Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Maurice Nobel worked several years at Warner Bros. under Chuck Jones for the most part, but in 1950 he moved to John Sutherland Productions where he worked on lesser known projects. He had a money war with Eddie Seltzer at WB and accepted the higher price from Sutherland with Selzer telling him that the door would remain open.

WB tried to turn everything to 3D and gave up after one cartoon, Lumberjack Bunny. It’s obvious that some of Maurice’s LOs were prepared for 3D and were switched at the last minute. WB was closed for a year when it was decided to stop production on the 3D films. Noble had taken the right course in working for Sutherland for the few years he was there.

Color keys to the John Sutherland Prod
Gateways to the Mind

Rhapsody in Steel (below) was a high budget film for Sutherland with Eyvind Earle hired as Art Director. Ultimately he just painted the BGs that were designed by Maurice Noble. This beautiful film can be seen on YouTube, here.

Rhapsody In Steel

Here we have some real choice illustrations by Ralph Steadman. Some of these images seem more an illustration of something Edgar Allan Poe might have done than delicate portals to Lewis Carroll’s world. Yet Swteadman has captured the underbelly of the beast of that afterrnoon tale Dodgson created onn-the-spot for Alicie Liddell. But let’s not split hairs; let’s just enjoy the artwork. These pieces take us about half way through the book. Lots of work all great. Only John Tenniel had done better work, and his was the first voice we got to hear.

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I love the early Warner cartoons. I’m particularly fond of the late thirties and early forties when they were finding their design style, and. in fact, were probably being the most daring in the US with their graphic choices. John McGrew along with the husband and wife team of Gene Fleury and Bernyce Polifka were doing magnificent and, even, daring work. When Maurice Noble entered the scene his was the final wrench to tighten the bolts.

It’s for this reason that I am spending so much time on the opening section of Tod Polson‘s book, The Noble Approach from Chronicle books. Here are some magnificent images from that section of the book. You should go to YouTube and look at A Few Quick Facts About Fear. It’s a magnificent work that was done for the Signal Corps (although it was done by UPA in its very earliest days.)

Operation SNAFU

Desert Designs by Noble

John McGrew’s BG designs for The Unbearable Bear

Maurice Noble began his art career at Chouinard’s Art Institute. He and Mary Robinson (Blair) followed similar paths at the school. They both moved on to jobs decorating windows of Robinson’s Department Store. Their design styles were in no way similar, but their approaches to the art were. This was during the Great Depression, and there was no chance of getting a raise of salary there to match what ould be earned at Disney, They both moved on to working at Disney’s Studio.

His first assignments were in painting backgrounds for some Silly Symphony cartoons such as Elmer Elephant, Water Babies, The Old Mill and The Country Cousin. All of these were “A” list Symphonies and were certainly plumb assignments within the studio, yet it took Maurice a short bit of time to appreciate the move he’d made toward animation. He soon found himself painting backgrounds on Snow White and designing on Bambi, Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo. On Dumbo he helped to design the Pink Elephants sequence. He developed his personal approach to animation design.

Selected art by Noble from Snow White

There was also a legendary screening, set up by Frank Lloyd Wright, attended by many at the Disney design group, of a Russian animated film called The Tale of Czar Durandai. This 1934 short film was directed by the famous Ivan Vanov-Vano. John Hubley also used thisfilm as an example of inspirational work for the animation he was to do.

The Tale of Czar Durandel

Maurice Noble had also participated in the strike at Disney’s. When it was over, he was given a second-rate office, and it was obvious he was no longer in high demand at the Studio. He sat doing nothing for quite some time before receiving severance pay. He then joined the Signal Corps to work for the Army. The aggregation of artists who had joined the group was a top-notch selection of excellent designers all of whom were committed to 20th Century Art in animation. Animation had joined the Modernist movement, and was on its way to producing “adult” fare.

A Few Quick Facts About Fear was a short produced/directed by Zach Schwartz
which took complete use of the new approach to artwork in animation.

