Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- I must say I was happy with a couple of the posts this past week. The John Wilson piece on Monday can only be bettered by this coming Monday’s piece on Irma La Douce. On Tuesday, the 1953 magazine article on Geoffrey Martin‘s designs for Animal Farm made for an excellent piece. Many thanks to Chris Rushworth for that. I also have wanted to combine all four of the walk cycles from 101 Dalmatians and have thought about it for over a year. I’m glad I finally got around to doing it. And, naturally, the fine posts from Bill Peckmann‘s collection rounded out the week. So, in all, I was pleased with what I got to post. Sorry to boast, just thinking aloud. It’s day to day here, so I’m often surprised with what shows up.

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BAFTAs

The BAFTA nominations were revealed on Tuesday morning. The award for Best Animated Short includes the following three nominees:

Abuelas (Grandmothers) by Afarin Eghbal, Kasia Malipan & Francesca Gardiner is a mixed-media short.

Bobby Yeah by Robert Morgan is a stop motion animation film that looks like it came out of the hands of David Lynch.

A Morning Stroll by Grant Orchard & Sue Goffe is a film that’s been out there for a bit, seen at many film festivals and on the Oscar short list. (This is the film I like most.)

Congratulations to all the film makers.

The BAFTA nominees for Animated Feature include: TINTIN, ARTHUR CHRISTMAS and RANGO. Let’s hope for RANGO to win, but I expect the Brits to give it to ARTHUR CHRISTMAS. (Please, not TINTIN!)

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NAACP Nomination

- Speaking of nominations, I learned on Thursday that I was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Children’s Program. My show, I CAN BE PRESIDENT, was nominated. This is big for me, and I’d love to win it.The show had such a low budget and was such a problematic schedule that it was a terror to get through production. I’m pleased it came out so well. Congratulations also to the guys that helped make it: Matt Clinton, Katrina Gregorius, and Christine O’Neill.

Outstanding Children’s Program
A.N.T. Farm – Disney Channel
Dora the Explorer – Nickelodeon
Go, Diego! Go! – Nickelodeon
I Can Be President: A Kid’s-Eye View – HBO
My Family Tree – Disney Channel

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Mars Needs Moms

- The Oscar watch was down to the last (and I do mean the last) animated feature. MARS NEEDS MOMS was better than Hoodwinked and Chipwrecked, and I also think it was better than TINTIN – another MoCap film. Simon Wells directed MARS, and his work is reliably stable. (He directed PRINCE OF EGYPT, BALTO and WE”RE BACK.) He and Wendy Wells also wrote the script from Berkeley Breathed’s book. Like TINTIN, the film had a breakneck pace, but unlike TINTIN it didn’t ignore some of the basic rules of cinema. No annoying swooping spins around the characters, with an endlessly moving camera; it also didn’t feature lots of busy work (as if to prove it was animated)l nor did it have a breathless pace (as if to create Action! Adventure! and Tedium!). No, unlike TINTIN, MARS NEEDS MOMS was more craftily observant of the audience’s reaction. It knew when to stop the action, then go back to the danger. It knew when to add humor instead of just running, running, running.

However, like TINTIN the dead eyes were hard to get into, and the graphics were horrible to look at. Sure, it’s MoCap and tied to the live action, but does it have to have a faux-realistic look to it? Couldn’t it have been more cartoon? (Couldn’t TINTIN have been flattened to look like the comic strip, despite the MoCap?) The lead boy looked to have 5 o’clock shadow on his face in all the scenes on Earth.

The filmmakers want it to be called animation, but under the end credits they include footage of all the live actors doing key lines and being shot with all the tennis balls and helmets. Maybe it should have been live action with just the martians and sets done with MoCap. The film didn’t work, but it worked better than the Spielberg’s animation effort, TINTIN. Unfortunately, it won’t get an Oscar nomination or a Golden GLobe, like TINTIN. Neither film deserves one.

In voting for this award, I sat through:
PUSS IN BOOTS,
CARS 2,
RIO,
WINNIE THE POOH,
TINTIN,
HOODWINKED TWO,
HAPPY FEET 2,
RANGO,
ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED,
WRINKLES,
A CAT IN PARIS,
CHICO & RITA,
ARTHUR CHRISTMAS,
KUNG FU PANDA 2,
ALOIS NEBEL,
GNOMEO & JULIET and
MARS NEEDS MOMS.

The only one I couldn’t sit through to the end was HOODWINKED.
It was worth it to see CHICO & RITA, A CAT IN PARIS and even WRINKLES.
I also didn’t mind RANGO, KUNG FU PANDA and HAPPY FEET 2.
None of them compared to Sylvain Chomet’s THE ILLUSIONIST.

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Gene & Zdenka

- Gene Deitch has added two pieces to his blog, his first arrival in Czechoslovakia being met by “Lulka” the emissary from the Czech studio. Then the second post details the meeting with Zdenka, who soon became the love of his life and his wife.
They’re both warm and wonderful reads.

The surprise and the gem of the Zdenka piece is a long video (scroll all the way down) which gives the history of their studio and their relationship. It’s quite a sweet film that’s well worth watching to see if only to see what changes the animated studio has undergone in the years that Mr. Deitch has been in charge. You also get to feel more at home with this great animation director and almost feel as though you know him by the end of it. It’s a really good piece that I don’t think you’ll regret viewing. (I was surprised at how quickly the one hour video downloaded.)

