Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Friend Steve Fisher continues about town with some ver interesting photos.
For the bulk of the photos he had joined the Landmarks Conservancy’s tour of the Hearst Building at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue yesterday, Dec. 13th.

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Six-story restored base façade of
the original building was designed
by Max Urban in the 1920s.

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The tower was designed by Norman Foster

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Art work installation on wall designed by muralist Ben Long.

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Water sculpture installation designed by Jamie Carpenter.

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Test laboratories for Good Housekeeping on 29th Floor.

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Views from the 29th floor of the Hearst Bldg

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______________________________

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At the MTA Transit Museum in Grand Central Terminal
Steve found a model train of the very terminal
where the train set was standing.

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Steve writes: “You may ask why I took this photo.”
“If you thought it was because of the style of the shoe,
that’s only half of it.”

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“Check out the right foot.”

- Turn around, and it’s the weekend again. I guess that’s a good thing. But Christmas seems to be coming so quickly these days. It was only yesterday that I was complaining that they were pushing Christmas on us so soon after Thanksgiving. Christmas carols when we had hardly finished eating the turkey! Maybe they were right.

As we get closer to Christmas there are fewer and fewer Academy events. Things were mellowing out already this past week. I was so happy to not have had a dinner or a lunch or a screening to attend last Sunday. I stayed home and was quiet while the weather, outside, was pretty lousy. One of those days where the rain is light enough that you feel stupid opening an umbrella, but the wind and the temperature made it so bitter out that it was great to be indoors – anywhere.

On Monday, I’d picked up a DVD for the animated feature, Consuming Spirits, at the Film Forum theater. The film should be seen on a big screen. It was shot in 16mm and looked pretty darn good in DVD. The story is complex, so I’m sure watching it focused in a theater would be better for the film. However, I loved it, just the same, and my review in the Splog on Tuesday was a foreshadowing of some of the reviews that appeared in the NY papers on Wednesday when it officially opened. This movie will be playing through Christmas Day; treat yourself.

It’s very positive that A.O.Scott in the NYTimes chose his top ten flms of the year. As usual he adds another five or six which he call his “honorable mention” list of films that came close to being in his top ten. Consuming Spirits was one of these “honorable mention” movies that take on a nice prominence.Mind you that I don’t always agree with Mr.Scott (e.g. my favorite movie of the year is not to be found on his list), but I do take pleasure when I see such a deserving, small film get the attention it deserves.

Read A.O. Scott‘s review for the NYTimes here.
Read the 3 star review by Farran Smith Nehme for the NYPOST here.

On Tuesday there was a luncheon at the Four Seasons for Les Mis̩rables. Some of the cast РAnne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Eddie Redmayne, Amanda Seyfried and Samantha Barks were all there. We entered a different room this time; this one had a piano bar playing. Uh oh.

During the meal, director Tom Hooper announced that, even though they’d had a late night the night before – there was a lot of drinking, I guess, at the premiere – the cast was itching to sing for us. Samantha Banke, who did a lot of musical theater in England,sang “Summertimne”. This was an odd choice given the temperature outside, but she did a great job. Hugh Jackman then sang a song to his wife which was a love letter to her. Anne Hathaway followed singing a Christmas carol with Eddie Redmayne, Amanda Seyfried and Hugh Jackman doing backup. Coffee was served and the lunch ended quickly. Tom Hooper didn’t even recite a poem, but he did take photos of the crowd with his cel phone.

On Thursday I went to an Academy screening of The Hobbit. If it resembled any of the Lord of the Rings movies (with endless battles going on among millions of computerized creatures) I was prepared to walk out. The film felt as though it had been written by one of those geeks you meet at Comic Con. Completely amateurish dialogue with cliché following cliché while all this good stuff passed on screen visually. The near-three hour length was exhausting. The score is great and Ian McKellan is a blessing.

The film was shot at 48 frs per sec (and projected back at the same rate) which created a sharper more defined focus, closer in look to hi def video than film. There was one character, covered in hair, who I found extraordinary to watch without my 3D glasses. The focus on his skin was amazing, and I spent a lot of the first hour searching for shots of him without my glasses on. I later learned the character’s name, Balin. I hate to say it, but that was really the height of the film for me.

I also have to agree that the animation of the gollum was quite amazing. Not as good as the tiger in Pi, but worth the cost of admission for an animator. If Andy Serkis has anything to do with it, I applaud him.

