Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- For Thanksgiving, Heidi and I drove to my brother John’s house in Connecticut where we were joined by his family as well my sister Christine and her family. It was a pleasant day. Since I don’t own a car in Manhattan – the garage costs are more expensive than the car – I rented one. Picking it up on Wednesday meant I had to return it Friday and pay for two days, instead of the one I really needed it for.

So we had a car on Friday. I suggested that Heidi and I go to the Bronx Zoo something we hadn’t done since the early days. You have to understand something, this is a big deal for me. Emotionally. My first job, at the age of 11, was working in the Zoo. I was a busboy during the summer. I wiped painted steel tables clean and cleaned the grounds while the crowds bubbled their way on through. Within a year or two I graduated to the hamburger guy and then quickly from that to the Head cashier. The top guy. I worked there part time until I went into the Navy, ten years later.

A lot of memories happened in those ten years, and seeing how the Park has changed has always been a surprise and a strong interest of mine. The Zoo was a good ten miles from my home in the Bronx, so either I had to pay for the two buses which would get me there or take my bicycle. It was usually a combination of the two depending on the weather, my financial situation, or my mood. The bike ride was a good one, easy and direct. The bus was complicated and took longer than the bike.

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The Bronx River met us at the parking lot
at the eastern entrance of the zoo.

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The river ran a block away from my home
when I was a child. We called it the creek because
that’s what it was at that far point of the Bronx.
It was also a great wooded park to play in.

As a busboy I had a few standout memories that still make me smile.
Kevin was another busboy and a friend. He came from Goshen, NY (somewhere upstate) but spoke as though he’d come from the deep midwest with a heavily twangy accent. In some ways, he wasn’t the smartest guy in the world, but he was a lot of fun. In other ways, he was sharp as a whistle.

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The first pavilion we came upon was the bird house.
This is a relatively new exhibit – about ten years old.

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Plenty of room for birds to move about in the simulated wild.

The two of us had found maraschino cherries in the kitchen and would often, during slow moments, dip our hands into the large jar of Red Dye #3 to grab a handful of the tasty, sweet, candied cherries which would go atop sundaes (they were made in the Zoo, back then, but are now prepackaged.) Within a short while Jonas, our manager, caught on to our cherry picking, and he suggested we not take any more. It had been getting a bit over the top.

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Not all of the animals in this exhibit are birds.

However, there was the one time a couple of days later when I came out of the kitchen to find Kevin with a big smile on his face. He asked if I wanted a maraschino cherry. With that, he picked one out of his white busboy jacket pocket to share with me. After eating it, I couldn’t help but to burst into laughter.

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One thing I have to say is that the birds ARE colorful.

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Even ordinary ducks can look exotic
in a rainforest setting.

Kevin’s starched white busboy jacket had a big, wet, red stain on the pocket. Kevin hadn’t counted on his thievery being so obvious. That’s when the sly and understated Jonas was standing between me and Kev, talking first about the weather, then about the crowds and finally about the table umbrellas. As he left us standing there, he suggested that Kevin get himself another busboy uniform. One that was clean.
I screamed laughing; Jonas kept walking with that wry smile, and Kevin was almost as red as the stain on his jacket.

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Birds were hidden everywhere in plain sight.

Harvey was the dishwasher. He was more than a little slow; he was marginally retarded, big and strong. Definitely slow on the uptake. Right out of central casting. He knew I was a big fan of soundtrack albums (at the age of 12). He was excited, one day, to tell me he’d bought the soundtrack to “Around the World in 80 Days” – this was back in the 60s.

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Harvey loved the film so he bought the record as a souvenir. Unfortunately, for him it was just Victor Young’s music for the film. It took about half a day to realize he wanted to get rid of it and couldn’t bring himself to ask me if I wanted to trade something for it.

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My older sister, Pat, had been a member of the “Columbia Record Club”. This was a scam operation where Columbia Records would send you albums and if you didn’t send them back right away, you owned them and would be billed – at a high rate – for the record. Pat ended up owning a lot of records she never listened to.

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There was a relatively new Lanie Kazan album that she didn’t like and didn’t listen to. I offered this as the record of exchange to Harvey for his copy of “Around the World” – a film I hadn’t seen and didn’t really know. I did know Victor Young’s music. (He’d done the background score for “Samson and Delilah”, “The Road to Zanzibar”, or “The Court Jester”.) I thought this would be a good deal if I could pull it off, and I did.

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Wild turkey for Thanksgiving?

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Harvey ended up loving that early Lanie Kazan album and played the copy he’d made on audio tape, over and over in the kitchen. I, on the other hand, enjoyed owning the Victor Young soundtrack, even though I didn’t listen to it very often. I still own it. When I hired Lanie Kazan to do a voice over and a song for me in one of my half-hour shows, I didn’t tell her this story; I wasn’t sure if she’d see it as a compliment.

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“Tiger Mountain” had other animals besides Tigers.
In fact, the mountain was little more than a hill
where some deer-type creatures roamed.

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I was interested in the one male who was trying
to clear the brush from his young antlers.

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Of course there was the one tiger who paced back and forth
endlessly as if it were in a cage.

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Back and forth for the entire time I was there.

On work days I’d get in early enough and finish my prep for the day a bit before the cafeteria opened. Often I’d get about a half hour having coffee, reading the newspapers at the outdoor steel tables. Zoo personnel would usually come by and have their morning coffee and you could chat with them. I was pretty friendly with a lot of these guys.

