Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Steve Heller‘s current article in Print Magazine is a promotion of three books dedicated to cartooning. Top of this list is the new Bill Plympton book, written by David Levy. Heller has a review copy even though the book won’t hit the stands until April.

With a bona fide publisher, I’d assume the book has a better marketing budget than Bill had for his feature, Idiots and Angels. One wonders if there were five nominations for the animated feature this year is Bill’s film might have been in the mix. Unfortunately, we’ll never know. For now, I’m pleased that The Illusionist is there. I know it doesn’t have a chance against the two dynamos against it, but it deserves to win.

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MOMA in New York is currently hosting a Drawing on Film exhibit in which many animated films are being shown. Most of them are abstract films that should be seen.
Today’s schedule includes:

Technological Lines: Computer-Generated Drawing and Abstraction
(Dance Film: Computer Generated Ballet). ca.1965. USA. Directed by A. Michael Noll. Silent. Approx. 3 min.
Man and His World. ca. 1965. USA. Directed by Stan Vanderbeek, Ken Knowlton. 1 min.
Pixilation. 1969. USA. Directed by Ken Knowlton, Lillian Schwartz. 4 min.
Circles I. 1971. USA. Directed by Doris Chase. 6 min.
Arabesque. 1975. USA. Directed by John Whitney. 7 min.
Woody Anderson. 1971. USA. Directed by Stan Vanderbeek. Silent. 3 min.
Toronto-Computer. 1973. USA. Directed by Stan Vanderbeek. 9 min.
Euclidean Illusions. 1979. USA. Directed by Stan Vanderbeek. 9 min.
Linia. 1981. Poland. Directed by Grzegorz Rogala. 8 min.
Saturday, January 29, 2011, 6:30 p.m., Theater 3, mezzanine, Education and Research Building

Next Saturday:
Gestural Lines: Dance and Motion
Serpentine Dance by Annabelle. 1895. USA. Produced by the Edison Company. Silent. Approx. 1 min.
Serpentine Dance. 1896. USA. Produced by C. Francis Jenkins. Silent. Approx. 1 min.
Tarantella. 1940. USA. Directed by Mary Ellen Bute. 4 min.
Trio A. 1978. USA. Directed by Sally Banes. Silent. 10 min.
Pas de Deux. 1967. Canada. Directed by Norman McLaren. 14 min.
Skating. 1978. USA. Directed by Stuart Sherman. Silent. 3 min.
Elevator Dance. 1980. USA. Directed by Stuart Sherman. Silent. 3 min.
Priya. 2007–08. Great Britain. Directed by Alia Syed. Silent. 11 min.

Saturday, February 5, 2011, 6:30 p.m., Theater 3, mezzanine, Education and Research Building

Sunday:
Life Lines: Drawing Intersections
Blinkety Blank. 1985. Canada. Directed by Norman McLaren. 5 min.
The Toe Tactic. 2008. USA. Directed by Emily Hubley. 84 min.

Sunday, February 6, 2011, 5:00 p.m., Theater 3, mezzanine, Education and Research Building

This program has been on-going for the past month and quite a few classic films have been screened.

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Just to fill out the post, I’m reprising one of my favorite drawings owned. It comes from The Big Bad Wolf (1934) a follow-up to The Three Little Pigs.

Photos by Steve Fisher
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- A gigantor snow storm blew through New York overnight. The subway service was suspended for a half hour today, and it took a full 90 minutes to make the normal 20 min trip to the studio this morning. Global warming is on the march._______________________ .
- The Oscar nominations come very late in a film season. Of the animated features nominated, two of them, Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon have had full and complete DVD lives, The run is nearly done. Only The Illusionist is probable to gain a bit of a bump in theatrical sales from being nominated. It’s video version has not been released yet, so it can take advantage of the Oscar nomination in its marketing.

Of the live-action theatrical features, they all seem old by the time the nominations are released, and it gets hard to generate excitement for any of them. But, of course, I can only speak from the point of someone who has to take in all of these films early, so that I can participate in the vote. More probably most viewers haven’t come to the gate yet, so these films aren’t as finished as they feel to me.

Only the Producer’s Guild award, last week, to The King’s Speech has given me pause in believing that The Social Network will take the Best Picture Award home. After all, it even won the Golden Globe. However, the old-timey feel of the Oscar voters gives me reason to believe that The King’s Speech has a good chance. I don’t really supposrt either of them since I felt that The Illusiionist was a better film than either.

