Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Everyone thinks of New York as made of steel, glass and concrete. If you try to add Trees to that mix, people would look at you querulously. Except for the center of the city, from 42nd to 59th Streets, from Park to Eighth Avenues, you’ll find trees.

But, I thinik, the trees pay some kind of price. The plot of ground into which they’re planted is dressed wholly by the owner of the buildings they grace. Let’s take a look at the cages that are built for trees in the city of concrete, glass and steel.

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This is a picture of my block taken this week. You can see how lush
it appears to be, and we have to go in closer to see the planters.

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Here’s the base of the tree right outside the brownstone I live in.
No dressing. Just a square hole cut into the ground with the
tree’s roots hidden beneath the earth.

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Here’s what a building not too far away from us is using.
A wrought iron cage with lots of additional shrubbery. The
cage keeps animals away from the tree so they don’t kill it.

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If you step back you can get a good look at
the tree in, what works as a natural environment.

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But then here’s a tree just outside a park. They don’t give
the tree much breathing space in the concrete. And this is
how all the trees surrounding the park are dressed.

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It’s probably better than this. It looks different, but
I’m not sure trees were designed to grow through shale.

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Here’s a closer look at the rock bed at the foot of this tree.

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Within view of J.C.Penney on 32nd St, this building has chosen
to give more space to the trees out front. A longer plot of soil.

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They’re only fenced in on the pedestrian’s side of the fence.
But you can see the new growth coming up alongside the tree.
(I think it likes the soil to stretch its roots. I wonder how it deals
with the cigarette butts. Smokers have found a convenient ash tray.)

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In another box outside this building, they’ve planted flowers.

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This building has chosen something other than an iron fence.

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They’ve gone woody, and have added lots of shrubbery.

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Some buildings don’t even PLANT the trees.
They place them in decorative barrels, allowing them to be moved.

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This building has added plenty of ivy to the mix.

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This is the course the City has taken near Madison Square Park.
They’ve cut into the 23rd Street traffic by constructing a place for
pedestrians to sit – in the middle of traffic. The City tries to make it
habitable by adding plenty of foliage planted in planters that can be moved.

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The trees don’t seem to be complaining, and it is a bit attractive.

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This construction site is trying to make the best for
the tree outside their hostile attack on the building.
They’ve cut around their scaffolding to accomodate the tree.

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I’m sure it’ll be a glorious summer for this tree.

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Not too different from the decoration around this tree’s base – bricks.

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The bricks move in around the plot beneath this tree
right up to a very tight and tall iron fence.

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Of course, the trash only sits within the fence disgracing the tree.

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Madison Avenue tries to be a bit more graceful for their trees.

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A designer wrought iron grill with some delicate plants within the soil.

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But only a block away, still on Madison Ave, the grill
takes up any square inch of the tree’s breathing room.

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Here’s another one with the grill shabbily designed to cover all
the dirt within the plot. It goes right up to the base of the tree.

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Yet, step back in the sun, and the tree looks to be thriving
in the middle of a congested area in Greenwich Village.

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Finally, Here’s an image Steve Fisher took a while ago to add to the collection.*

One wonders if the City had regulated what could be constructed about the edges of the trees. Would that have a better designed fencing for the trees? Would that actually be worse, in that there IS the chance that a building owner will do well by the tree? I can’t answer; I can just see what’s there – a grab-bag of fenestration designed to prevent urinating animals away from the trees. But they’re not always the best. I look, again, at what’s outside my building. (#2) The hole left by the City’s planters hasn’t been touched by my building’s owners. Let me say it seems serviceable as compared to the grill in the Village. (#25-26)

In the end, I have to say that I’m just glad to have the tree. Especially at this time of year.

* Steve Fisher also sent this link to the regulations on such plots for trees on the books for NYC.

- My friend, Steve Fisher has taken some remarkable photos recently. We start with some falling buds.

