Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Since NY has been buried in snow, I thought I’d post this run cycle Jim Tyer animated for a “Heckle & Jeckle” cartoon called Sno Fun. The copy of the film is a bit soft, so the images aren’t the greatest. However, it was an interesting exercise for me. Tyer doesn’t really do cycles. He keeps the thing going constantly changing bits and parts of the character’s body. Things keep in motion and distort, distort, distort.

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Here’s a QT of the cycle with a mix of one’s and two’s.

- It’s Christmastime, and I feel like talking about one of the many Christmas programs I’ve done. The one that has gotten short shrift, to me, is The Poky Little Puppy’s First Christmas.

This show came to me when I was told by Nancy Steingard, who was running Western Publishing, that they were interested in doing a show around Poky, and they wanted a Christmas program that could run on Showtime. I’ve been a fan of Gustaf Tenggren‘s work forever, so I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

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They came to me with a spec script by Ron Kidd, which told the story of
Santa losing one of his reindeer and the search for him so that Christmas
wouldn’t be stalled. Of course, Poky found him and saved the day.
Uh-uh, this wouldn’t do. I wasn’t interested.

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I worked with Ron to come up with another idea. It’s never too soon
to talk to kids about ethics, so I made it about a someone different Poky
finds in the woods, a skunk, whose home has been destroyed by Poky’s
family as they cut down a Christmas tree in the woods. Poky adopts the
skunk and brings him home, much to his mother’s chagrin. The next day
the family helps to find the skunk a new home of his own.

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Ron ran with that treatment and gave me a fine script. I went back to
William Finn to get a couple of musical numbers.
Finn had done a brilliant job for me when he scored Ira Sleeps Over
a couple of years earlier. He had Falsettos on Broadway,
and agreed to do Poky for me. I’d also work with arranger/orchestra
Michael Starobin again to write the incidental score and arrange the songs.

However, I wasn’t prepared for the unexpected.

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I went to Bill’s apartment and heard the songs as he played them on the piano
and shouted out the lyrics with me listening inches away sitting on his bed.
I was happy that things were moving so quickly and well.

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However, after that, there was a marked slowdown. The title song was brilliant,
as expected, but I wasn’t crazy about one of the next two he offered me, and
he wanted to rewrite them.

The problem was, I couldn’t get him on the phone after that.
Something was up.

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After about a month of delay, I brought Michael Starobin in to try to
work with Mr. Finn. Nothing had progressed past that initial sing-out.

Michael said everything was ok and brought me small changes a little at a time.

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Eventually all the songs were completed, and things progressed.

I found out years later that Bill Finn had had a brain aneurism and was hospitalized
for most of the production time of The Poky Little Puppy’s First Christmas.

I found this out when he’d written a theatrical musical called “THE NEW BRAIN.”
This was about a song writer for a children’s show who had an aneurism and wasn’t
able to complete his job. In fact, he realizes in the hospital that he isn’t creating the
art he’d hoped for. The show’s composer starts writing art songs in the hospital
bed and comes out of a long sterile period of writer’s block.

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I saw the show at Lincoln Center and was moved by it.

I apologize for the soft frame grabs. I pulled them from a VHS copy of the film and wish I had had a higher res version to lift from. Alas.

Unfortunately, as I’ve said it’s still not available in DVD. You can find VHS copies of it on Amazon, but that’s really not good enough, if you ask me. Western should get their act together; it’s a good Christmas film.

- Having posted some story sketches from Mickey’s Orphans, I feel bound to post frame grabs from the finished film, for comparison. Thanks to Hans Perk‘s post of the animator draft on his blog AFilmLA, I’m also able to identify each scene’s animators.

Starting to get into the Christmas spirit with this odd little film.

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Let’s look at the wacky size relationships.
A human leaves a kitten at the doorstep.
The human is the same size as Mickey MOUSE.

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The kittens are tiny in comparison to the mice, Mickey & Minnie.
The dog, Pluto, is also smaller than Mickey and Minnie.

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Mickey, as Santa, brings loud musical instument for the Orphan Kittens.

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He also brought them hammers . . .

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. . . guns . . .

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. . . and saws!

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- Here’s a piece I posted in December 2007. Since the crèches are popping up all about town, and since I’m such a fan of Eyvind Earle’s work, I love repeating it. The video would make a good Christmas purchase and can be bought here.

