Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- The weather was crystal blue clear. It was weather that you remember because of the positive way it made you feel. Today, six years later it’s raining off and on. Constant buzzing on the tearstained skylight and the sound of drips and drops around it.

I’m pleased that the dictocrats in NY, our Governor and Mayor, have decided to allow those who feel the need to celebrate their anniversary down at the actual site, rather than a park several blocks away. This was the original plan until too many protested. What’s wrong with people? Why are they so insensitive?

May I call your attention to a documentary film you should see: No End In Sight. It’s a beautifully made, thoroughly engrossing film that has remained with me for weeks. I expected something different and would like to see it again. It’s the most important film I’ve seen this year, and I’ve seen a lot of them.

A new blog hits the streets this morning. David Levy, the President of ASIFA-East and the author of Your Career in Animation: How to Survive and Thrive has started a blog called Animondays. This will be a weekly blog, an addition to the ASIFA-East website.
It’ll be good to have a refreshing new voice coming from New York, the original home of US animation. Welcome, David.

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– On her site, Miscellainey, Lainey Schallock posts some of Mary Blair‘s Cinderella art from the newly published book. The book includes new text written by Newberry Medal winner, Cynthia Rylant.

Lainey, on her post, writes an extensive and informed review of the book. She is a big fan of Mary Blair’s work, and has focused much of the blog’s attention on art of the period. Take the time to look back at some of the other, older posts if you’re not familiar with it. It’s quite a nice site.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- Cartoonist/illustrator, Ed Sorel, wrote a beautiful piece about George Herriman and Krazy Kat for American Heritage Magazine back in 1982. You can read it on-line at their website, and, if you love Krazy Kat and have five minutes it’s worth the read.

And if you’re really a Herriman fan, Alan Holtz, on his site Stripper’s Guide, has been posting Herriman’s non-Krazy Political cartoons. They were published in the LA Examiner in the early 1900′s. Every Saturday, you can sign in for another great cartoon or three. Check it out, and thank you, Alan Holtz.

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- Rachelle Bowden posts some beautifully artful photos of Wrigley Field and the Chicago Cubs baseball game on Labor Day. That’s the game where Carlos Zambrano attacked the fans verbally for booing him as he left the pitcher’s mound losing the game.

If you go to Rachelle’s site, check out the photo of her Birthday Flowers on Sept 7th. She’s a first rate photographer.

I love her annual post of the flowers she receives from her parents on her birthday. It makes for a great series; I’ve followed and enjoyed this string for years.

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- Yet again, let me point you in the direction of Hans Bacher‘s excellent site, Animation Treasures 2. This site is a must see daily for all the stunning artwork Hans is posting from the backgrounds he’s reconstructing for us.
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His recent posts of the artwork from Snow White is just glorious. Such masterful watercolors. What an excellent film. I think I’ve gone back to his site half a dozen times, just to look. As a matter of fact I hope to make time to look at the film again, today.
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- Finally, may I suggest you visit Bruce Watkinson‘s site, Understanding Animation. There he has an extensive and elaborate commentary on the life and work of disney legend, Ub Iwerks.

When I was a kid, my hero was Iwerks – (am I repeating myself?) The first short I bought to watch in my 8mm projector was Sinbad the Sailor. I studied that film frame by frame, backwards and forwards. I got the chance to talk with Grim Natwick when I learned that he probably had more to do with the film than Iwerks, himself.

I’m always excited by anything written about the man. His bio, The Hand Behind the Mouse, by John Kenworthy is one I’m pleased to own (though I wish there were another voice or two on the subject). Anything, on the subject is valuable to me. Hence, I was pleased to see and read Bruce’s piece, this morning. Check it out.

- New Yorkers seem to have given themselves over to the tennis matches being held at the US Open in nearby Flushing, Queens. For those who couldn’t get tickets, American Express has taken over Madison Square Park at 23rd Street and Park Ave and set up a faux arena to view the matches. They offer everything you want to know about the matches including a big screen TV, portable rest rooms, bleacher viewing stands, and even vendors selling high priced wine.

I took some photos yesterday afternoon. (Click any of them to enlarge.)

As you enter the park from 23rd Street, you come upon a small area wherein this large board greets you with the full schedule and all the results to date.

Here you can also buy T-shirts and goods (left) or take tennis lessons (right). Earlier in
the week they had a larger set-up where you could actually play a round or two.

As you move toward the main section of the park, you see lots of picnicking people laying about in the humid sunny weather. The big screen TV is just visible in the distance behind the steel trees.

Once you arrive at the center of the action, on the North side of the park, there are bleachers constructed for people to watch the TV screen.

The bleachers are on the right and left of the screen. Lots of other people sitting on the ground all around the TV screen.

Many people sit between the two sets of bleacher stands within what is usually a reflecting pool. It’s interesting how contained and quiet it all is.

A group of tents has been set up to sell food. Sandwiches and drinks, for the most part.
It looks upscale enough that I’d assume the prices were high.