On Friday night I followed up an ad in Variety that indicated a screening in town of the
Japanese animated feature, The Mystical Laws, was showing for Academy members. In the end, I couldn’t go; work finally got in the way.

I still want to see Goro Myazaki‘s film From Up on Poppy Hill. I know that Bill Plympton hated it, but he and I often disagree on movies. The film won the Japanese equivalent of the Oscar, and it did enormously well in Japan. Somebody liked it; there’s got to be something good there. I’m going to keep my eyes open for it; usually GKids ‘ distributing it means there will be a chance of its eventually playing.

Today, Saturday, the Academy has its screening of animated and live action shorts. The short-list (ten animated and ten live-action) will screen so we can narrow the selection down to five films for each category. I can select the animated films from my home since I saw them all and remember the ones
I like. However, I haven’t seen the live action shorts and want to vote for them. So we start with animated films at 10am, live-action at noon, and we continue through till about four or five. There’s a lunch at 1pm. A long day of movies. Looking forward to it.

To add a bit of punch to this post, I’m placing an article Chuck Jones wrote in 1965 for an ASIFA International bulletin just prior to one of the early Annecy Animation Festivals.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- There are times when I wish I had a political blog so that I could vent some of the political venom that builds up in my little world.

Fortunately, my first love is animation, and I maintain steadfastly an animation and cartooning blog. And believe me, one blog’s enough.

Given that, I’m proud to present this post.

- We’ve already met Fritz Baumgarten‘s characters Teddy and we’ve seen his version of Santa. In this sweet little book, Teddy gets to meet Santa. It’s another wonderful Christmas book done in the very round style of Mr. Baumgarten. That coupled with his delicate and limited color palette.
Teddy’s Weihnachten.

This book comes from Bill Peckmann. Many thanks to him. His one short comment is:

Here is our second German Christmas card (book) from Fritz Baumgarten. (Man, can he do birds, or what!)

I hope you enjoy it.

Book’s cover

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You’ve got to love this picture !

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Beautiful poses on those birds.

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The End

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And a last note comment with an additional page from Bill Peckmann:
“In keeping with the Spirits (hic!) of Christmas past, a peek of a future post…”

Having begun last week with an exceptional post, courtesy of Bill Peckmann, on Bernard Krigstein, we can only try to do another one. We certainly can’t top any of his artwork.
(Go here to read that past post.)

So here, again thanks to Mr. Peckmann, more great art. Bill takes over the writing from here on out.

With his ground breaking, graphic, illustrative comic book pages, Bernard Krigstein did some of the best EC Comics art ever.
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He excelled in their genre of crime comics…

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…their line of horror comics…

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…and their science-fiction titles.

But Bernie also did two stories for Harvey Kurtzman’s MAD comic book and a few illustrations for Harvey’s early MAD magazine. Here is all of Krigstein’s art work for MAD.

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Starting with MAD #12, June 1954, is Kurtzman’s and Krigstein’s 7 page
movie spoof titled “From Eternity Back to Here”.

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Here from MAD comic book #17, Nov. 1954,
is “Bringing Back Father”, a comic strip send up
done by using the talents of Harvey Kurtzman,
Bill Elder and Bernard Krigstein!

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For the first issue of Kurtzman’s MAD magazine, # 24, July 1955,
Krigstein did two illustrations to accompany a story done with text.

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Here from MAD magazine # 26, Nov. 1955, are a few story illustrations by Krigstein.
It would be the last time that he and Harvey Kurtzman collaborated.

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Postnote from Bill:
For those readers who are coming upon Bernie Krigstein for the first time and like him, there are still two very worthy books available on him through Amazon. Both are authored by Greg Sadowski, Vol. 1 is a bio, it’s an excellent bio, especially his early life, with many illo’s, both are out of print but not cost prohibitive.
Take a look, here.

- At Buzzco, they are preparing to send a lot of archival art to the MoMA. I’ve been trying to race through a bunch of it to scan it so that I can present it on this Splog. A folder of drawings by Len Glasser had to be organized so that I could send it out. There are certainly some odd bits in there.

Let’s start with a potpourri of pictures.

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This Background stands alone. It’s painted on a cel.

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Then here’s the cast of characters.
A model sheet for the Wacko.

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This W.C.Fields character belongs to Frito-Lay.
Doritos Corn chips; this character was the
spokesman for quite some time.

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There are three model sheets for the bear.