- Here’s a celebration of the animated segments Eyvind Earle did for The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show.

“The Story of Christmas” is a piece which is about ten minutes long set within this half hour special. (Remember when they called them “Specials”?)

The entire show is a Christian sing-along featuring the Roger Wagner Chorale singing around Tennessee Ernie’s gospel read.

The whole is a very reverent piece with no attempt at lightness and comes off as very religious. This would certainly not work on television today, never mind ABC TV which is where it premiered as one episode of the Tennessee Ernie Ford series. Some of you may remember the animated Hubley titles for the show which can be found in John Halas‘ Technique of Film Animation.

Three segments feature the animated graphics with the group singing. The only real narrative tells the birth of Christ in animation. Otherwise the Roger Wagner Chorale, dressed in Dickensian outfits, gather around varied sets looking like the early 19th Century England.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Earle’s animation was done immediately after Sleeping Beauty was completed. He’d left the studio (or was more probably left by the studio during their massive layoff at the time) and formed his own small independent studio to do work like this. I think this was probably his largest job, and it seems perfectly suited to his style.

Lots of pans and flare effects are built around sliding cells trying to imitate the look of the multiplane camera. There really is no animation here, just the sliding cels of the characters over the pans. It’s still quite attractive for what it is and holds the attention. The piece is well planned and shows off everything Earle had learned at Disney’s studio.

The following are frame grabs from many of the scenes:

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- Having posted sketches from Mickey’s Service Station, the brilliant 1935 short, the last B&W Mickey film, the next thing for me to do, logically, is post frame grabs from the final film – for comparison.

Since Hans Perk has made available the film’s draft on his incredibly resourceful site, AFilmLA, I’ve also added the animators’ names to the frame grabs. What an assortment it is, too. Art Babbitt, Eric Larsen, Bill Tytla, Jack Kinney, Don Towsley, Fred Spencer, Milt Kahl, Ferdinand Hovarth, Archie Robins among others.

Here, then, are the scenes from the film:

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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-After watching all the earnest animated shorts entered into the Oscar competition, I decided to treat myself by watching some of my favorite Mickey shorts. I particularly like a lot of the B&W films of the early period.

Mickey’s Service Station is featured on Mark Sonntag ‘s TagToonz blog with some interesting material, so I started with that one.

It’s way up there in my Pantheon of great shorts. The DVD features a rough animatic of story sketches from the vault. So I’ve pulled some frame grabs and am posting them here. There are some beautiful drawings here.

(Click any image you’d like to enlarge.)

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- On the DVD of Alice in Wonderland, there’s an extra little short that supposedly gives you a tour of the studio and a lesson in how animated films are made. (Do you think we’ll ever see one about Dreamworks or Pixar? I’d like to get a video tour of either studio.)

Since I’ve been focussing on Alice’s Milt Kahl scenes, I thought it’d be interesting, as an accompaniment, to post some frame grabs from this theatrical short that was done to promote Alice.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Of course, the film has to start with Walt
riding a toy train around the studio.

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Two storyboard guys sitting in the middle of the studio.

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Storyboard: the walrus grabs a clam.

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Ward Kimball in a funny jacket.

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The actor posing as the Walrus for the camera.

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Walt in a funny pose.

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The Walrus & Carpenter sequence.

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Walt and Winston Hibler. Hibler eventually narrated
most of the Disneyland shows and True-Life adventures.

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Flowers from storyboard to final film.

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Walt gives a demo of the animation camera and
seems to be wrinkling the cels as he does this.

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Walt operating an animation camera. Ludicrous.

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Walt and Kathryn Beaumont (who’s
supposed to be doing schoolwork.)

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Kathryn Beaumont and Ed Wynn.

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Les Clark.

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John Lounsbery on the right. The other animator looks to be
Fred Moore. Older and heavier than we’ve seen him in the past.

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Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter.

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More of wacky Ward Kimball pretending to draw.

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Kathryn Beaumont and Jerry Colonna.

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Jerry Colonna leads us into pencil test of the scene.

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This scene was animated by Ward kimball & Cliff Nordberg.

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John Lounsbery is on the left.
I’m not sure who the other two are.

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The cards in action in the film.

