Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Emily Hubley‘s first feature film has made it into the New Directors:New Films series at MOMA in conjunction with the Lincoln Center Film Society.

The Toe Tactic is 2/3 live action and 1/3 animation. Emily directed both parts of the film and wrote it as well.

The film’s stars include: John Sayles, Marian Seldes, Eli Wallach, Andrea Martin, and Mary Kay Place.

The short synopsis found on line is: In this hybrid of live-action and animation, a young woman grieves for her father while unaware of the magical world around her.

A review appeared in the Austin Chronicle when the film played as part of the South by Southwest Festival.

The film will play:
______Sat Mar 29: 6:00pm (Walter Reade Theater)
______Mon Mar 31: 9:00pm (MoMA)

- I was pleased to have received word that the great Gerald Potterton will be awarded the Pulcinella Lifetime Achievement Award from the 12th Annual Cartoons on the Bay International Festival of Television Animation in Salerno, Italy.

The award is presented each year to “a prestigious personality of the world of cinema and television animation,” will be given to Gerry during the awards ceremony on April 12th. Previous recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award include Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto, Roy E. Disney, and Bill Hanna & Joe Barbera.

I met Gerry on Raggedy Ann when I first started in a very big office with almost no one as yet hired. I spent a great Saturday with Gerry and Dick Williams coloring storyboard drawings mostly drawn by the brilliant Corny Cole. The drawings were being fed to, cameraman, Al Kouzel to shoot an animatic on 35mm film. It was a funny day, and I was in heaven working with Dick and Gerry for a solid Saturday.

Both Gerry and Dick were part of the Grasshopper Group in England back in the 50′s (along with the likes of Bob Godfrey, George Dunning and Stan Hayward. They’d known each other for quite some time and were close. I was the odd man out, but couldn’t have enjoyed the company more – with questions aplenty that I snuck in during the day.

During Raggedy Ann, I’d let Gerry know that I wanted desperately to see a film he’d done in 1969, Pinter People. This was a documentary about Harold Pinter and his characters, showing the varied places that his characters inhabited: the parks, the pubs, the places. The films includes Pinter talking about these characters and includes five animated segments (about 45 mins of animation) from Pinter’s short plays. It is truly one of the first adult animated films built around words. Gerry brought me a 16mm copy to view, and I returned it immediately.

I couldn’t be more pleased to see him receive this award, and I don’t think there is anyone more deserving. Congratulations, Gerry.

Here’s the part of the press release that was sent which includes Gerry’s bio, for those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Potterton’s distinguished career.

Few Canadian film careers have been as colorful as that of British-born writer, director, producer and animator Gerald Potterton. In a career spanning over fifty years, he has worked on dozens of live action and animated films, including the classic British animated feature Animal Farm and the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. He left the National Film Board to start up Potterton Productions, the largest film production house in Canada at the time, but he is best known as the director of the cult classic, Columbia Pictures release Heavy Metal, which was released in 1980. He directed the great American silent film comedian Buster Keaton in a National Film Board live-action short, The Railrodder, for which he was awarded a Buster for “film excellence in the Buster Keaton tradition” in 2002 at the annual Buster Keaton Celebration in Iola, Kansas.

In 1998, Potterton was selected as one of the “Ten Men Who Rocked the Animation World” at the first World Animation Celebration in Pasadena, California. His prolific career has been honored with retrospectives at North American film festivals from Ottawa to Seattle.

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