Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

The list of film on the animation short lis for Best Animated Short Film include:
The 10 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:

Feral, Daniel Sousa, director, and Dan Golden, music and sound design (Daniel Sousa)
Get a Horse! Lauren MacMullan, director, and Dorothy McKim, producer (Walt Disney Feature Animation)
Gloria Victoria, Theodore Ushev, director (National Film Board of Canada)
The Missing Scarf, Eoin Duffy, director, and Jamie Hogan, producer (Belly Creative Inc.)
Mr. Hublot, Laurent Witz, director, and Alexandre Espigares, co-director (Zeilt Productions)
Possessions, Shuhei Morita, director (Sunrise Inc.)
Requiem for Romance, Jonathan Ng, director (Kungfu Romance Productions Inc.)
Room on the Broom, Max Lang and Jan Lachauer, directors (Magic Light Pictures)
Subconscious Password, Chris Landreth, director (National Film Board of Canada with the participation of Seneca College Animation Arts Centre and Copperheart Entertainment).

The Academy’s Short Films and Feature Animation Branch Reviewing Committee viewed all the eligible entries for the preliminary round of voting at screenings held in New York and Los Angeles. Short Films and Feature Animation Branch members will now select three to five nominees from among the 10 titles on the shortlist. Branch screenings will be held in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in December.

Paul Julian is one of my favorite BG painters. He did a number of titles on his own for Roger Corman’s horror films. They’re had o see, yet I’ve gathered a number of them. This title sequecence was for The Terror, They are just beautiful paintings despite the fact that some of the color prints have deteriorated. It’s eas to understand whyjOHN Hubley took such a liking for his work on THE FOUR POSTER and ROOTY TOOT TOOT.

I’ve continually grown more interested in Paul Julian‘s work. He’s known predominantly for the Bgs he did at Warner Bros and the art direction he did on The Tell Tale Heart. However, there’s more film work he did independently.

The Hangman was a short film he did with co-director Les Goldman. Maurice Ogden’s poem is read by Herschel Bernardi in a very earnest tone. The artwork by Julian absolutely saves this film which was nominated for the Oscar.

Roger Corman also used Paul Julian for a number of opening title sequences for the low budget films he did in the 60s. I’m going to try pulling some frame grabs from a number of these title sequences so that I can place some focus on Julian’s work in these forgotten films.

I start here with The Terror a film Starring Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson. Julian uses a couple of pieces of artwork that he works over the course of the sequence with lots of lateral camera moves. Quite expressive work, though certainly not on a par with Tell Tale Heart.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Starts at the bottom and pans up.

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Monte Hellman directed Two Lane Blacktop.

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You can watch a grayed-out version of this video on YouTube. The credits come on about a minute into it.

In this post taking frame grabs from Swamp Women, the print includes an obviously added on title card using B&W footage. The color film that follows is so deteriorated and choppy, in this print, that it’s hard to discern what color the original art was. So I’ve tempered it a bit to get rid of the magenta look. I suspect I’m getting close.

The imagery is definitely Julian’s. He had an obvious Ben Shahn influence to some of the work although he gets a bit more surreal in his compositions and designs.

There are fewer camera moves in this title. I’m sure the budget was low. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were in the hundreds (not thousands) of dollars.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

This first title on the rented DVD looks like it was pulled from a B&W print.

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In his book, When Magoo Flew, The Rise and Fall of an Animation Studio – UPA,writer, Adam Abraham details the story of a group of artists working together a new series of films. John Hubley wasn’t always happy though he was undoubtedly one of the leaders of the artists who came together from different sources. Many from Disney, some from the US Army Signal Corps, others from Chouinard Art Institute -a school supported by Walt Disney in his attempts to gain artists for the films he made in LA.

The stories behind the films were done wholly to advance the new art forms being discovered in Los Angeles. It was their notion that by breaking the rules of 19th Century Art animation could begin to come truly alive as an original.

Two of the artists were truly original in the approach, and when they started working together a curtain unveiled something new.

John Hubley was one of the bosses and one of of those who brought strength to the films he created. In the beginning he worked with the animator, However, he was bothereed by some of the color choices made others, particularly by BG artist artist Herb Klynn. Hubley was incensed at the ugly yellow/green that Mr. Klynn would incessantly choose. For this reason (among others) he brought in the gifted master painter Paul Julian to do the the background coloring. Hubley, himself, was a strong designer and a master painter. Who could question what he wanted to do with the department.