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One of the highlights of the film is this dancer doing
march steps for the cards – to be studied.

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The multiplane camera in operation.

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The cameraman at the top always looks a bit devilish.

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No “how animation is made” film would be complete
without the sound effects guys making a racket.

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Walt and Wilfred Jackson.

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Walt going over some artwork with
John Hench (L) and Claude Coats (center)
Thanks to Hans Bacher and Gunnar Andreassen for identifying them.

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Before riding his toy train into the sunset, Walt sits
in front of his real toy, the multiplane camera.

If anyone can identify any of those I couldn’t, or if you think I’ve mistakenly identified anyone, please leave a comment.

There’s an art gallery of images, many of which are by Mary Blair (and I’ve already posted her pictures a while back.) I’ll finish this post with some more of the images on the dvd.

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Mary Blair in B&W.

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More of the same.

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Thiis looks like it comes from HOPPITY GOES TO TOWN.

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Lots of David Hall designs, here.

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More Mary Blair.

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To see more Mary Blair designs for Alice go here.

- The 1933 version of Alice In Wonderland, directed by Norman McLeod, is an interesting live action approach to an adaptation of Carroll’s classic. Something rarely discussed in animation circles is the Harman & Ising insert in the film, an animated version of the Walrus and the Carpenter. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum narrate the poem, and there’s constant cutting back and forth of the live storytellers and the animated story.

The animation is right out of the Warner Bros H-I style. Not very advanced, though it’s certainly serviceable (especially given some of the second-rate costumes in this film.) This was done, I would guess, right after Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising had left WB, and were out on their own – just prior to doing the Cubby cartoons for Van Buren and certainly prior to MGM. Alice In Wonderland is a Paramount release.

Here are some frame grabs – mostly of the animation. I’ve given a couple of shots of the Tweedles to give you the idea.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The sun was shining on the sea, shining with all his might;
He did his very best to make the billows smooth and bright -

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And this was very odd, because it was the middle of the night.

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The Walrus and the Carpenter were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to to see such quantities of sand.

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“O Oysters come and walk with us!” The walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, along the briny beach.”

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“We cannot do with more than four, to give a hand to each.”

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The eldest Oyster looked at him, but never a word he said;
The eldest Oyster winked his eye, and shook his heavy head -

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Meaning to say he did not choose to leave the oyster-bed.

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But other Oysters hurried up, all eager for the treat.
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat -
And this was odd because, you know, they hadn’t any feet.

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Four other Oysters followed them; and yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,

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And more, and more, and more -
All hopping through the frothy waves, and scrambling to the shore.

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“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things;
Of shoes – and ships – and sealing wax – of cabbages – and kings -
And why the seas is boiling hot – and whether pigs have wings.”

“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said, is what we chiefly need;
Pepper and vinegar besides are very good, indeed.”

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Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear, we can begin to feed.”

“But not on us! the Oysters cried, turning a little blue.
After such kindness that would be a dismal thing to do.”

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“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said, “To play them such a trick.

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“After we’ve brought them out so far and made them trot so quick.”

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The Carpenter said nothing but, “The butter’s spread too thick!”

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“I weep for you,” the Walrus said. “I deeply sympathize.”
With sobs and tears e sorted out those of the largest siize.

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“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter, “You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?”

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But answer there was none – And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.

- Opening on October 6th at the IFC Film Center is Bill Plympton‘s most recent animated feature, Idiots and Angels. This like Bill’s other animated features is a labor of love; how could it be anything else when a small group works to produce 90 minutes of animation.

I had the opportunity of interviewing him and asking 10 questions which illuminate a lot behind the process:

Michael Sporn: The story is probably your most complicated for a feature. The lead character is a bitter and nasty person (the “Idiot” of the title) whose wings (the “Angel”) take over his body to reveal his better nature. Where did this idea come from and what encouraged you to develop it?

Bill Plympton: The idea for “Idiots and Angels” first came to me when I was in an animation festival in Lille, France and after screening “Hair High”, this French guy asked me what my next film would be—and off the top of my head, (I don’t know where it came from) I said “It’s a story about an asshole guy who wakes up one morning with tiny wings growing out of his back and he doesn’t like it because they make him do good things.”
The kid said he liked the idea, and as I thought about it, so did I. In fact, that night as I lay in my hotel bed, I began to create the character, his environment, and little story sequences.
People say this is my most mature film. It talks about morality, spirituality, and the human soul—they say Bill Plympton is growing up. I hope not, because I will always want to make weird, surreal, offensive comedies.