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- John Dilworth reported this week that his last film, Bunny Bashing, is now available on YouTube. So I’ve embedded it, above.

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And here’s an interesting use of animation in this video designed to
inform Liberals why they shouldn’t despair over the work by Obama –
which, in fact, is remarkably good despite the unyielding criticism
from the Left and the Right.

Found on Andrew Sullivan’s site, The Daily Beast.

- Bill Peckmann sent me a number of scans on Hilary Knight, the noted illustrator who had gained fame in illustrating the Eloise books authored by Kay Thompson. On receiving them I suddenly remembered that I had animated a commercial done in the style of Mr. Knight’s poster for the Broadway show, Meet Me In St. Louis.

I had completely forgotten about that job which we did back in 1989. We’d been employed by a South African art director of the Broadway show to do an Overture and an Entr’acte for the musical play. The Overture would play to a Currier & Ives type animation we produced, then the scrim would lift revealing the town. For the Entr’acte, we would end with a group of people ice skating on a pond. It would be lit from behind, and our drawing would turn to live action as the actors skated on a simulated pond on stage.

With the job came a 30 sec. spot animating the poster that Hilary Knight had illustrated. I can remember just about nothing about the spot. The entire job, spot, musical and the entire experience was a horrible one. The client was nasty and moody and continually changed his mind about what he wanted. He thought of himself as an auteur and kept pulling ideas out of his hat while we tried to fight the low budget and tight deadline.

The one positive memory was going to see the rough film projected on the Broadway stage. While waiting for them to find the projectionist, I noticed one older man sitting across from me in the theater. I walked over to him and asked if he was Hugh Martin. He was, and I told him how glad I was to meet him. We spoke for another couple of minutes until the theater went dark and projection started. Martin was the composer of the show; he’d written all those great, original songs for Judy Garland and the others in the movie. I was pleased to have recognized him and met him.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Hilary Knight, but I did have some of his original artwork in hand. He drew some models for us. They’re somewhere in our storage, and a quick search wasn’t able to turn up anything. Time is moving on, and I wish I had put more emphasis on preserving some of my art materials back when.

The parting note on that job was that they spelled my name incorrectly in the Playbill. How appropriate. They promised to correct it in future copies, but I didn’t even bother to see if they’d done the correction.

Here’s the material Bill Peckmann had sent me, starting with a comment from Bill:

In 1999 a collection of four of Hilary Knight’s “Eloise” books was published. Aside from it having all those great books between two covers was the fact that it also had Hilary’s eight page autobiography in it! And here it is.

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The book cover

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Recently, I found myself talking about my work on this show. It made me go back in search of this post from January 2007, and I thought I’d recap today. Hope you don’t mind.

Woman of the Year was a project that came to me in the second year of my studio’s life – 1981. Tony Walton, the enormously talented and fine designer, had gone to Richard Williams in search of a potential animator for WOTY (as we got to call the name of the show.) Dick recommended me. But before doing WOTY, there were some title segments needed for Prince of the City, a Sidney Lumet film. (I’ll discuss that film work some other day.)

Tony Walton designed the character, Katz, which would be the alter-ego of the show’s cartoonist hero, played by Harry Guardino. Through Katz, we’d learn about the problems of a relationship with a media star, played by Lauren Bacall.
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It turned out to be a very intense production. Three minutes of animation turned into twelve as each segment was more successful than the last. There was no time for pencil tests. I had to run to Boston, where the show was in try-outs, to project different segments weekly; these went into the show that night – usually Wednesdays. I’d rush to the lab to get the dailies, speed to the editor, Sy Fried, to synch them up to a click track that was pre-recorded, then race to the airport to fly to the show for my first screening. Any animation blips would have to be corrected on Thursdays.

There was a small crew working out of a tiny east 32nd Street apartment. This was Dick Williams’
apartment in NY. He was rarely here, _______(All images enlarge by clicking.)
and when he did stay in NY, he didn’t
stay at the apartment. He asked me to use it as my studio and to make sure the rent was paid on time and the mail was collected. Since we had to work crazy hours, it was a surprise one Saturday morning to find that I’d awakened elderly Jazz great, Max Kaminsky, who Dick had also loaned the apartment. Embarrassed, I ultimately moved to a larger studio – my own – shortly thereafter.

Here are a couple of photos of some of us working:

Tony Charmoli was the show’s choreographer. He worked with me in plotting out the big dance number – a duet between Harry Guardino and our cartoon character. I think this is the only time on Broadway that a cartoon character spoke and sang with a live actor on stage. John Canemaker is taking this photograph and Phillip Schopper is setting up the 16mm camera.

Here Tony Charmoli shows us how to do a dance step. Phillip Schopper, who is filming Tony, figures out how to set up his camera. We used Tony’s dancing as reference, but our animation moves were too broad for anyone to have thought they might have been rotoscoped.

John Canemaker is working with Sy Fried, our editor. John did principal animation with me on the big number. Here they’re working with the click track and the live footage of Tony Charmoli to plot out the moves.

Steve Parton supervised the ink and paint. To get the sharpest lines, we inked on cels and didn’t color the drawings. It was B&W with a bright red bowtie. A spotlight matte over the character, bottom-lit on camera by Gary Becker.

5 6
5. Steve Parton works with painter Barbara Samuels
6. Joey Epstein paints with fire in her eyes.

Joey Epstein paints “Katz.”

