Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- My Sunday comments section was met with this from Brian Sibley: “Thought you’d like to know I’ve awarded you a Premio Dardos Award. Congratulations! And don’t forget to pass it on…”

So I went on to Brian’s brilliant blog to find what this was all about.
“The Dardos Award is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.”

As it turns out, Brian received commendation for the prize and was requested to select five other nominees. Whatta ya know, he chose my site. Well, shucks, I’m honored.

I have, as part of my duties, the obligation to select five more nominees. This I’ve done, and I would have probably chosen Brian Sibley’s site above all others had he not drawn attention to me. So, excepting his blog, I sought out the blogs I most enjoy, though I sought to choose sights that were not exclusively about animation, I can’t say I succeeded. I decided the most important part of it was that it was a site that I enjoyed. That being said, here are my five choices:

Blather From Brooklyn is a photo blog by Annulla. Despite the title, it’s not really about Brooklyn but about New York. There are an endless number of quirky images of events covered, objects found, and passions felt. It’s a wonderful site that I check in on daily hoping to find something new.

Tom Sito‘s unique blog is a source of constant entertainment and education. Daily, he posts events in history that have happened on that particular day. An animation producer/director who once headed the LA union, Tom’s focus might be slightly skewed toward animation but not by much. There’s a daily quiz which is amusing and sometimes challenging, and a list of others sharing their birthday on the particular date. This blog changes almost 365 days a year and is always jam-packed with good reading. I like checking in on my own birthday to see if I’m listed – I have been once or twice!

Lines and Colors is a website about drawing, painting, cartooning, and many of the other visual arts. Hosted by Charley Parker, a cartoonist/artist/animator, the site hails out of the Philadelphia area and treats the visual arts with such joy that it often becomes infectiously inspiring. Regular posts discuss everything from the treat photographing art in museums and Eustace Tilly to Dutch cityscape paintings.

asterisk animation is a blog for a NY animation company called, oddly enough, Asterisk Animation. Hosted by one of the principals, Richard O’Connor, the site takes on his personality – literate, intelligent, thoughtful and artistically interesting. Richard writes with entertaining strokes, as one would expect from a studio site, about their animation and past projects. However, these tales are usually informing and entertaining enough that it makes it a delight to visit the regularly developing blog. I do have to admit, though, it’s tough at times to face the bold yellow of this site in the mornings.

Finally, since I pretty much live for animation, I have to add my favorite animation site, and this is it. Mike Barrier has been dedicated to ACCURATE animation reporting of history, and his site offers that history as well as reviews that are exact and usually dependable. There’s so much information on this site and so much worth looking for that I have to place it in the uppermost category of my favorites. Actually, it’s probably the stop I come to most often on the internet, so how could I resist lauding it.

Even today’s post about the faces of Marceline, MO. (Disney’s home town) is so unusal, enlightening and eccentric, that it’s a joy to check out this site.

- John McGrew is a principal designer in the history of animation who quite radically changed things for us all. He led the way out of the 19th Century and, with Chuck Jones’ blessing, pulled the art of animation into the 20th. Others followed or were running alongside him, but he left the first mark.

Mike Barrier interviewed McGrew in his studio in France in 1995, (photo right by Phyllis Barrier from Mike’s site) published the interview in Funnyworld Magazine and has it now posted permanently on his website. If you have any interest in design in animation, you should have already read it. I just reread it for about the 15th time, and am amazed at how much history is packed in there. Go here.

McGrew, with his work on The Dover Boys and dozens of other brilliant cartoons, took animation into abstraction and back. His work, I think, is comparable to Scott Bradley’s music at the MGM cartoons. Bradley was the very first film music (live action or animated) to incorporate Schoenberg’s 12 tone serial music. McGrew didn’t imitate Picasso or Steinberg, he created modern art in animation.

McGrew did his layouts in color showing the background artists what he wanted. He worked with strong designers, in their own right, painting backgrounds:Paul Julian, at first, and Gene Fleury after 1941. When he left the unit, during the War, Bernyce Fleury took his place working with her husband, Gene, on Jones’ films.

Wackiki Wabbit is one of the most interesting of Chuck Jones cartoons.
Precisely because of the layouts and backgrounds. They’re done in an abstraction that almost dominates the film, but actually serves to represent a world of foliage. The style uses cutouts and a wide range of techniques. Mcgrew probably did not work on this film; it came exactly at time of change when Bernyce Fleury entered the picture. McGrew, in the Barrier interview, says that he had never worked with her on a film. Her style seems evident throughout. Cut-outs mixed with the wallpaper-like patterns.

