Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Before I get into today’s photo blog twist, I want to share with you a letter I received very late last night. It’s from Tom Stathes, who has one of the greatest, if not the best, collection of silent animation in the world. He’s supplying TCM with some gems tonight, and that’s what he writes about:

It’s with great honor that I report to you that an hour’s worth of rare silent-era animation from my collection will be airing on Turner Classic Movies, *tonight*, at 12am eastern/9pm pacific. For this very special and long overdue broadcast event, we’ve curated several rare, once-thought lost, historically significant or just downright funny cartoons produced in New York City between 1907 and 1926.

That’s not all, though–TCM host Robert Osborne, with Jerry Beck co-hosting, are also presenting both Fleischer features, a block of UPA cartoons, and The Adventures of Prince Achmed in addition to the early NYC shorts.

It’s not to be missed! I hope some or many of you can tune in or set your DVR in time. Important links pertaining to this event below…

My guide to the early NYC animation: here

Jerry Beck’s rundown of the entire evening’s broadcast: here

Want to see more programming like this on TCM? Tell TCM how you feel here: here

The Facebook pre-party has been going on for weeks now! Join in on the fun, and see all the great images and comments that have been posted in anticipation this past month: here

I welcome (and hope to receive) any comments, questions, or discussions any of you have…either here, as follow-up posts on my blog entry, or whatever strikes your fancy.

Excitedly and cordially yours,
Tom Stathes

This, to me, is one of the most important animation events we’ve seen coming to television in the past few years. I often wondered if TCM would get smart and feature some silent animation during their silent film series on Sunday nights. Thanks to Tom, among others, we can say yes. Hopefully there’ll be more.

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Now, to today’s prime feature. I’m a Woody Woodpecker fan – well, early, early Woody Woodpecker. Steve Fisher gave me a good excuse to write about it. Many thanks to Steve for the great photos of woodpeckers.

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- The legend goes that Walter and Gracie Lantz had gone to the
country for a vacation. However, they were kept up night after night by a rat-a-tat-tatting on their roof. It turned out to be a woodpecker pecking away at their cabin’s rooftop, usually when they were ready for sleep.

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Woodpeckers peck at the wood in search of food – insects buried deep within holes of the trees the birds are attacking. A long, sticky tongue pushes through the bill to wrap itself around the insect and bring it home to be eaten. To seriously peck at the wood, the bills are rarely curved and are longer than usual. To prevent brain damage, woodpeckers have evolved with small-sized brains that have moved to grow in a safer area of the skull. The eyes are protected from the flying wood chips by a small membrane that automatically covers the eye which goes to a slit when the pecking begins. Likewise, the nostrils are just slits that are covered by a feather.

The woodpecker has strong feet with four toes, two pointing forward and two outer toes pointing backward. This allows the bird to grab tightly onto trees and branches. The legs are short to help in the foraging of trees and to maintain balance. The tail feathers are stiff. They press them against the tree surface to help support their weight and to maintain their balance.

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Generally, the woodpecker is an ecologically sound creature in that it helps rid trees of infestation from insects and grubs. The bird eats them. Most North American woodpeckers live in forests and wooded areas. Hence, it would make sense that the Lantz family found their bird in the “country.”

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Walter Lantz took the lemon and made lemonade by bringing the bird back to his home to costar in an Andy Panda cartoon, Knock Knock. Andy was Lantz’ big character, and this new character gave some fresh material for the animators to play with. The bird was popular enough that he soon had his own series of cartoons. And Woody Woodpecker was born.

A frame from Knock Knock.
the first Woody cartoon.

The zany Woody. 1940

Already redesigned by 1941

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As I think I wrote previously on this blog, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Woody Woodpecker. I truly love those very first Woody cartoons. However, I think there were too many changes. The most aggressive for me, and where I think they started to go wrong, was with the Shamus Culhane version of the character. Shamus, inspired by the films Tex Avery was doing at MGM and Bob Clampett was doing at Warner Bros, moved the pace up to a chaotic breakneck speed. The design of the character became more stylized and, in many ways, cuter. The number of lines on his body became fewer as did the number of colors on the character. The straight, chisel-like bill developed a curving roundness.

