Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- One of the best, most intelligent films I worked on was a short film R.O.Blechman made for NBC television. The network was doing a three hour evening dedicated to the state of health care and hospitals in America. They wanted Bob to make a film about over-testing to find things to resolve a patient’s complaints.

Bob and I made numerous trips to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital to get information about procedures for testing the brain. This was back in 1977. CATscan tests were just then starting to come into their own. It wasn’t as frequently used as it is now. Other tests were demonstrated for us, and we spent several days watching these exams being done. Dyes being injected into the brain, machines that turned the patient upside-down, lots of big-named procedures

Bob wrote a piece about a set of siamese twins – a man with two heads. The two heads kept a running discussion about a headache one of them had. They went to a doctor who decided to do some basic tests. They discovered nothing. More tests – nothing. Finally, the doctor wants to try one more test. The twins see the needle and get off the table. They refuse this final test. The two heads join into one.
The doctor, in cu, starts to talk to himself, aloud. His head splits into four different opinions discussing the situation, and the film ends.

Here’s Bob Blechman’s storyboard for the film.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The whole film, about four minutes, had fewer than four months from beginning to end. The board went through lots of changes on the fly as the animators worked. Tissa David and Ed Smith were the primary animators on this film, although Ed did the scene I most think about within the film. The third and last animator on was Cosmo Anzilotti. I assisted all of them in whatever their needs – clean-up, inbetween or inking.

There was at least one scene of genius in this movie.
That final cu at the end of the board where you see the face of the doctor fill the screen – it animates in on him – all lines, just lines, that completely told that doctor’s thoughts and mindset. Lines on the screen that you completely bought as a face. A face with multiple voices and personalities arguing with itself. It was brilliant and remains one of my all time favorite bits of animation.

The voice of the twins was done brilliantly by the late, great Anthony Edwards. He was the perfect voice for the Blechman character, and he did quite a few of them over the years. This was one of his finest performances for Bob.

Here are some of Tissa’s drawings and layouts:

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This collection of drawings stood over Tissa’s desk while she animated.

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Here, I’ve broken that long piece into three smaller.

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This is another drawing from above her desk.
The yellowing is the tape that held the drawings together.

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The twins being wheeled to their exam.

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Passing gurneys in the hospital hall.

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More of them

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Here the twins are about to face a CATscan.

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The patients questioning the final test.

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The doctor preparing the NEEDLE.

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The patients leave.

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The doctor trying to understand the patients’ leaving.

I don’t know how you’d get to see this film, but I hope it shows up sometime. I have a 16mm copy, but I haven’t transferred it. Maybe I’ll ask Bob for a copy of it.

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