Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Oh, the Films I’ve Seen

This was a really busy week as far as seeing movies went. The first three were Special Oscar preview screenings.

- Sunday night there was a screening of Dreamworks’ Rise of the Guardians. This was a rough cut; it had a lot of unfinished scenes. many were missisng proper lighting, the score was a temp track (a 101 strings big budget adventure-music type played LOUD and LOUTISH.) When I learned that the brilliant Alexandre Desplat was doing the music, I realized that I’d only seen 2/3 of the film. Desplat might actually be able to save this loud, annoying and tedious film. By the way, someone tell them that people don’t smile that much – visually, I mean – actually, aurally too (whenever there’s a hole in the track, they stab it with someone laughing), and females can do something other than pose cute. There isn’t one real female character in this film.

I met the director, Peter Ramsey, Jeff Katzenberg,the brilliant writer, David Lindsay-Abaire, who was wasted on this one. I met the producer, Christina Steinberg, and William Joyce, who fathered the whole thing. The film reminded me a lot of the Shrek films, stylistically, I mean. It wasn’t pretty.

Jude Law is brilliant and Alec Baldwin can do anything – including a Russian Santa Claus. Who knows maybe when they add the real and final score, when they finish coloring the scenes and when they put it all together properly it’ll be great. I seriously doubt that’ll happen, and it’ll be hard to sit through again. I do want to hear the new score, though. I like that composer and want to see how he scores this mess of a movie.

Monday night there was a screening of On the Road, the filmed version of the Jack Kerouac book. Directed by Walter Salles who did Motorcycle Diaries, this film doesn’t have the same drive as his last. The poster is a closeup of Viggo Mortenson, who in his two minutes in the film, brings it to life for a short bit. There are a lot of stars who make short appearances. I wish the lead actor had been someone with more screen presence. There weren’t too many people on the screen that you really cared about, and that certainly included Kristin Stewart who can’t act very well.

The tiny Disney theater was packed with celebrities (I sat next to Dianne Wiest) who all made it to the afterparty at Le Cirque. That was fun.

Tuesday brought The Master in 70mm to the Ziegfield Theater – one of NY’s largest and best. Lots of stars in the theater. I sat next to David Straithairn.

This was THE film of the year, so far. Joaquin Phooenix has a damn good chance of winning an Oscar. He was great. The film was eccentric and felt slow even though I never felt the need to check out my watch. Why don’t we get films like this in animation? Johnny Greenwood‘s (Radiohead) score is out of this world. The first really big film of the year. Although the film is about vague and elusive ideas, so much is left for the viewer to determine, the film has stuck in my head for the past five days replaying many of the scenes. I look forward to seeing it again at the Academy screening on Sept. 24th.

The film got an excellent review from AO Scott at the NYTimes.
Also excellent notices from the NYPost and the Daily News. But the best review I’ve read was Karina Longworth‘s review in The Village Voice. She responded to some of my thoughts on the film. An excellent piece of criticism.

Thursday I saw Arbitrage. Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Roth in a film about a corrupt hedge fund manager who accidentally kills his French paramour in a car crash. Can he get out of the financial predicament he’s in to save the company? Can he hide his involvement in his girlfriend’s death? A pot boiler that kept me interested, though the film is really about nothing. Richard Gere was good but no competition for Joaquin Phoenix or Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Master.

Friday night I saw a new play that starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Brían F. O’Byrne. Called If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet, (what a bad, unmemorable title) there were excellent performances from all four actors, but the play was a ghost of a show. Something about bullying an overweight high school girl in England. Mix that with something about global warming and have a set with a glass tank of water in the front of the stage. The furniture which is piled in a junk heap center stage is there for the actors to pick and choose the pieces they want to do the scenes with. Then they throw it into the tank of water at the end of the scene All scenes end with this violent action. When the girl tries to kill herself in the bathtub, water overflows leaving, on purpose, at least a couple of inches of water on the set. The actors play the last ten minutes ankle deep in water. (At one point, I actually wondered if the tank were going to overflow and water would come into the audience. I was sitting in the fifth row.) I think this is supposed to be a metaphor of some kind for the mess global warming is doing to the world which is a metaphor for the mess the world is making of families.

The play was not good. The actors were. They all play with Brit accents and all do well at it. I thought of waiting for Jake Gyllenhaal at the end of the show to say hi after Man Who Walked Between the Towers. However, there must have been a hundred people crowding the front of the theater to get a look at the star. I got outta there.

This afternoon, Saturday, I’m going to see Francine at MoMA. Melissa Leo‘s new film is being released by MoMA for the first week. The reviews haven’t been good.

_______________________________________

Interview with Dick

- There’s a wonderful and extensive interview with Richard Williams on the blog One Huge Eye. The interview was conducted by Alex Amelines, the cre­ator of one­huge­eye. He’s also the founder and direc­tor at the Lon­don based Stu­dio Tinto. Other interviews on the site include those with: David Sproxton, Eric Walls, Jeff Pratt and Nick Cross. (It’s obviously a Brit site.)

_______________________________________

Inking for the Best of ‘em

- John Kricfalusi has a tutorial, on his site, in how to properly ink his style. This, in many ways, is a lesson in how to ink (period). There are minor things that you would not do for every style — such as inking the entire externalline of the character in a heavier weight. This is purely a style preference. However, control of the thick and thin line as well as control of details is astute. Inking is such an enormous part of the animation process that it’s amazing to see how few pay proper attention to it. There have been many a film that have been badly hurt because of poor inking. I’ve seen beautiful inking on many a Peanuts special, but I’d also seen one that had a very poor, wavering inking rendering that episode almost unwatchable – for me. (The general public probably didn’t notice it.) If those lines are not right, it can damage the animation and takes the heart out of controlled assisting.

Yet, the opposite is true as well. An exhibit at the NY Public Library at 42nd Street in 1998 was one of the best I’ve ever seen. It was a program of “Celebrity Caricature” mostly from the 20′s & 30′s. In among the magazine art was a small section on animated caricature. Drawings by Tee Hee and Joe Grant were on display with a couple of cel set-ups. The ink lines were stunning. They were drawn with delicate thick and thin lines done with crow-quill in multiple colors. Just as the models would be marked up for the different cel colors, it had markings for the ink line colors, as well. The Charlie McCarthy & W.C. Fields in the image to the right represents some of the beautiful caricatures from “Mother Goose Goes Hollywood”.

_______________________________________

Terrytoons New Camera

After a piece about inking, how could we avoid an article about a brand new animation camera. The Terry cartoons introduced a new camera in 1939 which allowed them to film live action, projected one frame at a time, from beneath the platen. Thus you could easily combine live action and animation at the camera phase, thus avoiding any opticals.

Here’s an article from Modern Mechanix.

1

2

_______________________________________

Dumbo’s Done

William Benzon has completed his lengthy article about Dumbo on his site, the New Savannah. He’s put all of these posts together into one big read. You can read it in PDF format by going here. Quite a work of scholarship by Mr.Benzon.

- You gotta love Thad Komorowski. His site goes into some real hard-nosed animation history like ironing out all those Production Numbers from the Warner Bros and MGM shorts. His work in this area pushed Adam Abraham to assemble the Prod. Numbers for UPA cartoons and Pietro Shakarian assembled the numbers for the Lantz cartoons (or should I have written cartunes?).

Thad also has an excellent piece on his blog about the early color films of Chuck Jones. Yes, we’re talking Sniffles.

For quite some time, I’ve read many an article about these films constantly putting them down. Thad’s an original – the first I know to find something solid in them. (Though I have to say he does it with an apology in his throat.) The reason behind the post is to review a new DVD on the market, Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles, a collection of Jones cartoons that feature mice. All the Sniffles and the Hubie and Bertie shorts.