Once past a couple of near-sighted Fox and Crow films; Hubley wanted to do films about humans, not animals, and he eventually got his series featuring the near-sighted Mr. MaGoo. In the big picture, though, they were forced to follow many artistic constraints. Despite this, they two did a number of very successful shorts in changing the look and feel of animation globally.

The films done by both Hubley and Julia
Continue Reading »

After posting the book, Piccoli, a week or so ago, I’ve grown more interest in Paul Julian‘s work. He’s known predominantly for the Bgs he did at Warner Bros and the art direction he did on The Tell Tale Heart. However, there’s more film work he did independently.

The Hangman was a short film he did with co-director Les Goldman. Maurice Ogden’s poem is read by Herschel Bernardi in a very earnest tone. The artwork by Julian absolutely saves this film which was nominated for the Oscar.

Roger Corman also used Paul Julian for a number of opening title sequences for the low budget films he did in the 60s. I’m going to try pulling some frame grabs from a number of these title sequences so that I can place some focus on Julian’s work in these forgotten films.

I start here with The Terror a film Starring Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson. Julian uses a couple of pieces of artwork that he works over the course of the sequence with lots of lateral camera moves. Quite expressive work, though certainly not on a par with Tell Tale Heart.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Starts at the bottom and pans up.

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Monte Hellman directed Two Lane Blacktop.

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You can watch a grayed-out version of this video on YouTube. The credits come on about a minute into it.

Swamp Women’s title sequence will follow soon.

After posting the book, Piccoli, a week or so ago, I’ve grown more interest in Paul Julian‘s work. He’s known predominantly for the Bgs he did at Warner Bros and the art direction he did on The Tell Tale Heart. However, there’s more film work he did independently.

The Hangman was a short film he did with co-director Les Goldman. Maurice Ogden’s poem is read by Herschel Bernardi in a very earnest tone. The artwork by Julian absolutely saves this film which was nomainted for the Oscar.

Roger Corman also used Paul Julian for a number of opening title sequences for the low budget films he did in the 60s. I’m going to try pulling some frame grabs from a number of these title sequences so that I can place some focus on Julian’s work in these forgotten films.

I start here with The Terror a film Starring Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson. Julian uses a couple of pieces of artwork that he works over the course of the sequence with lots of lateral camera moves. Quite expressive work, though certainly not on a par with Tell Tale Heart.

1
(Click any image to enlarge.)

2

3

4

5

6
Starts at the bottom and pans up.

7

8

9
Monte Hellman directed Two Lane Blacktop.

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13

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15

You can watch a grayed-out version of this video on YouTube. The credits come on about a minute into it.

- Don Hahn is a busy guy. Aside from producing Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, he’s produced the Disney nature documentaries Earth, Oceans and African Cats. He’s also directed Waking Sleeping Beauty about the renaissance of Disney animation.

Mr. Hahn has also written a number of books, starting with Animation Magic through Disney’s Animation Kit as well as The Alchemy of Animation up to his most recent (non-picture) book, Brainstorm: Unleashing Your Creative Self.

I recently picked up Brainstorm and have read it, so I thought I’d write a few comments. I believe this is an updated and expanded version of the earlier book, Dancing Corn Dogs in the Night. In either incarnation, it’s an easy-to-read book with a light and casual sense of humor. Mr. Hahn is very comfortable in the skin of the light raconteur; he often tells stories that are witty and help to direct his point. This is a book about the creative process, and it tries to tell people how to get their artistic side out of their bodies.

This process is best told in a story wherein a younger production manager calls Hahn in the evening asking to come up to his office. When they meet, the young executive says he needs advice: he’s trying to write a screenplay and is stuck. He wants Hahn’s advice as to how to get going. Hahn tells us that “the most successful writers write because they have to.” The conversation, he tells us, really came down to how much the writer “really felt he had to write.” Hahn says that he felt the writer had shortchanged himself; he needed the courage to be honest with himself and make big changes in his career path. “He had to be authentic.”

