Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

With Halloween so close to Election Day, how could I not expect to see such a poster in NYC? So, running it a few days late, it serves my purpose on Election Day. If you haven’t already, Happy Voting. It’s worth the wait.

- This is a later storyboard for Toot Whistle Plunk & Boom. Last week I posted an earlier board (pt 1 & pt 2), and the focus, here, is a bit different. This is called “Meet the Instruments” for a reason.

There’s not much indication of the film that will actually grow out of this and is closer to the story artwork I started posting last week and will continue with plenty more later this week.

This comes from the collection of John Canemaker, many thanks to him.

Here’s the entire board (it’s considerably shorter) in three stats:

1
(Click any image to enlarge.)

2

3

And here’s the board broken down to allow for enlarging it:

11a

11b

12a

12b

13a

13b

14a

14b

21a

22a

22b

23a

23b

24a

24b

31a

31b

32a

32b

33a

33b

- A couple of weeks ago, I noted in a post that a large bank of theatrical lights had been placed in a circle on the Oval Lawn of Madison Square Park. This obviously indicated that a new “Art” piece was in the works. Little did I know that the lights WERE the art piece.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse Park is an interactive light installation that monitors visitors’ heart rates using two heart rate sensor sculptures, and activates two hundred theatrical spotlights, creating a pulsating matrix of light across the central Oval Lawn of the historic park.

According to the Park’s information about the piece:

Pulse Park marks the U.S. public art debut of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. In Pulse Park, evening visitors to Madison Square Park will have their systolic and diastolic heart rates measured by one of two sensor sculptures installed at the North and South ends of the Oval Lawn. These biometric rhythms are translated and projected as pulses of narrow-beam light that will move sequentially down rows of spotlights placed along the perimeter of the lawn as each consecutive participant makes contact with the sensors. The result is a poetic expression of our vital signs, transforming the public space into a fleeting architecture of light and movement.

During the daytime the lights look like this.

At night, the lights come in waves and create glowing patterns on the very bright green grass. Semi silhouetted people flicker about on the grass and move in the strobe light glows. Then it goes dark, and you wait another couple of seconds before the next wave begins. It was quite surreal and very interesting. Here are some stills.

If you look closely, you’ll find some people traipsing about.

I expected to have lights flashing in my eyes, but
that was never a problem.

I went the first non-raining night I could, last Monday, and recorded this short film on my camera to give you an idea of what you see in the dark of the park.

There’s a short item in The Gothamist about it.
New York Magazine had another, similar article.

Postnote: My photos were taken last Monday. Two days later half the lights were down, and by Friday they were back. I went by last night at around 7pm, and the piece was dark. I’m not sure when exactly they’re operating.

- Many years ago, Edith Zornow was my guardian angel at Sesame Street – I mean CTW. Whenever my tiny company was in desperate trouble and one short step away from crumbling, Edith would pop up with some spots for me to do, and things became just fine again. I have to say I loved Edith; it wasn’t the usual client relationship. She suffered from Parkinson’s Disease which slowly grew worse over a few short years. Eventually, she died, and I felt my world was doomed.

Arlene Sherman took Edith’s place, and was just as supportive. I worked with Arlene for many years producing lots of animated bits for the show and other shows. One time we even did a number of films in Arabic for a Mid-East version of Sesame Street.

Arlene just died this past week, and I’m tremendously sad.
We hadn’t worked together in a number of years, but she lived in the neighborhood of my studio, and we often passed on the street. Always an embrace, always I felt things were right in the world after meeting her.

I found this “Paid death notice” in the NY Times. I haven’t found any obits other than the one on AWN. At least there’s the one. I just had to report this, though I wish I had more details.

I also have to admit sadness on hearing of the death of Studs Terkel. It was comforting just knowing someone of his calibre was in the world.

I’ll be sad to see King of the Hill go, now that it’s been cancelled. I don’t watch every week, but I watch it often enough. However, we do have to make room for The Cleveland Show. Sunday will soon be an all Seth McFarland night. It’s interesting that the NY Times felt it important enough to deliver an article.

