Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Any devotee of the Multiplane Camera knows this scene in Pinocchio. It’s a jaw dropper. Despite the many dozens of times I’ve seen the film on screen (not mention on dvd or video), the scene is spine tingling. I thought it’d be fun to grab frames from the piece and display them. The animation for this sequence is by: John McManus, Jack Campbell, Cornett Wood, and John Reed.

I’ve gone a step further and have taken the scene that follows it where the newborn Pinocchio greets the real world (and life) for the first time. There’s some fine character animation there by Art Babbitt (Gepetto), Milt Kahl (Pinocchio), Don Lusk (figaro), and Sandy Strothers (Effx).

I urge you to read Mark Mayerson‘s Mosaic and comments on this sequence.

likewise, I urge you to read the excellent info Hans Perk has posted about the Multiplane Camera on his site, A Film LA.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

- I had mixed feeleings about last night’s ASIFA East event – a panel of Independent Animators who had made feature films or were involved with features in progress. It was hosted by Cartoon Brew’s Amid Amidi and featured panelists: Emily Hubley, Daniel Kanemoto, Bill Plympton, Tatia Rosenthal, and me.

- Bill, of course, has done six features. Idiots and Angels is the most recent.
- Emily had done a live/animation mix feature, The Toe Tactic.
- Daniel started a feature, Articles of War, ran out of funds after finishing a short – a part of the film – and is raising more capital.
- Tatia has finished a clay animated feature, $9.99, which is about to be released.
- I’ve done preproduction on a feature, Poe, and am still trying to put it together to get it into production.

The audience was overflowing with lots of people sitting on the floor. SVA students surrounded pros like John Canemaker, Candy Kugel, Don Duga, Irra Verbitsky, Bridget Thorne and many others. It was well attended.

The disappointment for me did not come from the panel. Their comments and answers I often found elucidating and interesting.

Amid asked the nuts and bolts questions to get it going, and then he opened it to the audience who had a very large number of questions.

The problem, I thought, was that the questions were centered ENTIRELY on the nuts and bolts: raising the budget, spending the budget and organizing the budget. The fact is that there were a bunch of people who had some experience on the panel, and all anyone was interested in was how to get money. Maybe it’s the mood of the country; maybe everyone these days is ready to do their own feature; maybe my head is too high in the clouds, and I thought there’d be more thought about the “Art” of it.

Feature films are completely different from short films. Timing is different, story is different, art direction & animation are different. It’s all different. There were no questions about the actual art of the feature. I was a bit surprised at that.

There was no one who talked about constructing the story and making it a palatable feature. This has been the hardest part for me. Who wants to make a beautiful film that puts people to sleep – even if it is financially successful. It’s really hard work, and I can’t say how much I love doing it and wish I were able to jump in full throttle. (I will, of course, do it full time as soon as the check arrives.)

Perhaps the next panel will talk a bit more about the art and less about the financing of it.

The two stills above come from obvious sources.
Bill Plympton’s image, upper Right, comes from his feature, Idiots and Angels.
Emily Hubley produced Toe Tactic. This is the still upper Left.

- Last Saturday night, in Ottawa, Richard Williams responded to John Canemaker ‘s questions about his career with enthusiasm and a pleasant grace. He knows how to tell a story and makes it good listening. On Saturday, he had an audience of animation people, and it helped to shorten some of his comments; no additional explanation was needed. The program went a bit long and had to be cut in the middle to give ample time for Dick to showcase his dvd
series – the Animation Survival Kit.

Last night, the show shifted to the Museum of Modern Art. More clips were added. (There was no Raggedy Ann on Saturday – at MOMA Emery Hawkins’ Greedy was screened. There also was no scene from The Christmas Carol – at MOMA the flying over London sequence was shown.) The show was more relaxed and time stood still for a while. The crowd was a good one, and the ticket was hard to come by.

My favorite moment was at the start. I sat alongside Tissa David, who’s 86 now;
Dick, going down the aisle, stopped to say a very personal hi to her before getting on stage. He also came immediately to her after the show. Tissa hadn’t seen him since her work on The Thief ended years ago. She’d told me the night before that she was going to the program because it might be the last time in her life that she’d have the chance to see Dick. She was tired immediately after and left once the program ended, not staying for a private MOMA dinner. _____________________Doug Crane (in blue) and Irra Verbitsky (to his rt).