These Sniffles films really got me when I was young. I couldn’t get enough of Bedtime for Sniffles. I always thought that film was brilliant – I still think that. I can remember every scene in that movie; I’ve watched it so many times. Jones took WB close to what Disney had led the industry in doing – emotional drama. Some might say overemotional drama – which often veers too close to “cute” for anyone’s taste. These are children’s films, yet Jones was able to find a real conflict in this one-character cartoon, Bedtime for Sniffles. Poor Sniffles just wants to wait up to see Santa. You always feel that Jones is beaming with pride after pulling off such a stunt, and Thad talks in depth (but never quite enough) about Jones’ ego. I think this is probably half of what Jones offers in his films; his ego is the backbone. This was a principal part of the Jones oeuvre. It’s blatantly part of What’s Opera Doc, it drives One Froggy Evening, and it’s in the spine of Bedtime for Sniffles. Maybe it’s just starting to shine in the Sniffles short, but it’s definitely there.

There was this odd period in animation history. Just prior to WWII, cartoons got cute, cuter, cutest. Merbabies, kittens galore, underground gnomes bringing Spring, countless trips to The Milky Way, and all the cartoon stars get a pack of nephews to follow them. What was in the milk that adults drank on the way to the movie theater? Why were these cute cartoons so popular during this short period? The Milky Way might have played with Ninotchka; Merbabies might have doubled with The Adventures of Robin Hood or Jezebel. What was it that the adults of that decade saw that they loved? I’m so far removed from the thoughts of those pre-War people that I certainly can’t judge; I can only wonder. Sniffles was certainly a product of this wave of those animation shorts, and in many ways he stays current. (I love that they revived him for the WB comic books of the late fifties and sixties: “Magic words of poof poof pifffles. Make me just as small as Sniffles.” This was the chant Mary Jane would recite to begin a comic adventure story as she grew tiny.) Warner Bros hasn’t dropped Sniffles altogether; they just don’t use him too often.

Anyway, I was taken with this post by Thad, and he takes it into serious history, where I just reminisce. I will take that film apart though. I may just pull a lot of frame grabs over the weekend.

____________________________________

Storycorps Kickstarting

- I received an email from Storycorps promoting their latest film. These excellent animation pieces have all been directed and produced by Mike and Tim Rauch with art direction by Bill Wray. The films have a style all their own somewhere between John K and Warner Bros. The tracks are all live storytelling done by Storycorps in their recording booth.

Here’s the latest film they’ve completed:

Facundo the Great

There are also promos with the YouTube video that try to get you to Kickstarter to their fundraising campaign so that they can make their first full half hour special. They do good work, and it’s worth the investment if you like. (I can’t imagine that the $25,000 they’re seeking is the complete budget for a half-hour show.) The final date is approaching within the week.

An interesting thing about the promo-emails that came to me were the names mentioned. After announcing the name of the piece, there’s the sentence, “It’s a spirited childhood story that includes amazing backgrounds from the legendary artist, Bill Wray.”
The only other name listed in the entire letter is “Amy Adsley, Marketing and Communications, StoryCorps” – who signed the letter.
The next day I received the very same letter with a different marketing person. I trashed both emails, sorry I didn’t save the new name.

I hate to say it, but I think the Rauch Brothers have never gotten their proper due from Storycorps considering they sought the connection with Storycorps and did the first couple of films with their own money. Once it was obvious that this was the way to go, Storycorps took charge, and I see the names of Mike and Tim shrinking away from the publicity. I suspect nothing is going on except that the brothers just aren’t getting their due. They’re the ones that pull the films together and make sure they work.

But then this is all speculation on my part. I’m sure all is right in Storycorps land, but it is an observation that I’ve made. I may as well cause some trouble since I have nothing to do with the films or Storycorps or the Brothers (except that I like them both.) If I were they, I’d put my names a little louder in my future contracts.

____________________________________

Toys in Review

The critics, as might have been expected, had differing views of the new animated feature, Toys in the Attic. Per Rotten Tomatoes, the film garners an 80% positive among the reviews they’ve collected. In New York the thoughts are not too different:

Manohla Dargis of the NY Times gave it a somewhat positive review: “‘Toys in the Attic’ isn’t as unsettling as Mr. Svankmajer’s work, but even in this English-language version, it’s scarcely a cute and cuddly family film of the generic type often foisted on American tots.”

The NY Post‘s Farran Smith Nehme gives the film three stars and says: “Stop-motion animated film has a predictable plot but vividly imaginative, engrossing visuals.” “The movie is passionately retro, but Barta shows his methods can create a world every bit as engrossing as the latest CGI.”

____________________________________

Offbook

There’s a new YouTube channel from PBS Digital Studios. Their most recent episode of the “Offbook” series is The Art of Animation and Motion Graphics: a brief view of animation and a look at today’s latest innovations. John Canemaker is featured in the film. He gives a short look at the varying forms within the medium. It’s a cursory look for the A.D.D. generation, under the guise of “informational”.

“Offbook”

Apparently a new video is released every other Thursday under the “Offbook” title. To date there are 12 such videos. The one on Typography is good, as is the brief introduction to Title Design and another on Street Art.

____________________________________

POE Continues

- It was great, these last two weeks, watching first the Republican convention, then the Democratic convention. The two were so different, one from the other. One was workman-like; the other was inspirational. One was full of lying accusations and lots of promises that didn’t quite jive with plans they’d written down. The other featured speeches that sometimes veered into poetry. Night after night the Dems left me charged.

All the while I was doing a scene from POE, over and over and over, trying to tighten the
style. Finally, on take 25 (or thereabouts) I was content to leave it. Locked. I started the next scene, and it feels the same. I’m already on take three, and I haven’t started the animation yet.

It’ll work out, I’m sure.

Meanwhile Jonathan Annand wrote: “There’s a short run exhibition at the Brandywine Museum starting September 8th that you might be interested in, if you don’t already know about it: Picturing Poe: Illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Stories and Poems. The publicity for the show reads: Édouard Manet, Gustave Doré, Paul Gauguin, James Ensor, Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Rackham, Harry Clarke, Barry Moser and Robert Motherwell are among the more than two dozen artists featured.

Unfortunately, time is too tight for me just now; I’m sorry I’ll miss it.

Pictured above:
Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe, 1988,
by Horst Janssen (German, 1929-1995)

.

.

- This is my idea of heaven. This week in politics can only get better tonight. The Democratic convention is full of intelligent, smart speakers who are performing at their height. I spend my days waiting for the nights. Those speeches are just too delicious. How can my politics NOT slip over into this Splog!

_____________________
.

.
- The animated feature, Toys in the Attic, opens in theaters tomorrow, Sept. 7th.
I’ve received a number of emails from the producers of this animated feature. It was done in the czech Republic and has been adapted for English Speaking audiences. The voices inlude Joan Cusack, Cary Elwes and Forest Whitaker in the English language version. The film was directed by Jiří Bárta, who has done a number of other films which, like Toys in the Attic, are mixed media: 3D stop-motion mixes with 2D animation which mixes with pixillation and live action. It’s an attractive and exciting film which depends less on technology than on knowledge of the medium from filmmaking to animation.__________________Director, Jiří Bárta

The stop-motion puppets are not of the Laica variety. There is no heavy financing behind them that they can create millions of facial movements that are replaceable so that any emotion can animate into another one. The animation is not quite as slick and, consequently, looks more hands-on.It’s very effectve, just the same. I think of Ray Harryhausen’s work which strobes and is awfully clunky in many parts, but it’s still grabbing in its emotional simplicity.

Weird bugs

The sets and costumes, the puppets and the mixed-in 2D animation all sing hand-made and very human. There’s an enormous attractiveness to this, and it’s all so creatively done. A character wals in front of a mirror; his reflection is a 2D version of himself. Trains pull in and out of stations and travel all across the attic. The smoke out of the train, the billowing steam from the engine. It’s all a linear 2D animation. Water floodsan area. The water is done using sheets of blue fabric moving forever forward animated as water even though it’s obviously made of cloth. Oh yes, 2D animated drops of water bounce around the cloth water. (It reminded me of Fellini’s Casanova (1976) when he went to the sea. The sea was made of large sheets of billowing black baggies. It’s obvious that it isn’t water, but somehow you bought the theatricality of it. Here, I bought the cloth running water, but I wonder if children will not be puzzled, or will their minds go with the flow of the director? I’d really like to know.)