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- Bill Benzon has old time thoughts on his mind about a film that never seems to grow old.

I told you, last week, about his writings on Porky in Wackyland. Well, he’s back (Part 2) and (Part 3) with more to write more about this Bob Clampett classic.

It’s an interesting approach to write about the structure of the looniest of all the Looney Tunes. It’s almost like stepping into Wackyland yourself and trying to make sense of the surroundings. In a sense, you have to become Porky to be able to do that, and that doesn’t seem to make sense.

These new comments are critical and also very much worth the read. I suspect there’s going to be a Part 4.

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One of my two favorite film directors, Krzysztof Zanussi, is having a small retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art next week. Do yourself a favor and go see ANY of the films being screened.

The schedule is as follows:

Sat, Jan 29 6:00 pm THE CONSTANT FACTOR
8:15 pm REVISITED New York Premiere
(both introduced by Krzysztof Zanussi)
Sun, Jan 30 2:00 pm FAMILY LIFE
4:30 pm CAMOUFLAGE
Mon, Jan 31 4:00 pm FAMILY LIFE
Wed, Feb 2 4:00 pm CONSTANT FACTOR
7:00 pm CAMOUFLAGE
Thurs, Feb 3 6:45 pm REVISITED New York Premiere

The Museum of Modern Art is at 11 West 53rd Street, NYC 10018.

– The BAFTA nominations were announced on Tuesday. These werer the three British films that were nominated for best animated short in what is the equivalent of the British Oscar.

The Eagleman Stag by Michael Please

Matter Fisher by David Prosser

Thursday by Matthias Hoegg

We wish all three filmmakers luck and will look forward to the winner which will be awarded on February 13th.

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- For much of the time, William Benzon has analysed and discussed Disney and Nina Paley films on his website, the New Savannah. Today he looks at Porky in Wackyland, the psychotic Bob Clampett short film from 1938.

It’s a strong analysis which gives one pause. Lots to be said over such a zany short produced well ahead of its time. I found it interesting that Bill Benzon made no mention of Friz Freleng’s 1949 remake, Dough for the Do Do. No loss, since the remake is a sloppy second. Freleng just doesn’t have the juice that Clampett did 10 years prior.

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Michel Ocelot has his latest feature, Les contes de la nuit (Tales Of The Night) ready to make its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. This is a cgi animated film in 3D. He had another film with the same title done in 1992 which was done in conjunction with his students, and I wonder if the one has anything to do with the other. ____________________
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– I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that today is the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe. (I am doing a feature about the guy!) It’s his 200th anniversary – the BiCentennial.

The Poe Museum in Virginia is celebrating with all-day festivities.

There will be performances by “the world’s smallest Edgar Allan Poe and by two regular-sized Edgar Allan Poes. Be among the first to see the new exhibit “Poe Revealed” featuring the latest discoveries in Poe research. More information is coming soon. Cynthia Cirile will be speaking about her latest discoveries in the world of Poe research at 1 P.M. We will serve birthday cake at 3 P.M.”

In New York, we can make a pilgrimage to the Bronx to the Poe Cottage Museum. This was his last home prior to his death. They celebrated a day early with a reading by a Poe impersonator.

Or maybe just read about it on line. The Huffington Post, Time Out NY

- Today’s the day for Oscar voting narrowing the 10 films of the short list down to a reasonable five nominees. The Academy will screen the films for us, and after each one we vote a numerical score. The top five get in.

The two coasts, NY & LA have very different tastes, so I rarely expect that the films I like will be liked by others, nevermind the West Coast people – who are more studio oriented, thus favoring what I consider some dreadful films. I can only hope they won’t make it to the finals.

Part of the fun of voting is the get-together the people in NY prepare for us. Patrick Harrison and John Fahr put together a day that makes it as easy as possible for us. The lunch they serve is always the high point of the day, and we animators get to mingle and catch up on our disparate career waves. It’s just fun, even if it is a day of sitting on the butt riding out some bad movies. There are also some really good ones, too.

If you want to see what films are in the shortlist, Cartoon Brew did a nice little announcement of the titles back in November, with stills and links etc.

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- Tissa David turned 90 this past week. If, as I expect, the money for my feature POE comest through in the next month, I suspect (but can’t prove it), Tissa will be the oldest animator working regularly on a film. At least, I will be privileged to have her input on my film. It’s all very exciting for me. I intend to ask Ed Smith to get involved, as well. Perhaps he’s the same age as Tissa?

