Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Here I continue posting the fine illustrations by Bill Peet for his book, Capyboppy. I’ve chosen not to put Mr. Peet’s writing in the post, feeling it isn’t quite ethical, so have condensed the story so that the illustrations make sense. I would urge you all to buy a copy of this book for the writing alone.

The book’s about 60 pages in length, so it’ll take a couple of more posts to share the artwork. It’s a gem.

Our new South American visitor couldn’t have been happier in the yard with the swimming pool and the meatly trimmed lawn. At first he enjoyed himself swimming gracefully in the pool, but then it became obvious he needed a playmate.

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The family worked during the week, but on weekends there were plenty of visitors to keep Capy occupied. He swam when everyone swam and rested when they did, tweeting his tweets as if to join in on the conversation.

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In the evenings, he joined the family in the family room watching television and sleeping in Margaret’s lap while the cats watched on jealously and miserably. At the end of the evening it was Bill’s job to take Capy out to the garage (kicking and squealing all the way) where he had his bed. He was getting spoiled.

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His day would begin with a warm shower, after which Margaret dried him with a fluffed towel. After this he ate a nice breakfast of barley and oats.

His favorite food was graham crackers, and some days Margaret would scratch his back with the back-scratcher until every one of his hairs stood on end.

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There were times we’d leave him in the yard too long until he started Tweeting madly to get us to let him in. One day he came inside the studio while I was drawing and I watched him nose about all the books, magazines and art materials. He ate a grease pencil.

I didn’t mind losing a grease pencil, but he started eyeing some drawings on the wall. I couldn’t lose a month’s work if he ate them, so I pushed him out to the stairwell and rudely shut the door behind him.

I would check on him from time to time to make sure he was safely within the yard. We had a notice on the gate to make sure it was kept closed. But one day, I saw that the gate had been left open and Capy had escaped.

Margaret and I ran out searching for him calling out “Capyboppy! Capyboppy!” No Tweeting response, so we ran to the car to slowly drive about the neighborhood in search of him. Immediately, after we pulled out of the driveway, Margaret shouted, “There he is! There’s Capy!”

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for scanning and sharing this art with me for the blog.

Now that I’m posting some of the illustrations from Bill Peet’s book, Capyboppy, I thought it might be a good time to recap his storyboard for the wizard’s duel in Sword and the Stone. It’s not bad to compare his storyboard drawings with his children’s book illustrations.

– Here is a preliminary storyboard done by Bill Peet of the Wizard’s Duel from Disney’s Sword In The Stone. It’s another gem on loan from John Canemaker, and is a companion to the piece I posted last Friday by Peet. The oddity of this board is that it’s dated April 1949. (The numbers at the bottom of the board clearly read “449.”) I didn’t have any clue that this film was in development that early. The book was published in 1938, so it’s quite feasible.

If that date is accurate, it’s amazing how close the characters stay to their final models. This could easily be explained with the heightened use of xerography in animation after 1958. Post 101 Dalmatians, this loose style was easy to translate into animation, and Ken Andersen was easily able to adapt to this style by Bill Peet that all of the animators in the studio loved.

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Note in row 2 how the spider turns into the tiger’s face; it’s a graphic turn. This never would have made it to the final in a Disney film, and it didn’t.

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I love how extra drawings which have been pulled make it to the bottom of the second board.

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- I always thought Disney’s The Sword In The Stone a somewhat underrated film. The background art is sensational, and several sequences are brilliantly animated.

Bill Peet‘s adaptation from TH White‘s book, The Once and Future King, loses some of its poetry in the adaptation, but the book’s storyline features a lot of rambling making it hard to construct a screen story. I’ve watched this film quite a few times over the years, and somehow it always gives me a bit of a charge that comes with many of the older classics.

The extras on the dvd seems to consist predominantly of storyboard drawings by Bill Peet. So why not show them off? There’s no continuity to attend to, hence the images are gathered in small clusters. The sequence everyone jumps to analyze and discuss is the Wizard Duel between Merlin and Madame Mim (animated by Milt Kahl.) Consequently, a lot of the drawings on the dvd come from this sequence. I, personally, would have loved seeing some of the squirrel section. I found it quite moving and full of real character stuff. It would be nice to see how Peet developed this.

There’s no hint of a continuity on the dvd, but I’ve heard that the storyboard drawings in the vault are just placed in manilla envelopes with no suggestion of an order. It would make sense that they’ve just plopped these images on the dvd as they have with no order, details or related information.

_______Here’s a creature that never made it to the battle of the wizards.

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___________Another fantastic creature that didn’t make it into the film.