The story is a simple one:Buttercup , a little doll with a penchant for housekeeping, is kidnapped. Lots of mechanical insects do the job for a living breathing statue/bust the color of a dark patina (a greenish-gray which includes his live action teeth). The bust seems to move in live-action (though it also appears to be animated in some odd way); maybe just part of it is live action, the rest pixillated. Buttercup’s friends, led by a wooden Don Quixote marionette (without strings), a teddy bear, and a mouse doll set out to save her.

The film is like a Svankmajer film for children. It’s more Eastern-European than the Quay Brothers and almost as surreal. Oddly, you sit there with your eyes glued to the screen as oddity after oddity moves forward. Desie the celebrity voices, I didn’t recognize one of them. They all wheeze and grunt and have accents. All their lines are partial sentences and short bursts. It’s quite original. I have to say that I never got emotionally invested in any of the characters. Sweet Buttercup is an old-time children’s doll who keeps house for others.

When she’s kidnapped, she’s thrown in a cell where she continues to sweep. Every once in a while, the captors pour ashes in on her from overhead. She’s covered with ashes and left in the pitch-black dark. Yet she continues to sweep. What else is there for her to do?

I probably felt more sympathy for the wooden Don Quixote. There seems to be a vulnerability in the old puppet event though the animation of the character isn’t overtly invested with any real character traits that I’d look for as an animator. It moves well but not with any

This film is certainly like nothing that would ever be made in Hollywood. William Joyce wants to do this but is too clean, airbrushed and slick; totally lacking in textured personality. The distributor calls Jiří Bárta a Czech Tim Burton, but I can’t agree. Burton works in a style that pops out in your mind – you’d recognize the style that everyone tries to steal. Bárta’s style is much more surreal; it’s a play on reality not a stylization of it.

This is one curious movie that I enjoyed, but I’m not sure it’s for everyone’s taste. I wasn’t kidding when I dropped the Svankmajer name. There’s no doubt that Bárta has seen his work.

If you’ve seen the film please let me know what you thought.
I’d be curious to read your review.

Tissa Memorial

photo by Mate Hidvegi

- As I recently wrote, John Canemaker and I are putting together a memorial for Tissa David. We have arranged to book a pretty large theater; we’ll ask specific speakers to talk about Tissa, and we’ll show several films and clips of Tissa’s brilliant art. At the moment we have no access to a space where we can have a wine and cheese offering, so come with plans to hook up with others if you want to go out afterward. If that should change I’ll let you know.

The event will take place on Tuesday, October 23rd at 7pm.

Until then, I’ll repost many of the Tissa pieces on Thursdays offering a lot of her drawings, interpretations of Hubley art and films she worked on otherwise. On Saturday posts I’ll bring you up to date on any further information about the event.
I’ll announce the place/the theater in a future post.

_________________________________

Boing Boing

- I forgot to mention a couple of weeks back, the Splog made it to Boing Boing. In the earlier years I kept trying to get a mention on that site, but my fare never seemed to be what they were looking for. Eventually, I surrendered and stopped submitting posts.

Then I received an email from my friend, Mark Mayerson, congratulating me for making it. Wow!

I went to the link he gave me and found a YouTube transfer of one of my films there. This was a video I had made a million years ago (or maybe it was 1983) for a group I really enjoyed. Their song, Cavern, was long and sweet and minimalist, a movement I loved. (Give me Phillip Glass or early-John Adams over Chopin or Schumann any day of the week.)

The band, Liquid Liquid, was represented by 99 Records, a small record store in the Village. I went to the store and met with Ed Bahlman, the owner of the store and 99 Records. My offer was to do a music video. The agreement was that I could do what I wanted with no interference from anyone. We would jointly own the film. They could use it any time to promote the group, the song, the record company – in short anything to do with their company. I could use it however I wanted including all distribution rights that had nothing to do with the band.

I made the video. It’s an harangue against the unseen, daily bits of violence we all see in the world. Especially those who live in the city. Someone bumps into you on the street and keeps moving. Someone pushes you tight trying to get a subway seat. someone rushes to the front of the line in the supermarket oblivious to those who’ve waited. You know the stuff; the annoying bits of hurt people do while they listen to their I-phone, or while they’re texting and wouldn’t notice you even though you’re in their face. It’s my contention that these wee bits of violence ultimately turn into bigger, more hurtful turns. That’s where I aimed the video.

I wrote “video”, because that’s how I edited and finished the film. I wanted to teach myself how to use this new medium that was arising, and I edited at a major tape house in town. I was really into multiple and split screen film at the time, and I use this video to play with that. Lots of purposeful and planned repition on varied spli-screen setups. The band’s bassist, Richard McGuire, was always in touch, and I invited him to the edit, giving him a voice to make suggestions for the video. He came to the overnight session and we had a good time together pushing the piece to completion. Richard would later become a graphic designer, illustrator, and New Yorker cartoonist. He directed a segment of the French animation feature, Peur(s) du Noir.

The video quickly ended up on a couple of National, late night shows that broadcast new music videos. It also made its way to a few local shows. I sent it out to a small number of film festivals and had a modicum of success. It helped that the band was in a big law suit against a bigger group on a larger label. The contention was that the other group, Grand Master Flash, had stolen the group’s original riff. Liquid Liquid and 99 Records won that law suit and got some big PR. Of course, by that time the group had split up.

Terry Tolkin worked for 99 records. He would later become an Elektra Records vice president and No.6 Records label head. He was also my brother’s companion at the time. He helped in some of the early negotiating. Many years later, Terry contacted me asking if he could post the video on YouTube. (When we made the video there wasn’t much of an Internet, nevermind a YouTube.) I said sure, and it’s gotten a lot of hits (over 300 thousand.) The band has a big and well-deserved reputation. Terry put it up and a few years later Boing Boing noticed it.

_________________________________

Toys

- Opening in theaters next Friday is a new animated feature. Toys In the Attic is a multimedia film combining 3D stop motion, 2D animation, pixillation and live action. The film stars the voices of Forest Whitaker, Joan Cusack and Cary Elwes in the English language version. The film was directed by Jiří Bárta, an interesting director working in the Czech Republic. The film will be in theaters on Friday, September 7th. I’ll have a review of it on Thursday.

After the fall of the Czech Republic, Bárta had the difficulty of being stuck in a country in which he wasn’t allowed to release any of his films. Through the 1990′s he pushed to do an animated feature called Golem. The film never found its financing, but a short trailer was made of the work he did on it. The trailer is predominantly live action setting up the story of the Golem. Bárta works in a very detailed multimedia look. Live action is partially animated, stop motion animation moves into live action or 2D. He works similarly in Toys in the Attic, a film that looks very different from the simulated (meaning cg) cartoon puppets that usually grace our screens. It also looks very different than Golem. Toys In the Attic is a children’s film.

Golem – a trailer

_________________________________

Mickey Speaks (on Camera)

- This week, Hans Perk posted the animation drafts for the Disney short Mr Mouse Takes a Trip on his blog, A Film LA. This might be enough, except he also adds a YouTube video of Walt Disney doing the voice acting alongside Billy Bletcher (as Pegleg Pete) for this film. The video is obviously an extra on one of the Mouse DVDs, but I seem to have missed it. Regardless, even if you know this video, it’s worth seeing it again. How different the process of recording these days.

_________________________________

Bear that Wasn’t

- Bill Benzon, just a step away from completing his thesis on Dumbo, takes a short break/post to write about the Chuck Jones film/Frank Tashlin story, The Bear That Wasn’t . . ..