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Let’s get back to some character models.

Len Glasser had a unique style – perfect in its time.

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Cowboys always fill the bill.

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A kid who likes his hot dogs.

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He’s not too happy when he doesn’t have a frank in hand.

It seems to end with the boy not getting another hot dog.

Here are a group of drawings that work together. They’re some layouts Len Glasser did for a spot for NBC; it has something to do with the weather. The floating guy makes it look like it may be part of the story of the sun, the wind and the man with a coat. The sun and wind compete to see who can get the guy to remove his coat first. (Spoiler alert: the sun wins.)

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This seems to be the layout for the whole piece.

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But then, there’s another near-identical one with the addition of a snowman.
I’m not sure where the snowman appears in the spot. Is he the floating head?

This is the Background for the spot.

What follows are the layouts for the animation, though I’m not sure what’s going on.
They’re drawings, at this point, for the sake of drawings.

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It goes to Top Pegs for one drawing.
I don’t know why.

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Back to Bot Pegs.

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Another lone drawing with Top Pegs.

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Bot Pegs.

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This one has No pegs.

Let’s end on a picture of Santa. . .
. . . an original picture of Santa that only Len Glasser could draw.

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A Christmas card? Who knows,
but it’s great.

- Consuming Spirits has to be the most original animated feature done to date. It’s a project that obviously consumed and developed in the mind of Chris Sullivan these past fifteen years, He undoubtedly allowed the story to grow in all the time that it took him to make the movie and then had to work the jigsaw puzzle of an edit to pull all the pieces together. The story is probably the most unique aspect in the film, an existentialist development with the characters growing in and out of each other, developing because of freak accidents other characters have had and moving the story along because of the odd relationships they have one to the other. It’s an epic piece ____________ChrisSullivan
of writing told in the most personal way imaginable. There’s been
nothing like it in animation before, at least not in anything I’ve seen.

And the style is allowed to build off of the story as well. Characters move from pencil test to cut-out animation to full color to 3D stop motion backgrounds. Whatever helps the scene is what the look of the film becomes. It’s all done in sort of a primitive drawing technique with watercolors replacing clay backgrounds as complicated cut out characters move through multiplane settings.

As I said, this is an original, a truly Independent animated film. And it’s premiering now at the Film Forum in New York on its first leg of distribution in the US.

Here we see frame grabs from the first several scenes. You can see how easily the style moves from one technique to another, and it feels completely natural to the film.

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We move in on a pencil test of a factory.

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A harbinger of darkness, a crow perches on an upper level
of the multiplane setting watches that factory.

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A long distance shot of the community reveals . . .

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. . . the animated title of the film, Consuming Spirits.

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A 3D pan over the model of the town leads us to . . .

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. . . the multiplane pencil test as our lead moves
with his rifle through a dark, wooded area.

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A nun moves out of the sanatorium.

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Chris Sullivan’s credit.

Through all this the camera, always active, continues to move in and around the settings. A nun is accidentally hit in an automobile accident and the film begins.

It moves slowly and purposefully with characters always, seemingly, in realistic settings, but the settings take on a rarefied air as the complicated story takes on the level of a soap opera and quickly develops into a reality that feels unusual for animation. Finally, there’s a flashback of an ending that completely overturns the cart and makes the story grow wildly.

It’s a peculiar film and a great one, and it’s in the total control of Chris Sullivan who not only wrote, produced, directed and animated it, he also performs the music. This film is a one man band – or maybe I should say a one man orchestra. It has to be seen to be experienced. This is not a film that can be encapsulated in one sentence, nor can it be easily described in twenty.

I suggest you get to the Film Forum to see it where it will be playing for the next two weeks. It opens tomorrow, Dec. 12th and continues through Tuesday Dec. 5th, Christmas Day. It’s about as adult as a film can get, and it lifts feature animation into a new realm.

Here is A.O.Scott‘s very positive review from the NYTimes.

Boyd van Hoeij‘s less positive review in Variety.

Ian Buckwalter‘s positive review on the NPR site.

- Last week I posted the first twenty pages of the Heath book, Animation in 12 Hard Lessons.

As I mentioned back then, this book was always for sale in the back of animation magazines and film articles about animation. Not only did they sell the book by Bob Heath and Tony Creazzo, but they offered a lot of equipment, somewhat similar to Cartoon Colour. Paper, cel vinyl and portable drawing tables were all available through Heath.

