Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

I received the following press release from MOMA re their program to be held next Monday. I’ve been told that this will be a different show from the one being conducted in Ottawa.

MASTER CLASS:
RICHARD WILLIAMS IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN CANEMAKER

Monday, September 22
7:00 p.m.
The Roy and Niuta Titus 2 Theater
Three-time Academy Award winner Richard Williams discusses his long and influential career in a conversation with animation filmmaker and historian (and fellow Oscar-winner) John Canemaker.

Williams, who was awarded Oscars for Special Achievement and for Visual Effects as the director of animation of the Walt Disney/Steven Spielberg blockbuster Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and for his short film A Christmas Carol (1971), is one of the finest animation filmmakers of our time.

His stunningly crafted, award-winning films have featured the work of veteran animators from the Disney studio’s “Golden Age” and from Warner Bros. Cartoons, most notably Grim Natwick (Snow White), Art Babbitt (Fantasia), and Ken Harris (Bugs Bunny). Williams also learned from his friends Milt Kahl (Pinocchio, The Jungle Book), and Frank Thomas (Bambi, Cinderella).

A distillation of his acquired knowledge went into the exuberant animation he directed for Who Framed Roger Rabbit and, most recently, into an unparalleled and indispensable series of instructional DVD master classes based on his bestselling book The Animator’s Survival Kit.
Illustrated with clips from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Charge of the Light Brigade, A Christmas Carol, Raggedy Ann & Andy, the animated titles from The Return of the Pink Panther, award-winning commercials, segments from The Animator’s Survival Kit, and more.

Organized by Joshua Siegel, Asst. Curator, Department of Film, and John Canemaker.

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Then on Tuesday ASIFA East will hold this program:


ASIFA- East

A panel discussion on the state of NY Independent Animated Features.
Hosted by Cartoon Brew’s Amid Amidi and featuring paneiists:
Emily Hubley, Daniel Kanemoto, Bill Plympton, Michael Sporn, and Tatia Rosenthal.
Clips wif! be screened and a Q and A by the audience will conclude the event,

Tuesday, September 23
SVA, 209 E. 23rd St.
3rd floor Amphitheatre
7 PM, Admission: FREE

Check out our web site for the latest news at www.asifaeast.corn

- Last week, Saturday, we heard all day about the hurricane, Hanna, which had turned into a Tropical Storm and was about to strike NYC as it ripped up the East Coast. We were advised of enormous rains and heavy winds. I spent much of the early morning preparing my studio – which is subject to flooding since it’s below ground level – in the event of a flood. I moved Lola, our studio’s kitten, to my home to fight it out with Alex, my house cat.

The flooded corridor that leads to my studio’s front door – 10pm last Saturday.

The storm came and dropped 4½ inches of rain in about four hours. I came back to the studio about 10pm to see the damage, if there was any. The answer was not much. There was a lot of water in the corridor leading to the studio, but the sandbags held any water out. I was pleased.

This week we have replaced images of Hanna with the horrific pictures of Ike. Texas was getting smashed, and despite the fact that so little damage had inconvenienced me, I was able to feel upset at the images that started to come in from Galveston and Huston. My heart goes out to them, and I can only hope the worst of the hurricane season is past us. Times are changing, and we have to start thinking seriously about this climate of ours and the earth that’s feeling our abuse.

- From bad news to good. I was riding high when I learned that Hans Bacher is back. His late and glorious sites which honored animation design and art, has been revived. Gone is the low cal Google Blogspot; in is the more durable and solid WordPress. I’ve added the link and have visited the site a half dozen times. I urge you to do the same.
The site is called: one1more2time3.wordpress.com

And speaking of Hans Bacher, let me remind you of his brilliant book, Dreamworlds. I think this is the foremost book on the art and design of animation filmmaking. There is nothing even comparable on the market. If you’re serious about animation as a craft, you should already own this book. It’s filled to the brim with images of stunning artwork from many well known features. It informs about color, design, storyboard, composition – everything all animation artists should know, and it’s in depth. It’s the equivalent of Dick Williams’ book on animation; but this is on design.
Let me repeat, this book is a beauty.

I couldn’t resist posting this video I found on YouTube from Jim Lefevre. If you go to his website, you can find other vids showing how the piece was done. It’s quite original.
This video comes to life about 42 secs into it.

– One of the best exercises I ever received, when I was starting out in animation, came from someone I respected and whose work I truly admired. Jack Schnerk advised me to animate a character walking in a circle.

He felt that a walk cycle was one of the hardest things to learn, and by animating that character in a circle it meant keeping the character solid while moving it 360º. Try it; it isn’t easy (unless, presumably, your working in cgi.)

Note: the photo of Jack Schnerk comes from Amid Amidi’s Cartoon Modern site; it’s part of a UPA group photo.

After posting all that material about Max Fleischer yesterday, what better example of a character moving in a circle can I find than Popeye. This is from the film Hello, How Am I? where we get two Popeyes for the price of one.

Here’s the title card and a frame grab from the actual scene.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

Here are frame grabs of the actual walk.

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Popeye walks in a circle.

- Today’s the 36th anniversary of Max Fleischer‘s death. i couldn’t pass the moment without displaying his Obituary from the NYTimes.