The show had a lot more material in it and had a different feel than the Toronto program. Again, Dick and John sat knee-to-knee on stage, and Dick answered questions. However, there were fewer opportunities for Dick to elaborate with lengthy side stories. John pushed him always back on topic and shot a straight arrow to get all of Dick’s career in.

Afterwards, there was a dinner for some who were connected to Dick and his wife, Mo Sutton.
Josh Siegel, MOMA Asst. Curator, Department of Film, had arranged a nice sit down. Of course, John Canemaker and Joe Kennedy were there as was Chris Wedge and his wife, Jeanne, as was Amid Amidi and friend, Celia Bullwinkle, as well several others. Heidi and I sat a distance from
___________Josh, Amid, me, Dick and John _______________ Dick – three tables were gathered together, though he came over to say hi, and we talked again after food.

_
Sorry for the quality of some of the photos; it was the best I could do in the dark theater.

Here are some photos from Ottawa:

This is the National Gallery with the Louise Bourgeois spider guarding the lawn.
Inside this building I had my first encounter with children
who were bussed in to see my films & hear me talk.

1 2
1. This is the theater interior waiting for kids to arrive.
2. This is the US Embassy with flowers for the war dead on the gate.
They cleaned up this gate later in the day discarding the flowers.

3 4
3. The By Towne theater wherein many of the programs were projected.
4. Karl Cohen receives a Special ASIFA award. He’s flanked
by Deanna Morse (L) and Marcy Page (R).

5 6
5. (L to R) Glen Ehlers, Chris Boyce, David Levy
6. Amid Amidi (center)

7 8
8. Jason Simonich, Linda Beck, Candy Kugel
9. Ward Jenkins, taking my picture.

1011
10. The bus going to the picnic left from the By Towne theater.
11. Paul Driessen and Candy Kugel at the picnic.

1213
12 & 13 As in the past, lots of tables were set up for plenty of eating.
This year hamburgers & franks were the meal with some side salads.

1415
14. The night of the picnic, after a screening of Canadian shorts, a bunch of us went for
dinner to an excellent Thai restaurant that Hélène Tanguay recommended.
Hélène is in pink to the right. That’s Willy Hartland and Derek Roczen in front of her.
Candy Kugel sits just behind me to the left.
15. The carved pumpkins from the picnic were transported to the Saw Bar,
where Friday’s party was to take place.

16
16. Nancy Bieman and Candy Kugel
outside Barrymore’s before Sat nite’s party.

The full list of award winners can be found here on AWN. I don’t agree with much that the judges liked. Sorry. Different strokes for different folks.

Here’s the last of my reports on Ottawa. I’ll post photos later today when I have more time.

- Saturday in Ottawa at the animation festival was, for me, centered on my program/retrospective at 1pm. But first there was a conference at 11am which was moderated by Richard O’Connor (of Asterisk Pictures) about adapting other media to animation. Guests included David Polonsky, the art director of Waltz With Bashir; Frank Caruso of King Features Syndicate, who talked about adapting strips to animation; and me. The session was lively thanks to J.J. Sedelmeir’s interesting questions from the audience.

The end of this session gave me barely 30 mins to run to the Museum of Civilization where the retro took place. Literally, I had to run to get there in time.

Fortunately, there was a decent group, with a lot of the New Yorkers represented. The films didn’t feel quite right as projected on this screen in BETA format. They were overmodulated on the tracks and the images felt too contrasty. Probably the tapes; I’ll have to check when they come back, though I remeember these same tapes looking good at MOMA.

All in all, I felt the show went well.

We couldn’t get a bus in enough time to make the 4th competition screening, so I walked back to my hotel; a 45 min. trek.

That evening, I arrived early, at the same place, to attend the Richard Williams show. I got to say hi to Eric Goldberg, who I hadn’t seen since early Pocahontas when Tom Sito toured me through Disney showing off The Lion King, which was in completion. It’s been a while.

The theater was packed for Dick, and on every seat was a nine minute dvd sample of Dick’s
16 set masterclass dvd. John Canemaker had put together a nice program: the titles to Charge of the Light Brigade, some late commercials,a rarely seen trailer for The Thief, and scenes from the new set of instruction dvds Dick and his wife have produced. These dvd’s look informative and entertaining. However, my favorite clip shown was footage of Dick following people walking in London. It
_________Dick and John a bit out of focus _________________was hilarious.