There were about five tents of food, all of which looked similar to me. These tents were placed near some beautiful flowers in an attractive setting.

Wine and beer seemed to be the principal item for sale.

Just to the rear of the screen, things were significantly quieter.

There, 20 feet away from the action, the resident homeless crowd were having their own party. Squirrels were running everywhere feasting on their own goodies.

On the way out, I passed a number of generators that were rendering the power for the whole operation. Not much of a tennis fan, I left in time to watch the Yankees beat up on
the Kansas City Royals.

Eddie Fitzgerald had an excellent piece on his site this week about the Yiddish Theater. Most people have forgotten the theatrical heritage that came out of that form. The immigrants to America brought a theatrical treasure with them. In New York, Second Avenue housed dozens of theaters that entertained a very large audience with hundreds of plays. The shows, of course, were all performed in Yiddish. These shows were not only in Manhattan but in the outer boroughs as well.

Many performers stepped out of Yiddish Theater into stardom, but there were also many directors, writers, composers and designers that emerged as well to create the history of the mainstream theater.

My favorite set designer, Boris Aronson, a Russian immigrant, designed for the Yiddish Unser Theater in the Bronx. He took his position as an opportunity to introduce Constructivist designs to audiences. New art was entering America at the popular level, and it was accepted.

Aronson did quite a number of set pieces and costume designs before moving over to the mainstream, English-speaking theater. He became the foremost designer on Broadway designing the original productions of many shows such as Cabin In The Sky, Bus Stop, The Crucible, and Awake and Sing. His later work included Cabaret, Fiddler On The Roof, Company, Follies and Zorba.

Here are a few examples of the work he did for the Yiddish Theater.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The above three images are from Aronson’s first production. The Constructivist designs were for Ansky’s production of Day and Night (1924).

The allegorical plays of the Yiddish theater often featured Heaven and Hell. Here, Aronson designed a “a concert hall in the skies of hell.” The show was Maurice Schwartz’ production of “Angels on Earth” for the Yiddish Theater in 1929.

The show “The Bronx Express” required a subway car (pictured left) with advertising cards. A tired buttonmaker on his way home from work dreams that these ads come to life. (pictured right)

In the same show, the buttonmaker dreams of a beach resort boardwalk. Aronson keeps the ceiling of the subway car intact for this set.

- Fantasia continues. Or at least my posts of art cribbed from the Simon & Schuster 1940 book by Deems Taylor, “Fantasia.”
Though I’m not the biggest Fantasia fan, I have to admit that I like looking at these pictures on my site.

Today I’m putting up the images in the book from The Nutcracker Suite. Not all of them are inspired, but they’re all worth it for the one of the milkweeds falling among the autumn colored leaves.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

– I need not tell you that I’m a fan of the work of Errol LeCain. I have a good collection of his illustrated books.

To remind you, he’s the artist who led the design and stylization of the BG’s for Dick Williams’ Cobbler and the Thief feature. He worked at Dick’s Soho Square studio until his death. Something in his style always held me captive. I suspect this is what initially drew me to Richard Williams‘ work.

I’ve gotten my hands on this 1976 “Puffin’s Pleasure” book. It’s sort of a sampler of piece by the artists and writers who’ve done many of Puffin’s books. (Puffin is the children’s book division of Penguin Books.)

Within this book, Errol LeCain has a three page spread. The first image below covers the first page of his piece. This is all the text the article gives us.

_________(Click any image to enlarge.)
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I’ve done a number of posts featuring LeCain’s art.
You can view them here:

____The Snow Queen_______________-____Aladdin
____Growltiger_________________________Thorn Rose
____Pied Piper of Hamelin_______________12 Dancing Princesses
____Have You Seen My Sister____________Hiawatha’s Childhood

- Just for my own amusement here are a couple of setups from Dick Williams’ film,
The Cobbler and the Thief. Errol LeCain did the backgrounds.

Thanks to Garrett Gilchrist for these images.______

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If you haven’t seen Jaime Weinman‘s article on Ed Benedict (actually Amid Amidi’s Animation Blast article with some stills added), check it out.

– We all know that Snow White was the first Hollywood animated feature. Many of us also know that Lotte Reiniger directed the very first animated feature in 1926, Prince Achmed. (This film is occasionally shown on TCM, though it’s not scheduled within the next 3 months.)

Some others of us may also know that Alexander Ptushko directed the first animated puppet feature, The New Gulliver in Russia.

This 68 min. film is discussed in that history of Russian puppet animation book, My Puppet Friends, which I described and featured last week. It’s a film which isn’t very well known in the West, although its title has been a part of my liturgy of animation history since I was a child. Only once in my memory, can I recollect a public screening in NY, and I wasn’t able to attend it. Presumably, with dvd it’s going to be available soon – if not already.

