Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– This past Monday, CBS premiered Aardman Animation‘s Americanized version of Creature Comforts. Interesting that I didn’t see much on the animation sites about its premiere. The show will air at 8pm until CBS starts playing with their schedule. (Isn’t this what always happens these days?)

Fox also premiered the third-season of reality show Hell’s Kitchen at the same time. With plenty of promotion, this was the top-rated show Monday night among adults 18 to 49 with a 3.6 rating in the preliminary Nielsen ratings.

Creature Comforts had a modest 1.8 premiere in its 8 p.m. time period. That made it 2nd in the time slot.

Richard Goleszowski acts as the show’s supervising director. He also supervised the UK version of the show. Like all other Aardman work, the timing is just about perfect, the humor is subtle, and the whole is enjoyable. The only problem I have with the show is that I get impatient with a half-hour of 1 or 2 minutes clips that are disconnected.

You can watch the entire first episode on line. here.

- In case you haven’t yet read it, Wade Sampson has a good article on MousePlanet that fills in on a lot of the history of the Three Little Pigs. The article ends with a discussion of a four minute film done in 1962 by Bill Justice and Xavier Atencio for a Mexican feature as a way of raising money to help Mexican children get a free daily lunch in school. The article also leads to a YouTube link to see the animated segment they produced.

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Surf’s Up opened today to luke warm reviews in NYC. Here are bits from two of them.
Jack Matthews of the NYDaily News, who gave it 2½ stars, said:

Tired of penguins yet?

“Surf’s Up,” the latest computer-animated cartoon from Sony Pictures Animation, takes the form of a mock documentary covering a penguin-dominated surfing championship. The movie itself is trying to catch a wave; whether that wave is still cresting or about to collapse, we’ll soon find out.

Adult fans of “Happy Feet” will find “Surf’s Up” a middling trifle.

Jeanette Catsoulis of the NYTimes, in a very short, ho-hum review, wrote:

Ever since Luc Jacquet’s endearing documentary “March of the Penguins” persuaded Hollywood that penguins are the new Bambis, we have endured singing, wisecracking and even tap-dancing versions. Now, treading eagerly on the flippers of last year’s “Happy Feet,” comes “Surf’s Up,” a computer-animated comedy featuring birds on boards.

. . . a moratorium on penguins might be called for, despite the inevitable anthropomorphic void. Lord help us if “Ratatouille” is a hit.

I’d like to highlight two working Independent animators in New York who have mastered Flash and have been doing unique, stylish films in the medium:

- Xeth Feinberg has created a character I’ve loved (it was probably the first Flash film I’d seen on-line). Certainly most of you have seen Bulbo in A Brief History of the Twentieth Century. This and a number of other Bulbo spots are still available for viewing at Xeths’ site. It’s worth revisiting to see how solid a video this is. Still thoroughly enjoyable.

Xeth has done a feature film with his more popular character, Queer Duck, but I still feel more of an affinity toward Bulbo. Perhaps he’ll make more of these entertaining short pieces.

- And let’s not forget Nina Paley, as long as we’re talking productive, Flash designer/animators. Nina’s done quite a few animated shorts, with over 40 minutes of them making up parts of an animated feature she’s creating solo.

Most of her films are available for viewing on her site with Sita Sings the Blues (the feature) featured on its own page. There’s a real intelligence behind her films and a great sense of style behind the graphics. If you haven’t seen her work, go.

All of the current parts of the feature will be screened at the upcoming Platform Animation Festival.

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