Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- There was a good screening Tuesday night at the Kodak theater midtown, and a great overspilling audience. A number of Independent animators got to display their wares on 35mm.
. Seeing Chris Wedge’s Bunny next to Alex Weil’s One Rat Short next to Jimmy Picker’s Jimmy the C was quite interesting. Nina Paley offered another Sita tale and Patrick Smith Puppet.
. I hadn’t seen The Dentist from Signe Bauman who did a fine job of hosting the program. Bill Plympton not only screened Guide Dog but unveiled a rough cut of his latest short, Shut Eye Hotel. Kodak offered drinks and hor d’oeurves afterward and allowed us to comingle for a bit.
. Thanks to all those with kind words for my short The Man Who Walked Between The Towers.

When you work in animation, you’re doomed to be graced with Disneyana-gifts through your life. When you’re a puppet fanatic, you’re doubly doomed.

The wonderful part of it all is that as time goes on the Disneyana gets better every year so that you not only don’t mind the infrequent Mickey dolls, but you actually want them.

Thus these two dolls were among my Christmas gifts/treasures.
I particularly like the Steamboat Willie doll. It’s my favorite Mickey, and it’s a good likeness and it looks great among the other gimcracks on my shelves.

– If you’d like to hear the children’s record of Ted Geisel’s Gerald McBoing Boing you can get the MP3 here.
It’s read by The Great Gildersleeve with music by the great Billy May.

The Great Gildersleeve was originally a radio show; a very successful radio show that moved to television in the 50′s. The original Gildersleeve was Harold Peary, but he was replaced in 1950 by Willard Waterman. Peary did some bits in WB cartoons as Gildersleeve.

After listening to the record, you get to realize how good the tracks were on some of those UPA shorts.

Luc Besson appeared on NPR Jan 9th to talk about his film, Arthur and the Invisibles. Besson is the fourth live-action director to have an animated feature this past year. George Miller directed Happy Feet, Steve Oedekerk directed Barnyard and Christopher Reeve was credited as directing Everyone’s Hero. Does anyone remember how many live-action directors worked in animation prior to the development of MoCap ?
Maybe Peter Jackson would have the answer.

If you want to hear the Luc Besson interview, click here.

Thanks to Mark Mayerson for the info on the death of Steve Krantz. He was the producer of the Fritz the Cat directed by Bakshi and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat directed by Bob Taylor. He also produced Bakshi’s greatest critical success, Heavy Traffic. Krantz was married to the novelist, Judith Krantz, and had produced a number of television shows after separating from animation. The Variety obit.

Carlo Ponti and Yvonne de Carlo have also died. Jaime Weinman has an excellent commentary on Yvonne de Carlo and here.

- For all the Fantasia historians out there, I’m posting the Disney Bulletin special edition for the initial release of the film.

The Bulletin, of course, was the in-house news organ for the studio. They give you entertaining information such as the weather that greeted the opening of Fantasia in New York City. (Scattered rains stopped just prior to the first screening and clear skies were predicted for the entire first week.)

You also get an answer to the question, “What’s a Fishinger?” on pg 2.

Then, there’s the grid iron picks of cameraman, Dick Blundell.

There’s a lot of amusement in here and a lot of information. We can’t really understand the history of animation without understanding the times the people were living through.
That’s the most pertinent part of the publication.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The inimitable Hans Perk has posted on his site three homework assignments from the Layout Training Courses given at the Disney Studios during the Thirties. Hans links to the full lectures/courses he and I put up on our sites and suggests it’s valuable to actually do the assignments prior to reading the courses. And he’s right. I did these years ago, on my own, when I worked at the Hubley Studio and found my own understanding of Layout acutely altered by the lessons. (It was during this period that John Hubley actually was surprised by something I did on Everybody Rides The Carousel – something right out of the course – and he complimented me. A rarity for John.)

Thanks, Hans, for keeping these lessons alive. His site has become a vital part of my daily blog reading.

We’re only ten days into the New Year, and already three members of the animation community have died.