Using Mike Barrier‘s incisive interview with Tashlin, as his back up material, Bill writes with some authority on this peculiar film from the oddball combination of Jones & Tashlin. Brains don’t always mix with blood, and from my vantage point the film doesn’t quite make it, though it’s interesting to read Benzon’s take on the WB cartoon. Not surprisingly there are some thoughts as to the similarities with Dumbo in its story. “In both cases we have animals imagined as ‘floating’ somewhere around and about and in-between the world of machines and men. That bear is mistaken for a man who hasn’t been broken to Fordist harness. . . . . . . And Dumbo’s problem is to find a way he can fit into the circus world as a performer.” In the end, we hear the simple yet complex reason, in Tashlin’s own words, why and how the story was destroyed by Jones.

_________________________________

Brown Out

- It was a bit sad for me to see that Nickelodeon executive, Brown Johnson, had been ousted from her job. (Here’s Variety‘s take on it.) She truly created an excellent model for a children’s television network and helped form it into a real challenger to Disney’s channels. Brown Johnson pushed with a lot of original animation programming. Nick’s Dora the Explorer was developed under Ms. Johnson’s leadership; likewise the breakout show, Blue’s Clues. True, Nick hasn’t been all that recently. Where Disney changed and went with a lot of tweenies live action series, Nick tried to follow suit but not with confidence. They weren’t successful with that strategy. They should have just concentrated on better shows. Animated ones.

I guess networks only know from firing proven execs and hiring new, young, exciting turks. The first show announced by her West Coast replacement, Russell Hicks, is the yet-again-reworked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (Something tells me they haven’t found their way yet, and with a heavy dullard’s foot they plod forward with a loud thud.) Hopefully, Ms. Johnson will land elsewhere and bring her love of animation with her.

_________________________________

Hubley Salute

- Finally, on Friday, Sept. 14th at 7:30pm the Motion Picture Academy will have a celebration of the work of John and Faith Hubley. The focus will be on their development as artists in animation with an ind-depth viewing of the artwork and films. Historian/animator, John Canemaker will host the talk and members of the family will be present.

Tickets are currently on sale: $3 for Academy members, $5 for general public.
I would buy tickets quickly if you plan to go; it will likely sell out soon.

Visit Oscars.org to purchase tickets or go to the boxoffice of the
Samuel Goldwyn Theater 8949 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, Ca 90028.

This show is a slightly different version of the program that John conducted in New York City at the Academy, here. It was covered in a large way by me on this Splog. Go here to see that post, which includes lots of pictures as well as the full contents of the event. The difference between this coming event and the NY one is that Faith Hubley was not part of the NY program. She and several of her films are included in the LA version.

- I’d asked Tissa’s niece, Arlene Nelson, that she include me in any service they’d be having after Tissa died. She called to say that Tissa preferred only family at the religious services they’d be having. (Tissa was a devout Catholic, going to Mass daily – at least since I first met her back in 1972.) Arlene suggested a small memorial gathering at a restaurant, one that Tissa had liked. She recommended this Indian restaurant on the upper East Side. I immediately talked her out of that to find a more intimate approach. The difficulty of gathering a couple of tables for 20 people was troublesome, and we’d probably disturb the clientele on a weekend evening.

I called Candy Kugel to see what ideas she had. She suggested we have it at Buzzco, her studio. She had a couple of long tables which she’d place together, and we could sit, eat snacks (cheese, fruit, veggies) and have a glass of wine while chatting over memories of Tissa.

All very impromptu with less than 24 hours to organize.

There were about 8 family and friends that would come, and I said I’d match that number with animation people that had known Tissa for years. John Canemaker and Joe were going to be out of town; Emily Hubley would also be out of town.

However, John and I briefly discussed an official memorial we’d like to organize for the animation community. John and I will arrange this memorial within the next 4 to 6 weeks. We’ve already started to search for a place where we can screen films and talk on mike.

In the end, there were these people who came to the gathering:
Bob Blechman, Richard O’Connor, Candy Kugel, Dick Rauh, Howard Beckerman, Tony Eastman, Jimmy Picker, John Dilworth and Lisa Crafts. Of course, Heidi and I were also there.

It was to start at 3pm; I bought four bottles of wine, Candy made Lemonade – which was, really, the drink of choice. John Dil brought a bottle of Hungarian wine in honor of Tissa. I bought five different types of cheese and four different kinds of crackers. Everybody had arrived by a few minutes after three. Punctual.

Let’s look at some pictures:

Gathering

1
(LtoR) Howard Beckerman, Ruth Mane,
John Dilworth behind Ray (Tissa’s cousin)

2
Susan Davis, with Dick Rauh
Arlene, Tissa’s niece from Virginia,
talking with Marilyn, Tissa’s cousin from Mass.

3
(LtoR) Richard O’Connor, Beth (an ex-nun who gave Tissa
religious services daily throughout this entire period), Heidi,
Sheryl (Tissa’s nurse), Bob Blechman (seated) Candy (in the rear),
Tony Eastman (far right front).

4
Lisa Crafts and Candy Kugel

5
Sheryl talking with Heidi in the foreground,
Bob Blechman between them in the rear.

6
Marilyn and Ray David (left foeground),
Susan Davis (in white) talking with Arlene.
Ruth Mane is in the middle, between them.

7
Candy is setting food & snacks on the table.
(LtoR in rear) Ruth Mane, Dick Rauh, Arlene

9
(LtoR) Ruth Mane, Sheryl, and Andras talk.
Dick Rauh, Candy Kugel and Arlene.

At this point, I decided it was time to get the show on the road. I suggested that
we all sit down and take turns talking about Tissa, telling stories we remembered.

Telling Stories

11
(LtoR)Tony Eastman, Howard Beckerman, Bob Blechman
Howard Beckerman started things off saying that he was at the very place
where Tissa got her NY start – UPA. The department manager asked
Grim Natwick to interview Tissa, who could barely speak English.
Grim brought her into the large vestibule and asked Tissa what she
thought animation was. Tissa responded, “Animation is . . . animation.”

12
(LtoR) Marilyn David, Dick Rauh, Arlene Nelson, Andras (in rear)
Richard O’Connor, Susan David (in rear), Ruth Mane, Beth.

Howard’s story is oft told, though he had more details than usual.
Tissa gave me her side of the story. She didn’t really understand
what Grim was asking her, and this was her way of trying to clarify.

13
(LtoR) Susan Davis (in rear), Ruth Mane, Beth, Sheryl, Lisa Crafts.

Grim hired her because of that answer, and
the two became close for the rest of their lives.

14
(LtoR rear of table) Candy Kugel, Heidi Stallings (hidden) me, Bob Blechman,
Tony Eastman, Howard Beckerman. (Front of table) Beth, Ruth Mane

Bob Blechman picked up the story telling. He talked about some credit that
was being drawn for one of his projects. (I think it was Simple Gifts.)
The designers were credited as “Artists” and Tissa wanted to know why she wasn’t
credited as an “Artist” as well. (Only the “Artists” received credit in the publication.)
Bob said he made sure that Tissa got the credit as “Animation Artist” because,
“she was a true “artist”.

15
(LtoR – rear of table) me, Bob Blechman, Tony Eastman,
Howard Beckerman, John Dilworth
(Front of table) Beth, Ruth Mane, Dck Rauh, Richard O’Connor up close on RIght

I then told the story of my first meeting Tissa at the Hubley studio.
In the I&Pt room, there were only two people working on a commercial,
Helen Komar (an Asst. Animator working, then, as a prod. coordinator) and me.
While working furiously on my artwork, I heard a Hungarian voice in the room:
“Who has done these HORRIBLE inbetweens?”

16
(LtoR – rear of table) Candy Kugel, me, Bob Blechman
(Front of table) Lisa Crafts, Beth

I was the obvious culprit and nervously raised my hand. They had their
smile and then Tissa took me under her wing to teach me about animation.