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Fallen pink-flowering dogwood blossoms

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Falling Polynoses

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A fallen scarecrow

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A peeking pup.

And here are some textures both natural and man-made.

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Brickwork.

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Brickwork behind latticework

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A more natural texture.

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Even the air it breathes takes on a new texture.

- Mayor Bloomberg has had an all-out war going on cigarette smokers. They’re no longer able to smoke within restaurants, bars, or public parks; they also can’t congregate outside of buildings anymore. The price of a pack of cigarettes in NY is about $11 in a retail drug store like CVS, I can’t imagine smoking a pack a day without being rich. (My father used to smoke three packs a day! I’m not sure he’d be able to afford the bad habit today.)

Given the intolerance for smokers in this city and the high price of maintaining the habit, it’s a surprise that everyone hasn’t already quit smoking. But all we have to do is look downward, and we can see that there is still an abundant number of people smoking. You can’t move two feet without stepping on or over some worn out butts. (It was in Canada that I saw homeless people gathering the butts to refashion their own cigarettes from the left-over tobacco in the cigarettes they found. That’s something I’d only seen in films from the Depression era US.)

People treat the outdoors as if it’s their own personal ashtray. That was always the worst of the habit that I saw. Butts fly out car windows, get smashed on the sidewalks and curbs, onto stairwells and subway tracks. So it was an easy photo target for me to shoot the detritus of the NY smokers. Here’s the result of some casual photos shot during the week while walking home.

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Flora, fauna, butts and coffee cup caps.

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Butts seem to enjoy nestling in the pavement guides.

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Heading down the subway steps.

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Farther downstairs in the subway.

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On the subway tracks.

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Outside lobby doors . . .

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. . . or store doors

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Floating in the muddy water in the curb.

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Or looking up to a tree stained sky.

- Yesterday, in conjunction with Hans Perk‘s posting of the drafts to Cinderella on his excellent site, A Film LA, I offered some stills from the live action reference material shot for the animators. Today, I have some stills shot for publicity of the crew working on the film, with Ilene Woods posing in all the departments of the animation studio.

I recognize very few of those posing. If you have any idea who any of the artists are, please don’t hesitate to chime in on the comments section.

Here are those stills:

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Milt Kahl is bottow row, far right, next to Ken O’Connor (far right).
Ham Luske is pointing. Anyone know anyone else?

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I think that’s Clyde Geronomi with Helene Stanley.

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Helene Stanley

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Mary Blair

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(L to R) John Hench, Mary Blair, Claude Coats and Walt.

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Mary Blair with John Hench
(Thanks to Rudy Agresta for the I.D.)

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Obviously Mary Blair was key to this film.
I think that’s Ken Anderson with her.

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Song writers: Al Hoffman(left),
Mack David (center), Jerry Livingston (far right)

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Ilene Woods recording a song.
(Not really; she’s posing. The mic is over her head.)

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Ilene Woods and Ted Sears
(Thanks to Mark Mayerson for the I.D.)

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Layout artist Ken O’Connor shows off a pumpkin coach model.
(Thanks to Dan Jeup for the I.D.)

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Ilene Woods with Marc Davis

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Ilene Woods and BG painter, Art Riley (I think?)

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Ilene tries to shoot the film, but her fingers are stuck under the platen.

- Hans Perk sparked my interest. He recently began posting the drafts to Disney’s Cinderella on his resourceful and brilliant site, A Film LA. I’ve had a love/like relationship with Cinderella since I was a kid. It’s a strong film with some solid story work, some magnificent character animation as well as some workmanlike animation. The design goes from beautiful to ordinary and back again.
(I know, I’m a harsh critic.)

To play along with Hans’ posts, I thought of doing a series of mosaics à la Mark Mayerson, but I’m looking for something else. I haven’t quite figured that out yet, but I thought I’d post some photos to celebrate getting my hands on those wonderful drafts.