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- To leave off with something nice let me post this drawing I have from PLANE CRAZY. That’s a short that deserved an Oscar – but, alas, ikt came before the award existed. I bought this drawing from John Bruno, who sold such material at the time, so many years ago. He wanted $50 for it in 1977, and I couldn’t give him the money fast enough.

(Click to enlarge to see the full animation page, holes and all.)

- I’m sad to learn that Billy Taylor died this past Tuesday. He was a smart, intelligent guy; I’ll miss his not being there. A a small crack in the world has grown larger for me. Of course, this is because I got to meet him on a one-to-one basis.

Back in the mid-70s – I think it was 1975 – Billy Taylor showed up at the Hubley Studio. I was the only person there, at the time. He was working on a tribute they were about to have for Quincy Jones at Carnegie Hall. It was hoped that John Hubley would say a few words and show a bit of EGGS (which QJ scored). Unfortunately, I couldn’t answer for the Hubleys.

Dr. Taylor decided to wait around for Hubley to return. That meant that I was there to entertain him until John got back. We talked for maybe two hours over some tea. I showed him artwork from a number of pieces we were working on, and we talked about all the work Quincy had done for the studio. (He also scored OF MEN AND DEMONS.)

Billy Taylor, in fact, had written the music and performed it for a number of the Hubley Sesame St. and Electric Co. pieces. He was a brilliant pianist, and many of the pieces just built around the piano. We also talked about that.

The Hubleys never returned that afternoon. Billy Taylor finally decided to leave and said he’d call back. I didn’t see the Quincy Jones tribute, and I don’t know if the Hubleys turned out for it (though I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have.) However, I had a short slice of glory that afternoon and a great memory to boot.

I’m sorry I never thought to work with him on any of my films. But then my budgets were always so tight, I wonder if I’d have had the nerve to offer him what little I could for a film’s music.

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- I just received a DVD for THE GRUFFALO in the mail. This is the 2nd DVD of an animated short sent to me this year. The last was the WB cgi version of the roadrunner. The roadrunner was a horrible short that completely missed the point of Chuck Jones’ brilliant work, and I couldn’t make it through the whole DVD version. I did, howevwer, watch the whole thing on a big screen, in 3D at the Academy screening. Ycch. THE GRUFFALO, on the other hand, is a first rate short. The voice work is spectacular. Tom Wilkinson, alone, makes this film fun to listen to. The animation done by Soi Films in Germany is quite delicate and good. I’ll see this one again next week in a theater at the Academy screening, Saturday, Jan 8th, of the short list for animation. I’ll be watching animated shorts in the morning, live action shorts in the afternoon and a play (The Importance of Being Earnest) in the evening. A long and passive day. I’m looking forward to it. I expect THE GRUFFALO,one of the better films, will be nominated. I hope, also, that Michel Gagne’s film will be nominated. I can’t think of any other astract animated film to have EVER been nominated.__________________

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- Speaking of experimental animation, it’s wonderful that Mary Ellen Bute‘s animated film, Tarantella (1940), was added to the National Registry this week. Her films have often been ignored by the public. Cartoon Brew led me to a great YouTube video about her work, and I advise you all to take a look at it.

My one connection with Mary Ellen Bute came just after she had died in 1983. Her husband, Ted Nemeth, in a desperate attempt to raise money, offered to sell off some of her possessions. It didn’t take long for a beautiful cel of Jiminy Cricket to enter my collection at the low price of $65. Actually, this felt like a not low price back then, but it was in such good shape and was a wonderful image.

The cel bought from Ted Nemeth.

- Magicians Do Not Exist. These words break your heart in The Illusionist and raise the film to real “Art” – with a capital “A”. Basically, that message can be interpreted as “Artists” and, by implication, “Art” is dead, or (because I’m an animator) “Animation” is dead. The lonely guy, without his rabbit, riding off in the train is Sylvain Chomet, the film’s director, disillusioned with the clichéd and limited landscape that animation has become.

Of course, that’s my interpretation of the film’s story. I don’t want to go into it too deeply or I’d be giving too much away to those who haven’t seen it.

