Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

To celebrate July 4th I’d like to post a couple of pictures by friend, Steve Fisher. These two shots of the sky were taken this past week. Every day we’ve had torrents of rain and thuderstorms pelting us with a lot of water. After one evening’s sky show, the setting sun mixed with the clouds to give us a very odd sunset. Steve captured it in these photos. (The cameramen of the NYYankee game were equally inspired and kept showing the sky.) Nature’s enough for me for July 4th.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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A good friend has some real film (and I do mean film) equipment he’d like to pass on to a good home. I told him that I’d post his offer:

7/1/09
ANIMATOR SEEKS LOVING HOME FOR OLD MACHINES
Because I now exclusively use digital acquisition I offer this equipment to the right party, free, with the condition that you take it all and have a plan for using it that doesn’t include selling or scrapping it, at least not right away.

These machines served me well as an independent animator and commercial producer from the early 1970s up to the new millennium when I began using a still camera on a copystand.

INVENTORY

1. One Bell & Howell 2709 35mm cine camera. Both Acme and Oxberry cameras were based on the shuttle on the 2709 because of its superior stationary registration pin system. The original model can be found at film museums,

The camera was modified to down-shoot by removing the turret, beefing up the precision rackover plate including a stationary Nikon lens mount (I used a 55mm micro-Nikkor, not included), and motorizing the take-up and supply pulleys. The camera has a reticle on the access door which allows one to view through the lens or project an accurate guide onto a flat field with the included prism/light-source unit. The variable shutter is controlled by a large gauge to make fades. An A/C stop-motion motor with frame counter runs at 3 exposures (1/4, ½, one second) forward and reverse. Includes two standard 35mm ________An example of this camera
magazines and one dual chamber bi-pack
magazine (made out of wood; it will need some modification for film take-up).
All controls for shutter and focus are totally manual.

This camera is NOT for purists who get all sentimental over the authentic hand-cranked camera that became the “standard” for Hollywood features in the silent era. True, there is a hole for the crank handle, but the chopped off turret radically alters the appearance of the all-aluminum body. The modification for animation may have been done during WWII for the Army Signal Corps which produced many films in Brooklyn using equipment that later ended up in animation studios around the city.

2. A second Bell & Howell 2709 35mm cine camera. Modified generally the same as the first camera except it has a 16mm shuttle and the take-up tension is supplied by the camera with the original springbelt loop, not independent motors. This is a newer camera built I would guess after WWII. Includes one magazine.

Both cameras are interchangeable. They fit on the rackover plate on the same pilot pins; use the same light for their respective field reticles; use the same stop-motion motor.

The cameras and animation stand (which I donated long ago) were used by the Bray Studio located in the Film Center Building on 9th Ave. Historians know that the original cartoon studio, founded by John Randolph Bray in 1910, is where the Fleischer brothers and so many other pioneers started out. By 1972 they were using an Oxberry to make training films for the military. I bought the lot for $2500 and installed it in a loft in Chinatown. During the next twenty years the stand was used by a wide swath of animators — David Ehrlich, Bill Plympton, Anthony McCall, Lee Savage, to name a few — and was pictured in Kit Laybourne’s classic “The Animation Book.” (Three Rivers Press, 1998)

3. Moviola 35mm picture, 1-35mm magnetic sound. This is a classic compact green upright editing machine in very good running condition with new belts.

4. Moviola 4 gang synchronizer (2-35mm, 2-16mm), one sound head with squawk box.

5. Seimens 16mm interlock field projector with variable speed motor and 3 sound options: optical, magnetic stripe and magnetic full coat interlocked. 1000’ reel.

6. Revere 16mm silent projector with variable speed motor. Very good condition.

7. Maier-Hancock 16-35mm hot splicer. Very good condition.

The ideal destination for this trove (“hoard”?) would be a mad scientist-tinker-animation nut who is unaffected by the current relentless stampede toward the latest digital gadget or paradigm shift, or a collective of makers who see it as colossal kinetic sculpture, or working parts of a totally devolved studio producing films the old fashioned way for projection at the local cinema.

If you’re interested please contact me: gg@geogrif.com and use “2709” as the subject

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