It’s getting difficult to look at the inestimably valuable Cartoon Brew for the bad news.

- As a follow up, I suggest everyone read Tom Sito‘s beautifully written obituary for Iwao Takamoto on his site yesterday.
- The NY Times posted their obituary for the artist today .

- I’m a fan of Terrytoon cartoons. Yes, it’s a guilty pleasure. I don’t like them just for the Jim Tyer animation – but, of course, I do love the Jim Tyer animation.

I recognize how poor they are, compared to the other films being produced at the time (but they’re arguably better than most animation being produced today.) But there’s something about that Phil Schieb music that gets me. Or to hear some of those sound effects; the ploppy splashes of water on the sound effects brings it all back.

What a pleasure, then, to see the recent posts on the Hollywood Animation Archive Blog. There are the model sheets posted now. They’re attached to an appreciation of the film, The Tempermental Lion, which is also posted.

(Click either image to enlarge.)

The same site features the Nat Falk book, How To Make Animated Cartoons post #1 and post #2. This is a Terry-centric book written in 1941 with a foreward by Paul Terry.

I have another Nat Falk book in my collection which is, unfortunately, currently in storage. Eventually, I’ll post it when I can get it out.
In the meantime, posted are a Mighty Mouse and a Tom Terrific model sheet, neither of which appeared on their site.

There was a time in my childhood when I was addicted to Mighty Mouse. I drew the character everywhere, all the time. All of my schoolbooks became flipbooks of Mighty Mouse. It was obsessive for a while – though I don’t think anyone noticed but me.

The NYTimes, today, has an article about James Cameron‘s next film. It’s expensive, of course, and will use cgi characters as no one has done in the past. Apparently, MoCap actors will be combined with real actors, and it seems they’ll be shot at the same time.

“For its aliens, “Avatar” will present characters designed on the computer, but played by human actors. Their bodies will be filmed using the latest evolution of motion-capture technology — markers placed on the actor and tracked by a camera — while the facial expressions will be tracked by tiny cameras on headsets that will record their performances to insert them into a virtual world.”

“The most important innovation thus far has been a camera, designed by Mr. Cameron and his computer experts, that allows the director to observe the performances of the actors-as-aliens, in the film’s virtual environment, as it happens.”

Now MoCap will not only replace animators but live actors as well. Good luck.

The NYTimes today also has a review by Dave Kehr of the 4 additions to the Disney Treasures series of DVD’s. All praise Leonard Maltin.

“The Complete Pluto, Volume Two” takes Mickey’s oddly disadvantaged animal companion (why is Pluto the only resident of Disneyland who isn’t able to speak?) from 1947 to 1951, and represents Disney product at its least distinguished, most industrial level.

Far more intriguing are “Your Host, Walt Disney” — five episodes from Disney’s weekly television show, all with Uncle Walt — and, supremely, “More Silly Symphonies, Volume Two,” a gathering of work from 1929 to 1938, most of it very seldom seen.

The NYTimes on Saturday had an interesting article by A.O. Scott about how the moviegoing experience is affecting children. He compares the age groups:
whereas older viewers prefer theater going, younger people accept film in any form – from ipod to imax. They’re going without an obvious preference. This, Scott feels, is affecting the attitude these children are bringing to the future of exhibition, and he’s taking active steps to educate his kids in seeing older films in theaters.

I, personally, feel that there’s a larger, more subjective problem, and I’m sure I wrote about it before (and will do again.) No room is being left to the imagination – for children or adults – on most of the films being made today. Every minor plot point is being detailed to the fullest. Nothing is left to audiences to get for themselves. Meticulous detail is often repeated endlessly to make sure we get it. In doing this, all the grace and wonder is taken out of most films, and children are being taught to not think for themselves.

On the simplest level, last year’s film Barnyard had those udders on the males because it was afraid that children wouldn’t understand that they were still “cows.” I have no doubt that the director wasn’t expecting people to laugh at this, he just didn’t trust his audience to understand that a “bull” is also a “cow”. (Surely, Chuck Jones used this very notion – the difference between a bull and a cow – for a few jokes along the way.)