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There was one guy who used to take a tiger on a leash. These were years before they had “Tiger Mountain” with the animals living in a more natural environment. Back then, there was a Tiger house, where the tigers would live caged within the confines of the space provided. The young tiger on the leash was only three months old and would be taken on a daily stroll to give it some exercise. Since I knew the keeper and saw him daily, I got to know the tiger (which I think was named, “Natasha.”)

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Slowly I got to watch Natasha grow up and was able to play with her a bit during that half hour coffee break. By the time she was six months old, she was almost fully grown and the walks were coming to an end.

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The Administration Building featured a couple of Rhinos.
This was once the Elephant Building where Rhinos, hippos,
and Elephants roamed.

Every day I had to go to the Zoo’s administration building to have my “bank” for the day doled out – the money I’d use to operate the cash register. It was a ten minute walk from cafeteria to administration building. On one day I’d been half asleep when I turned into the building. “Natasha” on a leash was just coming out. I found myself on the ground underneath a fully grown tiger playing with me. Her keeper was nervous, afraid that I’d report an incident. Of course, not. I’d just had a great moment; one that I remember pretty vividly to this day. No wonder I liked Pi.

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There was a carousel with bugs to ride instead of horses.

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This was included in the price of admission,
so we rode.

Bees were a problem in the outdoor, summer cafeteria. People ran from the place rather than get stung. To counter this we did something simple. We filled a soup bowl with what was called “simple syrup”. We’d save packets of sugar that customers left behind and mix that sugar with some warm water. A heavy molasses-like texture in a bowl was left center table at two or three spots, a bit off the main crowds. The bees would come to drink, overdo it and drown in the syrup.

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At the end of the day the customers wouldn’t have noticed the bees, so felt safer. However, you had a bowl (or bowls) full of dead bees that someone had to remove. I was usually that person. I wasn’t afraid of the bees and had no problem dumping them. It also bought me a lighter half hour at the end of the day when we had to clean fast and furiously to be able to go home. I never did get stung.

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Heidi enjoyed it, though I was a bit offset by the music
which was calliope music not synched to the ride.

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Later, we went to the Baboon area (I forget what they
actually called the pavilion.)

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There was a hairy baboon who stayed in one small spot.
He was a handsome fellow and was primarily concerned with himself.

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Back in the olde days, there were always things happening in the zoo. I remember, at one point, the Pygmy Hippo gave birth to two cubs. There was a wild scream early one morning, and people rushed to the cage, just across the street from our cafeteria. Apparently the depressed hippo mother turned on one of her cubs and began to eat the baby.

The keeper was eventually able to separate the mother pygmy hippo from her second so that both cubs wouldn’t be killed. The mother was, in time, reunited with her last living cub. Apparently, she’d had some type of postpartum depression and it was sad for the killed cub.

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Alongside the baboons, the zoo had what looked like
a couple of capyboppys on display.

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These look like three foot long rodent/guinea pig type creatures.

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Outside the baboon exhibit there was a series of skulls
relating humans to the creatures on display.

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Always information of some type is offered visitors.

I had many memories and many stories, and it helps to explain my fascination, still, with Zoos. I tend to seek zoos out when I visit other countries. The Paris Zoo is so different from the London Zoo, but both retain unique feelings. Amsterdam and Yokohama are very different from the San Diego zoo which is almost too large. Manhattan’s Central Park Zoo is similarly very different from the Bronx Zoo. And the Bronx Zoo has changed so drastically that I almost don’t recognize it anymore.

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A group of goats, of some breed, mix with
the baboons in that same quiet area.

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The two separate on their own, naturally.

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The Terrace Cafe is almost identical to what it once was. Not much has changed. The same window slots to serve the customers and it had a similar placement of tables. This cafeteria wasn’t open, it being November; they’ve gone onto their Winter schedule.

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A number of ostrich preened themselves
at the giraffe enclosure.

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The giraffe were somewhat active moving about
looking as though they were seeking food.

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Since there was little foliage in the trees
the giraffe had to bend down (always awkwardly) to eat.

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My one bit of anxiety was that I might have run into Jonas Schweitzer, my old boss. I know that’s ridiculous. As a matter of fact, I would’ve enjoyed meeting up with him. He shifted to Administration after I’d left, and has certainly retired. But there was still the memory of him asking Kevin to change his busboy jacket so the bright red spot could be contained.

Some things never change, I guess.

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The African Plain was our last stop.

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It actually was a little hill with one male
and one female lion. He was over it and
was hiding, for the most part.

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She just lay still.

- A few months ago I got pretty excited about an animation project in the news. Uli Meyer, the brilliant animator/director/designer, had decided to commit to a film he loved and wanted to take beyond the tests he’d already done so successfully. The film was an adaptation of Ronald Searle‘s great series, The Belles of St. Trinian’s. This series of cartoon books inspired several feature films in the early fifties that starred some of the greats: Alastair Sim, Margaret Rutherford, Terry Thomas.

Years ago, I’d seen the first in this series of movies; I’d also seen the beautifully executed test done by Mr. Meyer and was taken by the excellence in the performances in that spot – performances by both the character’s and the director’s. The animation had so charmingly captured the style of Ronald Searle’s delicate illustration style. It also captured the humor of the cartoon.

So, yes, I was excited by this news. I immediately linked to the new site that was created as a sort of production blog for the film, and I contacted Uli to offer assistance in any way that I could.

I watched as they recently took the older B&W test and experimented with color coming, finally, to an exquisite little film which was posted on line:

But then came the bad news that things had come to a halt with the project. This is what Uli wrote on his St. Trinian’s blog:

You might have noticed the lack of posts recently, unfortunately the production has hit a major setback. I can’t go into details and don’t want to name the culprits because I am hoping that at some point soon the issue can be resolved. Unfortunately there are some people who don’t want me to make this film. I had no choice but to put it on hold. This is not the end of this . . .