MS: The draftsmanship in this film is probably your finest. There’s a lot of rendering on the characters using a limited number of colors. It’s perfectly tuned to the film. I wonder how all that line work and rendering is done. You animate the entire film yourself, but surely you must have a lot of help with the rendering? Do you do extremes to set the style and have others follow through?

BP: The technique for this film is very new for me. All my other films were shot on a camera stand and now that the cost of digital to film transfer has come down to my pocketbook level, I’m able to scan the drawings and shade/color them digitally.
This is a great breakthrough for me, because all through my life I loved the simple look of pencil on paper. But when I began animation, my copier could never recreate the subtlety and richness of my pencil shaded drawings. So “Idiots and Angels” is the first film to properly recreate the pencil on paper look I love so much.
The process is fairly simple—I do all the animated drawings, erasing the mistakes and redrawing over the original, which gives the art a wonderful layered texure. Then I placed the humongous stack of scenes (30,000 drawings) on my co-producer Biljana Labovic’s desk and she makes sure the artwork is scanned, cleaned, composited, and most importantly colored to the noir-ish style of the concept drawings. We had a staff of about 25 people who off and on would come in to put my drawings together.

MS: – There is a lot of repetitive action in the film. That’s a major part of its style. (The repeated opening of the sunrise, clock and bird singing is obviously done over and over in many different ways.) Yet you don’t seem to use a lot of reuse in doing so. This would have been an easy option given the material. Was it a conscious choice to not do a lot of reuse?

BP: Over the years I’ve had a lot of criticism because my films are not fully animated. In fact, the action is fairly herky-jerky. So in this film, I tried to smooth out the action somewhat. Instead of shooting on 3′s and 4′s I shot on 2′s and 3′s. Also, I wanted to put in the extra effort to try to use different shots for scenes that were repeated, just to give it a more professional look.
However, there’s one shot where Angel attempts suicide, and I held one drawing for approximately 30 seconds and let Greg Sextro, my sound man, tell the story only through sound effects. I always love it when I can take a shortcut like that and it makes the storytelling that much more unique and interesting.

MS: Having a small independent studio involves doing a lot of jobs that don’t pertain to the actual drawing of the film. How do you travel to film festivals, teach classes within your studio, raise money for your employees’ salaries, figure out how to distribute your film and still have time to animate a feature single handedly?

BP: That’s a very good question. I’ll answer the questions in order—The travel to film festivals is fun but also is a very important part of the job. I use film festivals to make sales and spread the message of indie animation. I’ve stopped teaching the classes, because I want to devote more time to my films and teaching wears me out. The money raising is through sales of my films all over the world on TV, theatrical, DVD, and other media.
My distribution is pretty much by formula now since I have a group of buyers that consistently pay me for the rights to my films. And finally, I have time to single handedly animate my films because I don’t have a family, and I just plain love to draw.

MS: Digital production must have affected your films. Do you work with Photoshop and Aftereffects to get your work to screen? And are the drawings colored prior to scanning?

BP: The drawings are colored and shaded after they are scanned. My assistants use Photoshop to color the images, After Effects to composite the frames, and Final Cut Pro for editing and touch-up.

MS: Getting your films distributed has to be the hardest part of the work of feature production. Have you learned how to do it after so many features produced? Or does the business keep changing making it more difficult? Do you have any hope that a major distributor would step in to pick up the film, or do you plan to distribute it yourself?

BP: This is a very important question. There are three parts to filmmaking. 1) Raising the money, and this one is a very large barrier to many filmmakers. 2) Making the film – this is the fun part, and 3) Selling your film and actually making money off of it. This is by far the hardest part—maybe. 0.01% of filmmakers get past this barrier. To answer your question, fortunately, over the years, I’ve been able to create a name for myself and a large fan base.
So if by chance I don’t get a distribution deal I’m usually able to self-distribute, which is what I am doing with I&A. It’s a huge hassle because I have to make the deals with the cinemas, sign the contracts, make posters, make trailers, make multiple prints and do all the press. Then I have to get the money from the cinemas.
But the best part is that I get to retain ownership of the film and often times I make a lot more money than I would with a large distributor.