I think this simplification and overt dumbing down applies to most of last year’s animated features. Yet, there have been a few good ones in the recent past.

Miyazaki, of course, is a genius. He empowers you to develop the characters and the story along with him. The use of spirituality gives the films a depth lacking in most other films. (I’m not just talking animation here.) Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke take two very different paths, yet both instill a dignity in the characters and the society in which they live.

It’s really what separated The Incredibles and Iron Giant from the rest of the pack, and we can only hope Brad Bird will do the same on Ratatouille. It’s what made Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit fine.

Just the backgrounds for The Triplettes de Belleville allowed us to roam through the inner lives of the characters. The soundtrack, the lack of endless dialogue, the entire presentation was the plus for that film.

Eastman Kodak is hosting a selection of animated shorts – all projected in 35mm – on Tuesday, January 9, 2007 from 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm.

The films include:
Bunny – Chris Wedge
The Dentist – Signe Bauman
Guide Dog - Bill Plympton
Jimmy The “C” – Jimmy Picker
The Man Who Walked Between The Towers – Michael Sporn
One Rat Short – Alex Wail (Charlex)
Puppet – Pat Smith
Sita - Nina Paley

Oscar winners, contenders, and some on this year’s shortlist. It’ll be a good screeing with all filmmakers in attendance to answer questions.
Of course I’m promoting my picture.
Eastman Kodak Company
360 W. 31st Street (between 8th & 9th)
Use 9th Avenue Elevators
RSVP: By calling 1.800.863.5787

It’s suggested you RSVP ASAP since the seats are limited. There will also be refreshments.

I took down most of the Christmas decorations. It’s the time I always realize how great it is to be an animator; you get all these nice and original cards. Rather than just put them all in an envelope to save them, I thought I’d post these three. I received so many great ones, but I don’t want to be boringly excessive. Thanks to all who took the time.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

All this Christmas card stuff gets to be hard work. I like sending them out late so that the cards come closer to Christmas, but it ends up taking three or four days to send them out, and it becomes a mad rush. I always swear to do something special – starting to think about it earlier, but it always ends up rushed.

I do love seeing and receiving some of the excellent ones out there. There once were more original and unique cards, but with Photoshop more are printed up quickly. That’s my method, and that’s also my problem. I used to copy out the lines and color the cards individually. I’m getting older and lazier. Maybe next year.

At any rate, the point is to say “Hi” and touch base wishing each other good tidings.
I do like it.

Charles Solomon has an entertaining article in today’s NYTimes about animation’s confusion with MoCap and rotoscope. It interviews, briefly, a number of popular professionals such as Brad Bird, John Canemaker and John Lasseter.

Yesterday, the Producer’s Guild of America named these films as the nominees for their Producer’s Guild Award as Best Produced Animated Feature:
CARS, FLUSHED AWAY, HAPPY FEET, ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN, MONSTER HOUSE.

Nominees for Best Produced Films include:
BABEL, THE DEPARTED, DREAMGIRLS, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, THE QUEEN.

There’s a good chance that these will be the Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature and Best Film of the year, respectively.

Today, in New York, we have the short list screening of Live Action shorts to select the nominees for this category. This is one of my favorite events of the year. Generally, I find a lot of the Live Action shorts more creative than the animated shorts, and this screening always gets me excited.

There is no screening in New York of the shortlisted animated shorts. We saw all the original qualified entries and helped pick the list of those on the current list. To allow us to do that, the Academy made a deal, so that they wouldn’t send the films a second time to NY, wherein only those at the original screening are eligible to vote for the nominees.

It’s not ideal, and I wish they would spend the money to give us a second look. But such is the way it is.

