Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Working with all this animation history, particularly the beautiful work that came out of the 30′s thru 50′s, I am so often in awe and deep in admiration for the work that was done. Even if it’s not the kind of art I love, it still overpowers me so often.

I mean let’s look at the amazing scene Alex Lovy did for the Woody Woodpecker cartoon, Ace In the Hole. Now Lovy was a good solid animator, not a Frank Thomas or a Bill Tytla. But he did good work, good solid animation.

There were so many like him, so many strong animators with great personalities to animate. And all of his work is worth studying. Now we’re onto the cg animators. And it’s virtually impossible to study their work. Maybe four or five people get credit for a scene. It’s impossible to discern who deserves the signature. We don’t know how many were involved, nevermind what work they actually did. And what if the opposite were true – only one of the animators was great and (s)he carried a number of mediocre talents? There’s a good liklihood that that does happen. How can we tell?

We know that when Frank Thomas animated one of those great scenes he did in the fifties (like Captain Hook sword-fighting while worrying about that ticking clock growling louder in the background), or the squirrel sequence he did in Sword in the Stone. We know he animated it and didn’t have help from another Master animator like John Lounsberry. No, the entire sequence was his, except for one or two scenes who can be easily tracked down and credited. We talked about this dilemma before.

Tom Sito just wrote a history of computer animation called Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation. I haven’t read it yet, though I look forward to doing so. Perhaps this is the first flicker of possibility that some animators out there will gain printed recognition for their work; it’s the first indication that maybe some of those artists will be heard from. I can only hope and I won’t qit until I do start getting that word back.

Anyone out there know of any specific scenes they want to call out, please do so. Use the comments page.

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