I saw the film again this week, and the experience was even more thrilling than the first viewing. Yes, there’s some mediocre, even poor animation. Some was done in Korea. You can see a few Long Shot walks of the girl that are wanting – she’s not even touching the ground properly. But it doesn’t matter. The film has so much character, such a deep story/screenplay that it’s impossible to ruin it with a few small scenes.

There are all those great ones. Long takes beautifully choreographed of Tatischeff drunkenly trying to ascend some stairs while avoiding a cleaner washing the floor. All the beautiful mists and waters and moving clouds and incidental characters – that all have character – that you couldn’t ask for more. The film captures atmosphere and place better than any animated film I can think of. This is a Scotland more affecting than the one in Local Hero, and that’s saying a lot.

The film tells the story of a travelling magician. He starts out in Paris at big venues and, over the course of the credit sequence, his performances go out to smaller and smaller houses. He eventually ends up in a small town in Scotland performing in a bar. There a young girl adopts him, and he feels compelled to take care of her – first buying her shoes, then more and more
clothes until he has to take on a second job to be able to afford the responsibility he has assumed. Eventually, lacking proper performance gigs, he descends to advertising/promotion in a store window. But he quickly rejects these jobs (“No, no, no, no”). He’s an Artist and he can’t lower himself to use his magic for commercialism. Better to work as a menial laborer in a garage. This all plays out without any dialogue – other than a few choice words that can be deciphered from the French, English or Scottish Gaelic. The characters all speak different languages, yet work to make themselves understood. A similar schema also worked in Chomet’s first film, The Triplettes of Belleville, but there it was purely musical. A song dominated the soundtrack and carried us along throughout the film. Here, we’re given a beautiful score (also written by Sylvain Chomet) that is combined with particular sound effects to help set the Scottish flavor and the world we’re inhabiting for 90 minutes.

The film is quiet and, like Jacques Tati’s live action films, slower moving. It’s told completely in Long Shots. There are no closeups. The nearest we come to that is a scene where the girl is up close to the camera, cooking. Tatischeff, the magician, walks near her to smell the food, but then walks back into the scene leaving the girl, still up front, in a half shot. It’s all wonderful planning and quite complicated to pull off, which Chomet and his animators do, well.

The film opens tomorrow, Christmas Day. I urge you to see it and judge for yourselves. Those of you who like the snappy, popping animation of Tangled, will probably not like The Illusionist. Regardless, this is the craft done stunningly well for less than a fifth of the budget for Tangled. It should be seen by anyone who loves animation and wants to see it stay alive.

I’ve seen most of this year’s films, and I’d rate this as one of the three or four top. Black Swan, True Grit and 127 Hours all are equal. The Illusionist fits somewhere among those four. As for animated films, only My Dog Tulip and How To Train Your Dragon are in the same ballpark – but far below Chomet’s masterpiece.

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You can read a very positive NYTimes review by Manohla Dargis here.

A NYTimes feature showing some pencil test and animatic can be seen here. It’s appropriately silent.

- When Cartoon Brew posted their comment about Yoni Goodman‘s site, DailyMation, I didn’t expect to be clicking into a daily inspiration. But that’s what it’s become.

Goodman, the Israeli animation director of Waltz With Bashir, says that he designed the site because he was tired of moving cut-outs around with Flash and wanted to break loose with some free-form animaton based on moving masses and having fun with it.

This shows. The pieces he puts up frequently are filled with life and are great to watch. All of the film clips are animated bits he’s pulled from life – his children are a major source of inspiration. This is alien to most American animation I’ve seen lately which seems more designed to rework other animated films rather than on the real world.

I wonder how many times Milt Kahl or Marc Davis went back to study past animated scenes? We study and learn from these old masters, but there has to be a time to let go and start looking at how real people act and react. This is what we have to animate. Yoni Goodman is doing great work, and it’s hard to understand why I’m not doing the same, myself.

I will.

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- Aardman Animation seems to have fallen into good hands. Sony has just agreed to a deal which would have them distributing the new features coming from the Bristol-based factory. The first of their joint films will be Arthur Christmas, a film Aardman had in the works which employs hand-held cameras in a cg environment. The film, Sarah Smith and Barry Cook are directing from a script by Peter Baynham, would be released next November.

A sampling of Pirates!

They’re also planning a difficult and elaborate stop-motion film in Pirates! based on “”The Pirates!”, the best-selling series of books by Gideon Defoe. This film will be a swashbuckling affair directed by Peter Lord.