But don’t get me wrong. This design as well as the violent speed is enjoyable in each of the individual films; it’s alluring and attractive. However, it’s also a turn that could never be recalled.

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Dick Lundy‘s Woody was cuter, less manic and rounder, and the pace of the films slowed down a bit. Still theirs was an attempt to keep up with what Warner Bros. cartoons were doing in the late 40′s. Once Tex Avery moved over to Lantz’ studio, his attention was on the lesser characters like Chilly Willy or on the one-off specials. Design-wise, he followed the direction of UPA, bringing sharp-angled, flat stylization to the backgrounds and characters.

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At first Woody began as a zany character in the early Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck mold. Just as Bugs eventually transformed into a variant of Mickey Mouse, so too did Woody. Interesting that the Disney people always complained that there wasn’t much they could do with Mickey, yet two other studios fashioned their characters to impersonate Mickey’s personality.

Freddy Moore, the Mickey specialist, drew
this version of Woody for Walter Lantz.
(Borrowed from The Walter Lantz Story by Joe Adamson.)

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By the time Woody had hit the 60s, it was DOA. The design of the character was just bad, there was no real style to the shorts, and the stories were poor and poorly animated. Whereas Hanna Barbera had found something strong in some solid limited animation making early Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear shorts and, especially, the early Flintstones strong examples of a new brand of animation for TV, Lantz had turned flat (meaning dull) with the worst of limited animation. The films being made at the end of Lantz’ run were just not good, and the studio’s soutput was not missed when they finally stopped making shorts.

A chart I saw on line, no credjt was found.

Tissa David Memorial

- We’ve planned a memorial for Tissa David that will take place in New York at the Academy Lighthouse Theater on Tuesday October 23rd at 7pm. The program will include five speakers and will have a fair share of clips from the many films Tissa animated. The studios that will be rimarily represented include: The Hubley Studio, Raggedy Ann & Andy, R.O.Blechman/The Ink Tank and Michael Sporn Animation.

The films will include: Eggs, Everybody Rides the Carousel, Cockaboody, Raggedy Ann & Andy, Candide, The Soldier’s Tale, The Red Shoes, Lyle Lyle Crocodile, The Marzipan Pig, The Dancing Frog and POE.

Where: Academy Lighthouse Theater, 111 East 59th Street, lower level
When: Tuesday, October 23rd, at 7PM

Photo by Mate HidvegiAdmission: free
Seating: first come, first served

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It’s been very interesting for me to prepare all this material for the program. As a matter of fact, just developing the program has been interesting.

In the last month or so, working out of Buzzco studio, I watched Candy Kugel and Rick Broas prepare the material for their ASIFA East program celebrating the work of Perpetual Motion Studios, a commercial animation studio where a number of people got their start. A lot of film had to be prepared for DVD projection and people had been organized to act as a panel where they would reminisce in front of the audience that came to see the show. Essentially, what Candy and Rick were doing was developing a theatrical program of mixed media which would celebrate this studio and hopefully entertain the audience that came to revisit the studio, one that meant a lot toone contingent of NY animation workers and was a curiosity for younger workers. The organizers of the event not only wanted to reunite with old friends, but they wanted to entertain an audience at the same time.

For me, it was quite informative watching all the work that went into the program as well as seeing the final results and assessing what, to my mind, worked or didn’t work.

Now I’m doing something similar. I’m working a lot of material from Tissa David‘s life into a program that will hopefully entertain an audience while impressing them with the enormous talents of the woman who’d so affected my life. In short, I’ve been trying to develop a mixed media theatrical event, but I’ve been hoping not to let Tissa down since this will be the final farewell to her for many of those who will come. Needless to say, it won’t be my final farewell to her. She’s been a great and close friend, an animation wizard and something of a cherished advisor on many things. She was always there to talk to, to share films with and to chat about animation as well as our lives. Her memory is more than alive in the front of my mind.

