Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Back in 1976, we were full of spunk and excitement. I attended the first Ottawa Animation Festival, that Summer, and watched Caroline Leaf become a superstar with her two brilliant films, The Street and How The Owl That Married the Goose.

At the time, I had fallen into the position of supervisor of Assistant Animators and Inbetweeners on the newly begun, Richard Williams feature, Raggedy Ann and Andy. While up in Ottawa, I never forgot that we needed help in NY.

Drawings from an animated piece by Sheldon Cohen that impressed me.

It so happens that I found two great artists at that Festival, offered them work and made two new friends, John Gaug (who was very commercially trained in an Ottawa studio) and Sheldon Cohen (a new artist working at NFB who had a lot of talent and “Art” to offer.)

After Raggedy Ann, John went his commercial way, and Sheldon went back to work at the Film Board, and immediately created a brilliant short film called, The Sweater. In subsequent festivals, I got to see The Sweater about a dozen times, and always enjoyed the experience. It was a rich film about the cultural hero’s effect on the young fan; it was about a society at large. It had an innocence and a hidden and charming sophistication of its own. The film was clearly a success.

Roch Carrier’s story creates a delightful short that
crosses all cultural boundaries for Canadians.

Of course, from the regions of the US, it’s hard to quantify how popular a film about Hockey would be in Canada. Believe me this film was much larger than I could ever realize. In short, it seems to have been almost a national treasure. (I’m not even sure the same story about a football or baseball star would do in the US.)

Sheldon had hit his high water mark, and the crosses all aligned. He had made a beautiful and artful film, and it had touched a nerve of the Canadian populace. This film had crossed over to the big side.

This Sweater Is For You! is a beautiful memoir of a book with the film, The Sweater, at the heart of the book, followed by other wonderful pieces about follow-up films, the illustration of the book, The Hockey Sweater, and Sheldon’s art in general. It’s

This memoir contains many personable and great stories. There’s a delightful recounting of Sheldon’s direction of Maureen Stapleton for the voice track of his film, Snow Cat. The star who doesn’t act like a star performs at the top of her game for Sheldon’s film. Having worked with Ms. Stapleton on Voyage to Next with the Hubleys, I understood everything that Sheldon had written. And then I met her over a dozen times on a cross-town bus, she with her shopping bags, me with my awe.

This book is a delightful and eccentric piece, and you’d be well advised to keep it close to hand on your animation book shelf. Wonderful to see such material in print.

You can see a number of Sheldon’s films on the NFB site. I’ve linked to some of those films below.

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