After the program, Dick and John Canemaker seemed occupied with throngs of people, so Candy Kugel and I went to dinner. We then walked to Barrymore’s where they were holding a party at 11. There, we met up with Nancy Beiman and stood on line for about a half-hour. Eventually, we decided to blow off the party since there were only a lot of students on the long line; no one we knew. Those people would get there much later after the screenings, and we weren’t up to the wait.
By now, both Candy and I were anxious to get home.

Sunday, I had another show at the Museum of Civilization, but I also had a plane to make. It meant getting through an intro to the films and rushing out to the airport without watching my program. At the airport I met up with John Canemaker, who turned out to be on the same plane sitting just in front of me.

We ate lunch in the Ottawa airport, caught the plane and rode into the city together. I’ll meet up with John, tonight, at the Museum of Modern Art’s program of Dick’s work. It’ll be a rerun of the Saturday show.

All in all, I’d say this was one of the better Festivals. The films were great, and in the end they really make a festival. Kudos to Chris Robinson and all those who were so helpful behind the scenes. And a special thanks to all the pre selection jury members. Great job done.

- The second day of the Festival had a completely different feel. For one thing, I didn’t have to make a presentation; for another, there was quite a bit more activity now that the Festival had officially opened last night. I still have a high from some of the films seen last night.

The first program I attended was a salute to Canadian animation compiled by Chris Robinson (who also has a new book about the subject.) This show wasn’t as well paced as some of the others. There were a few lagging moments in there, but overall it was a high. A couple of the excellent shorts included: L’Ondée by David Coquard Dassault, The
____Fest director Chris Robinson_______.___Nose by Neil Burns and The Forming Game
__________________.___________________by Malcolm Sutherland.

Following this there was another Shorts Competition which included new films by some better-known filmmakers.

Run Wracke’s new short, The Control Master, utilized a lot of CSA images that were cut and pasted together and animated in his cut-out style. It didn’t have the same impact on me as his first film, Rabbit, though I was quite pleased to see it. You can watch it on line here.

This Way Up by Adam Foulkes and Alan Smith was a funny cgi short about two morticians trying to pick up a dead woman and take her to the grave.

Don Hertzfeldt’s new short, I Am So Proud of You, was something of a disappointment for me. After his recent film, Everything Will Be OK, which I found brilliant, this new film felt like more of the same.

A Child’s Metaphysics by Koji Yamamura was not a perfect film, but it was in many ways the most inspirational. I’m a big fan of his work and while watching this short I came up with a thought on an Independent film I’d like to make. You’ll hear more about this.

After a well deserved break, I came back last night for another program of competing short films. This compilation wasn’t my favorite, though a couple of shorts stood out: Western Spaghetti by NY animator, PES, was slight but fun. Baerenbraut by Derej Roczen from Germany was interestingly designed and animated with a complex story. Lost Utopia by Mirai Mizue, from Japan, was a stunningly attractive and complicated abstraction. Georges Schwizgebel had another gem in Retouches. There were quite a few abstract films on this program, and I was glad to see it. This is a form most other Festivals seem to be ignoing. The adolescent film takes centerstage these days even at animation festivals. Not quite true in Ottawa thanks to the taste of Festival director, Chris Robinson. He puts his emphasis on artful films, not cheap entertainment.

Following this screening, we were guided to a party at the old jailhouse, a courtyard at the Arts Courts building (the Festival’s headquarters.) It was outdoors, under a tent, and a bit cold, but the party was lively and fun.

Friday was about the picnic. Buses met at the Bytowne Theater, a small local theater about a mile from my hotel, wherein most of the competing films were screened. The first bus left
at 11:30 and others were to follow. I went earlier to the Arts Courts Center (pictured left) where the Festival’s headquarters is located. I thought I might see someone familiar, as is often the case. Not today, so I moved onto the theater. There, I found the doubledecker bus waiting at 11:15. People were moving to the upper deck, but I knew that would end up a cold ride (the weather here has been sunny but on the chilly side), so I stayed indoors. I had a nice New Zealand guy sit next to me, and he and I had a good conversation en route. He’s now located in NY representing his company.

The first arrival at the Picnic grounds led to the traditional tent and food set up for serving. Hamburgers and hot dogs were the fare. I decided to wait till the second round of arrivals to eat. It was too early, I felt, for lunch. I ended up talking at length with Dermot Walsh, a Toronto designer and board artist. Eventually, I made the rounds with a lot of NY artists: Dave Levy, Chris Boyce, Linda Beck, Candy Kugel, Justin Simonich, and Dayna Gonzalez. Linda and Justin were shooting a documentary about NY folk attending the Festival, so I was interviewed. Others I met there and chatted with included: Skip Battaglia, Karl Cohen, John Halfpenny.

