Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– Back in 1985-86, Tissa David spent at least half of her time in Europe – Holland, to be specific. She was animating and directing an hour television version of The Midsummer’s Night Dream. She continued animating while in her apartment in New York and shipped the drawings out to be colored and shot.

The film took characters from the Shakespeare play, mixed them in with a live-action orchestra which was playing Mendelsohn’s suite, A Midsummer’s Night Dream and brought the animated characters into a fully animated sylvan setting where much of the story takes place.

About a third of it was a combination of live-action and animation, and the remainder was a dance to the music, interpreting the story. There were no words spoken to this version of Shakespeare.

Tissa animated and directed this film. Kalman Kozelka photographed it, did endless effects and xeroxed the art, Ida Kozelka painted the cels, and Richard Fehsl drew/painted and animated the backgrounds. The bg’s are inked on multiple levels of cels, which moved in a multiplane setting. The art was shot from above and below; all the cels acted as their own mattes to create a beautiful luminescence in the final images.

The film was a coproduction of Channel 4, NOS. and SudDeutch TV. I have a vhs copy of the program and would like to pull some stills, but I think the tape is hidden in storage. However, I have a lot more of the art from this show and will post more soon. Each setup uses as many as five cels and is large – all bg cels are prepared for pans and are larger than 12 fld. It takes several passes to scan the art and some of that light effect is lost in the scanning (it’s not bottom lit as well as top lit).

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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