17
(LtoR) John Dilworth, Howard Beckerman (partial view of back),
Dick Rauh, Susan Davis, Arlene Nelson

I’d go to Tissa’s apartment about once or twice a week and she’d
give me Grim Natwick drawings to either clean up or inbetween.
Then she’d tear me apart for the work I’d done.
Eventually, I learned a thing or two about animation.

18
Candy told of meeting Tissa and, having talked with her over the phone,
thought Tissa was much younger. Candy was ultimately surprised to find
someone as old as her mother. She took similar lessons from Tissa, but
Candy felt that her skin wasn’t quite as thick as mine. Taking the hard
words from Tissa wasn’t always easy.

19
Candy also talked about a memorable dinner; Tissa cooked a Hungarian
dinner for John Canemaker, Candy Kugel, me and some of our companions.
Candy, at the time, was a vegetarian. Tissa didn’t know. Candy felt she
could eat around the meat. Unfortunately, the meal was goulash, and
Candy had more than a little difficulty eating it.

Candy eventually became a carnivore, and Tissa became a vegetarian.

20
From here the story-telling became more of a conversation with a lot of
back and forth about ASIFA and animation and Tissa’s work. It was
mostly light and funny and fun.

The gathering eventually had to break up since some of us had trains to catch or places to get to. However, it was an enjoyable couple of hours remembering someone who was so dear to all of us present. We’d have to look forward to the official memorial we’ll set up in the next month or so.

Here’s some background on those people in the snaps:
- Bob Blechman, the producer director of films especially featuring his own squiggly lined character. A famous designer and cartoonist who hired Tissa for years out of his studio, The Ink Tank.
- Richard O’Connor, a producer director out of his own studio, Ace and Son. He first met Tissa when he worked at Blechman’s studio. Eventually, he worked with her on many a spot from his own studio.
- Dick Rauh, the first President of ASIFA-EAST with Tissa as his Treasurer. They ran the chapter for many ears. He also was the head of the Optical House, a prestigious producer of film opticals. He retired to draw stunning botanical illustrations.
-Howard Beckerman, was a mainstay in animation. He worked at UPA when Tissa was first hired there. He was a designer/animator/director at Paramount. Eventually, he had his own studio for many years in NY. He was one of the leading instructors at the School of Visual Arts. In fact, he still teaches there. Oh yes, he’s also written several books.
- Candy Kugel has been in animation since the early 70s, first at Perpetual Motion Studios, then Buzzco Productions, which ultimately left the hands of Buzz Potamkin and became a joint venture between she, Marilyn Kraemer and Vince Cafarelli, as partners, Buzzco Associates. She’s responsible for MTV’s first ID, the spaceman with the flag.
- Tony Eastman, an animator and designer. The son of UPA writer and author, P.D.Eastman. Tony now continues the book series his father started. He worked for years at the Ink Tank before going into business for himself.
- John Dilworth, director and animator and proprietor of the studio, Stretch Films, from which he produced “Courage, the Cowardly Dog”. His character and the show’s pilot, was nominated for an Oscar.
- Jimmy Picker, the Oscar winning clay animator who has been something of a quiet center for a lot of animation in this City.
- Lisa Crafts, a brilliant Independent animator. She has been making her own films for decades now and has worked at numerous studios about town, including my own.

Tissa’s friends and family:

- Arlene Nelson, Tissa’s niece, the daughter of Tissa’s sister. She came up from Virginia to settle and arrange all the affairs.
- Susan Davis, the friend of Tissa who diligently helped her every day dring this long and tiring period. Susan also notified a large number of people to keep them abreast of any changes in Tissa’s condition. We spoke often, about once or twice a week.
- Sheryl, the nurse who moved in with Tissa after the most recent hospital stay. At first, Tissa objected to having a nursing aide. Within a few days she told me privately that she enjoyed Sheryl’s companionship (not to mention her assistance). They watched the Olympics together.
- Ruth Mane, a dear friend of Tissa’s for many years. Ruth was a remarkable inker and checker during the years of the big studios. She was well known for her brilliant, meticulous lettering.
- Andras, Tissa’s great, grand nephew. He came from Hungary to visit his aunt, arriving on Tuesday, the day Tissa died. He took many photos of the event.
- Beth, an ex-nun who came to Tissa daily over the past four years to help her perform her daily religious service. She administered the Eucharist on more than one occasion while I was present.
- Ray and Marilyn David, Tissa’s cousins from Massachusetts.

.

Photo of Tissa, above, by Mate Hidvegi taken this past March.

_____________________________________

The Los Angeles TImes printed an Obituary for Tissa David, which you might appreciate seeing. (The Chicago Tribune printed this same obituary from the LA Times.)

Tissa’s Art Lessons

Tissa David‘s nephew, Mate Hidvegi, sent me a number of excellent photos of Tissa, which were shot in this past year. I’d like to share a couple of the pictures Mr. Hidvegi has shared with me.

Tissa, greeting visitors as they get off the elevator. May 2012
This is exactly how I remember and will remember her.
A perfect photo.

Tissa’s good friend, artist Judith Reigl, drew this portrait
of Tissa in 1942. (Owned by Tissa’s sister, Katalin David.)

Tissa, sitting in her living room, May 2012
This is an amazingly beautiful photo.
Enlarge it for the full picture which is exact and accurate in its colors.

Needless to say, Tissa had a strong effect on me and my animation career. She also had an effect on my character and thought process as I matured as a person. She was extremely opinionated, but I found that I agreed with her opinion just about 100% of the time. She taught me to have faith in my opinions.

Years ago, I remember sitting through Fantasia at a private screening in John Canemaker‘s apartment. This was before the days of home video or dvd. John had secured a beautiful 16mm print for the occasion. This film was seminal to John’s life and spirit; I knew that and I suspect that Tissa also knew it. I’d also seen the film about 20 times in the year prior to that screening; it had just been re-released in NY for the first time in many years. I felt that the film had some of the greatest work of the Disney artists, and I also felt that it had some enormous lows.

At the end of the film, Tissa immediately piped up and proclaimed it a horrible movie. (John used to impersonate Tissa’s comment for years after, and it always brought a laugh.) She was overstating her thoughts, obviously, but for comedic effect. She hated the Pastoral and other kitschy parts of the film, but she undoubtedly loved the brilliance of Bill Tytla‘s devil or the strength of Reitherman‘s dinosaurs. Even the excellence of Kimball’s Bacchus couldn’t be denied. However, the overall effect was questionable, especially in that apartment screening where it wasn’t the overblown big screen and stereophonic sound version, and its flaws were more obvious.

Tissa blew the same trumpet on many other Disney features. There was a Museum of Modern Art screening of Jungle Book with Eric Larson, Ken Anderson and Gilda Ratner present to talk. I had all I could do to stay awake during the film. (Those horrible voices – Phil Harris, please!) Finally, it ended, and Tissa whispered the opinion, “What a dreadful movie!” I could only laugh. I thought I was the only one with that opinion, and she was voicing my thoughts (and covering up the fact that I slept through it.) We laughed together.

She absolutely loved Frank Thomas’ squirrel sequence from Sword in the Stone.As a matter pf fact, she had a soft spot for a number of Thomas’ sequences.She also loved Marc Davis’ work. His Cruella de Ville certainly stood out. Tissa surprised me during Beauty and the Beast when she praised a half shot of Belle walking and said it was a good walk. (This was within the castle while a prisoner of the beast.) You couldn’t see Belle’s feet, but Tissa believed it. This was high praise from her. By then I’d been concentrating more on the direction than the animation, so I was glad she caught me not paying attention to the screen action. She woke me up again, in a different way this time.

There were many gems Tissa praised to the hilt. The first time we saw Caroline Leaf‘s film, The Street she was full of superlatives. Tissa was a judge in Ottawa when Norshtein‘s Tale of Tales won Best in Show, and it deserved it. We sat through that film many times together. We both loved it. The Quay Brothers confused much of the audience that year with their early film, Nocturna Artificialia, but she loved it. Sodid I, and we spent a lunch talking about it.

