Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- As I recently wrote, John Canemaker and I are putting together a memorial for Tissa David. We have arranged to book a pretty large theater; we’ll ask specific speakers to talk about Tissa, and we’ll show several films and clips of Tissa’s brilliant art. At the moment we have no access to a space where we can have a wine and cheese offering, so come with plans to hook up with others if you want to go out afterward. If that should change I’ll let you know.

The event will take place on Tuesday, October 23rd at 7pm.

Until then, I’ll repost many of the Tissa pieces on Thursdays offering a lot of her drawings, interpretations of Hubley art and films she worked on otherwise. On Saturday posts I’ll bring you up to date on any further information about the event.
I’ll announce the place/the theater in a future post.

- I forgot to mention a couple of weeks back, the Splog made it to Boing Boing. In the earlier years I kept trying to get a mention on that site, but my fare never seemed to be what they were looking for. Eventually, I surrendered and stopped submitting posts.

Then I received an email from my friend, Mark Mayerson, congratulating me for making it. Wow!

I went to the link he gave me and found a YouTube transfer of one of my films there. This was a video I had made a million years ago (or maybe it was 1983) for a group I really enjoyed. Their song, Cavern, was long and sweet and minimalist, a movement I loved. (Give me Phillip Glass or early-John Adams over Chopin or Schumann any day of the week.)

The band, Liquid Liquid, was represented by 99 Records, a small record store in the Village. I went to the store and met with Ed Bahlman, the owner of the store and 99 Records. My offer was to do a music video. The agreement was that I could do what I wanted with no interference from anyone. We would jointly own the film. They could use it any time to promote the group, the song, the record company – in short anything to do with their company. I could use it however I wanted including all distribution rights that had nothing to do with the band.

I made the video. It’s an harangue against the unseen, daily bits of violence we all see in the world. Especially those who live in the city. Someone bumps into you on the street and keeps moving. Someone pushes you tight trying to get a subway seat. someone rushes to the front of the line in the supermarket oblivious to those who’ve waited. You know the stuff; the annoying bits of hurt people do while they listen to their I-phone, or while they’re texting and wouldn’t notice you even though you’re in their face. It’s my contention that these wee bits of violence ultimately turn into bigger, more hurtful turns. That’s where I aimed the video.

I wrote “video”, because that’s how I edited and finished the film. I wanted to teach myself how to use this new medium that was arising, and I edited at a major tape house in town. I was really into multiple and split screen film at the time, and I use this video to play with that. Lots of purposeful and planned repition on varied spli-screen setups. The band’s bassist, Richard McGuire, was always in touch, and I invited him to the edit, giving him a voice to make suggestions for the video. He came to the overnight session and we had a good time together pushing the piece to completion. Richard would later become a graphic designer, illustrator, and New Yorker cartoonist. He directed a segment of the French animation feature, Peur(s) du Noir.

The video quickly ended up on a couple of National, late night shows that broadcast new music videos. It also made its way to a few local shows. I sent it out to a small number of film festivals and had a modicum of success. It helped that the band was in a big law suit against a bigger group on a larger label. The contention was that the other group, Grand Master Flash, had stolen the group’s original riff. Liquid Liquid and 99 Records won that law suit and got some big PR. Of course, by that time the group had split up.

Terry Tolkin worked for 99 records. He would later become an Elektra Records vice president and No.6 Records label head. He was also my brother’s companion at the time. He helped in some of the early negotiating. Many years later, Terry contacted me asking if he could post the video on YouTube. (When we made the video there wasn’t much of an Internet, nevermind a YouTube.) I said sure, and it’s gotten a lot of hits (over 300 thousand.) The band has a big and well-deserved reputation. Terry put it up and a few years later Boing Boing noticed it.

- Opening in theaters next Friday is a new animated feature. Toys In the Attic is a multimedia film combining 3D stop motion, 2D animation, pixillation and live action. The film stars the voices of Forest Whitaker, Joan Cusack and Cary Elwes in the English language version. The film was directed by Jiří Bárta, an interesting director working in the Czech Republic. The film will be in theaters on Friday, September 7th. I’ll have a review of it on Thursday.

