Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

If any animation event had me wishing I were in London, this is it. I am as much of a fan of Antonia Byatt’s writing as I am a fan of Yuri Norstein’s animation. The following press release was sent to me regarding an event on Jan. 19th:

CURZON SOHO THUR 19 JAN 6.00PM

TALE OF TALES: An animated journey discussed by
AS BYATT and CLARE KITSON

Tickets £5 / £4 concessions

Yuri Norstein should not need discovering. In the animation world he is a legend, and his film TALE OF TALES has twice been voted the best animated film of all time. Yet he remains little-known among the wider public.

In discovering Norstein you can forget Disney, and forget the longueur found in East-European animation of past decades. This visionary filmmaker’s unique oeuvre ranges from children’s films (which are equally enchanting to adults) to his enigmatic masterpiece, TALE OF TALES. His admirers include Johnny Vaughan (who once, on Channel 4, nominated Norstein’s HEDGEHOG IN THE FOG as his all-time favourite animated film), Michel Gondry (who conceived one of his Björk videos as a tribute to that same film) and Booker-winning novelist AS Byatt, who recently wrote an in-depth analysis of TALE OF TALES in The Guardian.

In celebration of the new book Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales: An Animator’s Journey by Clare Kitson, Curzon Cinemas presents Norstein’s legendary TALE OF TALES followed by a discussion with Clare Kitson and AS Byatt, hosted by Gareth Evans (editor of Vertigo Magazine and Time Out film critic).

TALE OF TALES is a strange, poetic, wistful amalgam of Norstein’s childhood memories (he grew up in a USSR ravaged by WW2), fears for the present (it was made in the late ‘70s, the time of ‘stagnation’ under Brezhnev) and hopes for the future.

The total duration of the screening plus discussion is 60mins. Clare Kitson’s book, by John Libbey Publishing, will be on sale after the screening.

With thanks to AS Byatt, Clare Kitson, Dick Arnall and Gareth Evans.

For more information about Curzon Cinemas, or to get logos and pictures sent to you contact Shelley McCarten 020 7292 1692

Curzon Soho 99 Shaftesbury Avenue London W1
www.curzoncinemas.com Box Office 020 7734 2255

A reminder for those in the area that tomorrow evening at the Museum of Modern Art there will be a program of films by Emily Hubley .

The program includes some new pieces, such as: Bubble Boy (a work in-progress directed by Barak Goodman and John Maggio); and some old pieces, such as: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001, directed by John Cameron Mitchell), Her Grandmother’s Gift (1995, cowritten by Emily and Faith Hubley), and The Tower (1984, codirected by Georgia Hubley).
It also includes a live performance by Tactics of Desire (2005), with animation by Emily Hubley and music by Sue Garner is performed by Angel Dean, Sue Garner, Ted Reichman, and Megan Reilly.
Program 90 min. Wednesday, January 4, 8:00.
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Also concluding today and tomorrow is the tribute to Musicals at Lincoln Center programmed by Greg Ford. This includes:

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Trey Parker
The uproariously funny animated musical.
Tue Jan 3: 1:30

Independently Musical
An entertaining and impressive grouping of musicals by Independent animators.
Tue Jan 3: 9

More Warners Cartoon Musicals: Looney Esoterica and Merrie Marginalia
The third and final package of twelve music-skewed WB animated shorts
Wed Jan 4: 2:45

George Pal’s Tunes For “Puppetoons”
Animated puppet musicals from this original artist.
Wed Jan 4: 1

I took some delight in looking at animation sites and how they treated the Christmas and New Year holidays graphically.
(The image to the left is a setup from an adaptation we’re doing of Rosemary Wells’ book, “Read To Your Bunny”.)
I recommend you take a quick look at the other sites and their holiday decorations:

My favorite postings came on Tom Sito’s G7 Blog. Two photos worth looking into, but scroll down to Dec. 31 and Dec. 26.
Cartoon Brew posted the same image that Amid Amidi had unveiled on his Cartoon Modern site, an illustration Tom Oreb did for a card to his mother and sister. A beautiful image.

Michael Barrier did both a Christmas and a New Year posting. Christmas was represented by the cover of a 1974 Christmas card from Walt Dsney Productions. A beautiful cover from a Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies comic book ushered in the New Year for 1944 and 2006.

Animation Magazine has a still compiling a number of animated characters from the Grinch and Bart to Adam Sandler and Charlie Brown, all under the banner: Happy Holidays.

Animated News is decorated with wrapped gifts and bows.

Golden Age Cartoons greeted us with this New Year’s greeting: Happy New Year to all of my friends at GAC….And only four more weeks to go, until ‘The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection’ is released” and a picture of a tuxedoed Popeye drinking punch.

Harry McCracken on his site has a charming Scrappy drawing wis hing us “Scrappy Holidays!” It’s a bit odd that Betty Boop has also made it into the picture.

Koji Yamamura’s homepage has a beautiful little christmas drawing he made. This is one of my favorite sites. It exhibits a large number of little flash animation pieces as well as plenty of drawings by and information about Mr. Yamamura’s excellent and original work. I’m sorry that The Old Crocodile (still right) didn’t make it to the Oscar short list this year.

Happy New Year. 2006

For my New Year posting, I give you a still from the rough animatic we’ve been putting together of our feature, POE. This drawing is from the section which Tissa David is constructing, the biographical sections of Edgar Allan Poe’s life. Here he has a conversation with an Orangutan, thought to be the missing link in 1835. This is just prior to his writing his famous short story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

“The Ourang-Outang must have escaped from the chamber.”

Later in the week, we hope to put up a POE Page on our website, giving a glimpse into the artwork we’re preparing for this project.