Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Steven Fisher has found a couple of cardinals in his back yard in Maspeth, Queens. He’s taken some great photos of the birds (whcih came to me over a number of days – so they all weren’t shot at the same time.) I thought they were attractive, and I’d like to share them with you.

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And, despite the incessant inclement weather we’ve seen, Spring is still pushing on. 1

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- Checking in with Steve Fisher, here are some of the recent photos he’s taken around New York.

Starting with the NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx:

Right out of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.

The Easter Lily

The Easter Egg Tree

To remind us of the hard winter we’ve just gone through, the local trees haven’t bloomed as yet.

Then there are these interior images of the former Bowery Savings Bank on 42nd Street.

Then a bit down the block is Grand Central Station – inside and out.

Outside

Inside

Finally there’s this still life with color.

- Last night we were reminded during our late night news that the moon was at its largest. It was in its closest axis to the earth, and would seem fuller than usual to us. So Heidi and I went out to take a look at 11pm. At first, in Manhattan we couldn’t see the moon and had no idea where to look for it (except up). Buildings blocked the view. We had to walk a block from our house to see it.

This was the view we had. The moon didn’t look very big.

And all my camera would record was a big white blob.
But we got to see it and headed back upstairs to our apartment.

I took a look on line, and sure enough Steve Fisher had sent his moon shots. Here’s what he wrote:

While the moon was certainly large last night, the atmosphere
was not as clear as I’ve seen it on other nights, so the sharpness
isn’t really what I would have hoped for. But it was beautiful.
The star the night before surprised me, though. I was actually out
photographing (I almost said ‘shooting’ and realized how awful that
would have sounded) planes because the sky was mostly white with clouds.
But through the breaks in the clouds the sky was crisply clear and when I
focused on wonderfully visible stars, I was amazed at how well I could see them.

Then, cropping and enlarging the images later yielded some cool pix.

The star

Steve’s photo of the moon.

Today’s the vernal equinox, marking the first day of Spring. Too bad there’s no real way to photograph that, except metaphorically. (Lots of shots of new flowers etc.) The weather has turned nasty cold today to remind us that Winter was tough.

Talking about going out like a lion, check out Scenes from a Tsunami in today’s NYTimes. Three Japanese artists paint what they felt.

- It’s Sunday, and how more appropriate a time to show these pics by my friend, Steve Fisher. They’re of a temple in Elmhurst, Queens. There are a number of temples in Queens; it’s a very diverse community. I remember visiting an Indian Buddhist Temple in Flushing which had been built from stones and materials that were sent from India.

Here’s this Thai Buddhist Temple at 46th Avenue at 76th Street, in Elmhurst. The photos nicely capture the building.

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And just to give Christian churches some equal time, here Steve’s photographed two other temples, both in Maspeth Queens. The Transfiguration Church on Clinton Ave and the Holy Cross Church on 56th Road.

Stteve writes: Transfiguration, built in 1962, is of a style I would not have associated with a place of worship – kind of Swiss chalet trying to be Frank Lloyd Wright. Transfiguration taken to another level of meaning, probably not intended. The other (Holy Cross) is just a pleasant piece fitting in nicely into its mid-block residential context.

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The Transfiguration Church

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A detail.

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The Holy Cross Church (in hiding).

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Out in the open.

- Weather affects how your world looks. Recently we’ve had a ton of snow falling on NYC. (There have been some 56 inches since Christmas Day.) The whole place looks white for a time, then turns gray to black with floods at every street corner. It sure gets hard to navigate street crossings.

This past week we had something that you don’t get often – an ice storm. It hailed, mixed with rain, to create sort of an icy slush. Slippery in some places, wet in others. The trees and environment was encased in about a ¼ inch of ice.

I tried taking a picture at 6am that morning, but didn’t get anything worthwhile. Then Steve FIsher started sending some shots that are gems. So here they are, NY in a different light.

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These first two pics were the ones I shot at 6am
but wasn’t crazy about.

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The rest of these are by Steve Fisher.
They’re all color shots.

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- It’s a couple of days later. The weather has gotten a bit warmer by Saturday, and another smaller snow dusting is expected. I decided to walk to the studio at 6:30am and figure out how to use my camera-phone thing. I’ve had it for two months and haven’t really figured out the machine. So here are some pictures. Note that a light hail was falling throughout the two mile trek.

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First off I walk through Madison Square Park.
I haven’t been here since Christmas, the first big snowfall.
I mistakenly had left the B&W feature setting on the camera.

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This tree looks to be dead. They’ve cut off a lot of it.
(See the logs on the ground.) Masses of squirrels are
climbing into the hole at the top of it.