In short, I want to get this show right. That is, after all, what I am doing . . . putting on a show.

For the past week I’ve been working and reworking clips that’ll be screened, and going through many, many still photos of Tissa and her artifacts to prepare a little slide show that will get the crowd into the right mood as they enter the theater. Once you pick out the right pictures to present, there’s a delicate order to select them, tie them to a piece of music and try to create a short bit of a movie. Speaking of music, that alone is something difficult
Photo by Mate Hidvegi to select. Certainly, with Tissa,
it meant sticking to classical as opposed to
popular music. Even then, I knew she didn’t like Beethoven so I couldn’t use “Ode to Joy,” for example. (Wouldn’t that have made some kind of memorial song!) I listened to a lot of Kodaly and pulled back since I’m not crazy about his music, I didn’t want anything at all Romantic. I listened to a lot of music that I like. No, I’d be too tempted to pull something from John Adams or Phillip Glass’ catalog. That most definitely is not Tissa. Ultimately, I settled on Bach. I found a nice version of his prelude from Bach´s Cello Suite No. 1 as performed by Yo Yo Ma.

I want to offer a giveaway to the audience, a little program that they’ll have for review after they’ve left. The slide show has been completed (and I think successfully), and the decisions for all the cuts and clips have been made for the screening, and all the speakers have sent me their pieces on Tissa. Now I have to write a program and will have to get a couple hundred copies printed over the weekend.

All in all, it’s been a formidable month, this last one. A lot’s been done, and I’m looking forward to the event. I just worry a bit that now I’ll have to say goodbye to Tissa.

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Order of Merit to Tissa’s Sister

- On the 56th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian revolution the memorial conference was held.

Yesterday, one of Tissa’s sisters, Szaniszla, was decorated with a very highly prestigious medal – Order of Merit of Hungary.

After the revolution in 1956, Szaniszla was jailed because she participated and supported the revolution.

(Tissa had escaped Hungary and fled, ultimately, to Paris some seven years earlier in 1949.)

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Why Obama Now

I saw this excellent piece of anmation on the Animation Guild Blog this past week, and I couldn’t help but pass it forward. Lucas Gray did a fine job of illustrating a talk by Barack Obama and executed it with style and intelligence. It’s a flash work that exploits the program for all it’s got. If John Sutherland were making films today, this is probably what they’d look like.

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Hans’ Dream

- Hans Bacher in a new post on his site, one1more2time3, is invading Eddie Fitzgerald territory with an imagined construction, a dream of the future from a child of the past if he had this present. A peculiar description, but it’s probably apt. Take a look for yourself.

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A Dancing Kickstarter

I received this note this week and found it interesting enough to post:

Hi Michael,

My name is Betsy Baytos and my colleagues, I am writing to see if you could kindly help post my Kickstarter Film project, on your site and blog. ‘

FUNNY FEET: The Art of Eccentric Dance‘

A brief introduction: A former Disney Feature Animator and Eccentric ‘comedic’ Dancer, my work now focuses on animation choreography (i.e.:’Emperor’s New Groove‘ & ‘Princess and the Frog‘). I have also performed as the Muppet Show’s ‘Betsy Bird’, teaching/lecturing Eccentric ‘character movement’ at Disney and Cal Arts animation classes, Oxford University’s ‘Fred Astaire Conference’,consulting for Cirque Du Soleil, Universal Studios Japan and the Ringling Bros. Alumni.