Once the pumpkin carving was judged, the buses began to load and depart. I went back with Candy trying to make the 5pm show. The “International Showcase” was a Panorama (that’s what they used to call it) on animation that didn’t make it into competition. It was an odd mix. I loved El Empleo by Santiago Grasso from Argentina. It was a well designed and animated piece wherein people are employed as chairs, lamposts, taxis and tables. (Not too far fetched an idea if McCain gets in there! There won’t be many other jobs.) dEVOLUTION by Candy and Vince Cafarelli was a beautifully designed film with a quiet punch. Glago’s Guest was the recent short from the Disney folks. I’m not sure quite what to make of this. Nicely produced with a couple of out-of-place cute and sentimental bits. I really didn’t like Presto, from Pixar, or Ergo from Hungary.

After this, a group of nine of us went to dinner at a nice little Thai restaurant that Hélène Tanguay located. It was a fun dinner with good food (only the second real meal I’ve had since arriving.) After this I decided I was too tired for any more films, so I returned to write this post and check to see whether our economy was still operating.

Saturday, I have a conference and the first of two presentations of my “Retrospective.” I may not get a chance to post any more before returning on Sunday. If that’s the case, I’ll complete the sum-up on Monday. With pictures.

- I have some access to the internet, so I’ll try to post a wrap up of my days here. If I wait till Monday too much will back up and I won’t be as thorough. Kindly, excuse the lack of pictures since I don’t have access to photo sharing. I’m taking many and will post them when I return on Monday. Pictures I’m posting come from other sites. So, here’s what I saw on Tuesday and Wednesday.

- I arrived in Ottawa on Tuesday at about 5:30 pm. Fran Krause was on the same flight, and we chatted during the trip. He had a short, pilot film he’d done for Cartoon Network as part of the Children’s TV program; I have a retrospective coming this Saturday. I was also scheduled to talk twice on Wednesday to two groups of children. The flight was inconsequential; no delays, no problems. Carry on luggage, take off your shoes, get on the plane. The Hotel I was assigned was the Hotel Indigo – a great hotel though it ends up being at least a mile away from anything. Lots and lots of walking during the stay.

On Wednesday, I walked to the National Gallery where I would have a short screening and talk to a theater full of children. Arriving, I met with the Festival’s Jerrett Zaroski, who had arranged things for me. He sadly told me that the second show that day had been canceled. Apparently, Canada’s government decided to cancel school buses for extracurricular activities – the kids couldn’t get there. Actually, I think Jerrett was more disappointed than I; I was glad to have the time for myself to reacquaint with Ottawa.

However, there was this first show, and about 200 kids arrived en masse. They were loud until the program started; then they were absolutely silent. On leaving, I’d decided, at the last minute, to take a BETA copy of LYLE LYLE CROCODILE. I knew this 1/2 hour show would be a crowd pleaser and would brighten this show. I also added DR. DE SOTO and THE MAN WHO WALKED BETWEEN THE TOWERS. It made for a diverse show and gave me about 45 mins. to talk. I talked before and after each film, and gave the kids 25 min. for a Q&A which had to be shut down when time arrived. The program went really well and started the trip off well for me.

After lots of strolling, I went to a screening of WALTZ WITH BASHIR. It’s an odd film that didn’t overwhelm me. The story was good, but the imagery consisted of poorly animated illustrations of the soundtrack. Chuck Jones used to call it illustrated radio. The film was done primarily with Flash.

This show was followed by the first of the short film competitions. There was a lengthy introduction and opening, which included a speech by Festival director, Chris Robinson, and an award presentation to Karl Cohen by Marcy Page and Deanna Morse. This finally led to the program that was excellent as Festival short programs go. The quality of the films here, so far this year, is at least “good” with a couple of really brilliant films I’m pleased to have seen and look forward to seeing again.
Three, in particular, from this show really stood out for me.