There are many such stories like this in the book, and they all feel authentic. It’s just that they all feel as though they’re adding up to be a Self-help book. There are many lines which I had to squirm through with ideas that no one would really have to tell an artist. The hardest line for me in the book is: “Shakespeare must have loved putting words together. He was like a phrase machine. If one guy was able to be that innovative with language in the sixteenth century, then why can’t we be more innovative?” The answer, of course, is that Shakespeare was the greatest living writer-as-artist that there ever was. He was a genius. I am not a genius, but I would never compare myself with Shakespeare. Maybe Stephen Sondheim might be comparable, but don’t ask me to be innovative so that I can be more like Shakespeare! I think of myself as someone trying my entire life to be an artist; I don’t have a problem being innovative, but I also can’t put myself in the same sentence with Shakespeare.

As such, I had a bit of a hard time reading it. I never in my life have had a hard time expressing myself artistically and have never needed advice on how to allow the muse to flow from myself. I don’t have a hard time getting started; more so I have a hard time stopping.

It was difficult for me to contain myself while reading a how-to book on the artistic process. “Art for Beginners” is not something I really needed to read, however the stories told kept me moving on through the book, and I’m sure they’ll entertain you as well. There’s the story of Dick Williams disappearing from his studio while preparing for a deadline in animating a scene, only to return very late in the deadline to whip it out. He had his own process of preparation. Or there’s the story of meeting Woolie Reitherman for the first time and hearing him call John Huston during the meeting (which leads to Hahn’s casual comparison between Reitherman and Huston.)

There are many stories we haven’t heard before, and for that alone, I felt the book was worth reading. I also appreciated that it might help some people to get the creative process going, if they are novices trying to think of themselves in artistic terms. I assume there are many such people out there.

- Things started off roughly this week. First thing in the morning on Tuesday I was greeted with the news that Karen Aqua had died. It took a lot out of me that day. To lose so enormous a talent is difficult; to lose a friend in the animation community is even harder. We lost both with that email.

I posted my little post – not much more really, than Karen’s husband, Ken Field‘s telling of the news and information about a memorial service (when I know more about that I’ll pass the news on) – , but I found a wealth of Independent animators checking in to express thier feelings. Everyone from Candy Kugel to Kathy Rose, Joanna Priestly to Paul Glabicki. _____________Civilization by Karen Aqua

I realized with that open expression that there really is no place for the Independent animator to check in for news or stories about their work. Non studio artists are left to their own blogs and websites to promote their animation while multi-mega-budget films are given top headlines over whether or not they’ve broken the $100 million mark. It just doesn’t seem fair to me.

So I’ve decided to step tentatively into this water. I’m going to devote a day of the week (probably Tuesday or Thursday) to writing about some filmmaker/artist/animator. It’ll probably be a mix of reviews, interviews and bios of some of our best artists. Shameless promotion for the films that deserve more attention.

Independent animators: don’t hesitate to contact me if you have anything you’d like to promote or news you’d like to share or even if you’re just interested in having your films be a focus for a day.

- Speaking about that post, I was glad to see Cartoon Brew finally comment on Karen’s passing by directing people to my blog, but I was annoyed to see another blog lift my piece verbatim and post it on their site – not even separating my stills from their enlarged versions so that when you clicked a still it sent you to my site. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind, but I do like when they give my blog credit. Unfortunately, there was no naming of the origination of this post, and the blogger passed it off as if it were his own.

People, we have to have some modicum of courtesy out there !

I also contacted Ron Diamond at AWN to make sure they’d have a note about Karen on their site, (I knew they would, they’re usually just a tad slow in getting it done) and, indeed, they said one was in the works. It was posted that same day.

- The Holland Animation Film Festival has made a decision to move its date from Autumn to Spring. That means their next Festival will take place in the Spring of 2012, and there will be no Holland Animation Festival in 2011. The next edition is from 28 March through 1 April 2012.

I haven’t attended any of their Festivals, but for some reason I suspect this is one of the better ones out there. Maybe I should aim to go in 2012 if I can ever finish another film.

- Hans Bacher has posted a number of beautiful posts on Paul Julian‘s work on The Hangman, a film he directed in 1964. Go here and here to see the two already up and they will lead you to past posts on Julian’s work.

In the past, I’ve posted a couple of Julian’s books, Toot and Piccoli.

I’ve also done posts about Paul Julian‘s work for Roger Corman. You can see those posts here.

You can see a reddish print on YouTube here.

- Here are the scenic art that makes up the title sequence to Roger Corman’s film, Teenage Doll. I would be posting this as a Paul Julian title, as many ardent fans credit the titles. But they’re wrong, this is not the work of Julian. It’s a poor imitation.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

A couple of peculiar cards set up the main title.
First a very slow pan down while hands appear and disappear.