I have just launched a Kickstarter campaign to finance the completion of my film research, for a Documentary, ‘FUNNY FEET: The Art of Eccentric Dance‘, with over 45 celebrity filmed interviews:(i.e.: Red Skelton, Jerry Lewis, Dick Van Dyke, Shirley MacLaine, Mrs. Buster Keaton, Chuck Jones, Al Hirschfeld, Joe Grant, Ward Kimball, Joe Barbera, Frank & Ollie, Myron Waldman, Richard Fleischer and many more….) All with a focus on how eccentric dance inspired the visual arts and especially animation, as many of the great eccentric dancers were models for our most beloved cartoon characters. .

My entire research & film collection will be donated to the Motion Pic Academy of Arts & Science here, as a final home when all is said & done.

To see the Kickstarter proposal go here.


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NY – Comi Con – NY

Tom Hachtman is a good friend. I love his art work and have supported it from the time I first saw his comic strip, Gertrude’s Follies, in the SohoNews, an extant paper from the lower rungs of Manhattan’s coolest neighborhood. Tom and I spent a lot of time storyboarding a very low budget animated feature pulled from his strip. If nothing else it made me laugh for months while we were drawing it.

Well, Tom was at the NY version of the ComiCon held Oct. 11-14 at the Javits Center on NY’s far West side. Tom was promoting a couple of books Gertrude’s Follies, Fairly Grim Tales (which he illustrated). I’m pleased that Martin Kozlowski pushes to keep Tom published; obviously the man has good taste.

Tom wrote a funny account of his four days there:

I was there for all four days of the event that opened Thursday 10/11/12.
Directly across from us there was a booth promoting something called ‘The Mr. Gray show. They were showing (on a laptop) a pilot episode that included an interview with David Lynch where he talks about his Jack Russell terrier Sparky. There is some ANIMATION at the beginning.

(LtoR) Salvina Vitali starring as Agent BJ, Mister Gray the alien puppet
from planet Zeb, the show’s creator Dusty Wright holding a drawing of
Gertrude and Alice meeting Mr. Gray, and, in the red hat, yours truly.

For four days I watched a parade of comic book fans in costumes depicting their favorite characters. I don’t know who these people are and I often don’t know who the character is they have dressed up as. Day four Larry pointed out an approaching Poison Ivy and said, “You must be tired – you don’t even look.”
Then along came Red Sonja to put me out of my misery – best shot of the day.

Since I love redheads I had my picture taken with Poison Ivy, Black Widow, Red Sonja and many more terrifying creatures I can not identify.

w/Poison Ivy

Red Sonja kills Jorz Strooly

“Fangs 4 D Memories”

Seriously

Anyone who bought a book got a drawing. Here are a few that I didn’t give away.

Gertrude and Alice at Comic Con dressed as Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn –
these were two very popular costumes at Comic Con.

Alice taking a photo of Gertrude with her iPhone –
both in Harley Quinn costumes.

Driving across America looking a little bit steampunk.

- On Monday I started posting this chapter from Hank Ketcham’s autobiography, The Merchant of Dennis the Menace: The Autobiography of Hank Ketcham. Bill Peckmann introduced me to this book, and the chapter I’m posting here. Many thanks to him for the scans.

This is the second half.

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- Tissa David taught a class in animation for free, open to anyone who wanted to attend. This was sponsored by R.O. Blechman out of his studio, The Ink Tank, from 1991 through 1993.. It was held after hours, so that those who worked in the business could attend.

One of Tissa’s students, the talented animator, Eugene Salandra, kept exceptional notes of the classes. With his permission, I’ve been posting those notes here. Some of those notes seem a bit dated these days. They were done for 2D animation that was shot under a camera. Consequently, many of the layout lessons which appear in the beginning of today’s post might seem irrelevant to computer drawn and scanned artwork. In fact, they are completely relevant, and learning the information will help you understand the proper use of the “camera” even if the camera is a computer.

You can see the earlier parts by going to these links:
_____________part 1 _______ part 2 _______ part 3

And, here’s part 4:

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I repeat these first two pages.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Still more to come, next Thursday.

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- Fred Mogubgub was a rare bird in animation. He was truly out there. Maybe today we’d say he was ahead of his time.