As reported on Cartoon Brew, the shortlisted animated short films are:

The Danish Poet by Torill Kove (NFB)
Everything Will Be OK by Don Hertzfeldt
Family Ties: Dreams & Desires by Joanna Quinn
Guide Dog by Bill Plympton
Lifted by Gary Rydstrom (Pixar)
Little Match Girl by Roger Allers (Disney)
Maestro directed by Géza M Toth
No Time for Nuts directed by Chris Renaud & Mike Thurmeier (Blue Sky)
Tragic Story with Happy Ending by Regina Pessoa
One Rat Short by Alex Weil

Congrats to Bill Plympton, Chris Renaud & Mike Thurmeier the New Yorkers on the list.

For those of you who live in New York and want to know about a trio of great live action shorts look to the Film Forum up till Tuesday, January 9th.

Ellen Bruno is an Independent filmmaker living in San Francisco who makes extraordinarily powerful and difficult films.

The subjects are difficult but the films have a poetry and a wisdom beyond the screen. SACRIFICE examines the selling of Burmese girls (some as young as 12) into prostitution in Thailand; LEPER travels to Nepal to meet a society of lepers in a remote village; SKY BURIAL records a Tibetan monastery ritual in which corpses are consumed by huge vultures, allowing spirits of the deceased merge with the sky.

There’s an on-line interview with Ellen here.

I met Ellen years ago at the Heartland Film Festival where SACRIFICE was being presented, and I spent the rest of the festival’s week with her after seeing how great a film she’d made. One always hopes a bit of the brilliance will rub off.

– Animation Magazine has an article and interview about the animation in the new film, Miss Potter. I enjoyed the film particularly the acting of Renee Zellweger and Emily Watson. There wasn’t a lot of animation, perhaps a minute or two done in snippets.

The animation was done at Passion Pictures by Alyson Hamilton. (Ms Hamilton also acts as Renee Zellweger’s hand double in the film.)

I thought the 2D animation captured the look of the Beatrix Potter drawings (though it was obviously colored digitally) but lacked in the actual movement. The animation, for my taste, was just too cute and exaggerated, Jemima Puddleduck in particular. As another animator at the screening suggested, Miss Potter might not have approved.

However, it’s nice to see the credits for the animation given at Animation Magazine. They weren’t elaborate on the film giving only a couple of overall credits.

There was once an article in Animation Magazine about this film to star Cate Blanchett with CG versions of the Beatrix Potter characters. We can only thank heaven better taste survived.

As Mark Mayerson points out, there’s little promotion built around animation; this film is a prime example. We have to search it out and celebrate it.

FPS has 6 views of the Year In Review for animated features. These commentaries are worth a read. I especially liked those of Bob Miller and Emru Townsend. A positive look-back to 2006.

My friend, Jason McDonald and his wife Dina Mermelstein had a baby boy on Jan. 3rd. Hugo McDonald. Jason has worked on many projects with us over many years. All the best wishes go out to all three of them.

As a result Jason will take a break from doing his weekly on-line comic strip, My Living Dead Girl. Jason also has a blog for the strip.

(Click on all images to enlarge.)

- After all the to-do about the dancing in Happy Feet **, I spent some time thinking about dance sequences in animated films. There are so many in 2D films that are so brilliantly done, it’s hard to pick a favorite. From Snow White to Sleeping Beauty, from Pinocchio to The Yellow Submarine, there have been memorable and brilliant dance sequences.

However, in cg films it’s hard to think of one. I’m not including Happy Feet with its Motion Capture method; I’m trying to think of films done using keyframe.

For the most part, Pixar has treated their song numbers as background music, and the characters don’t react to the music.

The nearest to a dance number I could think of was the closing credit sequence in Chicken Little. The principal characters dance and lip-sync to rock numbers. A lot of cuts are built into it, so the scenes aren’t long. However, it’s modern and smooth and obviously choreographed.

Are there other cgi dances that I don’t remember? I don’t mean the small moves to dance. Shrek, if I remember correctly, has a small dance but it’s not what I’m talking about. I’m looking for a sequence. If anyone out there can point to others, please let me know.