Apparently, in meeting some of the family, they gave encouraging words of support regarding his film, and promised that once the estate took back control of the books, the project could resume.

To put bad news to positive use, Uli chose to utilize his time by diving into a children’s book idea he’d had. The book would be one that would be designed for young children with beautiful illustrations done in his own style. Uli explains the book better than I could, so I encourage you to visit the blog that explains it – here.

The book is called Cuthbert Was Bored, and in Uli’s words, it’s “A 40 page picture book for the very young, about shapes, colours, sizes and a little crow’s journey to self-discovery.” The art is so juicy, I’d love to see it animated and hope it will be successful so that it could make the transition to film. Naturally, it’s important for this book to be handled correctly, and to that end Uli has decided to self-publish it. That would allow him to control the rights and get the best possible printing.

To raise some small amount of money to enable the highest quality and the control the book demands Uli has set up a Kickstarter campaign. This is well on its way, and with two weeks left we can hope that Uli will raise the final goal of £10,000 needed. I urge you to go and take a look at some of the beautiful art on display at the Kickstarter page. In its own right the page is attractively displayed and is enormously encouraging as a potentially beautiful book (and hopefully a great animated film – that’s just me shouting my unnecessary opinion). Of course, you should seriously consider contributing some amount to the project no matter how small. It’s obviously a good project with a worthwhile work of art in progress.

Another week and another stash of films I’ve seen. But once I saw Monday’s film, I wanted to stop. I felt like I’d seen the best film of the year and was completely satisfied. It gave me enough to think abut for the rest of the week. It also happens to be my idea of the best animated film of the year.

The Life of Pi is adapted from a book I just absorbed rather than read. This book was magic for me, and I gave copies to many people because I thought it something everyone should read. Then I waited patiently for a film to be made. I’d read the reports. M. Night Shyamalan, for a while, controlled the rights to the film, and slowly, very slowly, he worked toward a finished script for the book. I find his work more gimmick than reality, so didn’t expect the flm I hoped for. He was followed by Alfonso Cuaron, a favorite filmmaker of mine, so a good film for me then became a possibility. Eventually, I learned that Ang Lee had taken control. Lee is a brilliant filmmaker, one of the highest in my pantheon, and I felt the material was safe in his hands.

Now, having seen the film I feel that Lee has made, I think he has found a new way of creating movies. Something of an amalgam; reality blends with poetry, cgi blends with live action. Ever since Silent film went out of fashion, the word on film was that it had to be visual. If you could do the movie without words, so much the better. Now, with the advent of the computer Ang Lee has found his true métier. Visuals could blossom into poetry in the artist’s hand, and that allows the filmmaker to make a moving picture rather than a talking picture. Of course, the sound track is a good part of the movie, but it’s now there to enhance the visuals and not overtake it.

The story in this film ultimately is about a young man – about 16 – and a Bengal tiger that are trapped together in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a small boat – a life boat off the side of a passenger ship. Of course the two can’t kill each other or there would be no book or movie. How they do it and why this story is explored became the themes. A tiger and a boy, according to u-nion rules, cannot occupy the same frame at the same time. Trick photography had to start with this simple problem. It made sense to animate about 75% of the tiger, and believe me you can’t tell which is tiger and which is cgi. There’s magic on the screen.

Poetry is created with the ocean and the stars and the lead actors. It’s all in the search for who is god, what is it about a creator that so entrances us, and what are we willing to do to survive in the presence of this god.

Oh, I’m selling this wrong, I know it. It’s not a perfect film. There’s a big mistake, I feel, toward the end where something is explained. The audience gets it; you don’t have to tell us everything. We can interpret it; we don’t need it interpreted for us.

But the film is such a big one; it’s so exciting just on the top level, but then you can reach down deep and keep on reaching and you won’t run out of levels. It’s an amazing film, and I’ll quit there. See this in a theater, that’s all I’ll ask of you.

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There were a couple of other films this week. The first, seen on Tuesday night, also involved some heavy cgi animation. Rust and Bone is a French film that starred Marion Cotillard, a brilliant actress. She plays a woman who, in an accident at a marine show, has to have both legs amputated just above the knees. We see – or I mean we don’t see her legs for the rest of the film, they’re removed digitally. Very much like Gary Sinese’s legs in Forrest Gump. The difference is partly, that we WANT to see Marion Cotillard’s legs. Of course, digitally removing them isn’t enough; it’s the incredible acting that goes with it that allows you to buy that problem in the character. The film is a good one – at least, I thought so. Someone else who saw it at the same screening as I thought the film a total waste of time. Different moods, I guess.

Last night, I saw a film that I know was a total waste of my time. Les Miserables the movie was a curiousity for me. I’d hated the musical and hoped that the film would make up for that memory of a horrible show. But I was wrong. The film was every bit as bad as the live show, even with celebrities in the roles. Two actors were great: Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne; both sang with an innocence that gave their pitch perfect voices a wonderful clarity. The two of them are the only reasons for seeing this film. Others weren’t as successful. Hugh Jackman‘s singing voice is nasal and annoying after a while. Russell Crowe was flat half the time. Anne Hathaway has a mediocre, thin voice which kills the part with her over-performing attempts to outdo every other Fantine. In the Q&A she spent so much time telling us how bad she is that you realize how much she does like herself. In her mind she couldn’t outdo “Patty” so she had to find a newer way in. She’s really just fishing for compliments. Yug.
Director, Tom Hooper, created a one note film that was tedious to sit through. At least for me.