Following that I’m posting the 9-page piece from the Film Dope magazine issue #16/Feb. 1979. I wanted to give the full filmography of Fleischer’s work.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- Here I continue with the illustrations by Errol Le Cain for the book written by Naomi Lewis from a story by E. Nesbit.
A School Bewitched is a small picture book with a full page illustration on every other page. The remainder have spots which decorate around the type.

Again, my focus here (and yesterday) is to show off the illustrations. I’m not concerned with telling the story. I’d urge you to buy the book if you’re interested in that.

______(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- As you know, I am an enormous fan of Errol Le Cain’s work. I’ve been posting quite a few of his illustrations for children’s books. (You can see the past posts, if you’re interested, here.)

Today, I’m showcasing a book written by Naomi Lewis from a story by E. Nesbit.
The book was adapted to a film on the BBC, narrated by Nigel Havers. She also adapted The Snow Queen which Le Cain illustrated.

The book contains 30 pages, and every page includes an illustration. I’ve decided to break this into two parts since I don’t want to post tiny thumbnails of the pictures.

I’m not highlighting the text; you’ll have to buy the book for that. I am posting all the great illustrations and hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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To be concluded tomorrow

- Here’s a bit of a breakdown of one of my favorite scenes in Pinocchio during the “Actor’s Life For Me” song. The background and all the overlay/multiplane elements rotate during the move.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The above two images came from John Canemaker ‘s book
Treasures of Disney Animation.

Here are frame grabs from the scene:

How daring for them to have the characters mostly obscured by foreground buildings
or walking off the bottome of the screen. Walt was ultimately the one who made
this decision, but a lot of other people did it along the way.

I doubt you’d see this staging in a current film.

Here’s a QT movie of the frame grabs represented above – it offers a different way of viewing what’s going on in the actual scene.

- Here’s some Bill Tytla distortion that you should take a good look at. Dopey has water in his ears and shakes his head (like a dog) to get the water out.

Take a look at the final heads as the shape of Dopey’s face and head changes. It’s a beautiful piece of animation. The volume remains completely intact as everything else about the head shifts. Yet, the whole feels as though it retains its form. Using graphic distortion, the scene becomes funny and strong and is wholly Dopey in a three dimensional way.
I’d like to know what an Assistant got to do.

I have to admit I was amazed in doing this simple little exercise of taking the drawings – despite the fact that some are missing – and put them on one’s and simply run them one after the other to make the QT film at the end. Yet, once I put the drawings into motion, they became something else. It’s quite the heart and soul of what animation really is.

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Dopey drains.

Animators don’t always get the proper attention. Take these two examples I found this week:

Me

I found this article in Variety, this week; Tues. Sept. 2nd.

‘Man on Wire’ adds related short
Jake Gyllenhaal narrates animated ‘Towers’
By BRIAN COCHRANE

“Man on Wire” is throwing out another line.
Beginning Friday, select screenings in L.A. and Gotham will be followed by animated short “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers,” based on Mordicai Gerstein’s Caldecott Award-winning children’s book.

The 2005 short is narrated by Jake Gyllenhaal and, like “Man on Wire,” centers on Philippe Petit’s 1974 wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

“The Man Who Walked Between the Towers” will screen after showings of “Man on Wire” at the Landmark Theater in Los Angeles and Landmark’s Sunshine Cinema in New York City.

Magnolia Pictures, distrib of “Man on Wire,” hopes the short will broaden the doc’s appeal to family auds. “Man on Wire” just topped $1.5 million at the box office, making it one of the top-grossing docs of the year to date.

It would have been nice for Weston Woods, who is distributing the film, to have told me about this. I’m pleased, obviously, that the films have been paired, but by being left in the dark I’m not very happy. Note that my name doesn’t appear in the article despite the fact that I made the film.center>

Bill Plympton

I found this picture in the Oscars magazine, Academy Report. The picture was taken for the Monday Nights with Oscar series they held back in June. John Canemaker hosted an event of WB cartoons.

Unfortunately, they cut Joe Kennedy (John’s companion) out of the picture
and mislabelled Bill Plympton as Joe.
They also make no attempt to say which one is which name.

- I never got to meet Bill Melendez. However, I did speak with him. In 1976 I was writing an article for Millimeter Magazine. My task was to discuss the commercial scene in animation studios. Among those I contacted was the Melendez studio, and in the first call I got through to Bill Melendez, and we spoke on the phone for more than half an hour.

There was no doubt that I liked this guy. He was affable and friendly and giving. He made my job easy; he answered every one of my questions in depth. Of course, given the opportunity, I had to ask a number of questions that interested me personally about producing the many shows he was making, about his history at UPA, about a number of other impertinent items. I got no sense from Bill that he took this as off-topic, and I tried not to overstep my bounds too far. He invited me to meet with him the next time I was in LA (which I stupidly never did), and couldn’t have been more gracious.

I’m truly sad I didn’t meet him, and now it’s too late. I’m curious to see what will become of his studio; I hope the work continues there.

Bill Melendez obituaries are out there, and they’re not all identical.

Here’s:
Charles Solomon for the LA Times
the NYTimes
the Washington Post
Variety
AWN
Cartoon Brew still stands high.

The ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive has an interesting interview between Bill Melendez and Tom Sito.
Here’s an interview on YouTube.