I’m not sure if this drawing is also from the duel. Or was it another sequence where Wart becomes an animal – cut out of the film?

This looks like it may have been planned as a home for Madame Mim. Did it inspire anything for The Rescuers?

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___________It’s magic !

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Here are a couple of models Peet obviously did –
_______________________probably more for himself than anything.

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- Here is the remainder of the Bill Tytla scene from The Laughing Gauchito.

As I’d written in the past, this was part of a series of shorts that would have been released theatrically as stand-alone films. The Flying Gauchito had already been released, and this film was to follow. However, Disney, himself, put a stop to this short even though it had gone into production. Jack Kinney was directing with Tytla, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston already animating on it. Walt felt that it was too much of a one-note film, and he didn’t like that, so the “Gaucho” series was stopped early on.

You should look into J.B. Kaufman’s excellent book, South of the Border; it gives a full accounting of this film.

Here we start with the last drawing from Part 1 and continue to the end of the scene:

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Here’s a QT of the scene with all the drawings from the scene.

Many thanks to John Canemaker for the loan of the scene.

- This is the comic book FRONTLINE COMBAT (#12). It was sent to me by Bill Peckmann, and he best delineates what makes this issue so important. In Bill’s words:

Here’s the worn, torn cover and imperfect pages* of FRONTLINE COMBAT (#12) comic book from 1953.

Harvey Kurtzman (Age 29) – Editor, writer and lay-out artist.

Jack Davis (Age 29) – Cover (Before he was famous for his TV Guide & Time covers.) and one story.

Alex Toth (Age 25) – One story.

It doesn’t get much better than this. Would be hard to find a bunch of comic book artists from this time period who could do a better job at setting mood, time and place. And, look at those ages, WOW… them, there young whipper snappers!

Alex’s graphic design of those pages is a wonder. At that period in his early career the story is really something to behold. He and Harvey battled (neither one had pleasant memories of this) over how this story should be done/told and unfortunately they never worked together again. If you look at AT’s other aviation stories (not done with Harvey) at this time, they’re good, but do not reach the level of great art that “F-86″ breached. So, even though they couldn’t/didn’t agree, without their collaboration, we would never have had this keeper of a story!

-Bill

ps: Pages are a little off register and some of the ink bleeds through from the other side of the page but there’s still a wonderful softness that’s there, kinda like 4 strip Technicolor movies.

I couldn’t agree more. Here’re the scans:

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It just so happens that I received an email from Tom Hachtman today, and I thought I’d post it here since it’s somewhat appropriate:

I just got a copy of ‘The Art of Harvey Kurtzman’ – because I am an artist and a humorist and not much of a musician I find Harvey more important than the Beatles and Harry Shearer, in an intro, says, ‘…no Harvey no Simpsons’ and ‘no Harvey no SNL’.
I’d like to add ‘ no Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein’ and probably no David Letterman – hard to say – ALSO – I think it is in ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ that there is a scene where John Lennon is reading a MAD paperback and those were all Harvey – so, maybe NO HARVEY NO BEATLES haha – and I think it was George at a press conference when they arrived in the USA, when asked what they call their haircut responded, ‘Arthur!’ – ‘Arthur’ was the name of the potted plant mascot that often appeared in the early MAD.

And of course ‘no Harvey no Crumb’ and if no Crumb – well, “NO HARVEY NO ME?”

I guess I am trying to say, “Thank you Harvey!”

Yet again, many thanks to Bill Peckmann for this treasure.

- The new Blue-Ray/DVD has just been released for Bambi. It was less than a year ago that I bought the “Platinum Edition” of this DVD, so, not owning a Hi Def TV, I’ll hold onto what I’ve got, for now.

However, it did make me look at the film again. First off, let me say this is one of my favorite films. I don’t like the cartoony “Twitterpated” sequence, but I do like everything else. Secondly, let me say that they’ve done all they could to destroy the film in cleaning it up with their digital mastering. All the film grain seems to have disappeared and the images feel flattened out. They often come off as garishly colored rather than the sensitive painting that was done.
Thirdly, let me say that, regardless, this is a great movie.

I’ve decided to make some frame-grab sequences to display. How can you not start with the very beginning of the film. That endlessly long pan with the many-levelled multiplane camera hard at work. There are also rear-screen projections (such as the waterfall) that have been built into the pan.

I’ve done my best to connect the frame grabs to simulate the length of the pan. Then I had to break it into four parts from start to stop so as to post it. Each one of these four read well when enlarged. For the thumbnails, I broke each of the four into parts (with a slight overlap) so you could look a little closer.

I hope to pull a couple of other sequences at a later time. This film deserves all the honor it can get. It can’t be beat.