The Q&A was with Tom Hooper, Ann Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Amanda Seyfried, and Samantha Barks. It was one of the few Q&A sessions I walked out of. The answers to the dull questions were tedious.

Tonight I see Lincoln again. Heidi hasn’t seen it and I want her take on it. Spielberg is the Ann Hathaway of directors. How many ways can he pull his face to show us how cute he is. Fortunately, that cuteness only shows up toward the end of this film, Lincoln.

Years before Dick Moores got near the smell of Gasoline Alley, he had a bulging career at Disney’s doing books. Long before he ever thought of drawing Walt or Skeezix, he was a master of the Mouse. Bill Peckmann has sent me Goofy as the “Mechanical Wizard”, and I’ve rushed to put it together so I could read it. Here’s Bill’s opening salvo:

Continuing with the posting of Dick Moores ‘Disney’ career, we have here one of the classic Mickey Mouse comic book stories of the early 1950′s. It’s ‘Goofy’s Mechanical Wizard’, written and drawn by Dick, the story gives us a little glimpse of what will be in store for us once he was to take over the complete reins of the ‘Gasoline Alley’ comic strip, approximately a decade and half in the future. Surprisingly, here in his Mickey Mouse stories, there are no famous, rickety, ‘Gasoline Alley’ type bridges or catwalks. They would come later, but they would have been perfect for the hi-jinks of Mickey and especially, Goofy, with that in mind, Moores’ two MM stories would have made very enjoyable animated shorts.

Here then, is the cover and story of ‘Goofy’s Mechanical Wizard’.

The book’s Cover

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Inner covers of the magazine

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All three of these gags were written by Moores.

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Back Cover

And coming to a future Splog from Dick Moores:

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- For the past few Thursdays, I’ve been posting a notebook that animator, Eugene Salandra compiled. These were notes he’d taken of classes taught by Tissa David in New York during the late 1990s. These notes and the notebook, itself, were completed with last Thursday’s post.

However, Eugene did one better. He reviewed the notes, typed them into a presentable form and revised them for the sake of clarity. Looking at these encapsulated and abbrieviated version of the noteboo, I feel it’d be remiss not to post them as well as the rough version that we’d already posted. So, thanks to Eugene’s generosity, here is a labor of love he put together. We’ll all benefit from them.

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You can see the earlier parts by going to these links:
_______________part 1, part 2, part 3. part 4, and part 5, and finally, part 6.

- Robert Lawrence Productions was a thriving studio in New York in the days post-UPA. Many of the animators moved from UPA, once they closed, to Robert Lawrence. Grim Natwick/Tissa David worked there (freelance), Lu Guarnier/Vince Cafarelli worked there, and consequently, Vince collected a lot of artwork from the spots he did. This post features a lot of that artwork. You’ll see how great the design and styling was at the studio, even though I don’t know what clients or sonsors they were done for. The designers certainly took off where UPA left off.

But first, let me share two in-house studio gags done at UPA.

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At UPA – NY, Lu Guarnier was the only animator
who had a window. Vince Cafarelli and Pablo Ferro
were Lu’s Assistants/Inbetweeners, so they also
had the luxury of a window.

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- OK, now onto Robert Lawrence. The more I look into this company’s work the more impressed I am. The quality of designers and animators on board was extraordinarily high. I have a lot of Layouts for films that are completely lost. I’m not sure what most of the images are for or what the stories of the spots was. I just have drawings, and most of them are impressive, even more so in some ways than much of the UPA work I’ve seen.

So let’s take a look.

First there is the promo art. As an introduction to the company, here are four self-promo pieces that were used as trade ads for the company.

I’ve assumed that these images were created for a print ad in some magazine or another. There are three of them; one comes in a 2-color version.

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Now we get into some of the fun stuff. Here are the layouts done in a million styles, all beautifully drawn and designed. I feel like I want to say thank you to some of the artists involved. If only I knew who the artists were. The drawings and cels were all done on paper with a “Signal Corps” hole-punch. (Looks like Oxberry, but the center hole is the same diameter thickness as the square pegs.)

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This is a beautiful gag told a million times,
but done perfectly in this drawing.

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The inked arms in #1 are the variant. (Possibly a correction?)

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A cel not opaqued but beautifully inked.

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Obviously #5, 6, & 7 are the same characters in development.
It looks like #5 is probably the finished model.

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This looks a bit like Howard Beckerman’s style, but I’d
probably bet against that. The characters aren’t cute enough

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There’s a whole series of chef models

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Then there’s a series of Cowboys.

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Then there’s the farmer milking the cow. Casting problems.

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How adorable is that?
for Jello.

- Recently, on this Splog, we saw Dick Moores, who would eventually replace Frank King as the artist behind Gasoline Alley, as the artist behind the beautiful comic books featuring Mickey Mouse. Bill Peckmann continues with the Disney artist, Moores, as he gives us Lambert the Sheepish Lion, Bill Peet’s tale.

But first we saw an early strip drawn by Moores, “Jim Hardy”. Bill Peckmann is here to present some of the Moores history:

When Dick Moores was assisting Chester Gould on his ‘Dick Tracy’ strip in the 1930′s, his big dream was to eventually have a daily strip of his own. In 1936, he was finally able to fulfill that wish with the comic strip ‘Jim Hardy’. It lasted from 1936 to 1942. He left ‘Jim’ to join the ranks of the Disney comic strip dept. in ’42.