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8. Harry Guardino on stage with the creation of “Tessie Kat” developing on screen behind him. This was Harry’s first big solo.
9. John Canemaker gets to see some of his animation with Sy Fried, editor.

One of my quick stops from the lab on the way to Boston? No, I think this is a posed photo.

- One of my favorites of my films is The Hunting of the Snark. I adapted this from Lewis Carroll’s poem. It was an enigma to the audience when it was first published – Carroll refused to explain its meaning, and it’s an enigma now.

I remember screening it with an audience of fifth graders – about 200 of them along with a number of their parents. The program, in Chicago, was part of a retrospective of some of the children’s films I’d done at the time. I made the decision to show the Snark, even though I wasn’t sure the audience would sit still for it.

The response was amazing. The adults, during the Q&A period, had a lot of questions. The kids had no problems. When, finally, one parent asked me what it was supposed to mean, I decided to turn it around. I asked if one of the kids could answer the question. A lot of kids raised their hands, and the first one gave me the appropriate answer.
A bunch of guys go hunting for a monster________This is how the map was illustrated by
that’ll make them disappear, and one of_________the original illustrator, Henry Holiday.
them catches it. For all intent and purposes
that IS what it’s about.

I love showing this film as part of my programs. It’s easy for me to discuss, and I’m proud of it. I don’t think most animators like it, but that doesn’t bother me.

During the story there’s one key part that all illustrators love to illustrate.

“Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank:
(So the crew would protest) “that he’s bought us the best–
A perfect and absolute blank!”

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A blank page! What could be easier to illustrate? A couple of illustrators have cheated such as this map found on line:

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Figure One: Bellman’s Blank Ocean Chart _
Barry Smith at the University of Buffalo dept of Philosophy uses this map – a blank slate – to treat it as a map of heaven. Carroll was an Evangelical minister, but I’m confident this is not what he had in mind when he conjured up the lines in the poem.
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Mehendra Singh has a website which is slowly illustrating the entire poem. His illustration for this passage appears to the right. This is part of his comment accompanying the illustration.

Yet another shameless Magritte pastiche, and not the last one to grace these pages, I’ll wager. Shameless — the 10th Muse of Protosurrealism!

Even more shameless — this insistence that the crew of the HMS Snark use the French language for navigational purposes when it is clearly evident to anyone who has ever been lost at sea that English is the natural language of confusion. This is easily verified. Stand on a streetcorner in any francophone city and ask a stranger: where am I? If necessary, pull at shirtsleeves and wave your arms, speak very slowly while pronouncing every phoneme at the utmost decibel level.

Singh has a curious and interesting site in its own right.
Let me encourage you to check it out for all the original illustration on it.
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This is how Quentin Blake chose to illustrate it in his version. Since he obviously was nervous about just showing the blank map, he illustrated the Bellman holding it.
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This is Ralph Steadman’s version. He went for the gold and just showed the map.
Yet, it’s still, obviously, a Steadman.______________
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This is how I chose to depict it in my film. Showing hands and table behind it,
gave me the opportunity of trucking in to white to transition to the next scene –
an image of the sea, itself.

Doug H. in Australia responded to the material, above, with an e-mail full of other wonderful illustrations of the same part of the poem. I’d like to post some of these illustrations with many thanks to Doug. With respect to all of the illustrators, about half of whom
are unfamiliar names to me. They merit a good look.

___ Just scroll down. Click any image to enlarge a bit.)
1 2
______1. Frank Hinder (1989)_______________________2. Harold Jones (1975)
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__ 3.__ 4.
______3. Michael Capozzola (2005)_________________4. Kelly Oechsli (1966)

5.
5. John Lord (2006)

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6._________________________________7.

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______6. Max Ernst ((1950) _______________________7. Jonathan Dixon (1992)

8.
8. Helen Oxenbury (1970)

- We couldn’t get by another week without more sad news. I was hard hit yesterday when I learned that Russell Hoban had died on Dec. 13th. He’s been one of my favorite authors for years. I produced and directed an animated version of one of his books, The Marzipan Pig back in 1983. It was not easy getting funding for it. I gave my backer a choice of two of his books, and they were into transubstantiation so it was The Marzipan Pig.

There is a great quote in the Washington Post obituary: “If I am kept away from writing I become physically unwell,” he told the Guardian in 2002.” It is art and the creation of art that . . . make me feel it is a good thing to be part of the human race.”

Here’s the NYTimes obituary.
Here’s the obit from the Washington Post.
Here’s a great piece from The Scotsman.

When we completed The Marzipan Pig, Hoban came to NY from his home in London. We arranged a screening for him after which Tissa David, he and I went to lunch. In his very dry way, he told me that he was pleased with the film. As I do with all authors, I asked for criticism not compliments, and he told me there was only one complaint. We didn’t get the bridge quite right at the end of the film. Of course he was right, and it’s hard for me to watch those final scenes, now, without thinking about that damned bridge.

I’ve read every book of his I could including at least 60 of the children’s books and all of his adult novels. In film, I know only of the work we’ve done and The Mouse and His Child. Unfortunately, the feature film stopped midway through the book’s story. It’s a brilliant book and what they did of the story carries whatever is happening on the screen. Tomorrow I’ll post some material about that feature.

For The Marzipan Pig DVD we included a copy of a section of the animatic. This includes the actual film superimposed over the stills so you can make a comparison as the film runs. Film in film. I like this format; you can really take in the animation and layout of the piece when both are on the split screen.