The film gives no credit to Layouts or Backgrounds.

I’ve made some frame grabs of the backgrounds (eliminating most of the characters – unless they were stationary) and
___ (Click any image to enlarge.)__________am posting them below.

I mentioned in my post this past Friday, that I had a copy of Dick Williams’
notes from Art Babbitt’s lectures at the Williams, London studio. Borge Ring wrote the following letter about those notes:

You own a copy of Dick Williams’ notes from Art Babbit’s lectures at the studio in Soho Square.
Art drew on an overhead projector during the lessons. Dick sat there copying them into his scetchbook all the while.

Years later I asked Carol Hall – Russell’s wife – if they had copies of Art’s own overhead drawings. They did and Carol graciously sent me the lot.

It was WILDLY interesting to compare the two.
Dick’s version is – let us say – “Bobo Cannon as seen by Ronald Searle.”

Art’s personal taste in design were very influenced by UPA. Clear, compact designs almost emblematic. But when he draws a row of “little men” they are jolly in an exuberant Syverson way.

I noticed this preference of his when he corrected my animation. He would change a shoe into a UPA shoe ignoring the client’s modelsheet.
Performing the corrections he desired did not come easy to him. He put a clean sheet on top of your drawing and redrew with a blue pencil.

He did not like the result,and went over his blue drawing with a red pencil.

That wasn’t it either; so he took a black pencil and bored into the blue and red. Watched awhile …. then tore the thing off the board and started the blue pencil on a fresh sheet.

He ended up with a nice clear drawing in black pencil. I kept one, trimmed it to the size of the character and it resides in the drawer where I keep erasers and things,and greets me every time I open the drawer.

Dick’s thrifty business partner had asked me: “Now Borge, what do you think you should be paid for this job? You know, we’ve got Art Babbitt coming.”

I said: “Art Babbitt has been teaching me for 24 years, Carl. Only he doesn’t know it.”

Another gambit was: “You must have an excellent showreel. that can attract clients to us. May we borrow it?”

Now, this is like having your passport confiscated in Teheran, so I said:
“Dont worry, CarI In 3 months time you will have a new, vastly improved showreel of mine, all of it Richard Williams commercials.”

Carl Gover was a thrifty often frustrated man in a difficult Roy Disney position. I got to like him very much, and still do.

I once asked Dick what sort of artist Art Babbitt was “privately.” He said: “I don’t know. He does not consider himself an artist, and he is very shy about such matters. His wife showed me a collection of caricatures from the 20s.”
“What do they look like?”
“Beautiful”.

Art scoured the art galleries in London looking for things that might improve his animation.

Four young animators complained that the client’s (trademark) character was very corny. Babbitt smiled to the paper on his desk and said mildly: “That depends on how charmingly they can animate him. Because if they can, he will not look corny.”

Frank Thomas visited and Dick showed him a funny commercial for dogfood he had drawn in a James Thurber like style. Frank said; “I like that surface-trick-stuff you do, Dick. But I prefer real characters.”
Dick answered:: “You dont think that Captain Cook is a more real character than this dog, just because you use liveaction for reference.”

writes
Borge

ps: The Dutch art authorities are justly proud of their heritage of Rembrandt and Vermeer etc etc etc and you might expect them to be condescending towards an artbook showing 25 years of The NewYorker frontpages.

Not so.

A review by a top guru in a quality newspaper said. “These are so-called commercial drawings which means that they will never find their way into a museum. But I would gladly exchange all the museums for these drawings. Because they are the best collection of drawings of this century.”

I played hobby jazz with some other oldies. The vibraphone player was a bigshot at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. He got me invited to exhibition openings. “Are you coming sunday for Da Vinci? We have a new sherry.”
Dick’s notes Chapter 9.

2 3
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4 5

6 7

8 9

- The BAFTAs were doled out last night. Slumdog Mullinaire won everything it was eligible for. Fortunately it wasn’t in the Short animation category. That was won by WALLACE AND GROMIT: A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH – Steve Pegram, Nick Park, Bob Baker.
Wall-E beat out Persepolis and Waltz with Bashir (great nominees) for Best Feature.