Hopefully, this deal with Sony will be more productive than the one they had with Dreamworks.

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– Darrell Van Citters‘ blog Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol seems to be going right up to the wire. Will posts continue even after Christmas? After his Abe Levitow career bio, he posted information about the films UPA did immediately after Magoo’s Carol. and there’s also the “Unknown Christmas Carol”, segments that were deleted from the show even after being planned and animated.

The film recently played to full houses in LA at the Egyptian Theater and the Aero Theater. It was a treat to see it on a big screen when they screened it last year on the occasion of the book’s initial publication.

As I said back then, this book is a gem, self-published by Darrell Van Citters. I highly recommend you get it for your collection.

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Steve Fisher caught the Lunar eclipse last night and shares it with us:

2:52 AM

3:18 AM

3:30 AM

3:46 AM

4:19 AM

4:41 AM

The first time in 372 years that a Lunar Eclipse took place on the Winter Solstice. (There was also a meteor shower.)
Many thanks for sharing, Steve.

- There’s a wonderful new blog post on Darrell Van Citters’ Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol blog. It features the story of Abe Levitow as told by his children, “REMEMBERING THE MOOSE” by Judy, Roberta and Jon Levitow. A great piece to read, I encourage you all to take a look.

This is a great site, by the way. Plenty of material about the artists who were involved in those changeover days at UPA. Great artists get their due, lots of artwork from the film and the period, and lots of info to learn.

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- According to Variety, Disney has picked up the distribution rights for the Spanish animated feature, Chico and Rita. This is director/producer, Fernando Trueba‘s first attempt at directing an animated film. Spanish graphic artist, Javier Mariscal, co-directed the film.

The film celebrates the Cuban jazz pianist, Chico, and his relationship with nightclub singer, Rita, as they leave Cuba to move to the jazz world of the New York in the late 40s.

Disney will release Chico and Rita Feb. 25 on more than 100 screens. (This, of course will allow Disney to enter it into next year’s Oscar fest. in an attempt to get the number up to 16 for a five nominee ballot.)

The film won for best feature at the Holland Animation Film Festival in November. The animated movie continues Trueba’s taste for Latin music, already reflected in three awarded musical docus (“Calle 54,” “Blanco y negro” and “The Miracle of Candeal”) and the creation of a Latin jazz record label.

It’s unlikely they’re expecting a wealth of cash from the distribution of the film except, perhaps, making something from the DVD, if it gets good reviews. I notice that they haven’t picked up the TV rights.

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– Meanwhile, writer/director, Geoff Marslett’s animated feature, Mars, opened in New York
yesterday. The NYTimes review by Jeannette Catsoulis wasn’t all that it might have been. She called it “. . . low key, low budget and low energy . . .” and pretty much left it at that. The film is another of those rotoscoped-animation type things not quite as energetic as “Waking Life” and “A Scanner Darkly.”

Marslett, who teaches animation at the University of Texas at Austin. The film is playing at: the reRun Gastropub Theater, 147 Front Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn.

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- William Benzon, again, has written several excellent pieces on animated films on the blog New Savannah. He has a two part article on Miyazaki‘s film Porko Rosso. The article intelligently argues the idea of a pig, the leading character, being the only non-human in a particular world where no one takes notice. Part 1 and Part 2.

There’s also a third recent article on thoughts generated by Miyazaki in his book, Starting Point, about how he constructs his films with an ever changing and growing storyboard that doesn’t get done until the film is, usually, already being animated. Go here to read this piece.

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- I received a letter, accompanied by a Press Release, from Don Hahn re the video release of his documentary, Waking Sleeping Beauty. Here’s part of the email letterL

After a yearlong trek though film festivals and art house cinemas, my documentary WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY is coming out on DVD this week and I hope you’ll get a chance to review it. WSB tracks the renaissance of Disney Animation from box office disappointments and the near closure of the studio, to great success with films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.

The positive response to the film has been bigger than I ever imagined. Not only has it appealed to the fans of animation, it’s also struck a chord with corporations and organizations of all kinds that have gone through their own periods of declines and resurrections. We found that WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY not only entertained, but touched people emotionally as well.

The DVD has over 80 minutes of bonus material with amazing footage of Howard Ashman working with Jodi Benson during the recording sessions for The Little Mermaid and Howard’s priceless talk to the animation crew about musical theater and animation. I also put together an audio commentary track that features alternate narration from Peter Schneider and myself as well as new unheard material from Glen Keane, Mike Gabriel, Kirk Wise, Rob Minkoff, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Roy Disney.

