Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– There was a time in New York when Tissa David taught a class in animation for free, open to anyone who wanted to attend. This was sponsored by R.O. Blechman out of his studio, the Ink Tank. It was held after hours, so that those who worked in the business could attend.

There were several sets of notes I’ve seen taken from Tissa’s talks, kind of a poor man’s version of Dick Williams‘ famous Art Babbit notes. A copy of Dick’s notes circulated within the business and quite a few people studied from them. Recently, John Canemaker loaned me a copy of Eugene Salandra‘s notes from Tissa’s class. Eugene had graduated from John’s class at NYU and had become a professional in New York, before he moved to California to work for Disney. As a professional, he was able to cut to the quick to synthesize Tissa’s basic lessons. I was impressed, and I contacted Eugene to see if he minded my posting some of the pages. He was supportive of the idea and hoped that he would help get the information out to others.

So, here I’m posting the first batch of these notes, which I think are very readable. (You’ll have to click on any of the images to enlarge so that you can read them.) If the reaction is good, I’ll offer more. This group is predominantly about walk and run cycles. But if you look close enough, you’ll see that they cover a lot more.

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- Last week we saw the first of these two spots Vince Cafarelli did while working for Goulding-Elliot-Graham Prods., Inc. Millbrook Bread was the client and the Piels Bros. voices, Bob Elliott & Ray Goulding, owned the studio with Ed Graham. They also did the voices for these bread spots. This particular one must have been pretty big; the video survived these many years later, and I’ve attached it to the end of this post.

But first, here are the Layout drawings which I believe were done by Vinnie Cafarelli.

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– Let’s talk a little about Eyvind Earle. This is the artist who rose to fame when he was selected by Walt Disney to set the style for the long-in-production feature, Sleeping Beauty. The animators disliked his art direction and openly protested it. Walt remained true in his stance and supported Earle to the end; though it could be said that Walt was more involved in Disneyland’s construction and gave too little attention to the in-fighting at the animation studio.

I remember Frank Thomas, specifically, stating that he had done everything possible to supercede Earle’s style after he, Thomas, had animated the Merryweather scene as she creates Aurora’s dress and cake in honor of her birthday. He felt that the black bodice that Earle had designed took all the lightness out of his character’s delicate dance.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)_________________________________

L to R: Al Dempster, Dick Anthony, Ralph Hulett and Eyvind Earle

Thomas publicly attacked Earle at the Lincoln Center celebration of Disney animation back in 1973. I’d already read something similar, and heard it privately. None of the others on stage at Lincoln Center – Woolie Reitherman, Ken Anderson or Ollie Johnston – countered in support of Earle.

Sleeping Beauty was such a drastic change in look from the other Disney features, that I think it took deep hold in the minds of a lot of Baby Boomers growing up around this feature. Earle became a strong target of interest, and I think his reputation has grown annually.

I have to admit it was odd seeing the backgrounds of Pocohontas trying to emulate Earle’s Sleeping Beauty style, but in some ways it seemed fitting. The studio had been ripping off the films of the past for so long that it was only appropriate that they’d focus on someone who was such a dynamic force.

For a short period after he was released by Disney, in the post-Sleeping Beauty layoffs, he worked with John Sutherland Productions where he designed the short, Rhapsody of Steel. Then he formed his own studio, Eyvind Earle Productions, Inc. He did an animated trailer for the film, West Side Story, under the supervision of Saul Bass. He did an animated title for the Kraft Suspense Theater, and he did a Christmas Special for Tennessee Ernie Ford.

Ultimately, Earle made a success of his own art after leaving animation. He’s been represented by a number of very large galleries and has sold a lot of popular art in a style all his own. Here are a couple of examples found on line:

I’m not always a big fan of the color schemes in his graphics, though he always makes them work, but I have to give credit to Earle for his originality and the dynamic approach in his art.

His autobiography, Horizon Bound on a Bicycle, is a must for all real fans.

This is his animation resume:

1951 Started with the Walt Disney Studios as background painter on: FOR WHOM THE
__ BULLS TOIL, MELODY, and the Academy Award winner for “Best Short of the Year”
__TOOT, WHISTLE, PLUNK and BOOM which also received a Cannes Film Festival Award.
__Production Designer, Color Stylist and Background Painter for the DIsney animated __classic SLEEPING BEAUTY, as well as, PIGS IS PIGS, GRAND CANYONSCOPE,
__PAUL BUNYAN, LADY AND THE TRAMP, LONDON BRIDGE, and WORKING FOR PEANUTS.
__He designed 5 murals for Disneyland.
1958 Joined John Sutherland Motion Picture Company in Los Angeles.
1960-1966 Created 24 sheet poster for Hamm’s Beer.
__Started motion picture animation company, Eyvind Earle Productions, Inc.
__Created animated commercials for Chevrolet Motors, Chrysler Corporation, Marlboro
__igarettes, Motorola Television and the Kellogg Cereal Company.
__Created animated trailer for WEST SIDE STORY for United Artists.
1961 Created animated television special THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS starring
__Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Roger Wagner Choral.
1962 Created animated television special THE EASTER SPECIAL.
__Created title for the KRAFT SUSPENSE THEATER.
__Created the logo trademark trailer for Universal Pictures.
__Produced and created the theatrical short DEATH AND SUNRISE

You’ll find a lot of merchandise including all the books listed here, on the Eyvind Earle website.

