Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- This past week things kept moving. It started with the news that Standard and (very) Poors had lowered the credit rating of the US, and the stock market rolled up/down/up/down ending UP. It’s frightened quite a few people waiting for the “double dip Recession”. Did John Boehner & Eric Cantor think they would have any other result than this with the past month’s game playing in Congress? Or maybe that was what they wanted, so they could blame the President for it. A made-up crisis has put the US on the brink of a real crisis, and, by nature, the Global Economy as well.

Then came the more personal news that Corny Cole had died. That was something of a shocker and a very sad one at that. Corny seemed to inspire many in animation today. As one of the heads of CalArts animation program, he’s affected many of the students lives as he inspired many of them on or into the business.

There are quite a few blog notes out there. My three favorites are

– the odd interview posted on Mike Barrier‘s website, MichaelBarrier.com. Corny talks about his days working in Chuck Jones’ unit at Warner Bros., his ________Corny in 1976 on RAGGEDY ANN
days at UPA on Gay Purr-ee and his work
for Richard Williams on The Cobbler & the Thief. There’s a slight paranoia there, and Corny seems to think that others are out to beat him. I’m not sure, from what he says, that that was really an accurate reading. But what do I know?

- On The Animation Guild Blog Dave Brain offers his memories of Corny.

- on Cartoon Brew, Amid Amidi collects a lot of blog posts and points to many of them.

I remember Luis Bunuel‘s introduction to his great autobiography. He was aware that his death would come within another year or two, and he said that he didn’t mind dying if only he could come back once a year to read some of the newspapers because he was addicted to the news and would want to know what happened in the soap opera of life. This hit very close to home. I love the politics of the world (not so much lately now that it’s all good vs evil/black vs white) and would want to continue knowing what’s going on. When I see the culmination of one political event mesh with a friend’s passing, I always wonder about this Bunuel thought. I know, I’m nuts.

- Speaking of Michael Barrier and his site. Every time he publishes a new interview a lot of attention is garnered. What seems to be forgotten is that Mike has recorded MANY interviews and he has many in the archive of his site. Right up there at the top, on his banner, it says interviews.

There you can find quite a few that were originally published in Funnyworld Magazine: Hugh Harman, James Bodrero, Frank Tashlin, John McGrew, Art Babbitt, Dave Hand and many other key personnel from the Golden Age of animation.
They’re all there – for free. You just have to read them.

It’s an amazing resource; take advantage. (I must have read the Dave Hand and John McGrew interviews at least four times, each. I’ve memorized the Hubley interview.)

- Another very interesting site came to my attention early this week. Network Awesome features a lot of archival videos. Jason Forrest founded the site in January 2011. With it he says he’d like to: “spotlight the best from the past to create something new for the future. In a sense it’s TV about TV but our wider intent is to show something about culture as a whole. This can manifest itself in a kids cartoon from 1973, an interview from 1948 or a movie from 1993.”

You can find anything from an early Astro Boy adventure to The Grave of the Fireflies. This past week they’ve had something of a festival for very early Japanese animation, hosted by Cory Gross. All of these films are extraordinary and certainly worth viewing. Many of them seem to use an early version of the multiplane camera in shooting. The animation style starts looking like a Fleischer clone, and eventually goes more toward Disney.

Here’s what they programmed this past week:

1. Fox and Racoon-Dog Playing Pranks on Each Other (1933)
2. Kenzo Masaoka’s Spider and Tulip (1943)
3. Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors (1945)
4. Koneko No Rakugaki (1957)

They also have an on-line magazine which gives detailed information about each film on the site. Here’s a sample of the page for Spider and Tulip. It tells who Kenzo Masaoka was and what his role in the history of Japanese animation was. The film was animated during the height of WWII, so the implications are obvious. Yet compare it to what Disney was doing at the time; it’s an amazing piece.

- I also reviewed Timothy Susanin’s book, Mickey Before Mickey: Disney’s Early Years 1919-1928. I hardly believed that my review would lead to a conversation via email with Mr. Susanin. I have to say that it was a treat. The book made a strong impression on me.

Lately, I’d been reading a lot of interviews with people around the Disney studio in the 20′s, 30′s and early 40′s. Didier Ghez’ spectacular series of books: Walt’s People Vols 1-11. I only have three, but it gives me plenty to look forward to. Working with Walt and Working With Disney, both by Don Peri. These two are juicy books and have some excellent interviews within. Consequently, reading Mr. Susanin’s book came at exactly the right time for me. While reading that I pulled the two Barrier books off the shelf: The Animated Man and Hollywood Cartoons as well as the Kaufman and Merritt book, Walt in Wonderland. I’d already read each of these three several times, but it was fun rereading them while seeing how much Mr. Susanin added to the picture (and it often was a lot.) For some reason, this offends a number of reviewers, such as Charles Solomon in the LA Times. I don’t quite know why. Perhaps, he just wants to get the Cliff Notes in history books. I want all the meat and bones and gristle. Perhaps, Mr. Susanin wrote his book specifically for me. It certainly got me charged.

Alex, one of our cats, has always had a fascination with water.

He’s now fully grown and sits in the bathtub under the dripping water.
He comes out with a soaking wet head and
likes to hit you in the face with it.

What can you do?

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