He was a close friend of Vincent Cafarelli’s and did some creative work with their studio. He also left a residue of artwork behind him. I located a folder of layouts and such artwork.

There’s also the program for his Memorial service. I’ve decided to include that here in this post.

Invitation to the Memorial Service.

The cover to the Xeroxed program.

The program, itself. Undoubtedly a Catholic service.

Here are a series of drawings Fred did for a Yakov Smirnoff “Funfacts” piece for ABC tv. These were 20 second spots for the network.

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Here are some randy gags Fred drew – studio gags.
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Fred had to balance the commercialism with the art.

- As you know by now, I am a fan of Fritz Baumgarten‘s illusration work.
Bill Peckmann couldn’t please me more than by sending more scans of Mr. Baumgarten’s work. And it seems as though Bill has a large collection of his books. Here’s another one, Teddy und Kasperle. Teddy appears in quite a few of Mr. Baumgarten’s books, and he’s an entertaining character.

The book’s cover

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- Bill Peckmann told me about Hank Ketcham’s autobiography, The Merchant of Dennis the Menace: The Autobiography of Hank Ketcham. I wasn’t aware of it. I learned that there was a chapter on his work at the Disney studio, and Bill said he’d scan it for me. So, I was pleased and excited and knew it’d be a great piece to post here. And it is.

So this is the first part of the book’s chapter, well worth the read. If you’re interested in the book, it’s still available on Amazon.

The book’s cover

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The second half of this chapter will come on Friday.

- Fire Escapes are among the obvious to anyone walking down the street and yet almost invisible to the everyday eyes that expect them to be there.

(Click any image you’d like to enlarge.)

A couple of photos sent me by Steven Fisher showcasing fire escapes
among their own shadows inspired me to start looking anew for these
appendages to many older buildings. The two above are by Steve.

I used to believe that fire escapes were designed to be in the back
of buildings hiding from the public. Designed only to allow an alternate
escape from the building in case a fire arose.

However, it’s obvious this isn’t true. Older buildings have
no shame in baring their exoskeletal escape route.

The brownstone just about features the fire escape as a design feature.

Smaller buildings use smaller fire escapes and
they’re shaped for these buildings.

(L) Other buildings have long fire escapes that stretch over
several attached buildings.
(R) Some buldings have tiny shapes that cover small spaces.

Yet, other buildings don’t have fire escapes. They just
offer “patios” that, essentially, LOOK LIKE fire escapes.

Plenty of patios.

The structure, itself, takes on different shapes as designers
tried to cope with these required exits.

Even some thinner offered a style.

Fire escapes were a brilliant idea, but they don’t look very nice.
If they offer an exeunt for escapees, they also offer a way in for burglars.

Hence the introduction of the gate guard which prevents intruders
from entering, but that also it makes it difficult for a fast exit.

You can’t win.

Finally, here’s another picture from Steve Fisher.
It was taken in Caltabellotta. Sicily.
It’s not a fire escape but what is it?

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Originally posted March, 2009.

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And now for something completely different . . .

Jeff Scher has another excellent flm on the NYTimes website.
Leaf and Death is a mere 1:37.
Check it out.

Events of the Week

- Tuesday brought an Academy event. Howard W. Koch Jr., known widely as “Hawk,” succeeded Tom Sherak as president of the Academy last August. He came to New York to meet the East Coast members, here, and to congratulate this year’s crop of new members. (Emily Hubley is one of the brand new members in New York.)

There was an excellent reception at the Stone Rose Lounge, a relatively new eatery in the Columbus Circle area. The event was pleasant with a notable number of celebrities milling about: Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Billy Dee Williams, S. Epatha Merkerson, Richard Gere and Michael Douglas. There was plenty of drink (martinis seemed to be the drink of choice) and some great hors d’oeurves. The lobster tacos (about 1/2 inch long) and the meatball sliders were both delicious.

