Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Today, Oct. 16th marks the birthday of Oscar Wilde.

To celebrate, Tom (Mickey) Hachtman has done a new variation on his “Double Take” series. So, here it is in all its glory. Happy Birthday, Oscar.

… and here’s another one in sepia. A little younger.

Hap B’day Oscar.

We left off with a few beautiful stills from Ralph Steadman‘s land of Alice. We return with some more beauty pics all from the pen of this master artist, designer.

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“But Only God can make a tree.” when I was a little kid those lines hit me hard. It took a while before I read anything else by Hillaire Belloc, but I was hooked once I did. Here’s a post dedcated to his writing.

- I have two books of chilldren’s verse written by Hilaire Belloc. I’ve been a fan of these poems and have prized the books. I thought it worth sharing.

After graduating from Oxford, Hilaire Belloc served in Parliament. After two terms, thoroughly disatisfied with public office, he left the House of Commons. He wrote extensive commentaries during the first World War. His first son was killed in that conflict; his second son during the second World War.

He was a very opinionated political writer, which didn’t help his reputation during his life. He also refused to be pigeon-holed writing in many different styles and forms. Hence he was barely accepted by the cogniscenti of the time. Many of his children’s poems are whimsical but quite dark. Victoriana lives on in his mood and attitude. His poems are all on line (none of the illustrations are there).

B.T.B. was properly named Basil Templeton Blackwood, the third son of the Marquess of Dufferin. He met Belloc when they were both students at Oxford. He became a Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards in WW I and was killed in action in 1917.

Blackwood became a solicitor, but he illustrated several of Belloc’s books. These include:
The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts (1896)
More Beasts (1897)
The Modern Traveller (1898)
A Moral Alphabet (1899)
Cautionary Tales for Children (1907)
More Peers (1911).

Here we have selected pages from the first two of these books which were combined into one volume I own. It was last published by Duckworth in 1971. A “Bestiary”, of course, is an alphabetical listing of animal poems originally designed to teach children the alphabet. (Sorry that I post these pages out of alphabetical order.)

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Producer – David Heyman

Producer – David Heyman and
co-writer – Jonás Cuarón

stars – Sandra Bullock & George Clooney

star, co-writer,
producer – George Clooney

director, co-writer,
producer – Alfonso Cuarón

star, co-writer – George Clooney

Alfonso Cuarón, David Heyman,
Sandra Bullock, Jonas Cuarón

star, Sandra Bullock

star, Sandra Bullock

The images above are the celebrities that came a’visiting to the Academy Q&A talk back for its members after their film, GRAVITY, was screened on Wednesday.

The film, itself, was very reminiscent of the original ALIEN, except that the only Alien in this film is Outer Space. Fifteen minutes into the film keeping the audience in a breathless state,and not much really was happening.

Amid Amdi at Cartoon Brew suggested that there might be no live action in the film and that it was all just photo-realistic animation. This could easily have been the case for the 90 min film, though it would have been something of a disappointment regardless. We pay for the stars, here, not the animation.

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The Morgan Library in NY has POE Exhibition.

Currently on display at the NY Pierpont Morgan Library is an exhibit of artwork, letters, and artifacts from the life of Edgar A. Poe. This is more of an interest to me than it is you, but I encourage you to go just the same. He was one.of NY’s geniuses and what better way to celebrate his life.

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I’d estimate that roughly 1/3 of the book, Noble Approach, is dedicated to the Warner’s; work of Maurice Noble as well as the time spent working on again / off again with Chuck Jones. The rest of the book sits with the continued history of Noble: his work with John Sutherland, Tower 12 and MGM. There’s also a good amount of time devoted to how he breaks his day up and how he gets the most of is time. It’s a curious book and is totally dedicated to the artwork of the man and how we can learn from him.

It’s a beautiful book full of excellent images, and well worth the purchasing price. Tod Polson knows and works in the business and brings us Maurice’s approach to that production. It’s a very good book, in my opinion. I could have asked for more dirt about the heavyweight films, but I’m satisfied to have what it there.

There’s another good book, Stepping into the Picture: Cartoon Designer Maurice Noble which gives you a somewhat similar approach but with far fewer color images. Personally, I’d buy both – which I have done, if you’re a fan in any way at all.

This review, of course, concerns the most recent book, THe Noble Approach. A lot of attention is given to the hit parade of films: What’s Opera Doc?, Daffy Duck in the 24½ Century, Duck Amuck and a number of the Road Runners, among others. These are all beautiful animation artifacts and have animation and sound tracks every bit as good as the design which is placed on display, here. Animation done today does not get the same kind of attention, and all we can do is weep about it and put more of ourselves into the films we’re making.