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– As reported in yesterday’s NYTimes, and in many other papers, James Whitmore died at age 87 of lung cancer. This is an actor I had a lot of respect for and got one brief, and embarrassing moment to talk with on the phone.

Back in 1987, I was doing Abel’s Island. Tim Curry had brilliantly voiced Abel’s role, but I was lacking someone to play “Gower”, the older frog who was stranded with Abel for a short period on the island. James Whitmore was appearing off-broadway at the time, and I thought I’d ask his agent if he was available. I did a lot of calling around and wasn’t able to find an agent for him. SAG, AFTRA, EQUITY – none had agents on file. This was a bit odd. I decided to call the theater box office, and see if they could put me in touch with a representative. They told me they’d find out and call back. I left my phone number.

A couple of hours later, James Whitmore called me. Curt and gruff he demanded, “Who IS this! What do you want?” I told him I had been trying to locate an agent, that I had a part I thought he’d enjoy performing and wanted to find out if he was available. He angrily started shouting at me. Obviously, I’d caught him at the wrong time and had jumped protocol. I was all apologies, and he snapped loudly that I should send the script to the theater, and he slammed down the phone in my ear.

Lionel Jeffries was in town doing Pygmalion with Peter O’Toole. He was a delight to work with and a perfect voice for Gower. Sometimes things happen for a reason. I’m sorry I never got to work with James Whitmore, a great actor and an important icon in my youth. I squirm a bit remembering this but am glad for even this small contact and experience.

Too few are the photos I have of the recording sessions done for my films. On Abel, I have just two. Both are of Lionel Jeffries who played Gower, the frog.

Mr. Jeffries is a very big name in England and deservedly so. Americans probably remember him best for his performance as “Grandpa Potts” in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or as Pellinore in Camelot. In England, his reputation as a director was sealed with The Railway Children, an overwhelming success in that country. In this film, he directed Jenny Agutter in her first role. (I worked with her on my short, Max’s Christmas.)

Mr. Jeffries, like all of the Brits I have worked with was extraordinarily professional. The session was relatively brief, and the performance was more than I ever imagined.
_______(All images enlarge by clicking on them.)

My biggest regret, on this film, was that I didn’t take a camera to London to snap shots of Tim Curry. His performance as Abel was the rock on which the rest of the film was built. Lionel Jeffries‘ voice worked well with Tim Curry‘s. The only other voice heard in that 1/2 hour show, was Heidi Stallings‘. She also gave a solidly first rate performance as Abel’s wife, Amanda. (No photos of that session either!)

Sterling vocal performances from all three actors really pushed the film off on a good journey.

John Halas was always an advocate for computer animation. He wrote about it long before there was any visible signs of success and he produced some early films using available technology. In 1981, in conjunction with Computer Creations, he produced a 10 min. film done completely digitally.

Computer animation, in those days, was rather priimitive. 6 years earlier, Peter Foldes with his film, Hunger, had offered wire-frame imagery that was didn’t really suggest to character animators the revolution to come. Perhaps Dilemma did, though it didn’t get the attention it might have.

A scene from the film attempts some animation as the winged man
slowly moves his wings up and down as he recedes into Leonardo’s head.

Rather than try to create 3D dolls, the filmmakers were attempting to do graphic animation. There’s nothing in the way of character animation in the piece, though there is a lot of machinery and gears moving and turning. They attempt to tell a story using a lot of morphing graphics and electronic music and sounds.

Within a couple of years, Abel Associates and PDI were producing a lot of shiny things and silver robots animating – change that to moving on the commercials for Levis and cars.

Only 11 years after Dilemma, Pixar would offer Toy Story. Little Viewmaster-like dolls took over computer animation and sealed the near future.

Here’s an article that appeared in a 1981 issue of Millimeter that talks about Dilemma.

Attempting a 10-minute film produced entirely with the assistance of digital computers in the style of traditional animation could send chills up the spine of even the most stalwart animator. Complicate matters by having the film contain over 160 scenes, special effects that include three dimensional simulation, utilize several thousand separate colors, produce the film from start to finish in less than two months, and you have a project that most would consider highly improbable. Such a film, however, is being produced as a joint effort of international scope between Halas & Batchelor Animation Ltd. of London, and Computer Creations of South Bend, Indiana, and New York.

“Dilemma” is a story of evolution; an evolution of intellect and achievement, and of the evolution of destructive capability. Indeed, man has often used his most powerful technological achievements as tools of destruction. The film portrays the progression of this evolution and the resulting dilemma between the application of technology for artistic or destructive intent. The implications of such devastation are clearly global, and it seems appropriate that the film be produced for and distributed by The United Nations General Assembly.