I hope you’ll get a chance to view the doc and announce to your readers that WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY is out on DVD tomorrow, November 30th.

I wrote about this film and reviewed it when it was released theatrically back in March of this year. You can read that here.

- Before posting this, let me tell you that I have all the respect in the world for Glen Keane. He’s one of the finest animators out there who consistently does original animation.

Last night I saw Tangled at a screening in 2D. I would have liked to have seen it in 3D, though EVERY review I’ve seen has put down the 3D experience saying that the glasses darken the movie to less than 60% of the brilliance on film. I doubt I’ll see it again for the 3D; if I do see it again it’ll be on DVD.

The history of the Disney studio. The film, itself, is basically a reworking of Beauty and the Beast (the magic flower, the bad male who has to be transformed into a good guy), Snow White (the wicked queen and the magic mirrors – two of them have to be broken), Cinderella (she cleans the tower for her wicked stepmother – or is this more of Snow White?), Sleeping Beauty (the horse with his own mind, the Princess awakens the sleeping Prince – or is this Snow White again?), The Little Mermaid (She looks like Ariel, the Little Mermaid with the hair that she just has to keep pushing back), Tarzan (the two lead characters skateboard over water and some paving, yet they don’t have skateboards). I could go on through some other films, but what’s the point?

Several of these female characters showed their spunk and advanced their Independence. In Tangled, Rapunzel goes after what she wants but doesn’t create her own fate, in the end. The male does. One expected it would be the wicked stepmother, but no, it’s the Prince … er Robber/Thief/Scoundrel. Inadequate. This is a film for 14 year old girls, and we see that they’ve seen it this past weekend, but they’re given the wrong version of the story.

The story in Tangled is smooth flowing, but crudely formed. It’s a mass of unbelievable material that rips apart one of the darker and great stories from the Brothers Grimm first published in 1812. The story is a nasty one which begins with a king, personally, stealing a plant from the witch’s garden to help his wife. She catches him on the spot and makes him promise his first born in payment.The king is RESPONSIBLE for his theft. Rapunzel moves to the tower and is protected from sex with her caging in the tower.

The film doesn’t use the hair very well. It is the sex that isn’t otherwise stated, and some symbolism should have entered the animation; it didn’t have to be obvious – it just had to be there. The incidental characters – all male seem to have bonded well, but we have no idea who they are or what their sexual preferences are. Again, the film seems unwilling to deal with the main subject of this great fairy tale. A stepmother trying to protect her daughter from the evils of the world. (Men!) Instead, this film is about ripping off Disney past. Yet we did see in Jeff Kurti‘s book on The Art of . . . that Rembrant was a major source of inspiration in the earlier days. Too bad too little of Rembrandt made it to the screen.

Just prior to going to this screening, I watched the first half of Tarzan on tv. Below, I’m going to post a number of drawings showing some clichéd poses by Glen Keane, but these poses don’t represent the animation he does on screen. He’s too good and sensitive an animator to show any clichés in the actual animation on screen. In fact, some of what he does is quite inspired. (Not the idea of Tarzan skateboarding through the trees without a skateboard. I expect the soles of his feet would be bloodied and damaged after trying it once, and I don’t think there’s scar tissue for it. It’s a small reality issue for me.) It’s just that these model sheet poses inspire clichés from lesser animators when they’re the poses.

Tangled is totally watchable (despite a couple of children running around the screening room, bored and loud). It’s just not good; story is everything.

Here are a bunch of drawings I culled from Raul Andres‘ blog, The Art of Glen Keane. I have to admit my purpose isn’t to showcase the art of Mr. Keane, but to express my disappointment with what I’ve found. It first became obvious to me with many of the drawings and models of his that were printed in the book, The Art of Tangled. Many of the poses he’s done since Beauty and the Beast have gone to the clichéd pose, and it’s disconcerting to me. Characters look like each other, and their facial postitions repeat the past. It’s a laziness in the drawing.

Look and compare drawings with this small sample. It took only minutes for me to compile them, and I could easily have kept going.