After the fall of the Czech Republic, Bárta had the difficulty of being stuck in a country in which he wasn’t allowed to release any of his films. Through the 1990′s he pushed to do an animated feature called Golem. The film never found its financing, but a short trailer was made of the work he did on it. The trailer is predominantly live action setting up the story of the Golem. Bárta works in a very detailed multimedia look. Live action is partially animated, stop motion animation moves into live action or 2D. He works similarly in Toys in the Attic, a film that looks very different from the simulated (meaning cg) cartoon puppets that usually grace our screens. It also looks very different than Golem. Toys In the Attic is a children’s film.

- This week, Hans Perk posted the animation drafts for the Disney short Mr Mouse Takes a Trip on his blog, A Film LA. This might be enough, except he also adds a YouTube video of Walt Disney doing the voice acting alongside Billy Bletcher (as Pegleg Pete) for this film. The video is obviously an extra on one of the Mouse DVDs, but I seem to have missed it. Regardless, even if you know this video, it’s worth seeing it again. How different the process of recording these days.

- Bill Benzon, just a step away from completing his thesis on Dumbo, takes a short break/post to write about the Chuck Jones film/Frank Tashlin story, The Bear That Wasn’t . . ..

Using Mike Barrier‘s incisive interview with Tashlin, as his back up material, Bill writes with some authority on this peculiar film from the oddball combination of Jones & Tashlin. Brains don’t always mix with blood, and from my vantage point the film doesn’t quite make it, though it’s interesting to read Benzon’s take on the WB cartoon. Not surprisingly there are some thoughts as to the similarities with Dumbo in its story. “In both cases we have animals imagined as ‘floating’ somewhere around and about and in-between the world of machines and men. That bear is mistaken for a man who hasn’t been broken to Fordist harness. . . . . . . And Dumbo’s problem is to find a way he can fit into the circus world as a performer.” In the end, we hear the simple yet complex reason, in Tashlin’s own words, why and how the story was destroyed by Jones.

- It was a bit sad for me to see that Nickelodeon executive, Brown Johnson, had been ousted from her job. (Here’s Variety‘s take on it.) She truly created an excellent model for a children’s television network and helped form it into a real challenger to Disney’s channels. Brown Johnson pushed with a lot of original animation programming. Nick’s Dora the Explorer was developed under Ms. Johnson’s leadership; likewise the breakout show, Blue’s Clues. True, Nick hasn’t been all that recently. Where Disney changed and went with a lot of tweenies live action series, Nick tried to follow suit but not with confidence. They weren’t successful with that strategy. They should have just concentrated on better shows. Animated ones.

I guess networks only know from firing proven execs and hiring new, young, exciting turks. The first show announced by her West Coast replacement, Russell Hicks, is the yet-again-reworked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (Something tells me they haven’t found their way yet, and with a heavy dullard’s foot they plod forward with a loud thud.) Hopefully, Ms. Johnson will land elsewhere and bring her love of animation with her.

- Finally, on Friday, Sept. 14th at 7:30pm the Motion Picture Academy will have a celebration of the work of John and Faith Hubley. The focus will be on their development as artists in animation with an ind-depth viewing of the artwork and films. Historian/animator, John Canemaker will host the talk and members of the family will be present.

Tickets are currently on sale: $3 for Academy members, $5 for general public.
I would buy tickets quickly if you plan to go; it will likely sell out soon.

Visit Oscars.org to purchase tickets or go to the boxoffice of the
Samuel Goldwyn Theater 8949 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, Ca 90028.

This show is a slightly different version of the program that John conducted in New York City at the Academy, here. It was covered in a large way by me on this Splog. Go here to see that post, which includes lots of pictures as well as the full contents of the event. The difference between this coming event and the NY one is that Faith Hubley was not part of the NY program. She and several of her films are included in the LA version.