Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Here is another gem from Paul Spector re the animation work of his talented father,
Irv Spector. It’s a pleasure to present it.

If there were a spot to post my father’s pre-WWII work, confirmed credits, and interesting studio stories, this would be the place.

Sorry to say, I don’t really have very much in the way of those to offer. My father was one of those unmarried animators, too busy running from the west coast to the east, to hold onto much until after WWII. However, he did seemingly come away with Willard Bowsky’s animation stopwatch.

Born in Oakland, CA in 1914 but growing up in Los Angeles, he was suspended from high school in 1930 for arguing with his art teacher about the correct way to draw a hand holding a gun pointed straight at you. The next day he was at Disney Studios asking for a job, and was actually let in to see Walt himself (helps here to imagine that at 16 my father was about 5’6”, 130lbs). Walt told him to go back and finish school, and then there would always be job after that at Disney. Instead, he went over to the Mintz Studio and was given employment as a fledgling animator (slight chance this might have been with Lantz at Universal, but he was with Mintz quickly).

Irv Spector at the Mintz Studio.

There he stayed for several years before moving over to Leon Schlesinger Studios, depicted on their on their Xmas card from the mid 1930s. schlesinger_xmas.jpg , and eventually moved on to Fleischer, starting there not too long before their move to Miami.

(Scan taken from Leslie Cabarga’s The Fleischer Story.)

From there, it was WWII and the Signal Corps, the subject of a recent post on the Splog.

Since my father had an industry name – and would not likely be the subject of an animation post unless his kid was writing it — most corners of the internet and many books about animation lead the casual observer to believe that from after WWII through the early 1960s he was strictly a Paramount-Famous guy. However, there is a very large body of non-Famous work during this stretch of his career, 95% of that either projected on a screen, aired, or published, could easily fill several posts of their own.

Yet it’s best to get started with something more cohesive. The following is the first of two parts of a complete storyboard, Galaxia, created for Paramount-Famous and released theatrically in 1961. I decided to post it for a few reasons. I don’t really see any complete Famous boards out there, I happen to have it, and I think it is a decent enough example of the difference between how a work is conceived and the way it ends up. It’s available in finished form on the Complete Harveytoons DVD.

Although far from any Famous production that would likely be discussed on an animation blog, I would like to think that this complete storyboard at least has some charm and zippy movement to it — but being so close to it for such a protracted period I’m no longer a good barometer; I can still remember it in total, pinned to the wall of my father’s basement studio. So imagine my surprise when I finally saw the finished product just two years ago! In truth, to me, the DVD Galaxia plays like a bit of a slow bore.

Certainly, it is a long way from the better Famous output many years prior, and most readers here will know the reasons why. Often, when I think about the talent pool that Famous had working for them, many being the same cartoonists whose work for other studios is often revered, I tend to squint a bit and imagine what might have been.

- Last week we left off Part I of this storyboard sequence 19 with Phillip cutting his way through the forest of thorns trying to make his way into the castle. Maleficent watches from a distance and is getting more and more angry.

This is Ken Anderson’s storyboard presentation. The photographs of the board were loaned to me by John Canemaker, and I am indebted to him for it.

This is this photo of the board as is:

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Here are the rows of the board broken into two so that I can post them a bit larger.

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The conclusion of this sequence remains.

If only he knew what he’s to face next.

- Continuing the post of last Monday, here’s the storyboard to seq 19 of Sleeping Beauty. It’s the beginning of the dragon fight, the climax of the film. It’s on loan from John Canemaker‘s collection, many thanks to John for sharing.

Here’s the full page as is:

(Click any image on the page to enlarge.)

Here’s the board broken up into segments, half a row at a time.

More of this sequence next Monday.____

- To continue my attempt to keep up with the invaluable drafts that Hans Perk has been posting on his blog, I have some more storyboards to offer. John Canemaker has loaned me the final sequences of the film detailing the dragon fight and climax of the film. It’ll take a couple of weeks to post them all, so let’s get started.

We’re not sure exactly who did the artwork, but there’s a good chance it’s Ken Anderson‘s work. As with past boards, I’ll post the whole photograph as is, then take it apart row by row so that you can enlarge them as much as possible. Here’s the storyboard sequence #18 from Sleeping Beauty.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- The Alice In Wonderland dvd contains a storyboard sequence of Alice daydreaming in the park. This sequence didn’t make it to the film (for good reason), but they’ve re-assembled it for the dvd. I’ve taken some frame grabs to show off the drawings. They’re on screen for such a short time.

My favorite’s the last.

(Click any image to enlarge.)__________

- This is the third photo of the board for Alice In Wonderland. Once again, I think it was drawn by Joe Rinaldi. I have no evidence to prove otherwise, and that guess makes the most sense to me at the moment.

As with past posts, I show the storyboard photo as is, then reproduce it one section at a time so that I can enlarge it to the largest size.

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At the base of the storyboard are these two Mary Blair images. I did a bit of a search (and I do mean “a bit”), and I wasn’t able to find color reproductions of these two pictures. So I’m posting them as they appear in this photo. They’re a bit blown out in the photo in hand, so I did a little work in photoshop to pull out a bit more of the grays.

There is another photo which includes a bunch more of Mary Blair’s designs for Alice. I’ll post that soon (though I also have to search to see if any of those are printed in color elsewhere.)

- Last week I presented the first of three photographed storyboards from the Disney feature, Alice In Wonderland. This is a sequence where Alice meets up with the rabbit at his house, eats a cookie and grows larger than the house. It’s an excellent adaptation of the sequence from the original Carroll book, and gives that extraordinary image of the cottage with two enormous feet protruding.

There was a live-action star-studded Alice on tv this weekend which tried hard to create some magic. I watched this sequence from the story and found it quite lacking in comparison to what they did here. As might have been expected.