The first group of photographs comes from the live action reference that was done. This filmed material wasn’t shot for the purposes of rotoscoping, but it was shot to give animators some reference on how the characters might move. Then, if they requested it, the animators would get registered print-outs of the images.

I’m currently reading Didier Ghez‘ first book of interviews with Disney artists. Walt’s People: vol. 1 is just one of 11 books of interviews available. I suggest you get these; there’s so much information in them. (And they’re absolutely addicitive reading.) In vol. 1 Marc Davis talks about this reference foto material:

“Since I was involved with the animation of so many humans there was generally some live-action footage to work from or some sort of footage you looked over.”

“Someone asked me just the other day, ‘Didn’t you fellows just rotoscope everything?’ and that’s a term I dislike immensely. When you just trace over film footage, everything has a tendency to become very broad. Every woman you drew would turn out looking like this Roseanne character on television. I see quite a lot of this thing on Saturday-morning cartoons where they’ve worked from live footage and it has a very traced look about it and it looks dead. Live action shows people doing things and it’s right on the nose. However, in animation, I try to stay two or three frames ahead of everything; action, then reaction. You’re talking about 24 frames per second that are going through the projector, so it’s a minute thing that you really can’t see. It’s highly synchronized.”

“Action that is difficult to do, such as a dancer, I would want to see a performer do it and then look at the film, not trace it. This is very true with my Cruella de Vil for 101 Dalmatians. We had a wonderful actress, Mary Wickes, who did some great live action. I used her suggestions and made them more so. If you looked at the footage of Mary and then the character, you would have a difficult time seeing the resemblance. It’s suggestion you need, and that’s why I dislike the term ‘rotoscope.’”

“Live action may be used as a blueprint, as a reference, but never traced. I see some of our films now and it’s easy to spot who was doing that sort of thing.”

Here are some of those Photo references:

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Helene Stanley
Obvously these are hair references.

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Helene Stanley
She almost doesn’t look real in this photo.

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Here’s director Wilfred Jackson with Stanley.

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What they didn’t use a real mice to model for Gus and Jacques?

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Helene Stanley with stand-in Bruno.

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I can imagine that reference helped with this balancing sequence.

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I didn’t realize they were still using the 5-hole paper this late in the ’40s.

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Down to 3-hole paper.

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Eleanor Audley, the voice of the Step-mother,
also acted the part for this reference material.

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Helene Stanley also acted as “Anastasia.”
Rhoda Williams played “Drizella.”

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I’m not sure who’s directing the actress. If any out there
can identify him, please leave a comment.

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This is Ilene Woods, the voice of “Cinderella” but
Verna Felton was the voice of the Fairy Godmother;
Claire Du Brey performed the part for the reference material.

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Anyone know who the man in plaid is?

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Eleanor Audley, again.

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Trying on the shoe.

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For today’s PhotoSunday, I’m recapping something posted back in July of 2008. This is one of many I did back then in which I took some pride. I’ll have to get back to photographing my streets of NY. Now that the weather is warming up a bit, I’ve every encouragement to do so.

- There was an excellent documentary on PBS this past Thursday. It was called, “Home.” Perhaps it was just local channel 13/WNET that aired it. The show was a documentary about New York from the vantage point of outsiders who’d moved here. The director, Alan Cooke, interviewed lots of celebrity types; Frank McCourt, Liam Neeson, Alfred Molina, Rosie Perez, Mike Myers, Colin Quinn, Susan Sarandon and Woody Allen offered choice comments throughout the show.

Malachy McCourt, at one point, said that the City was cold and difficult. Even the sidewalks were cold, hard concrete. Yet in these sidewalks there were always cracks with bits of life shooting up from the least likely places.

Wall-E offers a world of no vegetation, and we have to accept that premise. Yet, reality shows us that nothing can cede the bits of green from stopping in the coldest of extreme. George Carlin once said that styrofoam was not going to destroy life on earth. It was just going to stop HUMAN life on earth. He speculated that perhaps humans were put here specifically to invent styrofoam so that the earth could continue after all humans died off using styrofoam for whatever it needed. Even the devestated Hiroshima and Nagasaki have already recovered from the nuclear onslaught some sixty years ago. Grass grows there.