I thought I’d post here some of the storyboards and the animatic for that section. Of course, this is in a low res version; more can be discovered in the dvd version.

Tissa David did the storyboard and animated the entire film by herself. This film is a beauty, if I do say so myself. It’s a truly adult film, though it was sold as a family film. It deals with love in all its forms, albeit, obviously, through metaphor. It was adapted from a brilliant children’s book; one of Russell Hoban‘s finest.

Quentin Blake illustrated the original book, and we didn’t purchase the illustrations. Hoban told us that it wasn’t how he’d imagined the pig to look, so he drew it for us. He was once an art director in an ad agency, so he was able to draw. This is the pig we used.

Hoban had hated what was done with his book, The Mouse and His Child, so demanded that all the spoken dialogue in the film be found among his words. We wrote a script; Maxine Fisher went to London to work with him in revising it. Finally, when it came to recording the actor Tim Curry, I threw out the script and had him read the book – with the exception of one line. It was a good decision, and it made for a great performance from a great actor.

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The animatic for Seq. D with the final film superimposed.
You’ll notice that some changes were made
in scenes and scene cuts as the animation progressed.
This is typical.

The Marzipan Pig will air on HBO Family Tuesday December 27th
7:30 AM HBO FAMILY – EAST
10:00 AM HBO FAMILY – EAST
10:30 AM HBO FAMILY – WEST
1:00 PM HBO FAMILY – WEST
After that check each month at Michael Sporn Animation.com for future screenings.

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Here’s are two films we did for a home video of children’s poems. The first is a poem by Russell Hoban. The animation is by Mark Mayerson, and the design is by Jason McDonald. The music is by Caleb Sampson. I think all of these artists did brilliant work, but then Hoban’s thoughts and words always pull out the best.

Russell Hoban’s The Tin Frog

This second poem of Hoban’s also brought out the best in the artists, Jason McDonald who designed and storyboarded the whole piece. The excellent animation was by Sue Perrotto..

Russell Hoban’s Jigsaw Puzzle
Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

This week was another packed week full of tight deadlines and lotsa movies. We finally got the go-ahead for our airline safety film. We contracted in March, started the board in April. The first pass was done by early May, but we went through another dozen versions adapting it to the client’s request. The thing was so tight that I don’t have to do layouts. The client has no conception of how to do animation, so despite the low budget, I have to try to educate them as I make the movie. It’s not fun. The voice recording was done three times. The track is very good, but I also thought the first version was very good.
However, it’s fun to be animating again. Now I have to work like the devil to try to get it done quickly. The budget’s too low to take my time with it.

We’re also doing a spot for R.O. Blechman which will go directly to the internet. I’ll post it on this site when it’s done. It was originally to be animated by Ed Smith but he dropped out at the last minute for personal reasons. My loss. However, Matt Clinton, who’s been working with me for the last twenty years (actually it’s only about seven) is animating it. The spot is in good hands. The film is supposed to be done by Christmas. Given that Bob always has revisions, I imagine it’ll go to New Years. Another low budget job. Is that all they make anymore?

Other than that, I’ve been seeing movies. There have been a bunch more than usual in that I’m voting for the animated feature. That means I have to see at least 14 of the 18 on the eligible list. This is a hard category. For the most part the films stink. There have been a couple recently that I liked, but those are few and far between. I really enjoyed Rango, and was fortunate to get to meet Gore Verbinski last week. We sat at the same table at a dinner. The film sagged a bit in the middle, but the opening was exceptional.

This past Tuesday I saw a double-bill:

Gnomeo and Juliet – This is not a film I would have chosen to see, however I was quite entertained by it. Unfortunately I’m still humming Elton John’s songs (“Rocketman” today) after listening to the Elton John songbook playing in the background for an 90 minutes. I thought Emily Blunt’s voice was remarkable. She truly has a voice for animation, and I enjoyed her performance quite a bit. The textures on the garden gnomes was a plus, but the characters seem to be made of feathers not clay. The animation could have done with a bit more weight. This is often a problem I have with CG animation.

Happy Feet Two was another film that I wouldn’t have selected for myself. However, I really enjoyed it. Finally, an animated film ABOUT SOMETHING. Global warming from frame one of this movie. I loved it. The penguins dance in an inch of slushy water in the opening, as we witness the melting of the polar ice caps. I was a bit confused by the insertion of the Krill brothers. I suppose they were saying that even the smallest of creatures is being affected by the human destruction of the environment. It is the Krill dance underwater that finally knocks down the one ice cap so that the trapped penguin village can escape. The movie moved, and was quite entertaining.
MoCap was used for the dancing penguins. All other characters were animated without the aid of the device.
The film also used 3D smartly.

On Wednesday there were another two features:

Roman Polanski‘s Carnage is his adaptation of the hit stage play by Yasmina Reza. The four actors on screen were brilliant. Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz all did superlative work. The film is worth the price of admission just to see Winslet get soused. She’s become a truly sparkling actress. Polanski’s wit is very dry and very dark. I can imagine what some other director would have pulled in driving home the underlying comedy of this film and was grateful to see him masterfully choreograph this movie.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has to be hands down the most subtle of films done this year. A quiet and steady pulse beats trough the magnificent editing of this movie. Gary Oldman’s performance is so quiet that it takes you time to realize how wonderful he is in the part of “Smiley.” There’s no doubt he took Alec Guiness’ version of the character and just added his own subtleties atop that. However, I have to warn you that this film requires the audience to work for its supper. You have to pay minute attention to it or you’ll miss key elements that keep coming at you. I can’t imagine seeing this in DVD unless your eyes are glued to the set and you sit about two feet away from the monitor. It’s worth it; a very good movie.