Tarzan 1

Tarzan 2

Aladdin

Tangled 1

Ariel – The Little Mermaid

Rapunzel – Tangled

Rapunzel – Tangled

Jenny – Oliver and Co.

child Rapunzel – Tangled

The problem, to me, is that Glen Keane has grown into this phase of reworking the same godawful poses. He has to come to grips with what he’s doing, and pay more attention it. There’s no excuse. It isn’t so obvious in his animation, just in his model sheets.

You wouldn’t be able to catch two poses from Frank Thomas, Milt Kahl or Ward Kimball that were so alike. There were no obvious clichés in their work.

Glen Keane is a remarkable artist and a brilliant animator. That is exactly why I have to take notice. There are many others aping what he’s doing in animation, and the kingdom is beset with endless clichéd poses. Let’s get it together, folks. Time to bring animation to a higher level.

Attitude has got to be a thing of the past. It’s rampant in Tangled, Toy Story 3 and to a lesser degree in Kung Fu Panda; it’s not obvious in How To Train Your Dragon. The independent films, The Illusionist and My Dog Tulip don’t settle into this type of posing. Strong, clear thinking artists dominate these two films.

– It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally seen How To Train Your Dragon, albeit in DVD form. The film’s reputation preceded it when everyone from A.O. Scott to Mike Barrier have praised it. (Sometimes in both reviews it seems faint praise, but praise just the same.) I have to say I have a similar position on the film. It’s a frustrating affair.

It all starts with loud and violent warfare, Vikings vs Dragons. Lots of screaming, fireplay, quick cutting, aggressive movement all set to cacophonous music. John Powell, who did one of his first animation scores for my “Goodnight Moon,” has given a mixed bag of a score for Dragon. Excellent and delicate parts
vs the loud and booming music which is played low in the background so as to create a bed of noise.

Then there’s the meeting between the hero, Hiccup, and “Toothless,” the dragon. These are fine sensitive scenes with interplay between human and dragon cleverly done without the need of dialogue.

(I suppose I’m supposed to say “Spoiler Alert” here.) However it doesn’t take long for the shouting to return as a trumped up ending resolves the film. (Hiccup having lost his leg took me by surprise and made me think of those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I wasn’t sure I liked the comparison.)

Looking at the film from a distance, there’s a different feel to the big picture. Yes, you can see the “Acts” change in the script with all the clunking machinery dragged in behind it, but the Art Direction, I think, is so original that it makes you feel something else. It’s a real positive for the movie.

Directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois have done a job equal to what they did on the Disney film, Lilo and Stitch. All the outer space nonsense from that film dragged it down to middling, when the scenes on earth between Lilo and Stitch were excellent. A similar problem holds true for Dragon. All the
tiresome fighting between dragons and Vikings is tedious to get through for the friend-making scenes between Hiccup and Toothless.

There’s a touch of Miyazaki’s design in Sanders’ sketchbook. The face of “Toothless” looks not unlike “Stitch” which looks very much like “Totoro.” However, there’s something
comforting in that look, and it’s certainly not a negative.

As a matter of fact, the character design is extraordinarily playful. The drawing can be felt through the cgi puppet-like creatures, and there doesn’t seem to be the visual “attitude” given most animated characters these days. (Take a look
at Tangled to catch the “attitude” quotient for the year. Glen Keane should have looked a fourth time at his models; they’re embarrassing when compared to any pre-Keane designer.) Dragon seems to have left the visual clichés on the drawing table, and they produced an original. As I pointed out yesterday, when reviewing the “Art of Dragon” book,
the artwork is all exemplary. It seems there isn’t a wasted sketch or painting that didn’t make it to the film. Of course, that means the book is well constructed and lets it feel naturally connected to the movie.

As a matter of fact, there are only a couple of the typical “Dreamworks” – type 20th century* jokes dragged
into the film, and that is a blessing. However, as each one – dropped by Craig Ferguson’s character – falls, one can’t help but grimace. They’re so clunkily placed into the movie – something about his “underwear” is the only one I can remember. We can deal with a surfer-dude, as one of the trainee kids, as long as his dialogue seems appropriate to the
film as a whole. Without these ties to the modern world, the film would have felt more timeless and have lasted longer on the shelf.

This film far excedes Toy Story 3 in all departments and is very much the better film. However, neither comes close to The Illusionist for originality and filmmaking ability.

* Note: I meant to say “20th Century” not “21st Century.”

Note that the sequence of frame grabs is the same as the storyboard section I reproduced from the book, yesterday. Compare and contrast.