- Emily Hubley informs me that her feature film, The Toe Tactic is going to have a number of screenings upcoming for the local area.

Please take note of dates and times, and get out to see an exciting and different kind of movie.

Here are some places, dates and times:

Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville NY
November 5th, 7pm with Producer Jen Small and Emily Hubley in attendance.
Go here to order tickets to this event.

92Y Tribeca (200 Hudson St, NYC)
November 20th, 8pm
Discussion follows with Emily Hubley and friend Judith Helfand.
Go here to order tickets for this event.

Clearview’s South Orange 5 (NJ)
December 4th with a 7pm Filmmaker Reception and Q&A with Emily Hubley to follow.

Clearview’s South Orange 5 (NJ)
December 10th – 7pm
Go here to order advance tickets.

The Toe Tactic will have its theatrical premiere at The Museum of Modern Art from January 28th – February 2nd, 2009 (screening times vary).
MOMA’s schedule doesn’t have this program listed, as yet. Check here next month.

Tell one and all!

- Nina Paley tells of some upcoming screenings of her feature, Sita Sings the Blues. These are as follows:

There are two matinees at the New York Children’s Film Festival which screens at the IFC theater on Sixth Ave and 3rd Street:
Saturday, Nov. 8, 11:00 am
Sunday, Nov. 9, 11:00 am

There are two screenings at MoMA, as part of IFP’s Gotham Awards series for nominees in the category “Best Film Not Playing At A
Theater Near You” (undistributed features):
Thursday Nov. 20, 6:00 pm
Saturday Nov. 22, 3:00 pm

- For Halloween, we’re all posting relevant material to the “holiday.” I have a lot of artwork from the Hubley short, EGGS, which was wholly animated by Tissa David.

One of the two characters starring in the short is a skeleton, symbolic of death and destruction. The other is a nymph, who represents fertility. The show is basically about the complications overpopulation has presented to the world.

I thought it appropriate for today to post some of the drawings and models for the death character. The images displayed are cropped from the full animation sheets; when you click these displayed it’ll enlarge to the full page. Here they are.

The first model of the character came close to the final.
This is a drawing by John Hubley.

He soon solidified in this model by Hubley.

Tissa David finally worked out some of the problems for herself
and created this working model sheet.

Here’s a beautiful working drawing by Tissa as
she started to pose out the scenes.

Tissa’s roughs are deceptively simple but convey so much. These drawings
are for her eyes only, usually, she’ll clean it up somewhat for animation.

Unfortunately the dvd is a bit soft partially because of the nature of the
underlit final artwork. Perhaps someday there’ll be a better digital transfer.

Fertility is oozing sexuality in every drawing. This is part of the
same scene as she converses with death about the human race.

Here’s a YouTube interview with John & Faith Hubley done in 1973. They discuss Eggs and Voyage to Next.

Here’s EGGS on YouTube in a contrasty but sharp copy.

- This week we’ve seen the first draft of a storyboard for the Disney short, Toot Whistle Plunk & Boom. I’ll follow it up with the second version of the board (next Monday), however that doesn’t reveal the film that finally ends up on the screen.

These are some story sketches that were done for the final version of the film. I have enough of them that it’ll make at least two – possibly three – posts to get them all in. I’m also attaching some frame grabs designed specifically to show how some of the art ended up as it appears in the film.

This material is on loan from John Canemaker‘s collection, and I couldn’t be more grateful, certainly in light of the interest I have in this 1953 film.

Needless to say, the film was directed by Ward Kimball.
I’m not sure who did these drawings, but the Art Director was Ken O’Connor, Assistant Art Director was Victor Haroush, the Character Styling was by Tom Oreb, and the Color Styling was by Eyvind Earle.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The board art calls for a number of different shots/cuts;

whereas the film has few cuts within this sequence.

Obviously this was done because of Cinemascope. Kimball understood
that overactive cutting in Scope created a different effect than desired.

