Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Before getting into my Photo Sunday posting, a bit of info about NYTimes stories.
. The NYTimes today has an article by Charles Solomon on Disney’s new plan to release newly-made animated shorts before their features. They’ve got four in development with one in production – Goofy in “How to Install Your Home Theater.”
. Yesterday, the NYTimes had a story in their Business section about Disney’s lay-off of 160 people. I guess none of them will be used to make short films.
. Finally, today’s NYTimes Book Review has an interesting review of Neal Gabler’s biography of Walt Disney.

- Shirley Walker died on Friday. She was the composer of a number of animation scores (most notably the Batman series). You can read an obituary for her at Music For The Movies. An interview with her at Soundtrack.net is here.

- This photo was posted with a lot of others on Oct. 22.

John Schnall wrote to say that he had “design notes on one of the posted characters; the ‘schnall’ character is quite a bit off model. I’ve attached some notes that might be useful in truing up the model to the character; hope they’re helpful.”

In addition to this revised model, I thought today I’d post some photos of a recording session done for the music of The Amazing Bone back in 1984.

The score was composed by Jeremy Steig, the son of William Steig and a famous jazz flutist.

It was performed completely by Jeremy and the noted bass player Eddie Gomez. As a fan of jazz, it was glorious for me to be working with Eddie Gomez, who had once been a member of the Bill Evans Trio. I breathed Bill Evans‘ music for a long time.

(click on any image to enlarge.)
Above:Eddie Gomez confers with Jeremy Steig about the score they’re composing & performing.

2 3
1. Eddie Gomez plays his bass.
2. Jeremy Steig plays pan pipes.
3. Jeremy Steig plays assorted bottles.

The score took about 7 hours to record and mix.
There were many breaks for Eddie and Jeremy to confer in the bathroom. It got to the point where the engineer/mixer asked them to please stay in the recording session because the breaks were taking longer than the session.

I didn’t care what it took. I was in heaven experiencing the music. The two performers did a great job, and I loved every moment.

During a break Jeremy and I sit to discuss the music so far. It was great.

All photos were taken by the producer, Paul Gagne. He’s become a long-time friend. I thought I remembered a photo of him with Jeremy, but I don’t have it.

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