In 1974, she opted not to work on the Hubley film, Voyage to Next (she never told me the reason though I believe it was because John was lowering her salary considerably – he had so little money on this film – and she had to stand up for herself), but she praised, privately to me, the animation of Bill Littlejohn even though she wasn’t crazy about the final film.

She shared a long list of things she didn’t like in her own work on films like Eggs, and Raggedy Ann. She also loved working on both films, and loved working for both directors – John Hubley and Dick Williams. After working on animation for Candide for Bob Blechman – low salary long hours and difficult but beautiful work – she told me privately that she would not work on any more films for Bob. She hated how the studio had reworked her animation and changed the cutting. She felt all her hard work had been damaged.

In short, I learned from Tissa that I should trust my judgement. I also used judicious thought in airing my opinion; I was always concerned about hurting the feelings of others. Tissa showed me that I had a strong and contrary opinion, but really I was just looking for my idea of quality. It was easy to say how much I liked things I didn’t, but it was hard to speak the truth and tried to articulate why. It isn’t always easy, but it’s certainly necessary for me. I suppose that makes me not always liked within the community, but the art of animation is too important for me. If my honest opinion gets someone to do better, it’s worth it.

Not too long ago an award winner at an animation festival offended me. At the after party, I told the film maker that his half of a walk cycle was an unforgivable cheat. The budget was the excuse that didn’t sit with me, and I stupidly hurt the animator/director. He hasn’t done half a walk cycle again, and I think my rudeness paid off. Especially in that he’s a gifted artist, and his work was better than what he offered us – even winning an award.

Tissa’s unforgiving critiques of my work, and there were many of them – many – over the years was always helpful. Every single comment from her, whether about my work or other people’s work, taught me something. The positives meant so much more because the negatives were just as honest. I’ll miss her barbs and her lessons. However, I have to say my own opinion of my work is more critical than she ever could have been. I just don’t have a second voice to back me up anymore, and I seriously miss that.

_____________________________

UPA Production Numbers

- Following in the lead of Thad Komorowski‘s listing of production numbers from M-G-M and Warner Bros cartoons, Adam Abraham has opted to add all Production Numbers, he has for the UPA films. This list is complete to about 1956 and includes all the Columbia shorts.

This site, When Magoo Flew, is not only a good companion to the book but is excellent and informative in its own rite. There’s plenty of information here that doesn’t even appear in the book.

_____________________________

Paul Rand . . . I mean Ayn Ryan

- For all those psychotic Paul Ryan lovers, Ayn Rand‘s The Fountainhead will be broadcast on TCM on Sunday, August 26 at 02:30 AM.

This gave me one of my favorite moments as an Academy member. It was a memorial service for Gary Cooper, who had died way back in 1961. They had clips from a number of his great films and a number of speakers who were part of his life (or he was part of their lives.) It was moving smoothly when Patricia Neal came to the microphone, dressed in a bright, slinky, crimson dress. She gave a short-ish speec which started with,”

“Gary Cooper was the love of my life.”

She revealed something that was obvious to many at the time. She and Cooper, while filming The Fountainhead, fell in love. Cooper was married and loved his wife. He would not leave his wife and child for Patricia Neal on her first film. The affair turned to an end. Neal was brokenhearted and told us, many years after. She told us she still loved Gary Cooper. It was a very emotional speech.

They followed with a clip from The Fountainhead.

Maria Cooper, Gary Cooper’s daughter, followed the clip and didn’t talk about Patricia Neal.

_____________________________

Olympiad Twenty

I’ve received a notice about the following animated short pieces geared to the Olympics. (Better late than never.) They’re very short animated clips that lead one into another. The note that came with the email read as follows:

We’ve just made a series of 7 x 20 second animations in just two weeks with
one animator, which is getting really good feedback.
Wondered if you might like to see our animation and share it if you like?

Any feedback you can offer is most appreciated.

Kath Shackleton, Producer
Fettle Animation

Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of the material, however, I thought many of you would like them. The punchlines are consistently nasty and unpleasant, making the stories not very interesting to me. The animation seems excellent for Flash type work. A lot of labor went into them; I wish the writing had been more creative rather than nasty.

Please feel free to leave your comments for them; I’m sure many of you will like them more than I. It’s just my sentiment – my taste – in this period of world history.

_____________________________

Tissa David was 91 last January.

Tissa David died last night.

In the past month, it was discovered that Tissa had a tumor which formed on her brain and was growing rapidly. She went home from the hospital, rather than experience a difficult operation, which she, at the age of 91, wouldn’t survive. It would be better to go out gracefully.

I visited her several times a week, if I could. Our conversations amounted to my being as cheerful as possible remembering as much as I could and discussing old friends and good times. I tried to sound as gossipy as I could, and Tissa enjoyed that. We also talked about animation: the mechanics of animation and different styles of animation. Her memory was clear as long as I was talking. When she tried to answer a question, the memory didn’t work, and Tissa would just say, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Last night, while I was out, her good friend and caretaker, Susan Davis, called leaving a message for me to return her call to Tissa’s apartment. I had intended to visit Tissa again today, Wednesday.

Tissa died yesterday evening, August 21st, in her Manhattan apartment at 7:35 PM.

______________________________________

To give some background information about Tissa David, I’m reposting this Millimeter article that John Canemaker wrote in 1975. I’ve added some to it.

- The 1975 issue of Millimeter Magazine is an animation issue. There are a number of enormously informative articles. I was rereading a copy of the magazine, this past weekend, when I came across the Close Up section, wherein a couple of bios appear.

I’d like to show one for Tissa David that was included. I assumed John Canemaker authored the piece; there is no byline. When I asked him, he responded thus: “I wrote the article on Tissa. The quotes are from my first formal interview with her. It was for Millimeter when I was the animation editor and put together special animation issues.”

Tissa looks so young in that photo.

TISSA DAVID

“I am a frustrated comedienne, for sure,” Tissa David will tell you, only if you ask. “I am a clown. If I weren’t shy, I’d probably be on the stage.” Instead she is an animator, one of the world’s best and busiest, and one of the few women to have reached the top in the traditionally male-dominated animated cartoon field.

She joyfully toils in her East-Side New York apartment, a warm, plant-filled place that often smells of baked apples. Classical music swirls quietly from a radio and the glow cast from the light under her animation board gives her the look of a sorceress.

The lady has class—a fact one gathers upon first meeting, but a fact that is reaffirmed by catching a look at the creatures she is conjuring to life on her drawing board. The graphic line is strong and free, yet elegant (as is the artist); and when the drawings are flipped, the creatures move through their paces with a deliciously droll humor, a wit that is uniquely Tissa David’s.

As a child in her native Hungary, Tissa saw Disney’s SNOW WHITE and thought (as so many others have thought after experiencing that film masterpiece), “Now this is something I want to do.” After graduating from art school, she became an assistant animator at Magyar Film Iroda in Budapest; a little more than a year later, in 1945, she was a co-owner of the Studio Mackassy and Trsi supervising all phases of production including story and camera and was sole animator of the puppet and cartoon films.

She left Hungary in 1950 during the height of the Stalin regime, and finally landed in Paris.

Jean Image Productions hired her in September 1951 and for two years she read sound tracks, planned layouts, animated, and did the entire editing of the feature-length, BONJOUR PARIS (1953). That studio closed and Tissa animated at La Comete next, a studio that had been Paul Grimault’s.