The Noir was an extraordinary tour de force of animation by Serge Elissalsde. Excellent design built around a very live line against white background. It was about a man who feared drinking his tea almost as much as he feared pigeons.
The Heart of Amos Klein was was an Israeli film by Michal Pfeffer and Uri Kranot about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In about __________The Heart of Amos Klein
10 minutes it gave a complete history
of the problems there and focused on one tyrannical Israeli officer and how, even his one death, might have changed events. Well animated and nicely designed. It was a subject I wasn’t interested in yet was wholly drawn into this thoroughly compelling film.
The House of Small Cubes was far and away the best of the night and I can’t imagine any other film in the Festival bettering it. A brilliant Japanese short from Kunio Kato, it told of a man who lived in an ever flooding house that cascaded into the life story of this elder occupant. It was beautifully designed, animated,__________The House of Small Cubes
scored and produced film. A real treat.

The Opening night party followed at a club called Helsinki. It felt more like a bar with a strobe light that attended to the loud music while we were all given a free drink. I went in with Candy Kugel who left quickly, tired and trying to confirm her quarters – she’d just arrived – and I talked with John Halfpenny and Barry Ward (of Bardel Animation). An hour was enough for me; I was tired too. It was a great first day.

In September 2006 I posted a couple of Bobe Cannon drawings from Hubley’s Moonbird. Let’s take another look:

– Moonbird is one of the seminal films of 20th Century animation.

After John Hubley left UPA, where he helped explore the use of 20th Century graphics in animation, he formed a commercial animation company in Los Angeles. Apparently, with this new entity, John did less drawing and more producing. Trying to correct this problem, he closed the LA office and set up in NYC with Faith.

The studio in New York did commercials on a smaller scale. With a Guggenheim Fellowship of $8000, the couple produced a short film, Adventures of an * in 1957 and committed to doing one film a year for themselves. With this film, Hubley picked up where he’d left off at UPA. Exploration of modern art now took on the wildly successful Abstract Expressionists and told a non-verbal story using expressionist art.

The film Tender Game, done in 1958, told another non-verbal story using the song “Tenderly” to illustrate a romance, again, in expressionist art. This film, in some ways, feels like an outgrowth of Hubley’s work on the feature, Finian’s Rainbow.

In 1959, Moonbird took a giant leap forward. The art style borrowed from the expressionists, but used a method of double exposures to layer the characters into the backgrounds. Each animation drawing was painted black outside the border of its lines. Moonbird, the character, was colored with clear wax crayon and painted with black ink. The black resisted where the wax stood and gave a loose scribbled coloring. All of these painted drawings were photographed as double exposures, shot at less than 100%, to combine characters with Bgs.

The soundtrack involved an improvised track of two children, Mark and Ray Hubley, playing. These were recorded in sessions within a recording studio and massively edited down to create the final tracks.

Bobe Cannon animated the film with Ed Smith assisting. Ed inbetweened Bobe’s scenes and animated many others.

A variation of this became the Hubley method. There was usually someone working in the studio who did all inbetweens and animated some lesser scenes. A great way to break into the medium in a big way.

Some extremes by Bobe Cannon are posted below.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

Here’s a link to a YouTube version of the film.

I love Jiri Trnka’s work, and in June 2006 I posted this. It’s worth revisiting.

- To continue with my interest in animators that leave fingerprints, I return to the father of all puppet animators, Jiri Trnka. I have this Graphis Magazine article from 1947. This was published before any of the great Trnka films: The Hand, Archangel Gabriel and Mother Goose, Midsummer’s Night Dream.
Regardless, there are still some beautiful images in his earlier work.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

(Note: Graphis printed in three languages; all of the English is included.)

- Today I’m leaving for the Ottawa Animation Festival and I’m, of course, expecting to have a good time. I’ll probably be far from a computer so don’t expect to be posting new pieces until next Monday. However, I have chosen some golden oldies to post again and don’t think those who visit will be disappointed.

In Ottawa, I’m looking forward to the few programs of my studio’s work. They’re scheduled for Saturday, September 20th @ 1pm and Sunday, September 21st @ 11am.
There are also two programs at the National Arts Gallery for children. These are scheduled for Wednesday, September 17th @ 11am and 1pm.

Other than that, I look forward to the Richard Williams program on Saturday at 7pm, and I’ll see that again in its NY incarnation next Monday. I’ve also been told that the show will be different from the Ottawa program, and I have no doubt about that.

To add to the post, I’m grateful to Paul Spector for sharing this magazine piece (it may be missing its intro.) The magazine, as far as I can tell, is an old ASIFA publication.

(Click any image to enlarge.)