Allied Artists gets their title card – not full screen!

The main title.

The camera pans across brick wall fragments
as a few names come and go.

The camera makes a slight move as we go from the
title above to the title below.

Single card.

Shadows move in as type changes.

Cut to a pan as a bunch of titles fade on and off.

Single card title.

Some black cut out figures pan up and in.
They’re so shoddily produced that the lights are
shining off the edges of the card.

Single card title.

The text is printed over a photo of a brick wall.
I guess they had no left over artwork.

Obviously there are problems with this title sequence. The worst has to be seen as it moves on screen. A pathetic sense of timing has type popping on and off the screen too brieftly or held too long. The artwork looks more like some agency storyboard than actual production artwork.

This is most certainly not Paul Julian’s work. Stylistically it’s obvious, however, there’s so little professional about these titles that I know Julian couldn’t have been involved.

What I expect happened, was that he was offered the job for less than the couple of hundred dollars usually offered. He turned it down and some beginner took it to get his feet wet. Too bad.

The unfortunate part is that the designer didn’t even get a credit, so we don’t know who did it.

- Dementia 13 was Francis Ford Coppola‘s first real, credited film direction. Done in 1963, it was contrived in a rush to capitalize on the completion of another Roger Corman film, The Young Racers. They were able to use the sets and props from the low-budget film Corman had just finished in Ireland with Coppola as his sound technician.

When they returned to LA, Coppola and Corman fought, with Corman bringing in another director, Jack Hill, to complete the film as he wanted it adding a few ersatz scenes.

It’s interesting that Paul Julian was able to get in there to do the credits for this film. Presumably Corman brought him in since he did a number of other Corman title sequences. Obviously, the budget was just about nothing (one doubts it even covered the cost of Julian’s paints.) Regardless, the film is notable for Coppola’s name. Julian’s work stood out.

The up front titles are particularly short, as is the credit list at the end.

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Here’s a sample of the end credits with Julian’s name.

Hans Bacher on his site, One1more2time3′s Weblog has a couple of posts with recreated Warner Bros backgrounds by Paul Julian.

- The last post to focus on Paul Julian’s work, pulled images from the credit sequence to Roger Corman‘s film, The Terror. Corman used Julian for a number of title sequences, and I hope to showcase several of them here.

However, the print selection is not the best. In this post taking frame grabs from Swamp Women, the print includes an obviously added on title card using B&W footage. The color film that follows is so deteriorated and choppy, in this print, that it’s hard to discern what color the original art was. So I’ve tempered it a bit to get rid of the magenta look. I suspect I’m getting close.

The imagery is definitely Julian’s. He had an obvious Ben Shahn influence to some of the work although he gets a bit more surreal in his compositions and designs.

There are fewer camera moves in this title. I’m sure the budget was low. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were in the hundreds (not thousands) of dollars.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

This first title on the rented DVD looks like it was pulled from a B&W print.

2

3a3b

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5

6

7a

7b

7c

8a8b

9

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13

14

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21

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After posting the book, Piccoli, a week or so ago, I’ve grown more interest in Paul Julian‘s work. He’s known predominantly for the Bgs he did at Warner Bros and the art direction he did on The Tell Tale Heart. However, there’s more film work he did independently.

The Hangman was a short film he did with co-director Les Goldman. Maurice Ogden’s poem is read by Herschel Bernardi in a very earnest tone. The artwork by Julian absolutely saves this film which was nomainted for the Oscar.

Roger Corman also used Paul Julian for a number of opening title sequences for the low budget films he did in the 60s. I’m going to try pulling some frame grabs from a number of these title sequences so that I can place some focus on Julian’s work in these forgotten films.

I start here with The Terror a film Starring Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson. Julian uses a couple of pieces of artwork that he works over the course of the sequence with lots of lateral camera moves. Quite expressive work, though certainly not on a par with Tell Tale Heart.

1
(Click any image to enlarge.)

2

3

4

5

6
Starts at the bottom and pans up.

7

8

9
Monte Hellman directed Two Lane Blacktop.

10

11

12

13

14

15

You can watch a grayed-out version of this video on YouTube. The credits come on about a minute into it.

Swamp Women’s title sequence will follow soon.