Commentary &Independent Animation 13 Apr 2011 03:37 am
Sidney and Emily
- I was a bit distraught at hearing of the death of director, Sidney Lumet. His film style is so evidently personal that you can tell his direction within the first few minutes of watching any scenes. There have been so many wonderful obituaries for the man, that I won’t attempt one. (Here‘s a good one. This is the NYTimes obit.)
I did work with him several times and felt honored to have done so.
Prince of the City was the first shot at movie titles I got to do. Art Director, Tony Walton, brought me onto the film. They not only needed an opening title and credits but they wanted some inner film ID’s for the characters. It became a large job and one that still stands out as exciting. My friend Phillip Schopper became a strong second helping to get this film done. Together, we did it all ourselves. Everything from putting makeup on the actors’ faces to forging real ID cards to photographing it with unusual lighting under an Oxberry.
Deathtrap was a very different model. For the opening credits he asked for very large type filling the screen. He also wanted an old fashioned typewriter type. Nothing really existed that worked for those demands, so I had to develop my own typeface for it. I’m not particularly happy with the end results.
I had to rush some end credits for a preview screening. Sidney asked me to just make a scroll over a blood red color. Unfortunately, he got to like that and wouldn’t allow me to try something more inventive. However, with only three days before the film was to go to the neg cutter, I did something wild. I dripped blobs and splashes of the blood red color behind the white credits until the screen had turned red. It took a full 36 hours of work and a rush at the lab to get them back. I rushed to the editor to cut them in the film and we screened it for Sidney. Those are the end titles, and I love them.
Garbo Talks was a wonderful animation job telling the principal characters back story (in music only) up to the start of the film. It was fun researching Garbo’s life and films and photos.
Running On Empty was a wonderful film. I animated a sequence of animated roads for a test title. We decided to do it live action just focusing on the dashed lines of some local roads upstate NY. The movement wa very quick so a dashed line might just take one frame of film. The editor was bothered by the fact that every third dash was painted over black. I suggested he just cut out those frames, just as we might do in animation. He did and it worked beautifully. I loved this film. If you have the chance to see it, please do. River Phoenix and Martha Plimpton were exceptional as the adolescent heroes of the story. I sat in on several days of the mix of this film and had a lot of time to chat with Sidney and mixer Tom Fleischman.
On Family Business, Sidney introduced me to Sean Connery. Sean was wearing some ostentacious jacket and for some reason, right off the bat, he apologized to me for it. He said it had been given to him by the King of Arabia. Then he immediately qualified that so that I knew there was nothing sexual in the gift. Needless, to say it was a strange conversation.
The Family Business titles were designed by me and executed by R. Greenberg’s studio. It was a major problem for the opening credits. The camera does a 360° pan on a rooftop. All the colors of the twilight sky, all the buildings, all the city acted as the backdrop or these credits. Sidney wanted only type above this backdrop (I couldn’t put the credits within boxes). The white letters would be washed out against the white of the sky; the black credits were not there when we hit black. As a matter of fact, the credits seemed to wash into almost every color we tried. It took about six go-arounds before we hit on something that worked. I’m glad I had the large team at Greenberg’s to pull it through.
I loved working with Sidney, and I’m sad that he’s not there anymore. I don’t need to talk of work with him. I just liked knowing he was there.
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- I’m sure you’re curious as to what connection there is between Emily Hubley and Sidney Lumet. Actually, I first met Sidney at a party given by John & Faith Hubley. It was a “hello” and a “I’m your biggest fan” kind of embarrasing meeting, that I’m sure Sidney quickly forgot.
On Monday evening I went to the Big Screen Project event in midtown Manhattan. There was a show of Emily Hubley‘s work. It was good to see some of her classics again. “The Tower” (1986) was an early one; I can remember Emily and Georgia working on it. Two of my favorites are “Blake Ball” (1989) and “Delivery Man” (1982). The story in both films is exciting and even inspirational. I’m sorry “Delivery Man” wasn’t screened.
The weather was wonderful, so it was nice sitting outdoors in the early evening. It gave me the chance to catch up with some old friends. Emily and Will Rosenthal are always great to talk to. Debbie Solomon, Biljana Labovic, Meryl Rosner, Adrian Urquidez, Maria Scavullo, and Janet Benn were all there. There were plenty of others, but those were the above: Emily with Jaime Ekkenspeople I was able to chat with.
There was a technical problem with the sound. They’d normally hand out small radio receivers with earphones, which allow you to hear the tracks in excellent stereo. Unfortunately, something technical happened and the didn’t hand out the receivers. No sound. It was a curious way to watch Emily’s films. The imagery is so evocative. However, we really only got half the films.
Hopefully, they’ll have corrected this problem before screening any more of the animation shorts.
The three closest, with backs to us are: (in red) Biljana Labovic,
(in black) Meryl Rosner, (in pinstripes) Janet Benn.
“Blake Ball” ended the hour-long screening.
Tonight Jeff Scher will have his films screened. It’d be tragic if the wonderful Shay Lynch scores weren’t heard. I hope they’ll have the sound system worked out.
Jaime Ekkens organized and hosted the event for Big Screen Project.
Big Screen Project Sixth Ave. between 29th & 30th St.
Enter through the Food Parc, and go all the way back to the courtyard.
7-8pm
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More of Milt Kahl‘s Llama drawings will return tomorrow.
on 13 Apr 2011 at 9:36 am 1.Janet Benn said …
Michael, I had no idea you had worked so much with Sidney Lumet! I agree, he was the best, at the top of my list, too. Too bad “Garbo Talks” was not one of his hits – we worked hard on those titles with Rob Marianetti and others.
Thanks for writing about Emily Hubley’s screening. Your pictures were good, though not showing my best side! It was good to see you and Heidi and everyone.
I was in town to attend a conference about organizing the college teachers and how to build coalitions. It was great! I am on the negotiating team for the first Adjunct Professor’s contract at UMass Lowell. We are affiliated with UAW and they have been a tremendous help. It’s an unacknowledged fact that most college teaching is done by part-time teachers. I have been one for almost 12 years and I am so glad to be doing something about the horrendous conditions we have to accept to work at what we love.
on 14 Apr 2011 at 8:52 am 2.Ray Kosarin said …
What a loss. A smart and nimble storyteller and filmmaker for all generations.