On Thursday night I saw one film of the double-bill:

Albert Nobbs stars Glenn Close as a 19th Century woman posing as a man so that she can work without difficulties. This was probably a film I would have waited to see on DVD, but I want to see all films I vote on in theatrical screenings. I’m glad I did. The film was OK, but Close was remarkable. I am not one of her biggest fans – I hated her in Sunset Boulevard -, but I have to hand it to her. This performance was mostly virtuoso. However, it was one of those films where a character alone, on screen, has to say everything aloud so that they can further the exposition. Sorry, people just don’t say everything out loud. I can see why SAG gave her a nomination. However, I think one of the performances of the year was Charlize Theron’s brilliant work in Young Adult. I can’t believe they didn’t even nominate her! Instead, the horrendous Tilda Swinton’s overacting in that amateurish film, We Need To Talk About Kevin, got a nomination.

War Horse also screened last night, but I’d gone to the World Premiere of that at Lincoln Center. Spielberg and the cast introduced the film which was not a great effort. I would have preferred seeing Black Beauty on the big screen. Even the recent version that starred David Thewlis would have been better. This Spielberg film was all too serious and, as a result, tedious. He stole from John Ford, he stole from Gone With the Wind, he stole from everything under the sun, and it all was too predictable.

I was sad to learn of Christopher Hitchens‘ death yesterday. He was someone who always made me gnash my teeth while listening to his outrageous political commentary. But he was particularly articulate and intelligent albeit acerbic which always forced me to stay with him. He was an Atheist and argued his points well. I’m sure this didn’t please many watching him on television, though I usually felt in agreement with him on this subject.

I watched closely in the last 18 months or so as he very openly talked about his esophageal cancer and how it was forcing him to slow down. It was great to see that the NYTimes gave his obituary front page coverage.

A.O. Scott in the NYTimes praised Brad Bird‘s work in Mission Impossible 6, while appropriately taking the movie with little seriousness. Goodbye Brad Bird, animation director. Neil Genzingler did the dirty work in reviewing the new Chipmunk film, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. I can’t believe this is one of the films I’m supposed to watch for the Oscar race.

Last night, Friday, I went to a Christmas gathering at Richard O’Connor‘s new company, Ace and Son. I’d been to the space once before after he’d just opened for business. Richard had brought a catalogue from this year’s Ottawa Festival for me, and I went to retrieve it. Then the studio was sparsely decorated, but now it’s starting to feel lived in, with a warm aura about it. They’d just completed their animated Christmas card so shared it with us. We also got a piece of the film as we left, a painted drawing that served as a cel from the film. It’s always fun to take home gifts from parties.

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- As of yesterday the IFC Center in NY is presenting 15 films from Studio Ghibli. Mosat of Miyazaki’s masterworks can be seen in this series which runs through January 12th. Here’s a NYTimes article about the screening. The films to be screened will include:

Castle in the Sky *
Wednesday, December 28 – Thursday, January 12

The Cat Returns
Friday, December 30 – Thursday, January 5

Howl’s Moving Castle *
Wednesday, December 28 – Thursday, January 5

Kiki’s Delivery Service *
Friday, December 16 – Thursday, January 12

My Neighbors The Yamadas
Friday, December 23 – Thursday, December 29

My Neighbor Totoro *
Friday, December 16 – Thursday, January 5

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind *
Friday, December 16 – Thursday, January 5

Ocean Waves
Thursday, December 29 – Thursday, January 5

Only Yesterday
Friday, January 6 – Thursday, January 12

Pom Poko
Friday, January 6 – Thursday, January 12
Ponyo *
Friday, December 30 – Thursday, January 5

Porco Rosso *
Friday, December 23 – Thursday, January 5

Princess Mononoke *
Friday, December 16 – Thursday, January 12

Spirited Away *
Saturday, December 17 – Thursday, January 12

Whisper of the Heart
Wednesday, December 28 – Thursday, January 5

* Those followed by * are films by Miyazaki.

Go here to see the schedule and the exact times for the screenings.

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With the opening of the Gertrude show in Washington D.C. at the National Portrait Gallery, I thought it worth celebrating our relationship with Tom Hachtman, the cartoonist who has developed the strip Gertrude and Alice and who has some pieces in this D.C. exhibit. Hence, I’m re-posting the tale of our animated journey.

- Back in the late ’70s, there was a local newspaper that competed with the Village Voice for the alternative audience. The Soho News was smaller and thinner, but had its own treasures. Some good writing and listings, and many excellent alternative comic strips. (Bill Plympton had a weekly strip in this paper before he started animating.)

I fell in love with one comic strip called Gertrude’s Follies to the point where I waited each week for the new issue and the new strip to hit to market. It was about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas and all the crazies that came into their lives – particularly Picasso, Hemingway and other iconic art types. It didn’t matter that Matisse and Capote didn’t meet; they were both available for the strip – as was everyone else.

Finally, after enjoying it for so long, I decided to locate the cartoonist behind it, and see whether he was interested in developing a storyboard and script for a feature. Maybe we could get some low-budget financing.

