Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- The Museum of Modern Art is about to celebrate the enormous number of graduates from CalArts who have quietly altered the face of the animation industry. Films will be screened by a prestigious list of artists including: Kathy Rose, Joyce Borenstein, Larry Cuba, Dennis Pies, Henry Selick, Nancy Beiman, John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Pete Doctor, Brenda Chapman, Andrew Stanton, & Ralph Eggleston.

- There are, of course, numerous others who have done well after leaving the school whose work has not been highlighted by the museum. For this and tomorrow’s post, I’d like to focus on one of those graduates NOT fêted by MOMA who is also quietly altering the animation business and is becoming part of its backbone.

Matthew Clinton came to my studio in 2003. After a years worth of correspondence between us and my viewing his senior film dozens of times in multiple versions – all of which I found totally enticing and absolutely compelling to watch , I offered Matt a job and did what little I could to support his arrival.

He came quietly into my studio and immediately took hold with his innate gift for masterful animation. What follows are hi-contrast frame grabs from his thesis film, Cinderella Steinberg. I interpret the film as an examination of the overwhelming power of art on the recipient, in this case poor Cinderella. Tomorrow, we’ll look at some of Matt’s work in the past three years. I urge you to enlarge some of the images; each frame of his film is a multimedia construction in itself. Leaves and dirt and straw and a Steingberg painting.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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