- Tissa David animated a VIVA paper towel spot for John Hubley. Here’s a scene wherein the lead, a woman, walks through (Bg pans behind her at .25 per drawing) toward the kitchen, where she stops.

Instead of giving you the entire page of animation paper, I’ve trimmed it down to just include the character and her walk. Here are four examples of what the entire drawing looks like, untrimmed.

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And here are all the drawings for the scene cropped:

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________________________
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The following is a QT of the entire scene with all the drawings included.
Since I didn’t have exposure sheets, I put everything on two’s straight ahead.

- Here’s what looks like a simple move done by Tissa David when she animated this Viva, paper towel commercial.

The character’s move in this scene is a complicated one done simply. She has been bent over, cleaning with her paper towel, and she moves up. You can follow the overlapping action as her eyes pull her up, head turn, and body follows.

The stripes will come and go. Tissa depends on someone else to concentrate on this material when she’s working on a commercial.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Her eyes point in the direction she wants to go,
and the rest of the scene moves her up and into profile.

This key move is hidden under the exchange of the
paper towel from one hand to the other.

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She stops to think (accenting her monologue.)

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And she slyly looks back to camera to respond with her thought.

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She continues, all through this move, talking.
She’s pitching the product.

Here’s a QT of the piece:

Cleaning for Viva
Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

- Yesterday, Bill Peckmann sent me a few scans with this note:

My stepdaughter Bethany just came back from her trip to Spain and brought back these very pretty gaudy postcards. Gaudy as in the Antoni Gaudi, famous Spanish architect. He would have had fun at Epcot and the Disney parks!

Here are the scans sent:

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These pictures reminded me that my friend, Steve Fisher, who is an architect, went to Spain to photograph the Gaudi buildings. I asked him to send me any pictures he could get together quickly. Of course, he’d shot them before there were digital cameras, so he had to scan the stills he had on hand.
Take a look:

- It appears that a number of animated features will be opening shortly. There’s a screening in NY this morning of Hotel Transylvania. It’s at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. That’s a long enough trip to keep me from going. I’ll see it another time; the ad keeps me uninterested. It opens next friday, Sept 28th.

The Academy will screen Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie on October 11th, a week after it opens in theaters. I’ll see it there, in comfortable surroundings.
There’s an article about Tim Burton in today’s NYTimes.

Wreck It Ralph opens November 5th. Can’t wait.

There’s no real incentive for me to see any of these films except that they’ll all be entered into the Oscar race, and to vote I’ll have to see them all. The more I can see now, the fewer I’ll have to see in that crushing two weeks at the end of the year. That’s when all of the entered films have to be viewed. It’ll be something like 16 films in two weeks to absorb. Talk about impaired judgment.

The contenders for animation short will be screened n NY on Saturday, Oct. 27th. That’ll start at 10am and probably go straight through to about 6 or 7pm. Your eyes are melting by the time you get out of there, with maybe one or, at the most, two good films in the bunch.

I still look forward to it all.

- Meanwhile, Heidi, my wife, says my world is all about politics and movies. She’s wrong; baseball is high in there as well. This time of the year, particularly an election year like this, I only want to watch talking heads on TV (and The Good Wife and Treme and Boardwalk Empire.)

Actually, I don’t think about much of this. I do think about POE and the scenes I’ve been anmating over and over and over. The style is a bit funky and I keep reworking it. I have four scenes done, and I keep expecting more of myself, so I keep redoing them. If I’d been doing it on cel with an animation camera, the first version would have been the final. But using a computer means I can rework the damn thing a hundred times or more. It’s fun though. I want to have the thing down pat before I really get into it. Once the real “Go” is there it means Go.

By the way, the title, My World and Welcome To It, of course, comes from that great series from 1969 which starred William Windom as a James Thurber-like cartoonist whose animated imaginings filled the screen throughout the show. I was in Alaska in the Navy when it aired in the lower 49. I might have been able to see Russia from my house, but the TV didn’t run this series. My sister talked about it in her letters and I did a lot of catching up when I got home.

I was reminded of the show recently when Windom died in early August. I was a fan of his before that series, and I became more of a fan after the series.

