Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Mike and Tim Rauch have some more celebrating to do. Not only has their series of animated shorts been picked up by PBS’ POV, their story has made it to the NYTimes for the second time in a week. Could you ask for better publicity?

Together with Storycorps, the two have been animating the sound tracks and stories that people have volunteered to Storycorps. The results are human and dynamic.

The animation style they’ve chosen to use belies the natural soundtracks with very cartoon styling and makes for an interesting mix. These shorts are well worth viewing, and you should check out the PBS schedule of POV, in your area.

Check out the Rauch Bros. website.

- I’d received this letter from Eamonn O’Neill in Ireland.

My name is Eamonn O’Neill. Im a 22 year old animator and film maker currently based in Dublin Ireland (Although at the moment I am just about to move to London, England to begin an MA in animation direction at the Royal College of Art!)

Last year I made a film called My Day which was featured on Cartoon Brew. You commented on the film at the time and I was delighted to see you enjoyed my film as I’ve been reading your blog for a number of years now.

Fast forward a couple of months and I had the chance to meet with John Canemaker whilst he came to Ireland to lecture at my old college. John had also seen my film online and through that we came to talk about you, we spoke about a film which I had recently finished at the time and he said I should contact you at some point.

Which leads me to why I am mailing you! I recently posted online my 2009 graduate film On the Quiet which I thought you might like to watch.

The film On the Quiet is on VIMEO, and you should take a look at it. It’s well animated and has an intelligence behind it.

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- Goro Miyazaki, the son of Hayao Miyazaki, has an animated feature opening today in selected theaters across the country. In NY, it’s at the Angelica. Tales of the Earthsea received mixed reviews in NY. Stephen Holden in the NY Times wrote:

The movie’s hand-drawn animation and watercolor palette give the story a flat, pictorial grandeur that is pleasant to contemplate though rarely eye catching.

Instead of a shallow story of good versus evil, Tales From Earthsea is a fable about facing your own dark side and accepting your mortality and the limitations of the human condition at a time when technology stokes our fantasies of omnipotence and immortality. As useful as that message may be, it is imparted with more earnestness than passion.

At least it sounds like it has a story, unlike many of the recent cg swipes at cartooning the big budget studios have given us.

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- Hans Perk on his invaluable site, A Film LA, has begun posting the animator drafts of the Disney feature, The Rescuers.

The film was never much of a favorite of mine. The Woolie Reitherman direction is so activity oriented, and the film as a whole just gives us set pieces for the masterful animators to dance around.

Milt Kahl‘s Medusa is excellent, though one feels he’s just trying to compete with the brilliant work Marc Davis did with Cruella DeVil on 101 Dalmatians. Ollie Johnston does fine work, but it’s as sentimental as always. Frank Thomas, as always, was superb.

Too bad we don’t have much the equivalent today.

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