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The pan opening to the waterfall.

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From waterfall to lit forest.

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A while back, I posted a couple of pieces about things I love. Well, I’ve got lots more, and what’s the point of the Sunday photo sessions if I can’t share them with you?

This Mickey Mouse is an iron toy that seems to have jumped
out of the Thirties. My sister had it and gave it to me one morning.
It sits atop my computer. That’s a picture of Cocteau taped to the
wall behind my desk. A post card my brother sent from France.

Here’s another shot of Mickey.

This is an award I received from Annecy for my Children’s film,
THE MYSTERIOUS TADPOLE. I’m glad I wasn’t there to receive it.
I received a phone call from the airport – JFK – one day. They had
a wooden crate for me. I had no idea what it was and told them
to send it to me at my studio. The gigantic crate arrived, and inside
was a mass of plaster pieces. The award had been crushed enroute.
I carefully put the puzzle pieces together one day, using Elmer’s glue.

A large thing with stars of David all over it. The little plaster guy who
sits on top of it was missig his head. I guess it had been obliterated
in the shipping. When I look at it, I can’t help smiling over the memory.
Much better than a large award I would’ve had to carry back from France.

On the right is a Felix the Cat Zoetrope. Wendy’s had it as a give-away
a couple of years ago (maybe 15?). Dave Levy picked it up for me on his
lunch break. A great surprise.

The baby picture came from Bridget Thorne in announcement of
her first-born, Matthew. He’s now an editor living in LA.

This is a souvenir of the first EMMY Award ceremony I attended.
I didn’t win anything but picked up this great paperweight.

I remember bringing three friends with me who were living in LA. It took
a while for Louise, a friend, to pick out her dress. She wore a beautiful
black outfit. When we arrived, the tableclothes were black; the chairs
were black, the vases on the table were black. Everything seemed to be
black. Louise said if she’d known that she would have worn a color.

Her husband, Ernest, won an Emmy before I did (for a music score
he’d written.) I’ve since won four through HBO – children’s films.

This is a praxinoscope. A mirrored item that sits on the spindle of a
record player. The record has a label with dancing teddy bears (for
the “Teddy Bear’s Picnic) etc. You look in the spinning mirrors
and watch the animation on the record.

I had one of the Blue Bird items when I was a kid. I’ve bought
this one on e-bay. Thanks for the memory.

I have four theater seats from the old Radio City Music Hall.
James Wang gave me them one year when he was in NY.

This is an old Brownie still camera. The kind Kodak sold in 1917.
I bought one for a couple of dollars when I was 12 and used it to
take a lot of still pictures. My cousin destroyed it one year, and I’ve
replaced it much later in my life. More memories.

This is a 35mm movieola. I also have a 16mm version.
When I moved into this studio I gave up my steenbeck, but
I refused to part with the movieolas. I love them both.
One – 16mm – Weston Woods owed me some money. I gave
them $1, and they gave me the movieola.
The other – 35mm – I bought from an editor friend who
was going to flatbeds. I got it for $75.
To me, they’re both priceless.

- Word is that Salma Hayek is trying to turn Kahlil Gibran‘s The Prophet into an animated feature. It would have many directors. At the moment, these have been contacted: Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville), John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), Chris Landreth (Oscar-winning short Ryan), Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells), Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues), Bill Plympton (Guard Dog and Your Face) and Kunio Kato (Oscar winning short The House of Little Cubes).

The film should be an interesting one, once they get into production. Can you imagine the blend of styles, going from Nina Paley to Chris Landreth to Bill Plympton to Sylvain Chomet? I’ll buy my tickets now. All they have to do is raise the money.

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- Carnegie Hall, in Zankel Hall, will screen two shorts by Hayao Miyazaki March 26th. There will be two screenings on March 26, the first at 6:30 PM and the second at 8:30 PM. Tickets are available now for $15 here.

The films, House Hunting (2006, 12 mins) and Mon Mon the Water Spider (2006, 15 mins) will have their U.S. Premieres that night. Neither of them, written and directed by Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki, has ever been seen outside of Japan. They were produced for the Ghibli Museum, in Japan.

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A Cat in Paris will premiere in NY at the NY International Children’s Film Festival this weekend. Today at 6 m at Symphony Space and tomorrow at 11:15am at the IFC theater. The film is a 2D animated feature from France, directed by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli.

A Cat in Paris is a 2D hand-drawn caper film, set in the shadowed alleyways of Paris.