** re Happy Feet see:
- Mike Barrier‘s review
or
- Mark Mayerson‘s and/or - Keith Lango‘s reaction to the NYTimes article about Savion Glover‘s MoCap dance numbers.

or even
- my own recent posts.

The unfortunate part is that Happy Feet isn’t worth the brouhaha. I was entertained; I didn’t think it was great but had fun. Obviously, there are many out there who didn’t like it at all, but that’s irrelevant to my experience. (Maybe watching it on dvd was something that helped my enjoyment level.)

It wasn’t loud screaming noise like Monster House (which had a good performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal) or Barnyard with the udder problems and the loud screaming everything. Most of the animated films came at you gangbusters and had nothing to say. Cars was beautifully animated and thought out all the moves, but the violently loud soundtrack alone would keep me from watching it again. The story like all animated stories these days was trite and cliched. Happy Feet had the same story problems, but at least it had a responsible message (which none of the other family films offered). It was better than I expected – maybe that’s the problem.

I don’t expect much from animated films these days. I’m rarely disappointed.

The Jim Hill media story on Pixar and specifically about Ratatouille is interesting. I suggest you read it.
Several things weren’t mentioned in the story about marketing Cars and Ratatouille:

. the title is confusing to most of the young audiences who would be targeted to see the film (especially if they have to spell it.)
. Cars did well in the US; it was the foreign recoupment that destroyed that film and ultimately brought it lower grosses than Ice Age 2: the Meltdown.
. The projection that Cars would do well since there are 75 million NASCAR viewers, doesn’t jive with history. People don’t go to racing movies. Anyone hear of Le Mans, Winning, or Grand Prix? Even The Dukes of Hazzard didn’t do very well.

For some reason, the Disney business card on Didier Ghez‘ site really started my New Year off on a good foot. Take a look.

Lisl Weil was a book illustrator/author who pro-duced over 100 children’s books since the 1950′s. She also wrote at least half of them.

She’s had a modest contact with film. In 1962, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice captured her performance at Lincoln Center, drawing larger-than-life characters in different colored chalks while aggressively dancing to the Dukas score. Weston Woods distributed it.

Her art, to me, seems right out of the UPA mode, although the line is definitely looser. The books I’ve seen are a bit restricted in colors. That’s undoubtedly caused by the expense of the 4 color process, and publishers sought art with fewer colors. (I’m fascinated with all the illustrators pre-80′s who worked with a two or three color system.)

I’ve seen a number of her books which adapt lesser known operatic works.
The Golden Spinning Wheel, published in 1969, takes one of Dvorak’s five musical poems and illustrates it. I enjoy how she incorporates the musical ligature into the illustrations.

Here are a few of the double page spreads from that book. It’s about a third of the book. I wanted to share a sample.

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(Click on any image to enlarge.)

Last night, Charlie Rose aired an appreciation of a number of his past guests who had died in 2006. R.W. Apple, Stanley Kunitz, Milton Friedman and others were given a short clip of about a minute each from past shows. It made for a sad but interesting hour.

Prescott Wright died last Thursday. I had hoped to post something a bit sooner but decided to wait for the tribute written by Karl Cohen of ASIFA-SF sent to me Sunday:

PRESCOTT WRIGHT, THE PRODUCER OF THE TOURNEE OF ANIMATION FOR MANY YEARS, A FOUNDER OF THE OTTAWA INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL AND ASIFA-SF AND A GREAT FRIEND OF ANIMATION, PASSED AWAY ON DECEMBER 28. Prescott had been in slow decline for several years with Picks Disease, a form of dementia related to Alzheimer’s. He was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico and was 71.

Prescott was raised in the Bronx, was stationed in the Army at Ft. Ord and went to Monterey Community College. In the mid-1960s he moved to San Francisco where he worked at Brandon Films and then moved to Los Angeles to study film at the American Film Institute. He returned to San Francisco about 1970 to work on a graduate degree in film at San Francisco State University (MA 1975). While at State he was asked to be a teaching assistant and then a part-time instructor. He also worked again at Audio-Brandon and was running Filmwright, his own small film distribution company as a part-time business.