MS: I know that you’re prone to see everything that’s animated. Does the work of big companies, such as Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks affect the way you do your films in any way?

BP: I’m very happy with the success of Blue Sky, Pixar, and Dreamworks. We’re living in an exciting time when we’re seeing 20 or so animated feature films released every year. In the so-called “golden age” of animation 1930-1950, we’d be lucky to see one animated feature every two years.
I believe that the kids who grew up watching “Lion King” or “A Bug’s Life” now want to see animation with adult ideas done in more creative styles, and hopefully these are the people who will line up outside the IFC on October 6th to see “Idiots and Angels”.

MS: Since you’ve started making feature films, others have followed your suit in making their own long films. Does the competition worry you or are you open to it?

BP: In 1991 when I made “The Tune” independent features were a very rare specialty.
Now it seems, thanks to digital technology, that everyone is making their own animated feature and they’re great films: “Sita Sings the Blues”, “My Dog Tulip”, “Queer Duck”. I believe that we need to cultivate this audience for indie animation and show them that there’s some great amazing films being made by small groups of people without major funding!

MS: Do you have another feature in the works?

BP: Actually, I have two features I’m working on. One has the working title “Cheatin’” that’s done in a very similar style as “Idiots and Angels” but with a much more exaggerated visual style. I’ve put that on hold while I negotiate financing. In the mean time, I’m working on a flash feature called “Tiffany the Whale”. The script and storyboard are all done and we’re already begun animation. This will be a much lower budget film and may be serialized on the internet.

Finally Michael, I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk about my films and hopefully make people aware of the thriving indie animation scene. You’ve been an inspiration for me my whole career so it means a lot to me that you’ve give me your support.

MS: I’m always open and available to you, Bill. You’re the insiration for most Independent animators, believe me. How could I not support that!

- Regulars to my blog know that I’m a big fan of the work of John McGrew. He was a designer/Layout Artist working in Chuck Jones’ crew at Warner Bros. in the late Thirties/early Forties. His work was daring beyond compare, and, I think, with support from Jones, he changed the look of modern animation backgrounds.

He designed the seminal film The Dover Boys as well as amazing pieces like Aristo-Cat, Inki and the Lion and Conrad the Sailor.

In an interview conducted by Greg Ford and RIchard Thompson, Chuck Jones was asked about McGrew’s style:

Q: What about John McGrew’s style and approach, as compared with Noble’s?

A: John McGrew didn’t really have a style; he was experimenting all the time. Maurice does have a style. John McGrew, you might say, was more of an intellectual. You could be intellectual, and get away with it— but if you’re solely intellectual as a director, you weren’t going to get away with it. The result was, however, that he goosed me into thinking that it might be worthwhile to try some different things with backgrounds and so forth. And later on, I would find this kind of thing very useful, in that often it would make your gag work, and sometimes you wouldn’t even know why. Like that little abstract background at the end of Duck Amuck, with the sharply angled lines going off.

Today I’d like to feature some frame grabs from Conrad the Sailor. Where I could, I separated the characters from the backgrounds to just feature the Bgs. My guess is that the Bgs were painted by Paul Julian, but they were planned by McGrew.

The one scene I don’t illustrate is the most original in the film. Daffy is shot into the air with a bullet. (illus #18) The camera does a 360° turn to head back to the ship. The Bgs don’t hold up on their own. Lots of blue sky and wisps of cloud. It works in motion.

Of this short & McGrew, Jones says:

. . . we used a lot of overlapping graphics on that particular cartoon so that one scene would have the same graphic shape as an earlier scene, even though it would be a different object: first we’d show a gun pointing up in the air, then in the next shot, there’d be a cloud in exactly the same shape. It gave a certain stability which we used in many of the cartoons after that. John McGrew was the artist responsible for that sort of thing. Conrad was also the one where we used the first complete 360° turn, when the characters went up through the air.

For more information read Mike Barrier’s excellent interview with John McGrew.

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The following BG pan can be seen in full to the left. I’ve broken it into three parts for a closer look.

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12b . 12c

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A bicycle pan that keeps moving to the left.

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Continue moving right to left.

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