I never really had the chance top go through the book, though I always had a curiosity about it. I had come across Tony Crazzo’s work. He was the assistant to Vinnie Bell, one of my favorite animators on the East Coast. I have to say, I loved his work on the Letterman series that I coordinated for the Hubley studio. I never did get to meet, or even speak with him though. Vinnie used to bring in his own work, already beautifully assisted in a strong and juicy line.

So here at Buzzco is a copy of the book. I can’t help but share the piece with you, knowing that it’s not for sale on the market anymore. At least I haven’t seen it out there in quite some time.

Here’s part 2:

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- Back in Jan 2007, I posted these photos from the animation production of Woman of the Year. I recently was talking about choreography, and I thought that there was one whole style of choreography wrapped up in the work of Tony Charmoli. It made me want to look back on the work I did with him, and I think these pictures are interesting enough that they’re worth revisiting. So here, again, is that post:

Woman of the Year was a project that came to me in the very start of my studio’s life – 1981.
Tony Walton, the enormously talented and fine designer, had gone to Richard Williams in search of a potential animator for WOTY (as we got to call the name of the show.) Dick recommended me. But before doing WOTY, there were some title segments needed for Prince of the City, a Sidney Lumet film. (I discussed that film in this post.)

Tony Walton designed the character, Katz, which would be the alter-ego of the show’s cartoonist hero, played by Harry Guardino. Through Katz, we’d learn about the problems of a relationship with a media star, played by Lauren Bacall.

It turned out to be a very intense production. Three minutes of animation turned into twelve as each segment was more successful than the last.

______________________________________________(All images enlarge by clicking.)
There was no time for pencil tests. I had to run
to Boston weekly, where the show was in try-outs, to project different segments; these went into the show that night – usually Wednesdays. I’d rush to the lab to get the dailies, speed to the editor, Sy Fried, to synch them up to a click track that was pre-recorded, then race to the airport to fly to the show for my first screening. Any animation blips would have to be corrected on Thursdays.

There was a small crew working out of a tiny east 32nd Street apartment. This was Dick Williams’ apartment in NY. He was rarely here, and when he did stay in NY, he didn’t stay at the apartment. He asked me to use it as my studio and to make sure the rent was paid on time and the mail was collected. Since we had to work crazy hours, it was a surprise one Saturday morning to find that I’d awakened elderly Jazz great, Max Kaminsky, who Dick had also loaned the apartment. Embarrassed, I ultimately moved to a larger studio – my own – shortly thereafter.

Here are a couple of photos of some of us working:

Tony Charmoli was the show’s choreographer. He worked with me in plotting out the big dance number – a duet between Harry Guardino and our cartoon character. I think this is the only time on Broadway that a cartoon character spoke and sang with a live actor on stage. John Canemaker is taking this photograph and Phillip Schopper is setting up the 16mm camera.

Here Tony Charmoli shows us how to do a dance step. Phillip Schopper, who is filming Tony, figures out how to set up his camera. We used Tony’s dancing as reference, but our animation moves were too broad for anyone to have thought they might have been rotoscoped.

John Canemaker is working with Sy Fried, our editor. John did principal animation with me on the big number in the big ke segment. Here they’re working with the click track and the live footage of Tony Charmoli to plot out the moves.

Steve Parton supervised the ink and paint. To get the sharpest lines, we inked on cels and didn’t color the drawings. It was B&W with a bright red bowtie. A spotlight matte over the character, bottom-lit on camera by Gary Becker.

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5. Steve Parton works with painter Barbara Samuels
6. Joey Epstein paints with fire in her eyes.

Joey Epstein paints “Katz.”

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8. Harry Guardino on stage with the creation of “Tessie Kat” developing on screen behind him. This was Harry’s first big solo.
9. John Canemaker gets to see some of his animation with Sy Fried, editor.

One of my quick stops from the lab on the way to Boston? No, I think this is a posed photo.

The success of the animation (including good reviews) posed a small problem for me. The rest of the show was ripped over the coals. When I started using some quotes about me in industrial ads, the producers came down on me for gloating over the others who’d gotten negative reviews.

All the same, it was a real learning experience in a big Broadway kinda way.

- On Dec 16 in Amsterdam there will be a major exhibition of the work of Oskar Fischinger, a pioneer of animation film and abstract cinema. This opening will be an exhibition featuring various items including the films, the animation drawings, process material, the documents, correspondence, clippings, color charts, sketches, diagrams, patent drawings, and some of the sketches done (but not used) for Fantasia. Also exhibited will be notated graphic scores, material from the making of An Optical Poem, unshot animation drawings, and various other materials.