Noble worked with Zach Schwartz on a film which led the way to the new approach to animation art. The film was done purposefully in B&W using a bold approach to the art.

Maurice Noble in the SignalCorps.

Here are a small group of photos by Steve Fisher. A typical night in New York.

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Brother and Sister Try To Keep Fire House Alive

Maxine Fisher and her brother, Steve Fisher, took on Queens and the local politics.

You see, a while ago the Queens, local fire house located at 59-29 68th St., was quickly approaching its 100th – year – anniversary in 2014. Maspeth-born Steve Fisher and his sister, Maxine Fisher, refused to accept the behind-the-scenes decision to close this fire house. Despite the fact that it was quickly approaching the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to grant the firehouse landmark status, the last possibility for the firehouse and all those connected with it. It is a fire house that was instrumental in fighting the 911 disaster and being awarded for their participation in facing closure.

There was a last minute pitch to keep it alive the past Thursday (Sept. 18th), and the fight was married to the typical community array of local issues. Some publicity, a lot of letters from 911 families who were helped by the firehouse and their workers added to the pulse of the issue. But, at this point, it’s unsure whether three was enough to keep things going.

At the very least, one local pair of siblings did their very best to keep their community part of a living, thriving world.

Read more about it here.

This is what you can do in your community if you’re determined to participate.

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Tom Sito Hits NY

Tom Sito arrived in New York this past weekend. He and I tried to get together but our schedules conflicted just a bit too much, and it didn’t happen. He was here on a book signing to promote his new book, Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation.

I was curious to go since Tom is purely a 2D cel animator. He has animated on Beauty and the Beast, Roger Rabbit, Aladdin and many others. He’s also co-directed Osmosis Jones as well as the Click and Clack series for PBS.I wanted to see how much knowledge he could have of cgi, and I was quite surprised. He seemed to have really known his stuff. Now I really want to read that book.

Tom’s past books include: Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation U-nions and Timing for Animation which was co-authored with Harold Whitaker.

Tom spoke at the School of Visual Arts on Monday and NYU on Tuesday evening. He then went to Boston to speak at Harvard on Wednesday.

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Rising Wind

I’ve got my eyes pasted to the NYFilm Festival ticket sales. I want to see that new Miyazaki film, The Wind Rises, which opens in theaters November 8th. I’d go crazy if this won the 2013 Oscar. In my book, beating out The Croods and Monsters University shouldn’t be too tough. I want to be first in line to see it at Lincoln Center. Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Bill Plympton gave the film a negative review the other day on his website, Scribble Junkies. Either there’s too much talk for Plympton or he’s worried about it competing with his own feature for the award. I don’t think Bill is officially releasing Your Cheatin’ Heart this year, but it’s still this thing he’s got going about competition with the rest of the world.
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Prisoners Chat up

Academy members got a nice treat this past Thursday evening. There was a screening of the film, The Prisoners which had an all-star cast. The good news was that a large blast of the cast attended a Q&A after the film. The cast included: Huh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Melissa Leo, Viola Davis, Terrance Howard, and Paul Dano. The even better news was that the movie was good. Too tense to look at the watch, the film still made it to 2 1/2 hours. I can definitely recommend it.

Moderator, Patrick Harrison for the Academy

Hugh Jackman-Maria Bello-Jake Gyllenhaal

Hugh Jackman

Jake Gyllenhaal

Maria Bello

Maria Bello and Jake Gyllenhaal

Melissa Leo

Paul Dano

Terrance Howard

Viola Davis – Terrance Howard – Melissa Leo

Viola Davis

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and Pieces

I’ve been just a bit disturbed lately. About animation. I haven’t found much about animation that I really want to write about. Except maybe I have to say that I miss 2D animation. Really good 2D animation. It all seems to be about history. Images from Pinocchio or Beauty and the Beast or some other image from the past. That’s all I seem to be posting lately. I guess because in a large part because I miss the good stuff. I mean I don’t really care about Monsters University or The Croods or any of these things being offered. I miss animation where every single drawing is something that had to be drawn. We just don’t have that much anymore, and I have to think about what I have to say. That’s a terrible thing to have to admit, but what else can I do? I miss really good animation and hope to have a lot to write about with Ernest and Celestine or A Letter to Momo or The Wind Rises because that gets me excited. I understand very well what Mike Barrier had to say a couple of months ago, when he talked about what he was writing when the spirit’s not in you. I’m certainly there, too.