“I had absolutely no relatives outside of Hungary except in the United States. So I asked for a visa in 1950. It took at that time five years to get a visa, that was still the quota system. So I came to New York…I loved the U.P.A. cartoons. I decided I wanted to work in that studio.” In 1956, the United Productions of America’s New York Studio was the last tenant in a brownstone on Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street slated to be torn down for the construction of the 666 Tishman Building. There was a French girl in the UPA studio and so she introduced me,” Tissa recalls. “I had no sample reel. I went in once to make a sort of tryout. I was scared; I didn’t speak English, so I was just waiting, waiting, and Grim came by…Grim Natwick is the history of animation and I can rave about him. He created Betty Boop and animated the character of Snow White all the way through. UPA had an awful lot of work and they needed an assistant to Grim.”

At that initial meeting, Natwick boomed, “Now, you know what animation is!” Tissa quietly answered, “Animation is—animation.” Natwick laughed, “You can’t argue with that!” and thus began a professional partnership that lasted twelve years. “Isn’t it strange,” says Tissa today, “that SNOW WHITE got me into animation and I really learned my animation from Grim. I know a great deal about animation, I know I know, because even today I don’t do one line without something in my brain Grim told me.”

After UPA closed in 1958, Tissa and Grim freelanced as a team on countless TV commercials, and since Grim’s retirement, Tissa has soloed successfully and most notably on several John Hubley projects, i.s.: Of Demons and Men (1970), Eggs (1970), Children’s Television Workshop segments Cool Pool Fool, True Blue Sue, Truth Ruth and others, and Cockaboody (1973). Her latest animations include three CTW Letterman episodes, a scene in Shamus Culhane’s Noah’s Ark production, and over 110 feet of Hubley’s Bicentennial film, People, People, People. She has just completed some experimental animation fora Dick Williams project and is now starting, also for Hubley, a TV special based on Erik Erikson’s writings.

A description of Tissa David’s style of animation is difficult; for while it is a distillation of the Disney influence in timing, the UPA sense of humor-through-graphic-design, and the strong, poetic John Hubley mode, it also contains a different character, unique to Tissa David, that she calls the “female difference…If the same scene is animated by a man and by me, there will be a great difference, not in quality but in interpretation. John Hubley told me I have a fine sense for detail, not in the drawing itself because I make very loose drawings, but in a scene, in expressing feelings. I am a very intuitive animator—I never know when I sit down to work what will happen.”

For all her gentleness, Tissa also contains an inner core of strength exhibited in her single-minded devotion to her art. Her opinions about that art, herself and other topics, is disarmingly to-the-point: “I believe very strongly that one must know how to draw,” she will offer on the subject of how-to-animate. “Even if you just animate objects, you must have a knowledge of drawing.” As for her struggles securing her place in animation, Tissa will admit, “…its very hard. Women can find work in animation if they have enough will to follow through and really do it. Even today, I’m always saying if I keep busy long enough, I will become a good animator.”

At the time this piece was written, Tissa was completing work on a pilot for Dick Williams’ film, Raggedy Ann & Andy; this one minute piece got Dick the film over Joe Oriolo and Shamus Culhane. She would thereafter work on John Hubley’s Doonsebury Special (just as he died mid film); and she was to animate for R.O.Blechman’s Simple Gifts.

Since that article was written, Tissa had animated a good part of The Soldier’s Tale for Bob Blechman. It won the EMMY Award. For me she worked on many of my half hour shows. The Marzipan Pig was made from her storyboard, and she animated the entire half hour film.

I’ll write a longer piece in a few days and will add some photographs.

Needless to say, this is very sad for me.

In truth, I’ve been wholly absorbed and entertained by the political Presidential race. The choice of Ryan for Republican VP just made the whole thing so juicy, it’s all I can watch on tv. Even the Yankees have taken back seat to Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, et al. It was fabulous watching Ann Coulter throw a hissy fit after a Romney aide talked about RomneyCare in Massachusetts. She screamed on Hannity’s show demanding that the aide get fired. Hilarious and wonderful. A real Reality show.

I’ve had to wait a full week to be able to post this, sorry. However I couldn’t resist sharing it, and by now, you’ve probably all seen this . . .

Right after the announcement that Ryan was the Republican choice for VP,
this came in my email.
Spam
of a sort.
But pretty funny (and accurate).

________________________

Just released this week is the trailer to Toys in the Attic a mixed media animation feature directed by Jiri Barta. It was made in the Czech Republic. The film will play in NY next weekend as part of the International Children’s Film Festival. That will take place on:
Saturday & Sunday, August 25-26, 11:00am
at the IFC Center.

The English version of the film stars the voices of Forest Whitaker, Joan Cusack and Cary Elwes and is being released to theaters on September 7th.

Here’s that trailer:

________________________

- Movies I’ve seen this week are numerous.

It all started with ParaNorman, which I kinda liked even though I didn’t find it as dramatic as I would have liked. The pacing seemed a little stodgy until the big climax at the end. And then it turned a bit too preachy in its obviousness. However, the animation is slick almost to the point where it vies with cg for fluidity. I still like my puppet animation in the Ray Harryhausen mode; I want to see the fingerprints on the puppets. George Pal seemed to have it down perfectly, and there was something to the great design of Pal’s animated films. No other like them, he was a total original. The ParaNormal characters look like they might have been designed for a Sony cg film.

However the film is very amiable and I have no real complaints. It beats out the Ice Age films.
You can see my full out review here. I also did a talkback at the screening with the two directors, Chris Butler and Sam Fell. They both seem to be intelligent and knowledgeable guys with a real love for animation.

The NYTimes‘ Manohla Dargis loved the film. “The story . . . is principally a vehicle for the movie’s meticulously detailed pictorial beauty, which turns each scene into an occasion for discovery and sometimes delight.”

The NYDaily News‘ Joe Neumaier wasn’t so thrilled with the film. “The 12-year-old boys who go to see “ParaNorman” — and who are the only ones who might enjoy it — should double up on the sugary treats to stay awake during this gorgeous-looking but zombi-fied stop-motion animated creep show. It’s as slow as a corpse, and half as interesting.”

The NYPost‘s lead critic Lou Leminick loved it. “So good, it’s scary.” ““ParaNorman’’ is probably the year’s most visually dazzling movie so far, and the stunning climax centering on an 11-year-old witch is too good to spoil.

Let’s just say this is the first movie this year that warrants a 3-D surcharge.”

________________________

- On Tuesday I saw a double feature:

The Campaign, the Will Ferrell and Zach Galifanaikis film which parodies the political battling going on around us as the two play two candidates vying for Congress. Shoddy politics play out even before either of them are elected. This is funny. Funnier than I expected but not as funny or serious as it should have been. 2 stars.

The Awakening was a British ghost story that just didn’t make it. Rebecca Hall‘s a fantastic actress as is Imelda Staunton. That didn’t matter for this film. It was dead on arrival. The ghosts in ParaNorman were more fun. 1 star for the great camerawork.

- On Thursday I saw a small little film; Robot and Frank did matter that Frank Langella
starred in it. This guy is a great talent and can bring anything to life, including this movie and the robot that works for him. (Though Peter Sarsgaard‘s voice of the robot makes it quite creepy.) It’s a sweet little film that’s pleasantly short. A nice metaphor between an aging forgetful man and a robot that wants to have his brain rebooted so he can’t testify against the inveterate thief. However, a couple of scenes, particularly one toward the end between Langella and Susan Sarandon make you realize how good the film should have been if the script and direction were better. 3 stars because it should’ve been better.

________________________

Thad Komorowski has an excellent article on his blog What About Thad which talks about Paul Murry and Dick Huemer‘s work.

Thad is doing a followup to the new
The Adventures of Buck O’ Rue book currently out on the market. This book is a collection of rare comic strips by Huemer and Murry of a short lived strip.

The article includes plenty of Scrappy talk and links to many interviews.

________________________

- Bill Benzon has an absolutely great piece on his blog, The New Savannah. He reviews the under appreciated Winsor McCay gem, The Pet. He takes a break from his detailed analysis of Disney’s Dumbo to review this movie (which he also adds to his post), and it’s worth the read. Please do it before Bill Plympton tries to rescue this film, too – or maybe I should have said wrest this film from the history of Winsor McCay.

