Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- As per our annual presentation, Steve Fisher has photographed a number of the decorated houses in his neighborhood, Maspeth and Middle Village, Queens. These people take their decorations seriously, and their houses are a bit over-dressed for the occasion.

The pumpkin patch is ready.

Of course, it all looks different in the dark.

Even the sky takes on an orange glow when you want it to.

- This past week I walked through Madison Square Park (my subway wasn’t operating so I had to walk) at 6am and found the new, upcoming artpiece under construction. It’s called “Scattered Lights” conceived by artist, Jim Campbell and consists of some 2000 LED lights hung in traditional light housing.

It looks like a box of lites standing in the center of their
large lawn area, set in the middle of the park.
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When I arrived, early Saturday morning, the park was crowded
with little tent/stands obviously set to sell food later in the day.
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The lights were in trial mode of some kind. They were lighting
one row at a time from the bottom up. First one row, then two,
then three until the whole box lit.
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The lights were set between two scaffolding rigs. I couldn’t make out
what these were for or why they stood so close to the lights.
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I wasn’t sure if the outer rigs were used to project something
onto the light wall. Or did they actually hold it up?
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I wasn’t even sure if this is all the lights were to do.
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When I returned the following week (yesterday) things were
a bit more quiet. The lights weren’t lighting one row at a time.
They were on.
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When I came to them, straight on, I suddenly saw silhouettes
of large people walking across the bed of lights. I couldn’t tell
if this were actual people of some kind of projection. (Actually,
the opposite of a projection since some of the lights would go
off making it look as though animated people crossed the path.)
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In these stills (and in all the stills I’ve found on line) the projected
silhouettes of people don’t show up well.) It’s hard to see the person
(in the right of the photo, she’s just about invisible) walking across.
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Consequently, I shot a small movie of the piece which gives a good
idea of what it looks like in motion. Not quite silhouettes, but dark
enough that you get that feel.
It might take a little while to load up initially.

The art piece opened October 21 and will remain until February 21, 2011.

My friend, Steve Fisher is back in New York, and his photos are back into the New York groove. Halloween is on the horizon and the photos prepare us for the Hallow-day in the City. Autumn’s in the air and a lot of crazy weather wehad this past week. (A two-day Nor’Easter, hail, drenching rains.)

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Rockaway Beach in the Autumn.

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The boardwalk

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Bird meets statue.

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Letting sleeping dogs lie.

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Getting ready for Halloween in Howard Beach.

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Getting ready for Halloween in Maspeth, Queens.

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View of Manhattan from Maspeth
Federal Savings Bank parking lot, Maspeth.

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The foreboding Halloween.

The Amazing Bone was one of the earlier films I did with Weston Woods. It was an attempt to do Doctor DeSoto one better by taking a more famous book by Steig and adding some richer animation and a lot more attention. John Lithgow was hired to read the book. I flew to LA and back in the same day to get to the recording. (I could’ve done it by phone, but where’s the fun in that?)

We recorded at the old A&M studio. It was originally Charlie Chaplin’s studio and had ultimately come into the hands of Herb Alpert. I
was early; Lithgow was on time. Our recording engineer was named “Magic.” John read the part brilliantly with few needed retakes. He kept in character for all the voice changes as he read straight ahead. We finished early, and I had a great voice track. I remember exactly the tone of voice when he said goodbye to me, then to “Magic.” He voiced the quotation marks around Magic’s name. I could only smile.

It was a beautiful day, and I had a couple of hours to waste before I had to return my car. So I spent time driving; I love to drive. A lot of touring around Beverly Hills. I remember driving down one quiet street lined with palm trees, and suddenly I realized there was an old clunker of a car tailgating me. I couldn’t imagine what the hell was going on. Then I realized someone was shouting my name. I stopped.

It was Bill Moritz. He came out gave me a big hug; we chatted for a moment, and he went on his way. It was one of those perfect kind of days. I knew Bill because of his association with Elfriede Fishinger. We’d had dinner countless times in NY with John Canemaker and Joe Kennedy.

After a brief chat, Bill went on his way, and I continued my lovely afternoon heading back to the airport. It was one of those wonderful days.

The voice track was brilliant when finally edited together and the animation began. We decided to record the music early on in the process. I’d agreed verbally to use Steig’s son, Jeremy, to do the score. I had been a fan of his flute music and owned several of his albums.

The score was performed completely by Jeremy Steig and the noted bass player Eddie Gomez.

As a fan of jazz, it was glorious for me to be working with Eddie Gomez, who had once been a member of the Bill Evans Trio. I lived and breathed through Bill Evans‘ music for a long time, and to have only one degree of separation was something I cherished for the short span of that Amazing Bone recording.

(click on any image to enlarge.)
Above:Eddie Gomez confers with Jeremy Steig about the score they’re composing & performing.

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1. Eddie Gomez plays his bass.
2. Jeremy Steig plays pan pipes.
3. Jeremy Steig plays assorted bottles.

The score took about 7 hours to record and mix.

There were many breaks for Eddie and Jeremy to confer in the bathroom. It got to the point where the engineer/mixer asked them to please stay in the recording session because the breaks were taking longer than the session. They bristled at his comments, and I had to settle things down. However, the more the two went to the bathroom, the slower things got and the music took longer to record. I let things take their own course; the two knew what they had to do.

Regardless, I didn’t care what it took. I was in heaven experiencing the music. The two performers did a great job, and I loved every moment.

During a break Jeremy and I sat down to discuss the music so far. It was great.