The speeches were kept to a minimum. Howard Koch was the only speaker and he spoke for maybe five minutes. The rest was the members chatting each other up. Heidi and I got to talk with Mr. Koch in a relaxed situation for about 15 minutes. We spent plenty of time with John Canemaker & Joe Kennedy, Emily Hubley & Will Rosenthal, Biljana Labovic, and Candy Kugel with her sister, Tina Hirsch. As I said, it was a pleasant evening.

- Thursday evening I saw a screening of Burton’s Frankenweenie. See my review, below.

- On Friday ASIFA East and The School of Visual Arts Animation Department had a regrouping of the original commercial animation studio, Perpetual Motion Studios. I wrote about this in depth with some pictures from the event, at the end of this post. Scroll down.

While I was watching this event, the Yankees won the division series over the Baltimore Orioles. Buck Showalter and his Orioles put up an amazing fight. I’m exhausted having gone through the competition with this team that came out of nowhere. Onto Detroit, next.

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the Brew Makes Some Changes

I didn’t get the note from anyone that Cartoon Brew was changing their look. It was a surprise one day to go to the site and find something that looked wildly commercial, all headlines and no stories. Oh, wait. The stories are there, you just have to keep clicking on things. It looks incredibly commercial and blaring so early in the morning. I guess it’s good for them. It was a surprise to me, and it feels a bit overwhelming. I’m not sure I like going to the site of loud headlines. Though they do have all the information in cartoon town. What’re you going to do? You have to go with the flow, even when you’re heading downstream or so it often feels. Congratulations Cartoon Brew.

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Katsuhiro Otomo at Platform Festival

- I received this in my email folder:

I’m excited to share some big news with you. Anime legend Katsuhiro Otomo is slated to appear at the PLATFORM INT’L ANIMATION FESTIVAL at the end of this month, where they will be screening his new short film, COMBUSTIBLE, and also honoring him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. See attached for a full press release.

It would be great if you could cover this great event and also run the announcement ASAP. I’m including an image as well, and can provide a couple more if you’re interested. As space is limited at this event, please let me know if you are interested in a press pass to the event, and also if you’d like to interview Otomo 1:1 while he is here.

How could I not partake of such an interview. I immediately wrote back to say, yes., I wanted IN.

But first, I had to find out who Katsuhiro Otomo is. I looked him up on Google and found out he had directed Akira.

Now, Akira is one of those films that I’ve never been able to sit through. Lots of overworked, integrated animation takes place in a very convoluted story that is virtually impossible to follow. I didn’t make it past five minutes on the first attempt. Fifteen minutes on the next half dozen times. The film is magnificently rendered large, but totally impossible to sit through.

Look at that still, at the top of this post. Crowds of people running and milling about. No focus; no individuals. This is the chosen still to send out accompanying the film. A crowd shot. Busywork. No focus on characters, no identification with any personality. A crowd. That, to me, is Akira.

Sure, I’d like to meet the guy who made this film. It’s such busywork, that it defies itself and its own creation.

However, the Platform Animation Festival will take place in Los Angeles on Friday, October 26, 2012 to Sunday, October 28, 2012. Jerry Beck will interview Mr. Otomo on Sat, Oct. 27th at 9:30 PM. It might be worth attending. Jerry knows what he’s talking about when it comes to Manga, and Mr. Otomo will be making a rare visit to LA.

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Burton’s Frankenweenie


The dog from the original short

The new, improved puppet-animated dog

On Thursday evening, I saw Tim Burton‘s most recent puppet animated feature, Frankenweenie. This, as many of you already know, is a reworking of the live-action short Burton did in 1984. In many ways it doesn’t improve on that short. It basically tells the same story with an added number of homage sequences devoted to various horror flicks that Burton obviously loved.

The film is sweet with no strong conflicts to trouble little children. The animation feels ever-so-slightly limited, but I liked it. It often felt like there was a smile behind the movement, and that the animators were having fun on this film. Quite a few eccentric moves helped to make the gestures feel more individual. Unlike Para Norman, the film isn’t overly slick. That Leica film felt as though it might have been cg animated. You couldn’t really feel the fingerprints on the action. I do like that aspect of Frankenweenie. I always was sure it was real objects being animated, not some cgi puppet.