John Canemaker wrote about Fishinger for the New York Times, “Decades before computer graphics, before music videos, even before Fantasia (the 1940 version), there were the abstract animated films of Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967), master of “absolute” or nonobjective filmmaking. He was cinema’s Kandinsky, an animator who, beginning in the 1920′s in Germany, created exquisite “visual music” using geometric patterns and shapes choreographed tightly to classical music and jazz.’

Oskar Fishinger in his Hollywood studio with panels from “Motion Painting”.

This coming week, Wednesday Dec. 12th, Christopher Sullivan’s independent, animated feature will make its New York premiere with a week-long run at the Film Forum.

Described in the Film Forum’s press material: “The animation took 15 years of work… The characters were hand-drawn onto layers of glass which were then moved with needles and pins. The film seamlessly combines cutout animation, pencil drawing, collage, and stop-motion animation to create the haunting atmosphere of a self-contained world… (most of whose) characters walk shakily between self-medication and a bad trip… ugly characters (who) make up the most beautiful spectacle you’ve ever seen.”

I’ve been looking forward to seeing this film for quite some time. Finally, I’ve been able to confirm arrangements to see it, and I will review it. I’m ready, given all the mediocre work I’ve seen lately.

Meet the film maker

Christopher Sullivan will be there IN PERSON! at the following screenings:
December 14 | 6:30pm
December 15 | 6:30pm

This week, upcoming, the Museum of Modern Art will present a program of older European animation, and quite a few great classics will be screened in one very powerful program that will be shown three times. Trust me, if you don’t know these shorts, they are brilliant – all of them – and there is not one you should miss. Here’s a list of the films in the program:

Animation Abroad, 1946–59

Arie Prerie (Song of the Prairie)
1948. Czechoslovakia. Directed by Jiri Trnka. 21 min.

A Litte Phantasy on a 19th Century Painting
1946. Canada. Directed by Norman McLaren. 3 min.

Fiddle-de-dee
1947. Canada. Directed by Norman McLaren. 4 min.

Charley’s March of Time
1948. Great Britain. 1948. Directed by John Halas and Joy Batchelor. 9 min.

A Phantasy
1952. Canada. Directed by Norman McLaren. 8 min.

Blinkity Blank
1955. Canada. Directed by Norman McLaren. 5 min.

Thumbelina
1955. Great Britain. Directed by Lotte Reiniger. 11 min.

Concerto for a Submachine Gun
1958. Yugoslavia. Directed by Dusan Vukotic. 13 min.

Les Astronautes
1959. France. Directed by Walerian Borowczyk with Chris Marker. 13 min.

Program 87 min.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Thursday, December 13, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Friday, December 14, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2

Nest week, and I’ll post the list next Saturday, there will be a number of Hollywood Cartoons that will be screened. Chuck Jones, Robert McKimson, Hanna & Barbera, Jack Hannah and Ward Kimball. They’re all represented.

– As of yesterday, Friday, the Pups of Liberty became available for sale to teachers as well as the public, If you go to izzit.org or Amazon.com, you’ll see the assets that are available; indeed, they both link to an educational video, entitled The Pups of Liberty.

Perhaps you’ll remember the posts I published a while back on this short film produced by Bert and Jennifer Klein. I put those several articles together into one here to best showcase the story of this video. With the help of an all-star animation team (artists including: James Lopez (Hercules, Emperor’s New Groove, Flushed Away and Princess and the Frog), Eric Goldberg (Aladdin, Fantasia 2000, and Princess and the Frog), Barry Atkinson (Prince of Egypt, American Tail and The Lion King), and Mark Henn (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Muland and Princess and the Frog) Jennifer and Bert created this Revolutionary War-based film. It offered history as entertainment and allowed audiences to learn from a very entertaining series.

Now, the Kleins are not only making the video available for sale but have a new activities website which expands on that video.

This is a smart idea as Bert and Jennifer Klein seek to develop a new market and a new way to sell a creative product. If you’d like to learn more, take a look at these few clips of the animation. Here or here or here.