Date Theater Buy Tickets
Sat Mar 5 SYMPHONY SPACE 6:00
Sun Mar 13 IFC CENTER 11:15

Here’s the link to the Facebook page for this film. (It’s in French.)
Here’s Cartoon Brew‘s note about their distribution through G-Kids in the U.S.

And here’s a clip to give you a sense of the style. (The clip is in French.)

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-ASIFA-East has a good interview on their website: Biljana Labovic interviewed by Dayna Gonzalez.

Biljana has become a mainstay on the NY front. She was a Producer on Bill Plympton’s feature, Idiots and Angels. She started work with Bill as an intern and ended up as his producer. In this interview talks about her work with Bill Plympton (from 1999-2010) on his many shorts and features.

She also is about to work on Dash Shaw‘s feature, The Ruined Cast. This film is about to go into pre-production in Brooklyn with John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole) as one of its Producers.
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- In his blog, the New Savannah, Bill Benzon wraps up his commentary on Robert Clampett‘s short Porky In Wackyland.

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The Arludik Gallery has a show of art from The Illusionist. If you visit on line, you can see some of the animation drawings from the film, and the prices aren’t horrible.

One of the good things about 2d animation is that there actually is ARTWORK that you can purchase. I’d recently gotten a notice that Dreamworks is selling prints of some of the frame grabs from Megamind. Don’t worry if I don’t show up soon. The film was not good and the artwork is not art; it’s just work. For $250 you can buy a Giclee!

Here are some of The Illusionist art for sale:

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- Bill Peckmann has been sending scans of Bill Peet’s book, Capyboppy. This is about a 60 page book which includes a lot of B&W illustrations.

I don’t think it particuly ethical to post the illustrations AND the writing. Consequently, I’ve decided to post the illustrations as stand-alone without the text.

Since the illustrations don’t make much sense without the story, I’m adding a short synopsis as we go. I encourage you, if you like it, to get the book. It’s a gem. you can buy a paperback copy from Amazon for very little money.

The book has a similar feel to Bill Peet An Autobiography, one of the best books of its kind around. I must have read that book about a dozen times since buying it years ago. Prior to publishing this book, Peet wouldn’t reveal his connection to the Disney studio in his encapsulated bios found on the back flyleaf of his children’s books. He wanted a separation from the studio and got it.

The man was a genius who brought so much to the films he worked on, yet tried to separate himself from that work.

Here’s the first part of Capyboppy:

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This story tells of the author’s son, Bill. Bill collected wild animals:
tarantulas, mantises. lizards, the like. Usually, one would replace another
as Bill grew older. When he moved off to college, Bill wanted a boa, but
the family was afraid of the boa escaping and eating the three pet cats.
Bill agreed not to get a boa but asked if it were all right to get a capybara.

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A capybara is the world’s largest rodent sometimes getting up to 200 pounds in weight.
It was agreed and Bill placed the order. When it arrived, Bill drove it up to the door
in his jeep. The capybara jumped out and waddled into the house making sounds like
a bird, “tweedle-tweet.” This aroused the curiosity of the three cats, but when they
saw the big fella, the cats all jumped and ran.

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The capybara ignored them and went straight to the kitchen and
ate their food. One would expect the vegetarian rodent to turn is
nose away from the cat food, but he ate all three bowls worth.
He was just five months old now, what would he be like when he grew?

After eating the cat food as well as some oats and barley he roamed about the house
with the family following. “Tweedle-tweet.” As he went about the house, he was
not just investigating. He’d take a bite out of everything.
The family decided to move him to the back yard.

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To be continued.

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing this great work.

- More “Art” from Lyonel Feininger. These illustrations are culled from three separate show catalogs that Bill Peckmann has saved. We’re fortunate he’s sharing them with us. Thank you, Bill.

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1907 – Road, Autumn Wind

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Group of houses in dead end

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1908 – Study for Jesuits

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Jesuits

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The Lighthouse

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Locomotive

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Cafe du Dome, Beer Drinker

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Self Portrait

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1909 – Church Above the Town

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Still Life with Oranges

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1910 – Study for Street, Dusk

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1911 – Viaduct Near Meudon with Two Trains

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Suburban Street with Figures

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1912 – Promenade

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1917 – White Man with Red Umbrella and Green Girl

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1926 – Calm at Sea

- Last week we posted the second of two parts of Frank Thomas‘ animation on the short that never went to completion, The Laughing Gauchito. John Canemaker brought me Bill Tytla‘s scene from this very film, and it’ll take two parts to post it. This one came with the exposure sheets!

Here’s the first part.

The Background

The wine glass overlay

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These are the X Sheets for the scene.

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Here’s a QT of the scene with all the drawings from this post..

Many thanks to John Canemaker for the loan of the scene.