Robert Dranko was the animation art director and producer for the series and
Bob Richardson was the animation director.

- The Ottawa International Animation Festival began this past Wednesday. I’ve always felt close to this Fest. Having gone to the first half dozen versions of this event, where I learned so much about International film and the job of selling movies, that it naturally formed a soft spot for me. With sadness and regret, I couldn’t make it up to attend in person. However, I do keep my eyes open to see what’s happening there and what I’m missing. Richard O’Connor, through his site, Ace and Son, has always been a source of information that’s been invaluable to me. This year Richard helped open the first program by presenting a reel of short clips and an articulate eulogy for Tissa David. On his report of the first day of the Fest, he posts a video clip showing his comments during that program. You can check in daily for his comments.

- Meanwhile the NY memorial for Tissa David is coming along nicely. It will definitely take place at 7pm on October 23rd at the MP Academy screening room at the Lighthouse at 111 East 59th Street. The theater is downstairs. It may be crowded and first come first seated.

There will be five speakers and lots of film clips.

I intend to screen at least one or two complete films, but time may nix that plan.

The films to be screened come from four studios:

. the Hubley studio – EGGS, COCKABOODY, EVERYBODY RIDES THE CAROUSEL and possibly a commercial or three
. the Ink Tank/R.O.Blechman – THE SOLDIER’S TALE, CANDIDE promotional film, a commercial or two
. Raggedy Ann and Andy – “Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers” sequence
. and my studio – THE RED SHOES, THE DANCING FROG and THE MARZIPAN PIG (of course).

There’s also a nice surprise which will start the evening and the program.

It should be excellent.

- There was an article about Bill Plympton in last week’s The Onion. No it wasn’t a joke, it was a fine article in the AV Club section of the paper. This is a good article by Tasha Robinson and is worth the read. It basically celebrates the one-man-feature idea of The Tune done in 1997. He was a pioneer, I have to hand it to him. Worth the read.

- If you’ve ever wanted to own a Rowland B. Wilson cartoon, now’s your chance. A number of Playboy cartoons by Wilson are up for auction via Heritage Auctions. The auction will end on Oct. 13th, and you can make a bid now, if you like. I’ve posted the cartoons available below with some of the descriptive material from the auction house. Good luck.

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“This Year I’m Putting in a Provision For Good Big Boys Too!”
Playboy page cartoon illustration, January 2002

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“A Toast to the New Year!
May It Be Another Prosperous One For Atilla and All Us Huns!”
Playboy cartoon illustration, January 2003

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“We’ve Added a New Kink to the Piñata Tradition!
Playboy cartoon illustration

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“At Long Last, Grandfather, You’ve Taken Me to See the Nutcracker”
Playboy cartoon illustration, January 2000

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“If I Can Bring This Lovely Creature to Life,
She Will Bring Me Everlasting Immorality!”
Playboy cartoon illustration, November 1981

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“I Have a Feeling ’93 is Going to Be a Very Weird Year”
Playboy cartoon illustration, circa 1993

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“Miss Perkins Has a Perfect Record in Dealing with Potential Suicides”
Playboy cartoon illustration, May 2003

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And as long as we’re talking about Rowland Wilson, I can’t pass up the chance to tell you, yet again, how great Trade Secrets is. Subtitled, “Notes on Cartooning and Animation,” the book is so much more than that. It’s a lifetime’s worth of invaluable notes, advice and commentary about illustration, cartooning and (most importantly to me) animation. I’ve read large chunks of this book over and over again. It all seems so basic and simple, when you’re deep into it, but the book is thick with brilliant comments about the art of drawing and painting. You’ve got to get your hands on it just to see how rich the material is. Once you do, though, you’re going to want to own it. I feel not only indebted to Rowland for the material but to Suzanne Lemmieux Wilson for having finished the book and making sure it looks as perfect as it does. It’s a treasure.

To give another view of some other advertising work done by Rowland Wilson, Bill Peckmann forwarded these pieces. Here’s Bill:

I thought maybe you would enjoy seeing the original art of two Phil Kimelman & Ass. house ads. The first one is all Rowland Wilson, both concept and finished art, the second one is a collaboration of Rowlie and Alex Toth.

We’ll start with the printed ad as it appeared in Millimeter magazine in 1979, and then do close ups of the original art.

The full sized ad

CU of the upper left

No lettering in the word balloons, that was done on a separate over lay.

The second PK&A house ad was written by Rowland Wilson, Alex Toth did the finished black and white art and then Rowland colored it with his water colors.

Here’s the black and white.

We took Alex’s original art, xeroxed that on to kid finished
Bristol board, the paper Rowland always worked on.
Here is an unfinished, experimental start by Rowland.

The only time the ad ever ran in color was here
in the 1982 International Film Guide paperback.