This drawing and the one below were combined into one scene.

however, the payoff for the gag was different as . . .

. . . the Pharoah bops the caveman’s head with the Egyptian horn.

“Bach” and “Bop” are labeled in the story sketches.

The film just plays their scenes.

Cinemascope allowed Kimball to combine scenes that would have
been separate had they been in a traditional film.

I’m not sure if the art was placed in any particular order.
The order has no relation to where it actually ended up in the film.

And yet the film feels so finely tuned and well constructed.

The Scope format allowed for a lot of play in composition,
and Kimball took advantage of it.

Needless to say, there’s more to come.

- I have some of the model sheets that Gary Trudeau drew for the Hubley film, Doonesbury (which was done for CBS in 1977.)

As I wrote once before, I had some problems with this production. It was the job I took immediately after completing Raggedy Ann & Andy. I was glad to be working with John Hubley again, and I helped on some of the prep for this show.

I was not a fan of the strip or Trudeau, and I know he wasn’t a fan of mine. Regardless, I would have walked through walls for John. Unfortunately, the walls which were covered with stunning artwork and paintings from past Hubley films, now displayed comic strips ripped from the newspaper and taped on top of the Hubley pictures. This annoyed me, of course.

But I continued layout of the show until one day when I was called into John’s office. He told me that he was about to go into hospital for a heart operation and expected to be back in about 3 weeks. I’d face a short lay off/break in work.

John didn’t come back. He died in the operation and ultimately Faith and Gary Trudeau went on to complete the film. I chose not to return.

I worked with R.O.Blechman in putting together the PBS special, Simple Gifts. Tissa David also worked on that film. She went to work for Faith after she finished her segment. She told me that she couldn’t finish animating 100 ft. (abot a minute) a week without a fast assistant. I offered to help.

At night, after working all day for Bob Blechman, I assisted Tissa’s sequence and then did a couple of Ruth Kissane’s sequences that were too complicated for some of the novice people at Hubley’s. I wasn’t very connected to the studio and felt the distance.

The show aired on CBS and was nominated for the Oscar.

(Of course, all images enlarge when clicked.)

- Here is the second installment of the first, preliminary storyboard for what would become Toot Whistle Plunk & Boom. You can see how little of the magic was in this board, yet it obviously inspired others to keep it alive and make it work. Ward Kimball has to get most of the credit, though designs by Tom Oreb, Ken O’Connor, Eyvind Earle and Victor Haboush sure brought it to life.

John Canemaker deserves all the kudos he gets for lending this material to me as well as plenty more.

Here are the three remaining boards as they appeared on the stats:

3
(Click any image to enlarge.)

4

5

Now here’s the breakdown of the boards. Each row of images is split in two and labelled accordingly. #31a means Board 3 row 1 part a.

31a

31b

32a

32b

33a

33b

34a

34b

35a
Finally, something familiar.

35b

I’ll have a later, more relevant board up next week. As well as plenty of color artwork later this week.

Ward Jenkins has posted some beautiful frame grabs from the completed film. Go here.

See this short on YouTube here.

- Our Adventures in Music continue with the preliminary storyboard for what would ultimately become Toot Whistle Plunk & Boom. This is another board on loan from the archives of John Canemaker, and you can see the outgrowth from the prior film, Melody: Adventures in Music.

This material I’m posting here is on large photostat copies. The problem is that the images are a bit fuzzy, and the text beneath the boards is illegible. In some cases, the appropriate text has been hand written on the copies themselves.

This board is the first of two that I have, and it is five pages in size. Here are two.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

These are breakdowns of each row of the two boards so that the images can be made as large as possible.

11a

11b

12a

12b

13a

13b

14a

14b

15a

15b

21a

21b

22a

22b

23a

23b

24a

24b

25a

25b

I’ll have the remainder of the board up tomorrow.
.
Ward Jenkins has posted some beautiful frame grabs from the completed film. Go here.

(Fotos by my friend, Steve Fisher.) …

This is the scariest Halloween of all.