In this 1977 Hyperion Press’ book of reprints we get to read Dick’s version of how the strip came about (and what a sweet read it is) and also included are the first 21 dailies of the strip.

The cover page of this Hyperion Press collection of strips.

The back cover of the book.

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Thanks to Germund Von Wowern we have an original ‘Jim Hardy’ strip from the early 1940′s. Beautiful ink work! (Sorry about the rubber cement stains in the word balloons, those are left over from re lettered foreign language versions of the strip.)

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Here, I’ve broken the original strip into two parts
so that we can see it fully enlarged.

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In this 1953 story Dick Moores had a great time adapting the Disney short ‘Lambert, the Sheepish Lion’ to the pages of a comic book. The more I look at the art, the more I start to get the feeling, that in Dick, the cartoonist, there was always an illustrator trying to get out. Some of these panels would have made pretty good page illustrations. (Which makes one wonder and dream of what a comic book page would have looked like if it had been done by the one and only Bill Peet!?!)

The comic book cover which contained Lambert.

The back cover

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In Part 2 we’ll continue celebrating the art of Dick Moores and the release of Library of American Comics’ “Dick Moores’ Gasoline Alley”!

Let’s look a bit more closely at those films which have fallen onto the short list as potential nominees for the Oscar. Of 56 films, ten have been selected for this honor. In the past, this list would never have been released, now it’s part of the process, and a good one, I think. Let’s make the most of the feast.

Back in 1984 when I was nominated, I learned of the nomination the night before the full list of three nominees were announced. Prior to that I had no clue I was even being considered. As a matter of fact, after submitting the film, Doctor DeSoto, I virtually forgot about having entered it. I’d considered it such a ridiculous long shot that I knew there was no chance of it happening.

The nominees have two short periods of glory, and the most has to be enjoyed when you’re on the list. On January 10th 2013, the nominees will be selected. That gives those who are on this list now a good six weeks to cherish the moment. First and foremost, promote yourself and the film. Go out there and let everyone you know hear that you’ve been selected for the list, and seek out every potential way of publicizing the event. Call any local paper and remind them. Getting your name in the Pennysaver is as important as getting it on your own blog. Speaking about blogs, contact everyone you know who has one and make a pest of yourself. This is an opportunity to promote yourself, and you have to take it. God willing, you’ll get to do it all again when you get on the nominee list.

When I was nominated, Entertanment Tonight did no stories on the Best Animated Short. I contacted them so often that they did one (which aired the night of the Awards Show) and they’ve continued to do one every year since. Maybe you can convince TMZ of the importance of the event.

Oh, yes. Back to the list.
These are the ten films that have been selected to move forward from the original list of 56.

Minkyu Lee is a Disney veteran, as are many of the animators who worked on this film; on that took over two years to make. The anmated short takes the Adam and Eve story, allows it to happen off screen, and focuses on a dog who befriends Adam. The character animation is well oned and finely produced, the graphic design is beautiful, and Joey Newman’s music shows his relation to the famous and talented Newman family. The film is a winner, especially, I would guess, in Hollywood where they crave such beauiful animation. Several friends questioned the Christian sub themes, but somehow I missed that as I just watched the animation and movement. It’s a gorgeous old-school film and could do well. It won the “Annie” award last year as Best Animated Short.
Click here to see a clip of the film.

Katsuhiro Otomo, the director of this 21 minute short has a large reputation among Anime directors. His film, Akira, is almost legendary among Japan’s feature length animated films. I find that film’s craftsmanship enormously successful despite the complexity built into just about every single scene. Combustible adds a delicacy to that craftsmanship and a story that, without dialogue, tells a complicated tale. It’s an enormously attractive film and I’d like to know who the audience is that such a short, albeit a long short, obviously has a big budget. The film is a triumph for Otomo, and I rather expected it to show up on this list.

Léo Verrier, the director of Dripped is part of a production company named ChezEddy. The company was created in 2002 in Paris; the in-house animation studio is just a part of the company. The film, Dripped, is the story of an art thief, an artist searching for a style. He eats and breathes the art he steals until, finally, something original comes out of him. The film has often been described as an homage to Jackson Pollack. Romanticizing Pollack’s intentions seems to indicate that art history ended back in the early fifties. Perhaps it’s just that he was a convenient stopping point, but I would think if you’re taking “Art” to another level, it should end with something new and vibrant in THIS film. Perhaps the marriage of 2D and 3D cgi is the medium – the dripped art that the title indicated. Unfortunately, for me the story felt marginally dated, though it is graphically interesting and the telling of the story is arresting.
Go here to see a clip.

Mikey Please, directed this extraordinary 3D stop motion short at the Royal College of Art as a thesis film. Immediately, it was a success on the Festival circuit, ultimately winning BAFTA’s 2011 award as the Best Animated Short. The story is intelligent, the technique feels original (though it reminds me of some of Michel Ocelot’s early films), and the approach is funny. My guess is that this is one to beat on the way to the gold.
Go here to see a clip from the film.

Raul Garcia has been dedicated to teling Edgar Allan Poe stories in cg animation. His first film, The Tell Tale Heart, was a somewhat cheeky effort given that the UPA, James Mason film was a classic of the form. However, Garcia’s short was received very well and won a mass of awards from many International festivals. He’s worked on many international features including Asterix and Caesar, The Land Before Time and The Chipmunks Great Adventure. His work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit brought him into the Disney fold working on a number of their recent features, Beauty and the Beast, Hercules and Fantasia 2000. He left Disney to become a sequence director on numerous non-Disney features. In 2002, partnering with Manuel Sicilia he joined Kandor Graphics which became Kandor Moon with the participation of Antonio Banderas. They produced the Oscar nominated short, The Lady and the Reaper. Both The Tell Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher will be part of the feature, The Extraordinary Tales, the title of the Poe feature.
Click here to see a clip.