However, there was often a stiffness to the motion. In some of the first scenes, the lead boy walks as if his legs had no knees.

This might have been less noticeable if I had been more involved in a deeper story, but that is a big problem with the film. The story isn’t particularly engaging. It’s just sweet.

Of Burton’s three animated features this was the least of them.

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It’s Such a Beautiful Day

It’s Such a Beautiful Day is the title of the feature which Don Hertzfeldt compiled of three shorts he produced: Everything Will Be OK (2006), I Am So Proud of You (2008) and It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012). These shorts formed a trilogy which Hertzfeldt designed to create this feature.

It opened at the IFC theater in New York and received modest reviews from the NY press.

Neil Genzlinger of the NYTimes wrote on Oct 4th: “Considering that he’s a stick figure, Bill, the main character in “It’s Such a Beautiful Day,” sure does have a complex internal life. And this animated film by Don Hertzfeldt does an amazing job of making you feel it, in all its sadness, terror and transcendence.”

The film will continue to tour around the country playing at many cities from Columbia, Mo to Tucson, Az to Chicago, Il. The planned schedule for the tour cn be found here (scroll down).

There’s an excellent interview with Hertzfeldt in The Onion‘s AV Club section which was printed last April when Hertzfeldt initially toured with the film.

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Perpetual

- Yesterday, ASIFA East and The School of Visual Arts Animation Department had a regrouping of the original commercial animation studio, Perpetual Motion Studios.

Candy Kugel spearheaded this event working with support from JJ Sedelmaier, who started in Perpetual. Quite a few past employees of the studio came back for the celebration and made for an interesting evening. For them, it was no doubt a reu-nion, for the rest of us it was a visit to a key commercial studio in New York.

The event was prompted by the recent deaths of three of the key personnel. Vincent Cafarelli, Buzz Potamkin and Hal Silvermintz all died within six months of each other, this past year. Rather than making it a memorial for the three, they made it a celebration of the studio’s work.

Tom Warburton acted as the host for the evening. He originally was an intern starting out in Buzzco Associates, the studio that followed Perpetual. Mordicai Gerstein, Russell Calabrese, JJ Sedelmaier, and Thomas Schlamme all came in for the event and sat on a panel up on stage in front of the screen.

This panel talked about the work done at the studio and the different roles they all played,from designing to animation to making music and sound effects.

In the audience there was quite a fill of other artists and past employees from the studio. Rose Eng and Marilyn Carrington were key people in I&Pt. Background Artists Linda Daurio and Cotty Kilbanks, Animators Doug Compton and Doug Crane, Layout Artist Wayne Becker, Editor Jon Levy, Producers David Sameth and Marilyn Kraemer all reunited.

I came from a different crowd of that same period. Mine was less commercial and more theatrical a group so I didn’t know many of these people. Yet, I knew of many of them and was glad to finally meet some. I was pleased finally to meet Mordi Gerstein, having animated his children’s book The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.

I’ve seen Wayne Becker‘s drawings for years, so it was a pleasure to finally meet up with him. I’d worked frequently in my own studio with the brilliant Doug Compton, so I was glad to see him, and I knew Doug Crane from Raggedy Ann.

It’s amazing the number of people who started out at Perpetual and went on to become important directors, designers, and creators within the industry. They must have been doing something right.

As one who sat in the wings watching the planning for this event, I got to see how enormous the amount of work and the number of phone calls it took for Candy to get the event together, and Rick Broas did a lion’s share of the technical work in planning the video and graphics for the program. They did everything from a film retrospective, to announcement invitations to name labels. They’re both to be congratulated for pulling off a fantastic night’s entertainment.