All photos were taken by the producer, Paul Gagne. He’s become a long-time friend. I thought I remembered a photo of him with Jeremy, but I don’t have it.

When I did Abel’s Island, another William Steig book, I asked for Jeremy again. This time it turned into hell with Jeremy’s impossible demands late in the production, his new wife writing me foul-mouthed letters, and my having to fire them (although I did pay them in full) four days before the scheduled mix. I hired the talented Arthur Custer to do a score and he had those four days and half the budget Jeremy was paid. I became a full-fledged producer with that decision, and I’m ecstatic with how it ultimately turned out. Despite threats of legal action from William and Jeremy Steig. That was the last Steig book I was allowed to do.

- Before his summer trip to Caltabellotta, Sicily, my friend Steve Fisher took a short visit to Alaska. His photos are pretty amazing, and I thought I’d post a few here, today.

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Alaska from above.

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Landing.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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A mountain range.

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These mountains are covered with tundra.
Tundra stands on top of dead tundra on top of dead tundra.
It makes them exhausting to climb.
It’s like walking on sponges. You keep sinking in.

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Tundra up close.

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Even the trains mean business.

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Steve horsing around with two statues.

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The real thing.

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Whale watching.

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Eagles are everywhere in Alaska.

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When I was in Adak, Alaska there was an old
schoolbus that would take us the 3 miles to town.

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Once an eagle and a seagull played with the wind just
outside the schoolbus window as we rode the 3 miles.

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The eagle was about a foot higher than the seagull,
and they just sailed there together on the wind. I
could’ve touched them if I put my hand out the window.

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Needless to say, I didn’t have a camera.
Luckily Steve does.

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A great collection of photos.

Reading Cartoon Brew, I just learned of Bill Littlejohn‘s death. I can’t tell you how sad this makes me. I’m heading out the door for a short vacation/honeymoon. When I return on Saturday I will post some of his animation drawings.

- On Thursday night, we were hit with a vicious storm. I was on a bus heading to a screening of “The Town”. It was drizzling until I pushed open the door to exit. At that very moment, a deadening driving rain smashed down on Manhattan. I sat in the shelter of doorway for a few minutes before running to a scaffolding overhang across Madison Avenue. I was able to walk two blocks without getting wet, thanks to the construction above.

Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens were under a tornado warning, and, indeed, tornado like winds of 100 mph as well as hail and rain. More than 1800 trees were uprooted; countless cars were crushed; homes were smashed; cable and power went out, and numerous people were killed. It was a blow.

Steven Fisher, who lives in Queens, photographed some of the damage in his own back yard. Here are his photos sent to me.

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Juniper Valley Park, Middle Village. 16 Sep 2010.

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- I thought it’d be great to put together some of the grouped staff shots we used to do a lot. For some reason we haven’t done any recently; 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.

- Last Sunday Heidi and I went to the new Yankee Stadium for the first time, and we sat in the rain for most of the day. We knew it was scheduled to rain, and the game was ultimately held up. Regardless, we had a blast.

Here are some pictures.

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When you get out of the train, this is the first thing you see.
You then have to follow the police barricades until you get
across the street.

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The stadium looked glorious at the front gate.
They used to have a giant bat statue. I think they left it behind.
At least I didn’t see it.

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It looks good close up, too. At least for a Yankee fan.

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Once you go through at pointless security check, you get inside
to a rotunda of stores and shops selling a lot of Yankee goods.

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Useless souvenirs for the fanatic.

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There are plenty of shops and places to eat
as you wander about. A real mini-mall.

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Once we found our seats, the view was fantastic.

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C.C. Sabathia just mowed down the traffic in the first inning.

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The big board kept you informed of everything. In between innings
there were plenty of shots of people in the audience. Once they had
the couple just below us. You could see my legs on tv.
Later they had a shot of the couple above us. I guess I wasn’t wearing
any Yankee logos. No cap, no Tee shirt.

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Jeter led off for the Yanks and promptly hit
to the shortstop for the first out.

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The rain came first as a drizzle, then a downpour.
The big sign let us know we were in a rain delay.

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They pulled a tarpaulin over the field.

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We travelled underground for a while window shopping.
We went the Yankee museum but the line was too long.

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Heidi was having a blast. So was I as a matter of fact.
The kept us so entertained – even for the rain delay.

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We decided to head to the very top. There was an overhang
that would keep us dry, and we could sit down.

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I sat drenched but happy. We really were having a great day.
The stadium was a hit for us, and that’s all that counted.

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Eventually the rain stopped and we watched them pull the tarp up.
You could see the drenching water being dumped onto the field.
We went back to our seats.

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When we returned, I noticed the YES Network booth. You can
see the announce Michael Kay trying to get us back into the game.

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Cano hit a Grand Slam putting the score out of reach for the Seattle Mariners.
We left after the 7th inning to get ajump on traffic out of the stadium.
The Yankees won 10-1.

- Tom and Joey Hachtman continue to create murals for homes up and down the Eastern seaboard. And I enjoy posting the photos of these paintings.

You’ll remember that I posted some info about Tom’s wife, Joey, who has a business painting murals locally (go here: 1, 2, 3).

Her business is called Three Designing Women Studios, and you can read about them in this article published, this week, at APP.com. There’s also another recent article here.

This is the most recent mural they did for a children’s room at Retro-Fitness in the Potomac Mills Mall, Woodbridge, VA.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Here’s Tom and Joey.

- Steve Fisher is returning from Caltabellotta, Sicily. These are the last of the photos he’s taken and sent back to me.