The animation artist known as PES has finally made the short list after doing about a thousand tiny films. They’ve all bee stop motion pieces employing odd objects to replace other objects. In “Fresh Guacamole,” a hand grenade, a pool ball, a baseball, dice, a green golf ball, and christmas tree lights all replace the ingredients in the making of guacamole. He’s done other such films as Western Spaghetti. I find his films clever, smart and usually just about the right length. However, after seeing a couple of them, a sameness starts to set in. Go here if you want to see a bunch of them. Usually the Academy goes for short and funny and clever. Possibly a good chance for the nominations. Showtime had financed a number of these shorts, and it looks like Fresh Guacamole was theirs as well. Michael Eisner‘s The Tornante Company has just hired PES to direct Garbage Pail Kids movie. This will be his first feature (and probably his first film over ten minutes.)
See Fresh Guacamole here.

Timothy Reckart directed this clever stop motion 10 minute short film. In it, a man and his wife are obviously at odds with each other as each lives on separate planes. He’s on the floor, and she’s on the ceiling (or is it the other way around?). The film was done at the National Film and Television School in Ireland. It took 11 students about 14 months to complete under Mr. Reckart’s supervision. Timothy Reckart seems to be currently involved with the company Dragonframe.
See a clip from Head Over Heels here

David Silverman, who has been connected with The Simpson’s for many years, directed this short film featuring Maggie, as a theatrical film, just as he directed the theatrical feature a couple of years ago. This short is quite funny in the best way of The Simpsons’ television show. I’m not sure it goes very far beyond the best of the TV show, but it is funny. I hope it’s also an indication that there may be another Simpson’s feature in the mix. The last one was a real treat, and it’d be great to see it go into production NOW when the material is still relatively fresh.
See the trailer for The Longest Daycare, here.

I first saw Paperman at a screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the recent NY Film Festival. There I briefly met John Kahrs, who seemed nervous but proud of his excellent effort. The film is an odd combination of 2D flat animation and 3D cgi. I feel like I’m missing something whenever they describe what they’ve done. It seems like they animated in cgi, flattened the art and rotoscoped it placing some hand-drawn bits over the cgi bits (such as hair).I’m not quite sure why it wasn’t just animated flat; there doesn’t seem to be anything THAT special about the movement that couldn’t or wouldn’t have been done with any of the good 2D animators they work with. But as I say, I must be missing something. As it is, the film is nice with a great musical score by Christophe Beck, who previously had done The Hangover, Cedar Rapids and The Muppets – all fine scores.
The clip for Disney’s Paperman can be see by clicking here

Michaela Pavlátová is a Czech director who worked in France for Screbleu Productions. The film won the Cristal Award at the recent Annecy Animaton Festival. I’s the story of a tram operator who has numerous sexual fantasies while piloting her vehicle. The animation is bouncy fun, as is the musical score. It’s a light film that would have offended me had the director been a male. As it is it just seems dated to me in its sexual override. But those are just my prurient thoughts on the movie. Not quite grown up.
Watch a clip from Tram here.

- Tom Hachtman, who you may remember is the friend who does Gertrude’s Follies and sometimes contributes to this Splog, (see this post about that) and his wife, Joey Hachtman, who you’ll remember has a business painting murals on the big houses at the Jersey Shore. (See this post as an example.) That’s where they live, in a house at the Jersey Shore. Point Pleasant is just a little bit of paradise with one of the rowdiest boardwalks at the shore. It’s a fun place, at least when the weather’s warm enough.

Well, Tom took some pictures. Sandy visited the shore a few weeks back, and things have been a bit different. They still don’t have heat or electric. So here’s the first of some photos of their back yard.

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Some of the boardwalk on Atlantic Avenue.

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A bench from the boardwalk.

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Boardwalk booth.

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Copters all day long.

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Our house with the peak – looking west on Forman Avenue.

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Our street, after Sandy, looking West.

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White fence shows high water mark.

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No parking today.
A parking pay station.

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Northern NJ clean-up crew – did the basement.

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Seton Hall’s Sigma Pi boys – cleaned out the garage.
(They found a possum playing dead convincingly.)

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Soggy collectibles.

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Myrna and Joey on the porch.

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No mini-golf today

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Kitty and Olive stop by visiting Joey (right)

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Debris in Rick’s driveway.

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Our house after some housecleaning.

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Across the street – high water mark on white fence.

And of course, turning to stored artwork that the family did over the many years, things weren’t so good.

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Here’s Tom going through some of the debris
to find anything that can be saved.

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Here are some of the comics that Joey had done cartoons for.
It’s doubtful that the issues can be replaced.

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More of those comics. Do you hold onto them?

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Here are some of the many cartoons she did for Screw Magazine.
Gone.

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A cover for New York Magazine
that Tom had saved.
It was done by Bob Grossman a few years ago.

Hans Perk has begun posting the animator drafts to Disney’s Peter Pan on his blog, A Film LA.

Interesting, the timing. My wife, Heidi, is preparing to direct a version of Peter Pan for and starring school children, and, consequently, the music has been well played in our house these recent days. Quite a great score. (Some of the lyrics have been altered by Disney for PC reasons: “What made the RED man RED” has become “What made the BRAVE man BRAVE.” Hearing a few of the songs has led me to the CD score of the actual film music by Ollie Wallace. what a brilliant composer he was.