John Halas (veteran animator for over 40 years, producer of over 600 films, and the author of many books and articles on animation) is the visual designer behind the film for Halas & Batchelor in London. When asked why digital computer animation is being utilized for such a project, Mr. Halas responds that “There is no doubt that computer animation has potential to be exploited, and its impact will be felt in all aspects of visual
communication. In this case an approach that could deliver the art style inherent in Janos Kass’ [sculptor and designer whose work provided the inspiration for the film] design was required.”

Computers and animation are nothing new for Halas. In 1974, he wrote that “Artists and designers must come to terms with the computer as they must other gadgets operated by electricity, and if they seriously want to utilize the values and facilities, they obviously must learn to use the computer in much the same way they are using pencils, pens, and brushes.”

Working with John Halas was the Computer Creations team of president Tom Klimek, and senior art director Eric Brown. The challenge was clearly to accomplish such an ambitious undertaking within budget and within a very tight time deadline. Mr. Halas said that the normal productdion requirements for a job of this nature would take “ten full-time workers a minimum of eight months.” Mr. Halas adds that “Because of the reduced time and labor requirements, substantial cost savings have been achieved.”

The process utilized to produce “Dilemma” is known as VideoCel® and is purely digital in nature. There are no cameras, although the images have depth and perspective in full color and are not limited to moving colored lines. The actual artwork is entered into the computer by the artist, using an electronic tablet. The artist provides the coloring and timing instructions by answering simple-questions posed by the computer in ordinary English. In this fashion, the.artist is totally in control, with the engineers and programmers waiting in the wings should their assistance be required. The computer keeps track of all the colors, shapes, areas, and movements, exactly as transmitted by the skilled hand (and style) of the artist. The artist can view the work and modify the instructions for any part of the work at any time. When each scene has been completed, the computer draws each frame (over 18,000 for “Dilemma”), calculating the values for the over 250,000 colored points required for each individual frame.

Here’s an example of the often-used morphing technique that the
filmmakers use to move their story forward.

The images presented in “Dilemma” represent a cross between character animation /and three-dimensional graphic simulation. Several scenes are a computer-generated blend from one scene to another. Images swing and change position in dimension and recombine to produce entirely different pictures and scenes. In other sections of the film, objects delicately form and move about the screen in an abstract form eventually shifting to elements within the story. Still other scenes show fantasy space demons of the future being propelled through space in dimension.

One of the most interesting aspects of “Dilemma” is its pacing. While some sections are gracefully paced and balanced, other scenes race by with the urgency of the theme being conveyed by movement and design. Throughout the film, color is used in a fashion similar to that of conventional eel animation, with subtlety being the emphasis as opposed to high color or the typical glowing lines that have become so popular. With “Dilemma,” the computer has been successfully utilized as a design instrument with the design being determined by the artist — not by machine.

You can watch a clip of this film here.

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Here’s a recap of a couple of past posts I’d made showing one of my favorite sequences in animation – Dumbo’s bath and play with his mother.

- Thanks to a loan from John Canemaker, I can continue posting some of the brilliant storyboard work of Bill Peet. The guy was a masterful artist. Every panel gives so much inspiration and information to the animators, directors and artists who’ll follow up on his work.

This is the sequence from Dumbo wherein baby Dumbo plays around the feet of his mother. Brilliantly animated by Bill Tytla, this sequence is one of the greatest ever animated. No rotoscoping, no MoCap. Just brilliant artists collaborating with perfect timing, perfect structure, perfect everything. Tytla said he watched his young son at home to learn how to animate Dumbo. Bill Peet told Mike Barrier that he was a big fan of circuses, so he was delighted to be working on this piece. Both used their excitement and enthusiasm to bring something brilliant to the screen, and it stands as a masterpiece of the medium.

Of this sequence and Tytla’s animation, Mike Barrier says in Hollywood Cartoons, “What might otherwise be mere cuteness acquires poignance because it is always shaded by a parent’s knowledge of pain and risk. If Dumbo “acted” more, he would almost certainly be a less successful character—’cuter,’ probably, in the cookie-cutter manner of so many other animated characters, but far more superficial.”

I had to take the one very long photstat and reconfigure it in photoshop so that you could enlarge these frames to see them well. I tried to keep the feel of these drawings pinned to that board in tact.

