE PLAYDATE (2 min.-2007)
OXYGEN (3 min.-2007)

Millennium Film Workshop Personal Cinema Program MAY 19 (Sat.) 8 pm
66 East 4th Street, NY NY 10003

Here’s a great article by Stephen Heller in EYE Magazine about Jeff.

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– Well, it’s poetry time, boys and girls.

One of my most memorable trips to a museum was a visit to the Tate in London where I got to see the original paintings by William Blake. I’d been an admirer of his work ever since I’d learned about it. I have to admit I knew him as a poet before I realized he’d painted his work.

This is the 250th anniversary of his birth (Nov. 28, 1757) and many commemorative celebrations are planned. Let’s start things off by posting a couple of the works from The Songs of Innocence and Experience.

I’ve chosen Songs of Experience.
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. . . . . . . . The Sick Rose

. . . . . . . . O Rose Thou Art Sick.
. . . . . . . . The invisible worm,
. . . . . . . . That flies in the night
. . . . . . . . In the howling storm:

. . . . . . . . Has found out thy bed
. . . . . . . . Of crimson joy:
. . . . . . . . And his dark secret love
. . . . . . . . Does thy life destroy.
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. . . . . . . . The Little Fly
. . . . . . . . Little Fly
. . . . . . . . Thy summers play
. . . . . . . . My thoughtless hand
. . . . . . . . Has brush’d away.

. . . . . . . . Am not I
. . . . . . . . A fly like thee?
. . . . . . . . Or art not thou
. . . . . . . . A man like me?

. . . . . . . . For I dance
. . . . . . . . And drink and sing;
. . . . . . . . Till some blind hand
. . . . . . . . Shall brush my wing.

. . . . . . . . If thought is life
. . . . . . . .And strength and breath;
. . . . . . . . And the want
. . . . . . . . Of thought is death;

. . . . . . . . Then am I
. . . . . . . . A happy fly,
. . . . . . . . If I live
. . . . . . . . Or if I die..
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. . . . The Tyger

. . . .Tyger Tyger, burning bright.
. . . .In the forests of the night;
. . . .What immortal hand or eye
. . . .Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

. . . .In what distant deeps or skies.
. . . .Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
. . . .On what wings dare he aspire?
. . . .What the hand dare sieze the fire?
. . . .And what shoulder & what art,
. . . .Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
. . . .And when thy heart began to beat,
. . . .What dread hand? & what dread feet?

. . . .What the hammer? what the chain,
. . . .In what furnace was thy brain?
. . . .What the anvil? what dread grasp,
. . . .Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

. . . .When the stars threw down their spears
. . . .And water’d heaven with their tears;
. . . .Did he smile his work to see?
. . . .Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

. . . .Tyger Tyger, burning bright.
. . . .In the forests of the night;
. . . .What immortal hand or eye
. . . .Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

- Walking through Madison Square Park this past Monday I noticed what looked like hundreds of branches of trees layed out on the central lawn of the park. It took no time to realize that a public sculpture was about to go up. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera or I could have done a before and after photo.

Well it’s taken a week, and the sculpture is still under construction. I brought my camera back that evening, and all week as I passed through the park. I wasn’t able to do a before shot, but I did a just-started-building shot and others to follow. They’re to the point where the last straw . . . er, branch has been added to the whole.

So here are some pictures, if you’re interested. We start with the evening of the first day.

1 2
(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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You can see the artist’s model on the table in the foreground of pictures #3 – #5 and see how they planned it.

5 6

You can see that parts are still left on the ground at this point. The sculpture is going to develop, obvously, into two trees whose branches intertwine with each other.

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Only the highly polished silver of the steel will separate the sculpture from the real trees in the park.

Now we move to the second day I returned with my camera.

9 10

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We can see that the elements on the ground are fewer, and more of the branches have gone up. The crane is lifting some guys to do the construction after another crane has been used to lift the heavy parts.

I pass through the park at roughly 6:30am daily on my way to the studio. The workers are assembling at that point in the day. It started with about 6-8 people on the first couple of days. It slowly dwindled down to a couple by the end of the week. I also return home at 6:30pm, daily, and there are usually only 2-3 people still there working.

There’s a short brochure available at the moment, but it doesn’t really mention the name of the artist nor even the name of the piece. Perhaps this will go up after the silver trees are finally set up.

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1617

1819

Cranes lift, and workers work. The artist (or maybe it’s a rep) stands watching the building of the structure as it enters its final day.

Already we can see that the piece is blending into its surroundings. The silver tree isn’t too different, visually, from the others. It probably weighs hundreds of thousands of pounds more, but it’s reflecting a lot of the colors of the sky and its surroundings.

There’s plenty of public art in New York City. Everywhere you go you see odd structures that shape the city. A giant bronze rabbit has been added to Union Square Park. (I first noticed it on the night before Easter Sunday.) There’s a temporary display of very large sculptures by Manolo Valdés in Bryant Park. There’s a giant Picasso sculpture in a housing court three blocks away from my studio. It’s everywhere, and we absorb it into our lives and walk past it daily.

This is the final construction of the trees. I took the picture yesterday late in the day. In a few days, after they’ve cleared all the trucks and debris and have reconstructed the grounds, I’ll take another shot. This is it for now.