Here are bits of grass, life and plants creeping out from the least likely places.

(Click any image to enlarge.)______________

To me, it’s more likely that 700 years after the humans left earth,
the planet would have looked more like the photos below.

Madison Square Park is looking gorgeous these days.

- I’ve long been a Laurel & Hardy fan. I think it’s great for animators to study this pair for their incredible timing and movement. It was kind of a surprise to receive the following material from Bill Peckmann, and it didn’t take much decision to choose to post it.

Let me allow Bill to introduce the material, himself:

Here’s something that might be a pleasant surprise to your readers who are Laurel & Hardy fans. Attached are the 8 x 10 black and white glossy stills (10 of them) from a L&H silent two reeler titled “Liberty”. It’s considered one of their best silent shorts.(I’ll vouch for that. Back in the late ’60′s we used to run it at lunchtime at work (Focus Design) and it always brought tears to everyone’s eyes who watched it. A side perk was the fact that animator Jack Schnerk, ex LA resident, was able to tell us where all of the outdoor city locations were that they used to film the L&H shorts.)

To give some background to “Liberty”, I’ve included an excerpt from Randy Skretvedt’s excellent (my all time favorite) Laurel and Hardy book “The Magic Behind the Movies”. (1987) I believe it’s still available in paperback. (Note: three names connected with the film, Leo McCarey, George Stevens and Jean Harlow.)

Because these marquis/publicity photos are printed from still camera film negatives (no dots), they have a great personal “Family Album” feel to them.

The book’s cover

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The stills are production stills and don’t come from the book.

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In escaping from jail, they mistakenly put on each others’ pants in the taxi.

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That’s a young Jean Harlow outside the taxi.

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They spend the rest of the film trying to get into their own pants.

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“BennyZ” left a comment about this still, which I’ve found on-line
and have added to the post just to complete them.
(Thanks to: www.christiankessler.de/laurelhardy.html)

- On Friday night, Heidi threw me a party for my birthday. A cool group of people attended despite the fact that it was Good Friday as well as Passover. We had a blast with good ol’ wine/cheese/beer & cake. (What a cake!) In the dark light, without using my flash, I took a few photos. My apologies to anyone whose photo appears here. Take a look.

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Robbie oversees the main room which will soon be filled with folk.
By that time the timid little cat will be well-hidden under my drawing table.

The cake was delivered just before the first guest arrived.
The cake was done by the same guys who did our wedding cake last Sept.
The delivery guy asked if I had any openings for a storyboard artist.

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The first knock at the door.

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The party is going.
Left to right: Jimmy Picker, Steven MacQuignon, Howard Beckerman.

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This time their faces.
L to R: Rich Cohen, David Levy (in back), Howard Beckerman, Jimmy Picker

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Patti Stren with Jimmy Picker’s girlfriend, Jennifer.

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John Canemaker talking with Richard O’Connor.
Will Rosenthal back against the wall.

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Ken Brown talking with Will Rosenthal over the food table.

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David Levy, Paul Carrillo (in back), Lisa Crafts, and
Richard O’Connor’s friend (whose name I never quite got).

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My love, Heidi with her good friend, Jane Stouffer

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Katrina Gregorius (a first rate animator in my studio) and her husband, Ryan.

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Steven MacQuignon and Adrian Urquidez in foreground.
Howard Beckerman and Jimmy Picker holding up the rear.

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The 180° version of #10.

John Dilworth and Emily Hubley up front with
Mike and Tim Rauch in the rear ground.

John and Emily goofing around.
The red’s in the bad photo not John’s face.

By this point all that was left was to cut the cake.

Adrian Urquidez took this final shot with his phone.
The cake went over well. Hazelnut cake with apricot preserve filling.

- 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.