I couldn’t be more grateful to Hans for these documents, the drafts. It’s fun to scour the documents and gill in the blanks of who did what bit of animation. (Does anything like this exist in cgi world? Is there some kind of draft that will tell us who the animators are?) I also take some enjoyment from the light bickering that goes on in the coment section of the blog, as people begin to read these drafts and try to discern which characters were assigned to which animators. As Hans comments, it’s nice to take note that Norm Ferguson did his last bit of Disney animation on this feature. He was such an enormous force among the early animators, it was sad to see him burn out the way he did. Though I guess the same could be said for Freddy Moore.

Anyway, Thank you, Hans.

- Here’s Yo La Tengo‘s latest song and a video. It’s all in the family – Art, I mean.
Emily Hubley did the video for the band with Georgia Hubley, Ira Kaplan and James McNew behind the music.

It’s a great number; I can’t stop playing it. I’m looking forward to the album.

Currently, playing in New York – and not getting much attention – is a retrospective of the Ghibli films. This has already begun playing and will continue into the next week. You still have time to see the following films:

Castle in the Sky
Japan, Hayao Miyazaki, 1986, 124 min
Mon Nov 19__ IFC CENTER_____12:20PM
Thu Nov 22___ IFC CENTER_____12:20PM

My Neighbor Totoro
Japan, Hayao Miyazaki, 1988, 86 min
Sat Nov 17___IFC CENTER______3:15PM
Sun Nov 18___IFC CENTER_____12:50PM
Mon Nov 19__ IFC CENTER_____10:40AM 7:40PM
Tue Nov 20___IFC CENTER______3:15PM
Wed Nov 21__IFC CENTER_____12:50PM
Thu Nov 22___IFC CENTER_____10:40AM 7:40PM

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Japan, Hayao Miyazaki, 1984, 116 min
Sat Nov 17__IFC CENTER_____1:00PM 7:45PM
Sun Nov 18__IFC CENTER____10:40AM 5:05PM 9:50PM
Mon Nov 19__IFC CENTER____2:50PM 9:30PM
Tue Nov 20__IFC CENTER_ ___3:15PM 1:00PM 7:45PM
Wed Nov 21__IFC CENTER____3:15PM 10:40PM
Thu Nov 22_IFC CENTER___ __3:15PM

Princess Mononoke
Japan, Hayao Miyazaki, 1997, 134 min
Sat Nov 17__IFC CENTER____5:05PM
Tue Nov 20__IFC CENTER____5:05PM
Wed Nov 21_IFC CENTER_ ___9:50PM
Thu Nov 22__IFC CENTER____9:30PM

Spirited Away
Japan, Hayao Miyazaki, 2002, 124 min
Sat Nov 17__IFC CENTER_____10:40AM 10:00PM
Sun Nov 18__IFC CENTER_____2:35PM 7:25PM
Mon Nov 19___IFC CENTER____5:10PM
Tue Nov 20__IFC CENTER_____10:40AM 10:00PM
Wed Nov 21_IFC CENTER______2:35PM 7:25PM
Thu Nov 22__IFC CENTER___ __5:10PM

- I’m a big fan of Shohei Imamura‘s films. Yes, I love Kurosawa and Mizoguchi and Oshima, but I feel more of a kinship to Imamura.

A NYTiimes piece by Mike Hale alerted me to the scheduled mini-fest of documentaries by the great director. The films will be screened at the Anthology Film Archives.

I’ve touched on his work before and have written about him in those posts. How could I not, he brings out the artist in me (if, in fact, there is one.) Back in 1979, I stumbled upon a major retrospective at the Japan Society in NYC in 1979. They were about to screen all of his films – two a night – in a complete program of all his work to that point. That meant he hadn’t done Black Rain (1989), The Ballad of Narayama (1983), or The Eel (1997) – three of his greatest. After seeing the first double-bill I was there every Monday – the opening night of each newly screened films – many of them US premieres. Most of the films, to that point, were done in B&W, but the themes were all brilliantly colorful. The weak and corrupt men, the violence, the strong women (the backbone of japan in Imamura’s eyes). They were all there from the beginning, but they grew in depth as the director grew in experience. The films added up to a strong portrait of Japanese society.

Whereas Kurosawa is a poetry of beautiful imagery, Imamura is a prose of themes, imagery, sounds and hand-held camera. He sarted as a “B” movie director, and like Don Siegel or Sam Fuller or Edgar Ulmer. He was part of the Japanese “New Wave” eracting against the slick studio flms of the time, in particular the style of Yasujirô Ozu. There’s a grit to his work, and very much like the theme of his films. The brutish male refined by that female backbone. He’s a master and I’m looking forward to seeing these documentaries.

Garrett Gilchrist is assembling another cut of Dick Williams’ would-be-masterpiece, The Cobbler and the Thief. The first fifteen minutes are up and running and can be found embedded, below. It really does feel more finished.

The Thief Archive is Garrett’s YouTube site for all things Richard Williams.

A number of people have recently asked me to promote their Kickstarter campaigns to raise funds for their movies or projects. I’ve turned down most of them and will continue that policy. There are too many going after funds, and I don’t have enough interest to support everyone with space on this Splog. It would end up making the contents of the posts dull, at least for me.

But there’s the occasional film in process that excites me.

Uli Meyer‘s film version of Ronald Searle‘s the animated Bells of St. Trinian’s excited me. They hadn’t yet started their Kickstarter campaign, but I was ready to promote them full out. Unfortunately, they’ve had a setback and their project is on hold, as is their fund raising campaign.

