Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- My favorite post of the last 24 hours has got to be the photo set on Michael Barrier‘s site. These are part of a series Mike calls, “A Day In The Life” in which he posts a number of photos all taken around the same time.

Here it is early 1930, and the animators at the studio are gathering in odd positions. I guess they needed some publicity photos, so they cranked them out. Who would have guessed that some of the expressions would be so hilarious. I couldn’t help but frame two images of Walt Disney in these group photos.

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In the first he’s singing as is everyone else in the first photo as they’ve gathered around Carl Stalling playing at the piano. A group sing for animators! Huh!

In the second Disney’s obviously just broken up as the camera clicked. I doubt this photo ever saw publication prior to Mike’s posting. I have to admit, again, I love his site. There’s just always so much to take in.

- Speaking of Disney, thanks to Alan Cook‘s excellent site, I found myself led to a great French site: The Art of Disney Animation. There you’ll find a lot of Disney production art. Plenty of pre production art, designs and models. It’s an enjoyable side trip with lots to view.

- And speaking of Dalmatians, the crème de la crème in the blogosphere, at least for me right now, has to be Hans Perk’s A Film LA. There at the moment, you’ll find a complete set of drafts for 101 Dalmatians. Hans is quickly posting all of these pages, and he has me studying this film, yet again. However, now I know who did what, and I don’t have to guess.

The great news is that as with the posted drafts for Pinocchio, Mark Mayerson will build on Hans’ drafts for 101 Dalmatians by creating Mosaics for this entire feature. It hasn’t begun on Mark’s site, but there’s something worth waiting for. Mark’s commentary is even more valuable than his extraordinary photo mosaics.

For the moment, Mark has an excellent essay on adapting children’s picture books into animated features. It’s another sharply written piece that you should check out, if you haven’t already.

- To take a completely different turn, let me say that I have become so involved in this Democratic race that it’s become officially an addiction for me. It’s so enormously entertaining, how could I not.

This past Thursday night, I came home a bit late from a movie. Prior to the film, I’d been completely absorbed in the events of the day – the back and forth of the mudslinging fired at Obama for having a pastor (or maybe because he is black.) In the two hours I was gone, all this news was reported:

- There was a break in at the State Dept where several people checked out Obama’s passport data. Of course, they fired the two guys who were involved, so that now they can’t now be interviewed to see what they were doing. A “low level” curiosity mission?

- John McCain has made an enormous number of gaffes in Iraq, England and Israel. He’s mixed up Sunni’s with Al Qaeda, and he’s called the Jewish holiday of Purim a “local version of Halloween.” He’d better pick Lieberman to run with him; he needs someone to hold him up. Then McCain fired someone for sharing an anti Obama/race YouTube video. No wait, he didn’t fire him. The person was suspended. McCain does have a semblance of dignity though, regardless of how war-crazy he is.

- Hillary continues to rant, attacking Obama for not making Michigan vote again, yet it was the Michigan legislature that didn’t make it work. She’s starting to sound like a spoil sport and a little too desperate.

This was all in a two hours of reportage. Since then, Richardson decided to endorse Obama, Bill Clinton said the two people in the race who honored their country were Hillary and McCain (can the former president do anything that isn’t devisive?). And now McCain and Hillary were also victims of investigation by contractors in the State Department.

Phew. it’s a great soap opera. We did get a brilliant speech this past week, and after eight years of a President who is not capable of pronouncing the word “nuclear,” I delight in these articulate speeches and hope for years more of them.

- The caricature above is by Barry Blitt, and it’s part of an excellent article that was in the NY Times this past week. The article discusses how cartoonists are caricaturing the
candidates. I have to admit I love Steve Brodner‘s work, so it was a pleasure to hear his thoughts.

If this interests you, you’ll also enjoy seeing the caricatures of other senators done by Barack Obama. It was part of National Doodle Day, a charity drive which sold on ebay this past week. The drawing went for $2075. Gillian Anderson had the second highest bid price of $700 for her doodle.
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