Here’s the original art.

Hopefully all will enjoy these panels in their large format
and be able to see how each one works by itself
in the drawing and the coloring.

Here is a small footnote to the history of the ‘Pencil for Hire’ ad.
It’s my rough that started the ball rolling. I was hoping to entice
Alex into doing a take off on a Milton Caniff type Sunday comics
page for our house ad. Fortunately, Rowland was looking over
my shoulder and thought it was time for a rewrite!

The 1982 Film Guide also contained this page, the “Irving Trust” commercial
and the “Dr. Henry” series were designed by Rowland, the “Honeycomb” spot by me.

PS: I wanted to end on this button. For all of us who
still remember “Local 841″ and green subway cars!

- Bill Peckmann offers a bevy of beautiful Alex Toth illustrations for Conan the Barbarian. Here are Bill’s comments for these incredibly fine illustrations:

I haven’t seen many of these Toth illustrations on the Net, and I thought maybe the Toth fans out there might enjoy these.

Here is Alex Toth in the early 1980′s taking a stab at the Sword and Sorcery genre and doing a ripping job of it. These are single page illustrations from Marvel’s black and white magazine, “The Savage Sword of Conan“. Alex is at the top of his game; design and drawing leave nothing to be desired. the assignment held his interest long enough so we came away the winners with these nine examples.

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That was the last of Alex’s Conan. He did a total of
10 illustrations for Marvel’s Conan, so we have all but one.

Here is a 1981 drawing of super heroes that Alex dedicated to Klaus Strzyz,
a fan, a friend and interviewer of Alex’s. The drawing was then made into a
handsome cover on Roy Thomas’ “Alter Ego’s” fanzine tribute to Toth in 2006.

This is the final cover for Roy Thomas’ 2006 “Alter Ego’s” tribute to Toth.

These are the covers of books and magazines that have collected the words and work of Alex. Hopefully for new fans they still might be available somewhere on the net or in used bookstores.

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The next two excellent books were authored and published by Toth fan and friend Manuel Auad. (Manuel was also responsible for the great, recent Robert Fawcett book and the forthcoming (October) book on illustrator Albert Dorne. The illustrator who still remains Jack Davis’ biggest idol!)

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Tipped in autographs for “Alex Toth: Black & White”.

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Alex and his wife/best friend Guyla in their Hollywood home in 1979.
They met at Hanna-Barbera and the rest is history.

Their marriage will be brought to life in the upcoming book “Alex Toth, Illustrated“,
second in the trilogy of Alex’s work, by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell.

Vol 1 & 2 by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell.
Now available on Amazon.

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for all the scanning as well as the loan of the artwork.

- When Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding (of Bob & Ray fame) found a chance, they scooped up the Piels Brothers account from UPA and, with Ed Graham, they opened their own animation studio to do the Piels commercials. The blend didn’t last long, and they soon went out of business. Vince Cafarelli worked at Goulding-Elliott-Graham Prods. for a while and several Millbrook Bread commercials were produced, featuring “Milly” the baker.

I remember these commercials from my childhood well. I loved the very graphic style of the spots. I remember seeing how the character turned his head (see number 16, below) and was taken by the movement. I think I was probably 11-12 years old at the time. The video records the date as 1963, but I’m sure they’re wrong – 1959, maybe?

I previously posted this Christmas card from Goulding-Elliott-Graham Prods., Inc. If you click on the card and look in the window of the house, you’ll see “Minny” the Millbrook baker (centered) within, singing Christmas Carols.

Michael Smollin takes credit for directing the commercials, but I’m not sure he worked for Elliott-Gould-Graham. I thought that Ed Graham had directed all spots in house. Smollin may have designed the characters. We’re assuming that Vinnie drew these images. The writing is his. It’s doubtful he would have been directing at this point, so he probably drew the Layout drawings.

In Vinnie’s collection of art, the layouts for two of these spots were found. I’ll post these from the first spot this week and the second spot will come next Wednesday.

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We don’t have a copy of this spot that we could post. However, to give you an idea of how the voices sounded, here’s a vradio spot done for Millbrook Briead by Bob and Ray.

- Bill Peckmann sent me a stash of nine extraordinarily fine illustrations by Alex Toth done for the magazine, The Savage Sword of Conan.

To fill up the post, Bill sent a number of magazine covers (front and back). However, I thought the Conan drawngs so excellent, that I’ve chosen to have them stand alone. So, I’m using these pieces – great as they are (they certainly stand alone as a post) – as a teaser for Thursday’s images of Conan. Trust me, come back if you’re a fan of Alex Toth’s work.

For part 1, Bill wrote:

Here’s a potpourri of front and back covers that Alex did in the 1980′s.

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A wraparound cover/front and back

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And, finally, this quick sketch by Toth.