Tom Hachtman was the cartoonist, and he was a brilliant artist. His wife, Joey Epstein, was another fine artist. The two entered my life at this point, and some interesting things developed.

Gertrude’s Follies was an ongoing project. Tom worked with Maxine Fisher, who has been my writing partner through all the years of my studio. The two of them developed a couple of themes from the mass of strips that had been done and started to weave a storyboard. Tom left 4 or 5 panels of each 6 panel page empty, and I constructed and reconstructed story around them. Sometimes I would draw more material, sometimes I would take some away. It was real fun.

The Soho News folded, and no one really picked up the strip. It ran for a short time in The Advocate. Tom was able to publish a collected book (see the cover above.) You can still locate a rare copy on line.

Some newer, color copies of the strip can be found on line here.
Tom also does some political cartoons for the site here.

The movie never went into production. I couldn’t raise the funds – my inexperience. We did make one short segment – a two minute piece that was the most hilarious strip. Sheldon Cohen, an animator I met at the Ottawa 76 festival, came to NY when I offered him a job on Raggedy Ann. Sheldon, ultimately, did a number of films for the National Film Board which you can watch on-line if you click on his name.

Sheldon animated this particularly funny strip. It took a while for him to animate it, and by the time he was finished, the feature had died and I had lost some interest. Years later I inked and painted it and had it shot. The short piece was never finished, though I still think about doing that.

Tom also recently gave me a funny strip about Pablo Picasso sculpture for which I’ve finished a storyboard and animatic. Hopefully, I’ll get the energy to animate it.

Aside from Gertrude, both Tom & Joey worked on a number of my films and still infrequently do. The two have painted many murals on the Jersey Coast, where they currently live. Tom has been a political cartoonist for the NY Daily News, has done lots of airbrush work for Bob Blechman when the Ink Tank was in operation. He also has done quite a few cartoons for The New Yorker magazine.

Here are a few of the strips to give you the flavor. Perhaps next week I’ll give a sample of our storyboard, comparing it with some of the actual strips. Enjoy.

1 2
(Click on any image to enlarge so that you can read the strips.)

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5 6

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We did ultimately complete the short film, called “Pabs’ First Burger.”
Tom Hachtman did the backgrounds and Matthew Clinton did the animation.

Here’s a small QT view of that short:

Remember when. Here are some baby pictures I first posted back in January 2007. I love this post so much, I ejoy showing again.

- Here are some of the grouped staff-shots we used to do a lot. For some reason we haven’t done any in the past ten years; maybe it’s because the numbers of people working here are quite a bit fewer. I guess it’s still worth while for posterity’s sake. We’ll do it soon.

I love these.

The Lyle crew, back in 1987:

These are, Back row L to R : Lisa Crafts – animator, Tom Repasky – coloring, Susan Tremblay – coloring, Madeline Fan (full pic w/T-shirt) coloring, Caroline Skaife (leaning on Madeline) – coloring, Mark Baldo (w/puppet Lyle) coloring, Doug Vitarelli (leaning on Caroline) runner, Theresa Smythe – asst. animator.

Front row, sitting, L to R: Caroline Zegart – coloring, Steven Dovas – animator, John Schnall – Prod. Coordinator/Animator, Ray Kosarin – Asst. Animator/coloring, Michael Zodorozny – Layout, Bridget Thorne – Art Director/Bgs.

The Abel’s Island group, 1988:

Back row (L to R): Betsy Bauer (colorist), Ray Kosarin (asst animator/colorist), Laura Bryson (behind Ray) (colorist), Robert Marianetti (Prod Mgr), Theresa Smythe (colorist), Mike Wisniewski (asst animator/colorist)
Center row (L to R): Steve MacQuignon (colorist), George McClements (asst animator/ colorist), Greg Perler (editor)
Bot Row (L to R): me, Bridget Thorne (Bg’s)
Not pictured in the photos is Kit Hawkins, my assistant, who took them.

After the move to 632 Broadway a small group working on Baby’s Storytime:

Back row L to R: Theresa Smythe, Mike Winiewski, Ray Kosarin, George McClements.
Sitting L to R: me, Jason McDonald, Steve MacQuignon, Mary Thorne, Masako Kanayama

Here’s a birthday party in 1992:

The whole staff and party:
(Back row L to R) colorist – Christine O’Neill, Masako Kanayama, Sue Perrotto, Steve MacQuignon, Ray Kosarin, Liz Seidman, Marilyn Rosado
(Fron row L to R) Ed Askinazi, Jason McDonald, Xiaogang He, Denise Gonzalez, Rodolfo Damaggio. I’m probably off camera still looking at the picture, or else I’m taking the picture.

A Christmas party back in 1996:

This is the crew just after the Secret Santa and just before the party.
Back L to R: Ed Askinazi – editor, Liz Seidman – prod coord, Matthew Sheridan – asst, Stephen MacQuignon (hidden) – colorist, Denise Gonzalez (in yellow) – publicity/asst, Sue Perotto (in red) – animator, Jason McDonald’s head – colorist, Masako Kanayama – production supervisor, Rodolfo Damaggio – animator, Marilyn Rosado – office manager.

This is the staff during the making of a pilot for Blackside Entertainment, The Land of the Four Winds. It’s another birthday picture. Lots of color deterioration in the photo. The exposure isn’t great – you can barely make out Champagne’s face.