- Speaking of Bill Plympton and Winsor McCay, his bastardized version of McCay’s film, The Flying House, is now available on DVD. I’m included as part of an amateur documentary included saying how much I dislike what Plympton has done. The one good piece on the DVD is a fake documentary (also amateur production values) supposedly showing where McCay had lived. Among the ruins Bill finds a discarded McCay film, which turns out to be . . . . but tnen, this is the only good joke on the entire video, so I won’t give it away in case you persist in buying this.

I’ve tried in vain to find a link so that you can buy the DVD. None are out there, so I assume it hasn’t been released officially. I’ve linked to Plympton’s own site where it should eventually show up. Go here.

________________________

- I’ve been going crazy (a good thing, I think) animating and reanimating and reanimating a scene from the opening sequence for POE. It’s taken a while, but I think I’ve finally gotten something of a style for the film which will enable me to incorporate all that Tissa’s done with new work from lesser animators and artists. In all honesty, the color styling and photography of the poor film I saw this week, The Awakening (see above), led me to it. That film was bad enough, but my mind was completely overwhelmed with thoughts of the work I was doing at home. Thank you Academy for getting me to that film, thank you Tissa for being so brilliant, thank you Daumier for all the inspiration, and, especially, thank you all you investors at Indiegogo for making it possible for me to work on this.

By the way, investors, the goodies are in process right now, and you should have the promised benefits heading your way, soon. I’m sorry for the delay.

- This past Sunday at 10am there was an industry screening of ParaNorman at a theater two blocks away from my home. I’d planned to go. I was asked to moderate the talkback, a Q&A with the directors of the film: Chris Butler and Sam Fell. Naturally, I said yes.

– Heidi and I arrived at 9:30; there was a bit of a line outside the theater. I was told to ask for Kia Muhammed of Focus Pictures. The doors to the theater were locked, so we had to wait until someone arrived to let me in and bring me to the Focus front desk. No other films were screening this early, so there weren’t many other places to go.

I wanted to be prepared to find out how long the talkback would be; would there be mikes for the three of us as well as for audience members who were going to ask questions. I learned that they’d planned for a smaller theater but were given the one we got. That meant they cut off the front section and planned to put three tall stools there for us to sit and for me to ask questions. Easy. I’d planned on getting a bit of background information from the two directors about the genesis of the film as well as their backgrounds. Then I’d open it up to the audience’s questions.

But first the film.

The Babcock Family
Grandma, Mom, Dad, Norman and Courtney

Laika, the producers of this 3D stop-motion film had first done Coraline under the direction of Henry Selick. Amusing that Coraline was on cable tv this morning just prior to the screening. I stopped and watched a couple of minutes. There’s some beautiful animation in that film, but in some ways it also felt limited in its animation.

_________

I’m not sure if there was a bit of a projection problem, but we had no picture at first, just triumphant logo music. It then cut into a smaller screen mock-low-budget zombie flick. It didn’t take long to realize that Norman was watching it on tv with his grandmother – his dead grandmother. Apparently Norman could see dead people. We learn that he gives more attention to them on his walk to school than he does to the real people on the street who just stare at the strange child.

Norman, it turns out, is being bullied at school for being a bit strange, and he has only one friend. The fat kid, Neil. These characters are beautifully developed as are many of them in the film. I also liked the voices quite a bit. Just looking over the cast, I was surprised to see John Goodman’s voice on the list. He does a bit of acting this time out, so that’s a pleasure to hear his character. I recognized Jeff Garland’s great voice as Norman’s father, but I didn’t recognize Elaine Stritch as his grandmother. I’m not the biggest fan of her work. She normally chews the scenery in overacting everything she does, but I think she did a great job here.

Norman with the John Goodman character

The animation was superb. Everything seemed to be on ones and beautifully fluid. There were a lot of peculiar and erratic moves that seemed totally natural to the characters on screen. The directors told us there were a number of scenes, particularly crowd shots that had some cg characters added since it would make the FX work much easier.

The climax of the film involves a lot of FX as the witch’s curse is brought to a close so that the dead, seen by Norman, can go back to rest. Very arresting imagery here makes it strong visually.

My only problems with the film had to do with the story. I found it sagging quite a bit midway. The emotional wallop isn’t strong enough because everything for some time seems to be at an even pace. I would have liked to see it vary a bit more, heightening and lightening throughout. This is the hardest part of filmmaking; it’s something I have my own problems with, and I think it changes with experience.

I enjoyed this film more than Coraline, and I think they’re onto something with the stop-motion animation. There’s a tactile sense to the film that you never get with cg. I’d recommend it, and I think it’ll do well.

_________

As the credits started to roll, I went outside to meet the two directors. I told them basically what I would be asking about and asked if there was anything they wanted to get across. From there we went inside to our appointed seats and microphones. The microphones, of course, turned on but didn’t work. We just spoke loudly, and I instructed the audience to do the same when they asked a question.

Half the audience in that kind of uncomfortable theater

They kept the lights on the audience down low, and the lights up front, where we were, a bit brighter, though I learned we were basically in the dark.

We got into it. Midway through the conversation the house lights went on, and I knew we’d soon hear our voices booming. Sure enough, the mics turned on, squealing across the theater. We just shut off the mics and resumed talking in our natural voices.

(L to R) me, Sam Fell, Chris Butler

Chris Butler was the sole credited writer, so I asked about the script. He, apparently, had started it while he was working in the story department on Coraline. He got the chance to show it to Travis Knight and sold the script as their next film. From his vantage point there was no break between the two features. Sam Fell, who’d started animating for Aardman got to direct Flushed Away and The Tale of Despereaux. From there he met with Chris Butler. The two hit it off, and they got to work together on ParaNorman.

(L to R) me, Sam Fell, Chris Butler

I asked what differences had happened to stop-motion animation in the recent past since we’re no longer doing the clunky animation of Alice in Wonderland anymore. He talked about playback, photography, replacement faces (which are printed out from computers so that the animation is much smoother) and apparently, they do rehearsed versions of the scenes, whether on 2s or 10s, sort of an animatic rough of the scene, so that the director will know exactly where they’re going. Digital was the magic word to make the stop-motion animation better,.

the other half of the audience

The questions from the audience typically ranged from good to dumb. Bill Plympton asked what it was like directing animation from Travis Knight, their boss. They said they didn’t have to be critical since he was a very talented animator who usually did his rehearsals on 2s. Someone else asked the budget, and they said they really had no knowledge of that aspect. (What else should they have said?) There were a number of questions about the replacement faces that were printed by computer, and other questions asked about the sets – how many and how large.

Basically, the directors were friendly, courteous and pleased to be able to talk about their work. I think they’ll have something of a hit on their hands.

Aside from all the other press material available on line, there’s a nice slide show on the NYTimes site as well as an article about the making of the film.

There were many others from our local talent at the screening. Admittedly I wasn’t paying much attention since I had the talkback on mind. Here are a few of those there that I can roll of the top of my head; they included Candy Kugel and husband, Chuck; John Dilworth and girlfriend, Marie; Bill Plympton and wife, Sandrine; Signe Baumane with a couple of her interns; and Jaime Ekkens.

- Given the selection of Paul Ryan as Romney‘s running mate, I had to tune in to the speeches of excess. The pair followed the George Bush lead as they appeared, running off a Navy ship (albeit a retired one), to make their speeches. Thus we can see that these great Republicans are would-be military men (except that neither of them has served any time in the military.)

I had to celebrate today by selecting some well placed flags from past blog posts and wave them high.
Again.

God Bless America.
(Of course, I’m nervous that Obama won’t win and these two will get in and completely derail America. They sure try hard but are completely unsympathetic to me or my family or my way of life. Read the editorial in today’s NYTimes.)

The first and last pictures are the brilliant handiwork of Steve Fisher. Thank you, Steve.

That’s about enough of that.

Happy Sunday.

.