John Canemaker has been making animated movies for ever. I know because we both started at about the same time. Somewhere in the late Seventies we exchanged our early films to get a look at what each other was doing when we were younger. Leslie was tuning out a lot of footage imitating sequences I’d sen in the movies: a couple of dogs (certainly not Lady or Tramp) eating lunch, a limited animation vizier climbing pillars in imitation of 1001 Arabian Knight not with Mr. Magoo.

John didn’t do much in the way of limited animation; he told me he wasn’t able to figure it out. My own work was definitively derivative. I’d redone the Flintstones opening – my own version. Gay Purr-ee led to my attempt at animating the impressionists. I saw something in a theater or on TV and would immediately immitate it. I did a lot of live action/animation combinations. I was fascinated by the modern work. Title sequences to Saul Bass’ films led to my versions. Once I’d seen UPA – the Gerald McBoing Boing Show, I did my own variant. There was a comedy album called The First Family.Vaughn Meador and other comedians impersonated the First family – the Kennedys – singing song parodies of the time. I did my parody of these sung-through albums that quickly lost synch. But you could see the effort that had been taken.

Whereas John worked only in 2D cel animation, I brought out lots of other wares. Clay was easy to animate and allowed me to turn out footage fast.
When we screened them for each other, we were both impressed even though we had to trade off the films and watch them privately. We both did great work; we both did horrible work. My father and brother-in-law constructed a multiplane set with about 16 levels of glass (easily 18″x24″) with about 8000 watts of light. I had my take on Fantasia to work out.

John’s early films – not those we’d shared with each other, but his more professional work – now have a DVD all their own, and I’d
like to talk about these pieces. The DVD, John Canemaker – Marching to a Different Toon will permanently act as a good sampling of one artist’s view of the world. It presents a multiplicity of styles with a wide range of subject matter.
Bottom’s Dream feels like a sketch out of Fantasia as we see a short piece derived from Shakespeare’s “Midsummer’s Night Dream.” Once Titania has turned Bottom into an ass there is a dance wherein he’s trying to escape from the curse. Composer, Ross Care brings Mendelsohn’s music to life as the film’s backdrop.

Confessions of a Star Dreamer features the actress, Diane Gardner, expressing the problems and joys of becoming an Actress. Confessions of a Comic did the same for an aspiring young stand-up comic. Several sequences froom some of the excellent documentaries are also incuded:Break the Silence: Kids Against Child Abuse (TV Movie documentary) (animator), 1988 You Don’t Have to Die (Documentary short), The World According to Garp’s animated seqeunces are also included.

I love the short Bridgehampton, which animates the beautiful garden John and his companion Joe Kennedy, hae developed over the years (see some photos of the actual garden here.) It’s a wonderful little spot on the earth and how joyful for John to make a film paying tribute to his own little bit of nature.

These films were all done just prior to John’s Oscar winning short, The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, which is featured on its own DVD.

This is a rare collection of shorts and one you’ll enjoy if you want to know more about the fame animation historian/animator.

NYC – Pt 3

Continuiing with Mr. Sasek’s beauty of a book giving us a splendid tour of New York. (This post was started on Sept. 13 here.)

This is New York – part 3, the last part.

pages 38 & 394-6

pages 40 & 41

pages 42 & 43

Continuing with Mr. Sasek’s fine book giving us a splendid tour of New York. (This post was started on Sept. 13 here.)

This is New York – part 3

pages 36 & 37

pages 38 & 39

pages 40 & 41

pages 42 & 43

Here are a few more pages of Ralph Steadman‘s Alice In Wonderland. This takes us up to Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Major scanning coming up, so I had to break here.

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