Trees in a barrrel outside a local cafe.
They’re not steel, but I like the just the same.

– The Museum of Modern Art has a big schedule of films and artwork upcoming:

On Tuesday, Apr 17, 2007 at 6:30 PM, they will host an “Artists Speak” session:

Conversations on Contemporary Art with Laurie Anderson and William Kentridge as host by MOMA’s Glenn D. Lowry.
Performance artist Laurie Anderson and William Kentridge – director and scene designer for BAM’s spring production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute – discuss how they bring their creative process to performance.

To reserve tickets go here.

Kentridge‘s The Magic Flute will play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for four performances beginning April 9th. Kentridge directed and designed it and has animated pieces in his signature style throughout the program.

To see a video trailer for the opera go here.

To buy tickets to the Opera go here.

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The Museum also has what it calls Projects 85. You can see Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi draw his “spontaneous” art on the walls of MOMA.

“For two weeks prior to the official opening, April 19, Perjovschi will draw on the wall during public hours, allowing visitors to observe the creation of the work.” This work will then be exhibited from May 2 thru August 27, 2007.

Of course, one of the earliest 20th Century quick-draw artists was Winsor McCay. He performed on Vaudeville stages with a large pad telling his stories which he illustrated live. Eventually, he added the animated backdrops of his cartoon characters.

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Finally, regarding MOMA, I wanted to point out that they’re just starting a complete retrospective of the films of Rainier Werner Fassbinder. If you don’t know his films, you should. If you do know his films, you get to see them again in excellent projected format. Check the museum schedule for times.

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– Enough about art. Let’s talk Popeye. Warner Home Video has announced a July 31st date for the Popeye dvd: Popeye the Sailor – Volume 1: 1933-1938.

The package will include 60 cartoons plus 5 hours of bonus material: retrospectives such as “The Story of Popeye the Sailor Man” and “The History of the Fleischer Studios”. There are also “behind-the-toons” featurettes, bonus shorts, and commentary tracks by animation historians and other experts. Greg Ford directed one of the documentaries. He spoke on camera with every notable animator in New York. As one of those interviewed, I have particular reason to be interested in seeing the docs.

The Popeye shorts, themselves, will be uncut, unedited cartoons that are authorized and come from the original masters. The fact that it’s labeled volume 1, gives us good hope that other volumes will follow.

Of course, real Popeye aficionados will go back to E.C. Segar’s original strip. There’s another Popeye there that is beyond even the Fleischer shorts.

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- While we wait for Satoshi Kon‘s most recent feature Paprika to open in theaters, (opens in NY May 25th/in LA June 1st) his last film Tokyo Godfathers was just released on dvd. His other features, Millenium Actress and Perfect Blue.

Tokyo Godfathers is another version of that John Ford classic, Three Godfathers. This same story was reworked to make Three Men and a Baby (both American and French versions) and Ice Age.

The John Ford version was a remake of the Richard Boleslawski film of the same title done in 1936. That original film, Three Godfathers, got a lot of reworking.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for Paprika watch it here.

(This is the box for the Japanese dvd.
I like it more than I do the US version.)

- Thanks to George Griffin for directing me to a couple of gallery shows in NYC that include animation work. They’re worth seeing for the rules they break, if nothing else. Though there are inspired moments in it. Like sitting through the recent films of Jean Luc Godard, I have a hard time staying awake, but I always walk away inspired, refreshed and excited by the thoughts on the screen.

- The Bellweather Gallery features Brent Green. This show features wildly mixed media in a number of pieces, the longest of which is “Paulina Hollers” at 12 minutes. Using everything from magic markers on glass to 3D stop-motion animation he creates films that have all to do with death.

Bellweather Gallery at 134 Tenth Avenue.
This show closes tomorrow, Feb. 3. See it right away.

These are capsule reviews in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Village Voice.

- The Marianne Boesky Gallery has an exhibition of work by Jacco Olivier. This show isn’t quite as impressive and far less inspiring, more like watching paintings progressing to their conclusion shot in stop-motion.

The gallery is located at 509 West 24th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. Tues to Sat, 10am to 6pm. (212) 680-9889.

You can view some stills of the artwork at the Gallery’s site.

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– For those Mary Blair fans out there, story artist and animator, Fred Cline, has posted a commercial from the 50′s that uses designs Mary Blair created for a Little Golden Book called I Can Fly.

The commercial was done at TV Graphics, Inc. in New York and was supervised by Lee Blair, Mary’s husband. The commercial is for Milk, but Cline says he has a second for ice cream.

See the spot here.

The book can still be purchased through Random House.
Hardcover $12.95, Paperback $4.95.

(I first found this info on Drawn posted by Ward Jenkins.)

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If you’ve watched The Family Guy sequence which rips off the sequence from Anchors Aweigh, you owe it to yourself to go back and watch the original with Jerry the mouse. The original was animated by Ken Muse and Ray Patterson.

Both versions depended on rotoscoping. The original rotoscoped Gene Kelly’s dance to match it with Jerry; The Family Guy rotoscoped Jerry to cover him up with the same animation redone featuring their character, Stewie. More Happy Feet.