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Bill Peet at his desk on Dumbo.

Here are frame grabs from the very same sequence of the film showing how closely the cuts were followed. Even in stills the sequence is stunning.

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This film is a gem.
The dvd also has one of my favorite commentary tracks throughout.
John Canemaker, by himself, talking about the film. It’s great.

- Here’s a mystery that hasn’t been solved since 1975. It was posed to me by Tim Hodge. 1975 is the year Donald Heraldson‘s book, Creators of Life was published. In the book, there’s a team photo of Richard Williams’ staff sitting in front of the Soho Square studio.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

There in the center of the photo is a boy, arms crossed, standing in front of Grim Natwick, Ken Harris and (I think) Rowland Wilson, behind Art Babbitt kneeling. The caption beneath the photo reads: “Yes, the 10 year old boy is part of the staff – Williams considers him a prodigy.”

I know that Williams had taken Errol Le Cain under his tutelage in the 60′s and pushed him to animate the short, The Sailor and the Devil, on his own. However, Le Cain was born in 1941 and wasn’t 10 in 1975.

Perhaps Williams was high on this kid at the time of the photo, but soon grew tired of him and moved on after a couple of months. Or maybe the boy, who’d be in his 40′s now, became one of our top animators.

Or maybe the book, which is filled to the brim with errors, actually misunderstood the role of the child in the studio. (He may just have been someone’s child.)

Well, the question is: who was that “10 year old boy”?

If you have any idea, please leave a comment.

Actually, if you can identify others in the photo, please don’t hesitate to share the info.

- For those who haven’t seen all the Oscar nominated short films, bothe
animated and live-action, this is your chance.

On Saturday, Feb. 14 (Valentine’ Day) at
12 noon and 4pm. The screenings take place at:
Academy Theater at
Lighthouse International
111 E 59th Street

Tickets are $5 for general public, $3 for students.

A photo scrapbook of Khitruk through the years.

- The Russian Live Journal site has a display of photos of the opening for a Feodor Khitruk exhibition. Khitruk, at 91, wasn’t able to attend the opening but Yurij Norstein is in attendance (pic #1), as is Edward Nazarov (#2), and Anatolij Solin & Bladimir Zykov (#3).

If you’re a fan of Russian animation, it’s worth a look. All the current masters are there.

Speaking of Russian animation, a 1999 tv opening by Yurij Norshtein was posted on YouTube. Niffwan, who constructed the video there, writes:

Norshteyn spent a year and a half making this animation for the introduction/conclusion to Good Night, Children (Спокойной ночи, малыши), a popular Russian nightly show for young children to watch before they go to bed. The first part would air before each daily show, the second part after.

The segment accompanied the show for a while in 2000, and was taken off the air in summer of 2001; the show moved to another channel while the copyright for the sequence stayed with the old one.

However, the reactions of Russian audiences were largely negative; program director Valentina Prasolova said: “Norshteyn is a famous artist, but he does not make good opening/closing sequences. We get calls and letters every day about this sequence from people who tell us that it is terrible, that it is dark, that children do not want to watch our program.”

The art direction was done by Valentin Olshvang, rather than by Norshteyn’s wife Franchesca Yarbusova. Olshvang is working on Norshtein’s Overcoat team.

The credits for the piece are as follows:

directed by Yurij Norstein ___written by Yurij Norstein
artist Valentin Olshvang _____animator Yurij Norstein
cameraman M. Granik __music A. Ostrovsky ___ sound V. Ugriumov
produced by Anatoly Prokhorov, Yurij Norstein

Many thanks to Niffiwan at Live Journal for both Russian posts.

- There’s an excellent article about Run Wracke in Res Magazine.

His film Rabbit was a highlight a couple of years back. The follow up film, The Control Master, wasn’t received with quite the same acclaim, though it was equally adept. You might try visiting his site and viewing some of the shorter spots. They’re all fine.

Go here to read it.

- Yesterday I posted a reconstructed board for the sequence eliminated from Fantasia. Baby Ballet was to be set to Chopin’s Berceuse.

Sylvia Moberly-Holland was the principal designer of this piece and Mary Blair worked with her in many of the pastel images on the board. Here are some of those same images in color. I’ve lifted them from the Fantasia “Legacy” dvd and offer them to complete the post. Not all of these color images made it to the board I posted.

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It turns out that it is a small world after all.