Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- A couple of events passed through New York in the last couple of days, and I’m sad to say that I missed them all. If anyone out there attended any of these, please feel free to let us know what you thought.

- Last night, there was a panel discussion at the Jewish Museum re the art of William Steig. Participating in this panel were:

- Leonard Marcus who discussed Steig’s career as a
__ children’s book illustrator and author.
- Jeffrey Katzenberg, Chief Executive Officer of
__ DreamWorks Animation, discussed bringing the
__ character of Shrek to life on film.
- Chris Miller, director of the Shrek the Third film,
__ offered a movie director’s take on Shrek.
- Jason Moore, director of the forthcoming SHREK THE MUSICAL
- David Lindsay-Abaire, book and lyrics for SHREK THE MUSICAL, spoke about
__ the creative process that is driving the musical stage production.

Yesterday, there was a NYTimes article about Steig and the exhibit. It was obviously also in anticipation of the discussion.

- On Saturday night, as part of the the “Rendez-Vous With French Cinema” – a short series of new French films playing at several venues aroung town – there was a single screening of Fear(s) of the Dark played at the IFC center.

This is the animated feature directed by six different animators, including Charles Burns, Blutch, Marie Caillou and Richard McGuire. The film has been playing at a number of festivals recently, including Cinequest in San Jose, and Brussels’ Anima International Festival.

Fear(s) of the Dark was produced in France by Prima Linea Productions. Their site describes the film with a lot of stills (appropriately enough) and these words:

Six of the worlds hottest graphic artists and cartoonists have breathed life into their
nightmares, bleeding away colour only to retain the starkness of light and the pitch black of shadows.
Their intertwined stories make up an unprecedented epic where phobias, disgust and nightmares come to life and reveal Fear at its most naked and intense…

Variety reviewed the film positively at Sundance. They had glowing things to say about Richard McGuire‘s segment. I report this because McGuire, a New Yorker, introduced the film this past Saturday. It’s unfortunate that there was relatively little press about it, and that there was only the one screening. it conflicted with other plans I’d made, and I learned too late to alter my plans.

Postscript: Commentor Masako Kanayama left the information that the film will be screened again this Sunday March 9, at 1:30pm, at the Walter Reade Theater (Lincoln Center). You can buy advanced tickets online: www.filmlinc.com or at the box office.

- Something I have not missed lately is Chris Rushworth’s web site,
Animal Farm World.
Chris is an ardent fan of the Halas and Batchelor feature, Animal Farm. As such he has collected quite a few drawings and cels from the 1955 feature. He also has many editions of the novel featuring work from different illustrators.

I first learned of this site when Chris responded to a post I’d written about the illustrations by Joy Batchelor for a tie-in edition of the book released in 1955. I’ve written more than a few pieces about this book and film to give you a good indication that I’m a fan as well.

Harvey Deneroff has an excellent article on his site about the history of the multiplane camera. He tries to track Willis O’Brien’s rear screen projection developments and the influence that may have had on the three studios that developed their cameras: Ub Iwerks, Max Fleischer or Disney.

He also details a bit about the multiplane setup developed by Lotte Reiniger utilized in producing Prince Achmed.
The connection between stop motion animation and the machinery is interesting. Given that both Iwerks and Fleischer used horizontal animation stands, it seems a natural that 3D animation was an obvious by product. Indeed, the little sets that Fleischer’s studio created are virtually 3D animation sets.

It’s a good article with excellent observations.

Lotte Reiniger pictured to the left.

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