The schedule continues with our watching a lot of films on the run up to the Oscar nominations. By “us” I mean the people of the Academy, those who elect to see the films on a big screen before they vote. I’m sure a lot of members take the easy way out and watch DVDs of the current movies. I won’t hear this way out. As a matter of fact, they’ve asked us to accept the films via download. We’d watch the movies – the movies we’re voting for as Oscar contenders – via download over the internet. Sort of like NETFLIX. I still want to think of them as “movies”, I want the burden of going to a theater to watch them in a public place with other differing viewers, all inconvenienced at the same time. That is part of the experience, isn’t it?

So, anyway, this week started off with Zero Dark Thirty. (I guess that’s supposed to mean 12:30 am – or half past midnight, in the dark.) On Tuesday the movie got the NYFilm Critic’s award for Best Film of the Year. I was hot to see the movie.

Turns out, to me, it was just one step above a TV movie version of the raid on Osama Bin Laden campsite to capture the guy. This film had no poetry in it and wasn’t about much other than the raid we watched. I didn’t like it. Dull. I did like Kateryn Bigelow’s last film, The Hurt Locker. But this film wasn’t that. I thought Jessica Chastain was miscast even though I am a big fan of hers. In fact there’s a Thursday luncheon where I’ll meet Ms. Bigelow and Ms. Chastain. I’m looking forward to that but have to lie if they ask what I thought of the film.

top – Dustin Hoffman, Bill Connolly
bot – Maggie Smith, Tom Courtney

On Wednesday, there was the fllm directed by Dustin Hoffman, The Quartet. This one was great. No miscasting here. Maggie Smith and Tom Courtney were brilliant. Billy Connolly couldn’t have been better, and it was easy to love Pauline Collins. She’s always great. The script by Ron Harwood from his own play was sparkling and always alive. The film was funny, warm, about people and always alive. Just great and human. Top drawer work. After the screening there was a penthouse cocktail party with a nice view, good free vodka or wine, and a chance to tell Dustin Hoffman and Billy Connolly about how good they were. Heidi told Mr. connolly how much she hliked his voice work in Brave, I just told him he was great, great, great. If I didn’t realize how stupid I sounded, I probably would have said a couple more “greats”. See this film for all the brilliant talent on display and the fun you’ll have watching it.

– Thursday night, I skipped the screening of Hyde Park to attend the lecture across town. Adam Abraham was speaking on the back of his book, When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA . The book was remarkable to me, and I was looking forward to meeting the author. At first there were very few people in attendance, but it soon filled up. I was happy to see friends, John Canemaker and Amid Amidi there.

Adam’s talk was well done and ended with the screening of five films: Gerald McBoing Boing, Magoo Express, The Tell Tale Heart, Rooty Toot Toot and a rarely seen live action promotion for Magoo’s 1001 Arabian Nights, called: A Princess for Magoo.

I enjoyed the program and was pleased to meet Adam after the talk. Amid Amidi and I walked the few blocks to the subway and went home. A nice evening.

– On Friday, I attended a luncheon for the film Argo. Ben Affleck, and several key people from the film attended and answered our questions about the movie while we ate at the Four Seasons Restaurant.

The movie is promoted as some kind of recreation of actual events, and I’m sure it is. However, the film we see on the screen works just too well as a typical action-adventure sort of film, that it’s hard to accept its believability, regardless of how much is true. The climactic scene as the hostages are flying away from the Iranian police is just too Hollywood to be a reality, and Mr. Affleck admitted as much, making a joke of the idea. As an action film it works, but I wished for it to dig a little deeper.

A quick steak lunch and a return home. There was a screening of a documentary called West of Memphis which I was scheduled to attend last night, but I just didn’t feel up to it. So I stayed home. Enough movies for one week.

In 1973 Raymond Briggs did this eccentric telling of Father Christmas, treating him as you would a real person. The book is funny, and John Coates followed up his adaptation of Briggs’ Snowman book into animation by doing this book as a video. It was almost as successful as The Snowman, though not quite. It relied on a different form of humor.

The film, Father Christmas, was released in 1997 and was nicely directed by Dave Unwin with a tour de force performance by Mel Smith as Father Christmas. However, watch out for later versions that use William Dennis Hunt as the VO character, they’ve taken all the purposeful darkness out of the character and have sanitized it to within an inch of its life.

However, the original Raymond Briggs book still exists, and that’s what Bill Peckmann has forwarded onto me, and I present it happily.

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As a follow-up here’s a piece Bill found about Raymond Briggs:

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Ernest Briggs on his milk float.

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