By all accounts, this must be a somewhat difficult film to sit through. Even this book, My Puppet Friends, tells how they chose to change the Jonathan Swift story since, obviously, no one could relate to his political critique of the capitalist 18th Century England under King George III.

Per all commentaries I’ve read, the Russian film makers chose, instead, to make it a polemic espousing the Marxist beliefs of their day. Since this poiint seems to show up in every criticism of the film, one can only assume they wield a heavy hand in their interpretation.

There is also, often, strong criticism of the puppetry in the film comparing it unfavorably to the work of Ladislas Starevich. That’s understandable given the amazing talents of that artist, who was working in France at the time of this film’s production, 1935.

The New Gulliver was actually a combination of live action and puppet animation. Peter, a young boy, falls asleep and awakens to find himself bound to the ground by all his dolls. Thus he is thrown into a variation of Swift’s story.

Here are the rest of the illustrations for The New Gulliver which are included in this 1971 book, My Puppet Friends.

________(click any image to enlarge.)

If anyone knows how to get a copy of this film, I’d appreciate hearing about it.

Hubley’s street scene from the film, Dig

- The website Ironic Sans has a great series going entitled Animated Manhattan. They’re commenting on all the animated films that use Manhattan as a backdrop. They’ve gone through many films from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Fritz the Cat from Sundae In New York to the animated titles for Conan O’Brien.

Images from Hubley’s short film, The Hole

Off the top of my head I can think of another half dozen films they could analyze, so I assume this series will continue for a while, and I’m glad about that. It’s a good idea.
Thanks to Animated News for pointing the way.

Gregorio Prestopino’s Harlem from Hubley’s short film, Harlem Wednesday

– Since I presented some photos of Yurij Norstein yesterday, I thought today I’d call attention to several pieces about him on line.

His short film adapted from a haiku by the Japanese poet Bashō is on YouTube. This was a project done for an compilation animation feature. Go here to view it if you haven’t. Actually, you should see it again if you have seen it.

In the withering gusts,
a wanderer …
How much like Chikusai I have become!

Then take some time to read the excellent interview with Norstein about this film.

Follow this by watching a short commercial Norstein directed/animated.

Of course, if you really want to do justice to this great artist, you should view (not on YouTube but on DVD) Tale of Tales. And watch it a couple of times to really get the brilliance. This DVD also includes all of his other films (which are equally brilliant.)

The Norstein DVD also includes a 15 minute documentary about his work and his work methods. This has been placed on YouTube in two parts. It includes several shots of him working on his multiplane camera set-up.
Here’s part 1
and part 2

There’s also a wonderful book by Clare Kitson, Yuri Norstein And Tale of Tales: An Animator’s Journey. It’s an inspired and inspirational book. Especially if you know the film.

I highly recommend it.

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– Back in 1985, master Russian director, Feodor Khitruk, escorted the brilliant animator/director, Yurij Norstein, on a trip to New York.
My friend, Charles Samu, who was playing host to them on the trip, asked if I’d like them to visit my studio. I suggested a breakfast meeting so that I could call in a couple of additional people who would like to attend. Specifically, I was thinking of Tissa David who was an enormous fan of Norstein’s film, Tale of Tales.

I must admit I was over the top since Norstein was nothing short of a hero to me. His film had completely changed my thoughts on animation and its importance in the world. I find his film the answer to anyone who questions whether animation can live up to what live action can do. The answer now is, YES. (Of course, I haven’t seen anything remotely comparable to this 1978 film since seeing it – despite the invention of the computer.)

In short, I think it’s a GREAT film of the highest order.

So they came, and here are some photos of the meeting.

My studio, at the time, was on 38th Street off Fifth Avenue. This is facing a windowed
wall we had that looked out onto the rear of the building. (You could see the Empire State Building from there.) The studio also had a large skylight overhead. Liz Seidman works to the Left and Greg Perler, my editor, works to the Right (far in front of Liz.)

Norstein (L) and Khitruk (R) arrived on time with Charles (taking the picture.)

We set a table full of lots of food, but I don’t think any of us were interested in eating.
L to R:Norstein, Khitruk, Tissa David, Greg Perler (standing in the back, editing), Lisa Crafts, me, Bridget Thorne (hands visible). Charles Samu sat opposite Lisa and took the pictures. Others were there but didn’t make Charles’ camera lens.

I had plenty of questions about Norstein’s style and production methods. He tried to respond, and Khitruk acted as the interpreter and had to draw his answer at one point.

I followed up by drawing my next question.

There was quite a conversation despite the fact that we were speaking two languages.
(And I don’t remember a word of what was said.)

Khitruk packs up as they prepare to leave.

Norstein and I exchanged little souvenirs of the meeting.

Tissa and I posed for a picture before the break up.

After everybody left, we got back to work. Bridget Thorne had to run an errand and
Liz Seidman & Mary Thorne went back to work on Lyle Lyle Crocodile.

I had an in-house meeting with Mark Sottnick (above), one of the producers of Santa Bear, which was also in production.