The program ended with Candy’s latest film, The Last Time, which is a memorial to her close friend and working partner since 1973, Vince Cafarelli. Although it wasn’t a Perpetual product, it celebrated the end result of that studio as Perpetual merged into Buzzco with Buzz Potamkin, Candy and Vinnie continued on after Hal Silvermintz moved to open his own studio. After Buzz moved on Candy and Vinnie continued on with the studio which remains open and busy to this day. The film is sad, but it proved to be a positive ending to the evening. look for the spanking new short on the festival circuit.Go to its Facebook page to see a clip. Candy & Rick are appropriately proud of the short.

Here are some stills I took last night:

1
The theater where the show took place.

Mordicai Gerstein and Wayne Becker chat in the lobby.

3
Mordicai Gerstein and Don Duga say hi on stage before the show.

4
Tom Warburton moderated the panel on stage.

5
(LtoR) Mordi Gerstein, Candy Kugel, Thomas Schlamme

6
(LtoR) Tom Warburton, Mordi Gerstein, Candy Kugel,
Thomas Schlamme, JJ Sedelmaier, and Russell Calabrese

7
Mordi Gerstein and Candy Kugel remain on stage during the
opening filmmontage constructed by Richard O’Connor for the show.

8
Mordi Gerstein reminisces.

9
JJ Sedelmaier listens to the conversation.

10
Sorry Candy. It’s a good closeup even though
my cursed camera caught you with eyes closed.

11
Candy and Thomas Schlamme remember.

12
Tommie Schlamme, JJ looking out and Russell Calabrese.

13
Mordi Gerstein watches some commercials
which he designed many years ago.

– I have a love/hate relationship with western art. The truly great, such as Remington, give a power and majesty through an extraordinarily honest approach to the world they found, pristine of the footsteps of western man. Many of the later followers are not quite as brilliant to my taste. I appreciate the extraordinary artistry and craftsmanship of many of these painters, but they stand on a plateau much lower than that of the great. Of course, there’s a wide variation among these artists, and they were searching for something very different than a Remington or a Charles M. Russell or Albert Bierstadt.

Bill Peckmann has sent some beautiful works of what seem to be predominantly early 20th century art. There’s a nice variation among the artists, some are on the genius level others aren’t quite as great. Some such as Thomas Hart Benton don’t seem to fit properly into the overall scheme as a “Western” artist. He seems more like a Mid-Western painter, a WPA artist, rather than a Western one, but I’ll post anything by him anytime. He’s exceptional, to say the least.

Here are Bill’s comments:

Growing up in the Bronx with all of that asphalt, bricks and mortar years ago, it was very easy at that time to become enamored with the wide open spaces and succulent sagebrush scenery of comic book, movie and TV westerns. Like all first loves, those images had a way sticking with you through life. (In most of those oaters, I’d say the scenery often got the upper hand with a lot of those gunslinging heroes.) Somewhat older now, (and hopefully with a little better handle on the arts) it’s nice to see that ‘fine art’ western painting still has that same ability to make you want to become an ol’ cowhand.

Here is a sampling from different art books of a few of the artists who captured the best of the West.

1
Here is Maynard Dixon. (IMHO one of the greats, a western Edward Hopper.)

2
Maynard Dixon

3
Maynard Dixon.

4
E. Martin Hennings

5
Ernest Blumenschein.
(This painting still floors me every time I look at it.)

6
Gustave Baumann.
A western woodcut artist, a niche he made all his own.

7
Ernest Lawson.

8
Birger Sandzen

9
John F. Carlson

10
Maynard Dixon

11
Gustave Baumann

12
Ernest Blumenshein

13
Maynard Dixon

Georgia O’Keefe

15
Gustave Baumann

17
Maynard Dixon

Thomas Hart Benton

19
Gustave Baumann

Maynard Dixon

21
Maynard Dixon

22
Gustave Baumann

Maynard Dixon

24
Maynard Dixon

25
Gustave Baumann

26
Maynard Dixon

27

Maynard Dixon