Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Today, of course, is September 11th and certainly no New Yorker can get through the date without reminiscing about that horrible day back in 2001.

Tom Hachtman visited the studio yesterday and he and I went on a bit. He’d regularly submits pieces to the New Yorker magazine. He was on his way into the city to submit a cover that had the strange bit (the week before 9/11) where a parachuter landed on the torch of the Statue of Liberty. The twin towers were in the background. When he learned, coming into town, that the buildings had been struck, he didn’t even show his cover idea (a good and funny one, normally) but went home.

Everyone was affected from great to slight, and a very sad calm comes over when we give our minds to it.

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- Shane Acker‘s 9 opened in New York this past Wednesday and might have snuck in without notice if we weren’t looking for it. I have seen the ad for it several times on tv -all during Yankee games – (which is more than I can say for Ponyo.) All of the ads were action-adventure blow up kinda ads. None of them would get me near a theater.

I do have the memory of the short that was nominated for the Oscar. I wasn’t crazy about it, but I certainly remembered it. Mad Max meets Henry Selick meets student film. I couldn’t tell if it was puppet or cgi, though I suspected cgi. I now know it was. At least Shane Acker makes no bones about that being the look he was going for.

The film didn’t get a review in the NYDaily News until today – a short 2 star review; it earned 3 stars from the NYPost, and received a generally non-commital of a review from A.O.Scott in the NYTimes. (Since he’s now half of that new “Siskel/Ebert” clone of a show, it’ll be interesting to see what he says live on the upcoming program.)

The NYTimes does have a slide show of stills from the film.

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- Speaking of cgi looking like puppet films, here’s a cgi film that DOESN’T look like a Viewmaster clone. Un tour de manège They sought to imitate painting.
What do you know! Gobelins strikes again.

The film’s a bit romantic in tone, but the graphics are superbly done. It’s technically very sophisticated but quite simple in its look and execution. I appreciated the work that went into it and the final product.

Thanks to Ian Lumsden‘s great blog for pointing me in the right direction.

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- Too Art for TV4 is the title of the latest art exhibit of work by animation artists. The wrok will be displayed in Williamsburg at the art gallery, Erebuni. The opening reception is next Friday, September 18th, 6pm-9:30pm

The show, itself, will run from September 18th, through October 17th, 2009
at Erebuni, 158 Roebling St. Williamsburg, NY 11211.

I urge you to support your fellow artists and take a look.

Some of the artists exhibiting may be unfamiliar names; others may be friends. I suggest you check out the website and scroll down. Take the time to read some of the bios.

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS include:

Liz Artinian ____ Amanda Baehr-Fuller____
Christopher Beaumont ____Andrew Bell
Robert Bohn ____Connie Li Chan
Devin Clark____ Eliot Cowan
Jared Deal____ Kelly Denato
Eric Dyer ____Maya Edelman
Jon Ehrenberg____ Christopher Fisher
Chris George ____Kenneth B Gore
Edmond Hawkins ____Jen Hill
Stephen Irwin____ Marta Maria Jonsdottir
kaNO ____Thomas Knowler
Eileen Kohlhepp ____Peter J. Lazarski
Eric Leiser____ Adam Levine
Dave Lipson____ Todd Kidwell Lown
Richard Mather Cynthea____ Satsuki Mazur
Margaret Meyer____ Jessica Milazzo
Nate Milton ____Michael Mucci
Deodato Pangandoyon____ Alex Smith
Zartosht Soltani____ Ryan Sovereign

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- I enjoyed Mark Mayerson‘s comments on Miyazaki‘s book Starting Point. I’ve been hot to get my hands on this one for some time now. I ordered it from Amazon and have been in limbo ever since.

I’ve just received a second notice (a month later) that the book has just been shipped. I’ll believe it when I have the book in my hands. It’s a bit frustrating. There are times when I wonder why I didn’t just go to the store and buy a copy! (Of course, laziness is the answer.)

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- As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Walt and El Grupo opens today at the Quad Cinema on 13th Street. The reviews for the film have been good (only the NYPost offered their top reviewer), as expected. All of those I saw (about 6 of them) said the film was too reverential, a studio promoting its own history.

I thought it a good documentary with lots of sterling footage of the groups travels through Latin America. Jerry Beck’s one negative comment is the same for me – I wish the film had offered more of the animation from the films that came out of this trip. Of course, I’m one of those the movie was made for – an animation fan who went into it knowing who all the people on screen were.

I did appreciate a lot of the commentary about the strike, that all of these employees were part of – on Walt’s side of the fence. We learn in the doc that many of them were worried for those they’d left behind. We can easily imagine what a concern that would be. It’s a good film that you should see if you have any interest in Disney.

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