While working with Brandon Films, a major film distributor of American and foreign features and shorts; he developed a keen interest in animation from around the world. In the late 1960s several of his friends with ASIFA-Hollywood (Bill Scott, Bill Littlejohn, Les Goldman and June Foray) decided to put together an international animation program to be shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It was almost impossible to see quality animation in the US at that time. Pres was active with the group and having worked previously in film distribution, he was asked to head the project when they decided to show the program in other places (ca. 1969). Under his guidance the program became known as the International Tournee of Animation and he began to book the program at the San Francisco Museum of Art and other cultural institutions around this country. He continued to organize and distribute the annual celebration until Expanded Cinema purchased rights to the program in the late 1980s.

For many years Prescott was on ASIFA’s International Board of Directors (ASIFA is the international animation association with over 30 chapters around the world.). Until the Iron Curtain fell ASIFA helped bridge the gap between East and West by helping animators from Eastern Europe attend festivals in the West, to visit studios in the Europe and North America and to show their films in-person. Pres, David Ehrlich, Howard Beckerman, Charles Samu, John Halas, John Hubley and others worked hard to further international relations and to arrange for these screenings in cities with ASIFA chapters. He was also a founder of ASIFA-San Francisco chapter, a very active and creative group.

Prescott also served as an advisor to major animation festivals around the world. He was a founder and the first International Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival (1976) and also served in that capacity in ’78, ’80, ’82, and in 1992. In 2004 the Ottawa festival made him an honorary president of the festival, but he was unable to attend the event. He also served a year as director of the Denver International Film Festival (1981/82), helped start a festival at Foothill College and was involved with several other cultural events.

In the 1990s he worked for a year for Disney as a spotter and recruiter of animation talent. After that he worked in both the Philippines and Southern India as an instructor and festival director for emerging animation studios.

In the 1970s Gary Meyer who ran the U.C. Theater in Berkeley and became a co-founder Landmark Theatres, convinced Prescott to expand his distribution of the Tournee of Animation to theaters. Gary says, “We needed interesting new programming and approached Prescott about showing the Tournee in theaters. He had only screened at colleges and museums. He took the leap with us and the result was a greatly expanded audience for animated shorts. At a certain point he got burned out. Assembling a feature length package, distributing it and keeping a couple dozen filmmakers happy is an overwhelming task. We agreed to buy the Tournee with the understanding that Prescott would continue to provide guidance as we moved forward. And what a mentor he was!”

Author and animation historian Jerry Beck writes, “I met Prescott shortly after I moved to L.A. in 1986, when I came to work with Terry Thoren to distribute the Tournee for Expanded Entertainment. Prescott was always friendly, knowledgeable and eager to help us communicate with filmmakers and theatre owners across the country and around the world. Prescott was a pioneer – in those pre-cable, pre-Internet days – in getting independent and international animation showcased and making those films accessible to those unable to attend festivals in far off lands. Without Wright’s vision, the Ottawa festival would not be what it is; successor-touring programs like Spike and Mike and The Animation Show would not be and ASIFA-SF would not be the strong chapter it is.”

Prescott ‘s daughter Maureen Wright, her family, and his brother Roger Wright from Florida and a few friends will have a small ceremony in his honor in Santa Fe, New Mexico in the first week of January. His ashes will be buried with full military honors at the Santa Fe National Cemetery (date to be confirmed). The Aspen Funeral Alternatives in Albuquerque is handling the arrangements (505-323-9000).

ASIFA-San Francisco will dedicate some time at their Friday, Jan. 5 ASIFA 12th Night Party to honor his memory and invites those of who knew him or were inspired by his programs to send their newsletter a memory of him to share with others for the February newsletter and on their website. karlcohen@earthlink.net

(All images enlarge by clicking.).
Images above are:
1. A caricature of Prescott Wright by Zagreb’s own Borivoj Dovnikovi.
2. Prescott in 1971.
3. Prescott in Ottawa 1978.