Sitting around the table L to R: Farid Zacariah (runner), Greg Duva (Asst Anim), Adrian Urquidez(I&Pt), David Levy (Asst Anim), John "Quack" Leard (Asst Anim), Jason McDonald (design, I&Pt), Ed Askinazi (Editor), Robert Marianetti (Prod Coord), Heidi Stallings (casting), me.

Here’s one a couple of months later (a better photo by Kit Hawkins – who was also on staff then.) It celebrated Farid’s last day – our all around guy.

Back row standing L to R: Miho Moyer (I&Pt), Robert Marianetti (Prod Coord), Christine O’Neill (I&Pt), me, Jason McDonald (design, I&Pt), Tara Dolgopol (I&Pt)(in front of Jason), John “Quack” Leard (Asst Anim), Adrian Urquidez(I&Pt), Laura Kurucz(I&Pt), Francisco “Cisco” Sanchez(runner), David Levy (Asst Anim).
Front row kneeling L to R: Farid Zacariah (runner), Laura Bryson (Bg’s), Madeline Fan (Asst Coord), Greg Duva (Asst Anim), Ed Askinazi (Editor)

I’m sure this is boring for a lot of you, but I had fun.

By the way, you can enlarge all images by clicking them.

- A month ago, I did a post on the use of the multiplane camera in Peter Pan. Thanks to some comments and questions by Milt Gray, I was made to question whether the flying sequence from the feature was done with multiplane or many-leveled out-of-focus-painted clouds. One quote in Bob Thomas’ original book, The Art of Animation, settled the question for me. In listing some of the great sequences done using the multiplane, Thomas lists this flying sequence: “Another memorable sequence: the flight over London in ‘Peter Pan,’ with the runaways (or flyaways) sailing through the clouds. The scene was painted by Claude Coats.”

But now, Hans Bacher, on his brilliant site One1more2time3′s asks the question again. This time Hans, in his stunning way, has reconstructed the enormous Bg of this scene, then reconstructs the layout of the scene (with its many complicated rotations and pans), and finally details why he believes it did not use the multiplane camera. This is an amazing post and is throughly deserving of a long look at what Hans has constructed. I’m in awe.

A layout posted on Hans Bacher’s blog

But that Thomas quote still keeps me questioning it. After all Thomas would have been writing the book in 1957 or 58, and surely the people involved in this scnre were among those Thomas spoke to. In fact, Claude Coats is given some strong attention in the book. Would he have gotten it wrong to call the scene a multiplane camera scene? I’m not convinced.

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- Leo Sullivan and Floyd Norman have teamed together to work on an animated short about the Tuskagee Airmen. The short, titled The Tuskegee Redtails, has just been posted to Kickstarter; the film makers are seeking to raise $55,000 for the production.

Some of the description given on Kickstarter reads:

The Tuskegee airmen were so called because most of the African American pilots were trained at Tuskegee University in Alabama during the 1940s. Through their bravery and actions, the Tuskegee airmen joined the ranks of other patriotic Americans who defended the United States of America against the Axis military powers during World War 2.

The animated short will take a snapshot in time of the Tuskegee airmen obstacles and achievements.

The film will be “an animated short in 2D combined with CGI animation approximately 20 minutes.”

Leo Sullivan‘s bio reads: “Leo Sullivan is the President/CEO of Leo Sullivan Multimedia, Inc. a California S-Corporation which produces educational and entertaining media for children ages 5 to 17 years. Prior to incorporating his company, Leo worked in the animation industry as an animator, layout and storyboard artist, director, and producer for various companies which included Hanna-Barbera, Warner Brothers, Spunbuggy Works, Campbell/Silver/Cosby and others. ”

Floyd Norman‘s bio reads: “Floyd has contributed his talent to motion pictures, television shows and comic books for over fifty years. He has the distinction of having worked with the Old Maestro himself when the boss recruited him for the story team on what would become Walt Disneyʼs final motion picture.

A veteran story development artist, Norman has worked as an animator and story artist on at least a dozen films for both Walt Disney Studios and Pixar Animation Studios.”

I’d recommend that everyone take a look at their proposal and help out if you can. You can give as little as $5, if you’re able and would like to.

It’s interesting that just today George Lucas’ film, Red Tails, announced its opening. On January 20, 2012 the film will open, according to this NYTimes article. I hope the announcement brings added attention to Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Norman’s film.

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- This week some attention was paid by the animation community when they learned that the comic srip, Mutts, has been singled out to become a future feature with cartoonist/author Patrick McDonnell writing the script with his brother, Robert McDonell. This was the story from The Hollywood Reporter.

We had the good fortune a couple of years ago of doing a one minute animated piece for King Features Syndicate. We followed the look of the strip very closely and had a lot of fun doing it. Patrick McDonell was quite involved in the production asking for a number of good changes. If ever there were a strip made to be a 2D animated film, Mutts is it. he film will be made by 20th Century Fox. Does that mean it’ll look more like the Blue Sky films’ Horton Hears a Who, or will it be like Marmaduke and Garfield? (Meaning a live action film with animated characters.)

Hopefully, Blue Sky will do the animation if it’s cgi. At least they bring a little dignity to their work. Though we all know it should be a 2D film, but the Republicans are dominating the conversation in D.C. and cgi is dominating the conversation in animation.

All stills, here, are frame grabs from our spot.

Matthew Clinton did the bulk of the animation on this spot.

