Animation &Frame Grabs &SpornFilms 15 Jul 2010 07:08 am
Child Development
- I want to give some attention to a series of films we did for UNICEF back in the 90′s. There were four films which focussed on Child Development, trying to teach parents in the Third World how to take care of their children in the first eight years of development.
These films were brought to me by one, Cassie Landers. A well trained educator and an employee of Unicef where she promoted child development training and was hoping to use film to get the message across to the Third World.
Primary to these films was to get the point across that females deserved as much attention, including education, as the boys did. This is a major problem throughout the world, and UNICEF has done an entire series specifically for India about it.
Our aim was to encourage good diet, good behavioral practices and, again, the importance of a good education. The four films were ultimately combined with some live action footage of T. Berry Brazelton talking with children and introducing each of the four segments.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, as First Lady, introduced the entire 1/2 hr. show.
Here are some frame grabs from about 2/3 the scenes of the first film, Off To A Good Start.
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After the UNICEF logo, the film started with a montage of children’s faces.
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I’ve compiled about a third of the faces.
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The camera continually moves in on the faces while …
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… constantly dissolving to the next setup.
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This was the opening to all four of the films.
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It was accompanied by narration by Celeste Holme describing the films about to be seen.
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The narration was written by UNICEF Producer/educator, Cassie Landers.
Sue Perotto drew all of the children’s faces for the opening. She had the right sweet look for the children and the many faces we’d be seeing in a very short amount of time. I knew Sue could keep it interesting and I depended on her – with good reason.
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The main title.
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The first film started with prenatal care.
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Giving a very short the child in the womb.
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Right through to the actual birth.
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Then it jumps to the first year of development.
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The art style was designed after Matisse’s Moroccan paintings.
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He had a very primitive set up, colors with
earth-toned characters dominating their paintings.
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We tried to reproduce the feel of these paintings
allowing the texture of the paintings to run and bleed.
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This was all done pre-computer days, so all art was
painted on paper, then cut out and pasted to cels.
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It was all shot on camera by Gary Becker at his FStop Studios.
Masako Kanayama and Stephen MacQuignon were able to bring a smooth look to the wildly varing colors.
It was designed to look like Matisse’s African period, and I think it did.
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The first year continues with similar setup.
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After showing some advanced activity . . .
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. . . we show how the brain has started to . . .
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develop enormously in this first year.
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The child learns to get up and crawl.
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From here she learns to walk.
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Then he learns to play more sophisticated games . . .
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. . .utilizing tools that require more dexterity and thought.
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Directed by Michael Sporn
Produced and Written by Cassie Landers EdD, MPH
Narrated by Celeste Holme
Music by David Evans
Production Coordinated by Masako Kanayama
Backgrounds by Jason McDonald
Edited by Ed Askinazi
Photography by FStop Studio – Gary Becker & Bob Bushell
Technical Consultant Marc Borstein Nat’l Inst of Health, Bethesda MD.
Office Manager Marilyn Rosado
Animation by Rodolfo Damaggio, Sue Perotto, Michael Sporn
Rendering by Christine O’Neill, Matt Sheridan, Stephen MacQuignon, Masako Kanayama
Special Thanks to Nigel Fisher, Deputy Regional Director,
UNICEF Regional Office for the Middle East and Africa
on 15 Jul 2010 at 9:05 am 1.Stephen Macquignon said …
I love revisiting, I forgot about this one until your post
on 15 Jul 2010 at 10:10 am 2.Dave Levy said …
Lovely and important work.
on 15 Jul 2010 at 12:10 pm 3.Swinton Scott said …
These images look cool. Thank you for posting them. I was wondering, have you done a blog entry about the years you have spent running your own studio and the ups and downs of the experience? I can imagine its a lot of very hard work, but there are lots of great times as well. And that the payments from clients can be very slow making it hard to meet payrolls at times.
Anyway, thanks again for posting.
on 15 Jul 2010 at 1:34 pm 4.Michael said …
No, Swinton, I haven’t done such a blog. It’d be too depressing to do so. Money has never equalled out so that there was enough for overhead. A smallish studio like mine has dwindling payments and lower and lower budgets.
We’ve had a lot of fun though.
on 16 Jul 2010 at 7:23 am 5.Stephen Macquignon said …
I would second the fun
on 23 Jul 2010 at 11:44 am 6.Steven Hartley said …
There was a very charming cartoon video about Sex Education and it was called “Where Did I Come From?” and its British and I believe its about thirty-years old, and it was based on those charming books by Peter Mayle and funny illustrations by Arthur Robbins.
The reason why I’m saying this is because this film reminds me of that video I saw except that the book/film “Where Did I Come From?” is a rather humerous and entertaining cartoon and this fine work of yours is rather much stylised and I like the drawings in this post.
I like your style!
on 31 Jan 2011 at 5:48 pm 7.Bob Backle said …
hi Michael,
Glad to see you are still around. Does Gary still have F-Stop Studios?
Regards,
Bob
on 07 Dec 2011 at 1:20 pm 8.Joel Plotch said …
Does anyone know what happened to Gary Becker and F-Stop Studio — he seems to have disappeared. Anyone with any contact info would be appreciated.
Joel