I offer the board in its full size. Then I edit the rows into sections so that I can post them as large as possible. Thanks to the loan from John Canemaker these boards are a treasure to view.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- Here, as promised, is the first stat of the Alice In Wonderland storyboard.
The Mad Tea Party – “A Very Merry Unbirthday”
This comes from the archives of John Canemaker ‘s collection, and I am grateful for the loan.

I don’t know who the artist is, (John and I guessed at Joe Rinaldi) though it’s dated 1949.

As with past boards, I post the original stat here, and then follow up by breaking the very long columns into two or three, thus allowing me to post it larger for easier viewing. This is the original:

(Click any image to enlarge.)

And here are the breakdowns:

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John has given me more boards from Alice. One for her talk with the flowers “All In A Golden Afternoon” and Alice in the Rabbit’s house – growing larger.
I’ll post these on future posts in the next week or so.

– Here is a preliminary storyboard done by Bill Peet of the Wizard’s Duel from Disney’s Sword In The Stone. It’s another gem on loan from John Canemaker, and is a companion to the piece I posted last Friday by Peet. The oddity of this board is that it’s dated April 1949. (The numbers at the bottom of the board clearly read “449.”) I didn’t have any clue that this film was in development that early. The book was published in 1938, so it’s quite feasible.

If that date is accurate, it’s amazing how close the characters stay to their final models. This could easily be explained with the heightened us of xerography in animation after 1958. Post 101 Dalmatians, this loose style was easy to translate into animation, and Ken Andersen was easily able to adapt to this style by Bill Peet that all of the animators in the studio loved.

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Click on any image to enlarge

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Note in row 2 how the spider turns into the tiger’s face; it’s a graphic turn. This never would have made it to the final in a Disney film, and it didn’t.

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I love how extra drawings which have been pulled make it to the bottom of the second board.

- I always thought Disney’s The Sword In The Stone a somewhat underrated film. The background art is sensational, and several sequences are brilliantly animated.

Bill Peet‘s adaptation from TH White‘s book, The Once and Future King, loses some of its poetry in the adaptation, but the book’s storyline features a lot of rambling making it hard to construct a screen story. I’ve watched this film quite a few times over the years, and somehow it always gives me a bit of a charge that comes with many of the older classics.

The extras on the dvd seems to consist predominantly of storyboard drawings by Bill Peet. So why not show them off? There’s no continuity to attend to, hence the images are gathered in small clusters. The sequence everyone jumps to analyze and discuss is the Wizard Duel between Merlin and Madame Mim (animated by Milt Kahl.) Consequently, a lot of the drawings on the dvd come from this sequence. I, personally, would have loved seeing some of the squirrel section. I found it quite moving and full of real character stuff. It would be nice to see how Peet developed this.

There’s no hint of a continuity on the dvd, but I’ve heard that the storyboard drawings in the vault are just placed in manilla envelopes with no suggestion of an order. It would make sense that they’ve just plopped these images on the dvd as they have with no order, details or related information.

_______Here’s a creature that never made it to the battle of the wizards.

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___________Another fantastic creature that didn’t make it into the film.

I’m not sure if this drawing is also from the duel. Or was it another sequence where Wart becomes an animal – cut out of the film?

This looks like it may have been planned as a home for Merlin. Did it inspire anything for The Rescuers?

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Here are a couple of models Peet obviously did –
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- I have quite a bit of artwork from the film, Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure, the 1976 feature film by Dick Williams. Hence, it’s always an easy decision to post some of it. Unfortunately, every animation drawing is so large, it takes a lot of time to scan and put it together.

Here are two pieces that were I first posted in October 2006 with a healthy focus on one indomitable artist:

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I think in many ways, the unsung hero of Raggedy Ann was Corny Cole. He was there from day one working with Dick Williams and Tissa David – once the one minute pilot had secured the job for Dick. Corny was brought in as the key designer, and Gerry Potterton came on as Dick’s Associate Director.

I was hired soon thereafter, even though I had no idea what I’d be doing. For the first couple of weeks, while they were recording, I just moved furniture and read the script and whiled away the time by drawing Johnny Gruelle‘s characters.

I helped Dick and Gerry add spot coloring to the storyboard as the animatic was being shot. We spent a long Saturday coloring like mad with colored pencils. We worked on the last section of the animatic to be shot. I’d say 90% of the board was done by Corny. Dick and Gerry added spot drawings as needed, while we built the animatic.

Corny then did lots and lots and lots of drawings to give to animators.
Some of those drawings are posted herein for a scene at the beginning of the “taffy pit” sequence. These drawings were also used in the animatic.

After Corny finished feeding the animators, he started animating, himself. He took on a sequence that filled the screen with a pirate ship full of dolls floating around some rough waters. The large sheets of paper were filled with Corny’s black bic pen lines. Doug Compton eventually worked with Corny to finish this overworked sequence.

- John Celestri sent me a clipping from the Cincinnati Enquirer re the kidnapping of Ann & Andy. Hence, I am prompted to post the following layouts and storyboard drawings by Corny Cole.

This first Layout marks the introduction of Raggedy Andy. He’s under the box. This drawing gives you a good idea of the detail Corny put into every drawing.

The following images come from the first shots of the Pirate Captain. He espys the new doll, Babette, and falls madly in love.

The first four stills are 8.5×14 copies of the storyboard; the remainder come from the director’s workbook. They’re all sequential.

I think the parrot, which was added in pencil, is the work of Asst. Director, Cosmo Anzilotti. The bird just shows up later, so Cosmo probably tried to give him some business.

It’s here that the Pirate goes into his song (everybody sings in this film) and concocts his plot to kidnap the French doll.