- Author, Jack Zipes, has just released a new book called, The Enchanted Screen. Mr. Zipes is a professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota. He is a scholar whose focus has been children’s literature and culture, and he has written at least seven other books. I’ve been aware of his work since his book, Hans Christian Andersen, the Misunderstood Storyteller. It was in that book that Mr. Zipes gave some attention to the films we’ve done in our studio. Although he felt that Andersen was often misused or misunderstood when translated to other media, he wrote that our films offered excellent adaptations. Of course, I’d be interested in anything Jack Zipes had to write in the future.

This new book, The Enchanted Screen, goes deeper than just Andersen’s tales, taking in all world literature. However, there can be no doubt that Andersen is a primary interest of Mr. Zipes’ studies. There are elaborate analyses of the various productions of The Snow Queen or The Little Mermaid or The Emperor’s New Clothes. Disney is certainly taken to task for sentimentalizing children’s literature. Indeed, there’s a complete chapter entitled, “De-Disneyfying Disney: Notes on the Development of the Fairy-Tale Film.” To be honest, it’s hard to argue with his premise, if you take Grimm and Andersen seriously. When he points out that J.M.Barrie’s Peter Pan becomes Walt Disney’s Peter Pan or Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland becomes Walt Disney’s Alice, you begin to realize the change in ownership which also recognizes a change in the values imparted in those original tales. (Shrek actually fares well under this scrutiny since it spoofs the Disneyfication of the tales.)

In short, the book is an excellent read if you’re interested in the subject – as I am. It’s especially pleasing when the author has nice things to say about your work, but that is hardly the reason I enjoyed the book. I appreciated the honest and intellectual discussion of the material, and I enjoyed some of the sources he considered at length. Since I make films using this material, I am curious to hear what critics have to say.

As an addendum to these comments, I thought I’d post a page from the book that talks about a couple of my films. Why shouldn’t I spread the news? I’m proud of these films. I’ve added some illustrations from a couple of these films to punch up the post. So over to Mr. Zipes:

From 1990 to 1992 Michael Sporn, an American animator, adapted three of Andersen’s fairy tales, “The Nightingale,” “The Red Shoes,” and “The Little Match Girl” for Italtoons Corporation, and they are currently distributed by Weston Woods Studios, an educational company. The films, all about twenty-five minutes long and created for children between five and ten, have been shown on HBO, but for the most part they have not received wide public attention, and they can be considered marginal cultural products of the culture industry—all the more reason that they deserve our attention, because Sporn’s films written by Maxine Fisher are profound interpretations of Andersen’s stories that transcend age designation and keep alive Andersen’s legacy. They all use voiceover and colorful still sets as backdrops, and naively ink-drawn characters who come alive because they are so unpretentious and resemble the simple and found art of children.

Two of Sporn’s films are particularly important because they transform motifs from Andersen’s tales to deal with contemporary social problems. Both take place in New York City, and the music and dialogue capture the rhythms and atmosphere of present-day urban life. In The Red Shoes, Sporn depicts the warm friendship of two little black girls, Lisa and Jenny, and how they almost drift apart because of a change in their economic situation. The story is narrated by Ozzie Davis as a shoemaker who lives in a poor section of New York. Lisa and Jenny often visit him, and he describes their lives and how both love to dance and play and enjoy each other’s company. One day Lisa’s family wins the lottery, and they move to another part of the city. Now that she is rich, Lisa ignores Jenny until they meet at a ballet about red shoes. The spoiled Lisa ignores Jenny, but later she returns to her own neighborhood and steals some red shoes that the shoemaker had been making for Jenny. Guilt-ridden, Lisa finds that the red shoes have magic and bring her back to the old neighborhood and help her restore her friendship with Jenny.

In The Little Match Girl, Sporn depicts a homeless girl, Angela, who sets out to sell matches on New Year’s Eve 1999 to help her family living in an abandoned subway station on Eighteenth Street. She meets a stray dog named Albert who becomes her companion, and together they try to sell matches in vain at Times Square. The night is bitter cold, and they withdraw to a vacant lot where Angela lights three matches. Each time she does this, she has imaginary experiences that reveal how the rich neglect the poor and starving people in New York City. Nothing appears to help her, and when she tries to make her way back to the subway station, she gets caught in a snowstorm, and it seems that she is dead when people find her at U nion Square the next morning. However, she miraculously recovers, thanks to Albert, and the rich people gathered around her (all reminiscent of those in the dream episodes) begin to help her and her family.

Sporn’s films are obviously much more uplifting than Andersen’s original tales. But his optimism does not betray Andersen’s original stories because of his moral and ethical concern in Andersen and his subject matter. In fact, his films enrich the tales with new artistic details that relate to contemporary society, and they critique them ideologically by focusing on the intrepid nature of the little girls rather than on the power of some divine spirit. At the same time, they are social comments on conditions of poverty in New York that have specific meaning and can also be applied to the conditions of impoverished children throughout the world. What distinguishes Sporn’s films from Andersen’s stories is that he envisions hope for change in the present, whereas Andersen promises rewards for suffering children in a heavenly paradise.

Sporn’s films are tendentious in that they purposely pick up tendencies in Andersen’s tales to express some of the same social concerns that Andersen wanted to address. His critical spirit is maintained, and even some of his faults are revealed. Most important, he is taken seriously.

It’s a pleasure to be taken seriously, and I have to thank Jack Zipes for that.