Maurice Noble probably first met Chuck Jones on the picket lines of the Disney strike. Noble was very sympathetic to the strike and was there throughout the anti-Disney action. Jones came from Warner Bros group as part of a support team that encouraged their brother workers onward. They felt obligated to support the strikers. This surely meant a lot to both – the creation of this new U-nion for the animation people and the protection of some of the helpless.

Certainly, Maurice and Chuck knew of each others from the product the did for the Army. They undoubtedly began working together during the War on the Snafu shorts. Jones directed some of them and Noble worked for the Signal Corps., so he’d have had a lot of participation in these films.

After the War, Noble ran into trouble and found himself without work when he went back to St. Louis leading a crew supervising filmstrips for Church-craft, an organization connected with the Lutheran Church. In 1951 he formally received an invitation to join the Jones unit.

Films done during this period include: The Unbearable Bear, done with John McGrew, Mouse Warming as well as Feed the Kitty both done in 1952. Maurice Noble brought a good advantage to the Jones unit. It reigned them in somewhat. Their design work was starting to dominate the WB films. Bernyce Fleury and Gene Pierce brought a wildness to the cartoons, and John McGrew, who’d established, this approach to the BG art was able to have a sidekick to pull the films together. This lasted until 1954 when Noble left Warner Bros for a stint at John Sutherland Productions. While at Warner’s his work was compared to UPA because of the raw flat art style he preferred.

Noble liked to pare down the Backgrounds to only their essentials. All airbrush and unnecessary highlighting and shading was removed. This made the work distinctive from UPA in that it was an attempt to control the extraneous rather than just dumping it. He was out for changing the art; not just for the sake of the change but for the sake of the art, as well.

Jones’s group at Warners: Fleury, Pierce McGrew all had made a place in the Warner stable. Their art looked like no other unit’s; However, it wasn’t necessarily adding to the films as far as the management could see. Under the supervision of Leon Schlesinger it didn’t matter as long as the films continued to make money. Once Eddie Selzer took charge things began to change, and there was a close watch on all of the art as well as in the scripts ans stories. This is, perhaps, why Noble stayed on positve terms with Selzer whereas he Jones was not liked by Selzer.

Still,in all, because of the talent employed some of the best BG design and painting took place at the Warner’s studio; no one could deny that.

Even Mother Nature
can change her mind.

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Photos by Steve Fisher

This past week was a quiet one around here.

I’ve been putting together a bid for an R. O. Blechman film. Ed Smith has animated some animation, and I’m counting the hours it’s taking me to render to completion. This will be part of the bid. Ed, these days, works rather straight ahead, but then will go wildly awry. Suddenly, there are duplicate numbers and it starts becoming a choice of judgement as to how to complete the scenes to best satisfy Ed. I’ve spent the past week just scanning the art from one of the scenes. I’d be pleased that such a feature were in production if I didn’t believe it’d be coming to an end soon enough. I’ve done this often for Bob all to end in nothing.

Speaking of Bob Blechman, he’ll have a major exhibition coming to SVA in NYC. The exhibition is on view October 2-November 2 at the SVA Chelsea Gallery (formerly the Visual Arts Gallery), 601 West 26thStreet, New York City. Admission is free and open to the public. He’d done a large part of storyboard (thumbnails, really) and is counting on Ed’s expert animation to sell it for him. I wish him luck

I still haven’t learned When The Wind Rises will play at the NY Film Festival, (as a mater fact it’s today, Saturday, at 12:30 but have heard that the tickets are about sold out.) No fear, the films open in theaters the day after the premieres, ususlly. (In the case of this film it’ll open Nov 8th in LA and NY for Oscar qualiying runs. I’ll see it soon.

Despite the negative review Bill Plympton left for it on his website, the many other reviews I’ve read have been positive.

Elliot Cowan, who was a judge at the recent Ottawa Festival, had this to say, “I’ve been at the Ottawa festival and have just caught up with your blog for the week. I’m not sure if you’ve seen Ernest and Celestine but it’s strange and lovely.”
“We saw a mostly very good film, a VERY beautiful, called The Boy and The World that I imagine you’d take to: We gave it a special mention.
It’s too long and undoes itself a bit by the end but it’s good stuff.

Mark Mayerson also was very positive about the Miyazaki film. I look forward to it and believe it’ll probably be perfect for me these days. It’s something worth looking forward to see. (Sorry but Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, isn’t going to be the answer. I’m pleased Ron Barrett is gaining some success, though.

Thanks ROC for correcting the name for me.