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This is that light “Art-piece” I featured last year.
The lights (you have to look for them) aren’t on,
and the piece is silent.

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Then I walk down Fifth Ave. to Washington Square Park in the Village.
Some homeless person left their bin parked near a bike stand just
outside of the 23rd St. subway entrance. I guess they’re keeping warm.

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I almost forgot why I’d shot this photo.
If you look closely you’ll see that the entire building is
“For Rent”. I guess they gave up on the idea of selling it.

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Are these Christmas tree lights, still hung?
They look nice (in person) under this construction tunnel.

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The First Presbeterian Church on 13th Street and Fifth Ave.
I’ve realized I’d been shooting in B&W.
This is the first pic in color.

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Here’s the Arch at Washington Square Park , shot from 8th Street and Fifth Ave.

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Here’s a closer shot.

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This is Judson Memorial Church near NYU shot from within the park.

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A sort-of famous restaurant a couple of blocks from the studio.
All they serve is PB&J hundreds of ways. I haven’t been in there.
I keep PB and Jelly in the studio and my home; I love it.

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I turn West on Bleecker to Downing which leads me to Bedford.
“Hey ma, I can see our house from here!”
Finally, I reach the studio. The hail’s getting heavier.

- I’ve tried desperately to keep snow out of the photos for the past couple of weeks. I have had my fill of it. However, we were hit with another foot of snow this past week, and it’s hard to avoid.

Steve Fisher has been sending in some brilliant photos, so I can’t help but post them.

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6:44am

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7:10am

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3:47pm

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Inside Grand Central Terminal at high noon
while the snow comes to an end, outside.

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A day later.

- We’ve seen lots of weather in the past two weeks. A blizzard on the day after Christmas bottled up New York and all its garbage collection. Then there were several days of spritzing rain and warm weather. Everything got wet and black. Then another snow storm that didn’t really stick, and we’re expecting more on Tuesday.

Amid all this, Steve Fisher caught the town off guard when fog rolled in. Here are a bunch of his photos making NY feel like London in the 60s.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Happy New Year
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Photo by Steve Fisher

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- When Cartoon Brew posted their comment about Yoni Goodman‘s site, DailyMation, I didn’t expect to be clicking into a daily inspiration. But that’s what it’s become.

Goodman, the Israeli animation director of Waltz With Bashir, says that he designed the site because he was tired of moving cut-outs around with Flash and wanted to break loose with some free-form animaton based on moving masses and having fun with it.

This shows. The pieces he puts up frequently are filled with life and are great to watch. All of the film clips are animated bits he’s pulled from life – his children are a major source of inspiration. This is alien to most American animation I’ve seen lately which seems more designed to rework other animated films rather than on the real world.

I wonder how many times Milt Kahl or Marc Davis went back to study past animated scenes? We study and learn from these old masters, but there has to be a time to let go and start looking at how real people act and react. This is what we have to animate. Yoni Goodman is doing great work, and it’s hard to understand why I’m not doing the same, myself.

I will.

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- Aardman Animation seems to have fallen into good hands. Sony has just agreed to a deal which would have them distributing the new features coming from the Bristol-based factory. The first of their joint films will be Arthur Christmas, a film Aardman had in the works which employs hand-held cameras in a cg environment. The film, Sarah Smith and Barry Cook are directing from a script by Peter Baynham, would be released next November.

A sampling of Pirates!

They’re also planning a difficult and elaborate stop-motion film in Pirates! based on “”The Pirates!”, the best-selling series of books by Gideon Defoe. This film will be a swashbuckling affair directed by Peter Lord.

Hopefully, this deal with Sony will be more productive than the one they had with Dreamworks.

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– Darrell Van Citters‘ blog Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol seems to be going right up to the wire. Will posts continue even after Christmas? After his Abe Levitow career bio, he posted information about the films UPA did immediately after Magoo’s Carol. and there’s also the “Unknown Christmas Carol”, segments that were deleted from the show even after being planned and animated.

The film recently played to full houses in LA at the Egyptian Theater and the Aero Theater. It was a treat to see it on a big screen when they screened it last year on the occasion of the book’s initial publication.

As I said back then, this book is a gem, self-published by Darrell Van Citters. I highly recommend you get it for your collection.

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Steve Fisher caught the Lunar eclipse last night and shares it with us:

2:52 AM

3:18 AM

3:30 AM

3:46 AM

4:19 AM

4:41 AM

The first time in 372 years that a Lunar Eclipse took place on the Winter Solstice. (There was also a meteor shower.)
Many thanks for sharing, Steve.