Mark Sonntag‘s film Bounty Hunter Bunny will be a challenge. I like Mark’s blog Tagtoonz, I like the film he’s proposing, and I like Mark. Given such, I will support his Indiegogo campaign as much as is possible.

Then, this week I was approached by Fumi Kitahara about Pamela Tom’s proposed documentary, Tyrus Wong: Brushstrokes in Hollywood. Wong, of course, designed Bambi, one of my all-time favorite films, nevermind animated films. Wong is 102 years old, and I want to see him talk, paint, breathe. If there’s a chance this film will capture that, and I feel pretty confident that will happen, then I want to see the film made. Yes, I support this film. The documentary has been in the works for the past twelve years, and I would like to see it completed. Hopefully, this Kickstarter campaign will make it happen. Tale a ;ppk, and read their proposal.

For the past week I think I’ve been endlessly running. Running from screening room to screening room. A lot of movies to see before December is over. I should bypass them all for the blog, but I started doing this recently, so I want to continue. Even if I have to boil some of the films down to a word or three. Next week, there’ll be a couple of animated films, so it’ll get more pertinent then, but for now, let me tell you what I’ve seen. By that I mean movies.

Sunday, last week, started off with a wierd double bill including two parties. First there was a film starring Elle Fanning. Ginger and Rosa was, sort of, a love story between two young women. Girls, really, in England. Ginger (who had ginger colored hair, of course) and Rosa (who had darkish colored hair) were the closest of buddies. At least they were until Rosa fell in love with Ginger’s father, and she betrayed their love. The real surprise was at how tall Ginger . . . er, Elle Fanning was. She was just a smidgen taller than I. The tallest female I’d seen since seeing Keira Knightley in person last week. She’s almost five inches taller than I and she’s also incredibly thin. Whereas Keira is charming almost to a fault, Elle is as shy as you might suspect.

The second film that night was Silver Linings Playbook. This was a fabulous film directed by David O. Russell, who got enormous credit for his film two years ago, The Fighter. But this is the good one. An absolute delight with a great after party. But Harvey Weinstein always has the best parties. At a great and expensive place. No animators there but lots of celebrities and great food. That was a wonderful start for the week; the end of the weekend.

Monday brought another film, Anna Karenina. This was the film that had the luncheon the Thursday before. What a sumptuous delight, the movie. It’s supposed to take place in a theater, but the film broils over with Russian delight. Lots of waltzing camera moves and rich visuals. The camera danced all movie long in the tale of passionate infidelity as the cast pulsated with theatrical emotion led by the Tom Stoppard screenplay. A thousand page novel clocks in at just over two hours with more swooning temperament than can be found anywhere in real life. The director of Pride and Prejudice, Joe Wright, doesn’t quite pull off the emotional ending, but leaves you dumbfounded by the rich splendor on screen throughout his movie.

Tuesday was led by a lunch with Ang Lee celebrating The Life of Pi. Ths is the film I’m desperate to see, yet have only been available, so far, for the celebration. John Canemaker and I ate at the table with several of those who were marketing the film, so we learned a lot abot the making of the movie. The had also just shot an interview with Charlie Rose and were full of talk about that chat. The food at Michael’s was great. . . cod.

Tuesday evening two movies. The Persecution . . . I mean Prosecution of an American President was a political screed trying the former President, G.W.Bush, for War Crimes. Needless, to say the movie found him guilty. I didn’t sleep through ALL of it, though I tried. Ths led into Skyfall, the new James Bond film. Tis was good, but it was more action-adventure than Romantic-Action Adventure. In short the sex and the laughs were drained from the movie. Not quite your father’s James Bond, more like the teenager’s movie.

Wednesday evening brought a date with Mrs. James Bond, Rachel Weisz. She starred in the Terence Davies movie adaptation of the Terence Rattigan play, The Deep Blue Sea. Like all Davies movie, very claustrophobic, very British film wherein the cast usually finds themselves singing in the local pub. I love it, though it really is very slow-moving and insular for most people. The Q&A afterward had the stunningly attractive Ms. Weisz showed us how regular a person she is. The final question from the audience, of course, was, “. . . how does it feel to be married to James Bond?” “Wonderful,” was the answer she shot back. “How do ou deal with all the posters of your husband all over NY?” “I don’t notice them. I see more of them in my mind than are really there.” Ah, true love. Her movie was about guilt ridden infidelity in the fifties.

- Last week we began this post. Harvey Eisenberg took success in doing the Tom and Jerry comic books for many years, but he began with Mickey Mouse. We began posting the great story, Mickey and the Beanstalk, last week, and here is the finish. Bill Peckmann has been doing much of the heavy loading by scanning and sending the material on to me. Here’s Bill’s comments on the piece:

‘Mickey…’ was a very fortunate pairing of cartoonist and story, it’s hard to picture anyone else doing a better job of adapting that movie to the comic book page than Harvey Eisenberg. There’s some really good stuff going on in these pages, the work was done 65 years ago and doesn’t seem dated at all.

Here’s a reproduction of the original
Dell comic book cover for
‘Mickey and the Beanstalk’ from 1947.

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It is now 1953, six years after Harvey Eisenberg did ‘the Beanstalk’ story, he did this story for ‘Silly Symphonies’ no. 2, it’s titled ‘Peculiar Penguins. It’s beautifully done, he’s encroaching on Walt Kelly territory, with his characters, posing, spotting blacks and oh, that lovely lettering!

The “Penguins” front cover

The back cover of this issue.

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