Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Today I’m posting a special issue of Top Cel, the NY animation guild’s newspaper. Dated August 1967, it celebrates the Montreal Expo animation conference and exhibition held that summer. Obviously, this was the place to be that year if you were an animation lover.

Just take a look at that list of signatures of attendees. Some of them are:
Chuck Jones, Peter Foldes, Manuel Otero, Edith Vernick, Abe Levitow, Don Bajus, Bill & Fini Littlejohn, John Halas, Ward Kimball, Ken Peterson, Shamus Culhane, Carl Bell, Pete Burness, Ub Iwerks, Gerald Baldwin, I. Klein, Gene Plotnick, Ian Popesco-Gopo, Carmen d’Avino, Bill Mathews, Len Lye, June Foray, Bill Hurtz, Spence Peel, Paul Frees, Steve Bosustow, Dave Hilberman, Stan Van der Beek, Les Goldman, Jimmy Murakami, Mike Lah, Robert Breer, Tom Roth, Art Babbitt, Feodor Khitruk, Fred Wolf, Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Paul Terry, J.R. Bray, Walter Lantz, Otto Messmer, Dave Fleischer, Ruth Kneitel, Bruno Bozzetto, Bob Clampett, Karel Zeman, Dusn Vukotic, Bretislav Pojar, Jean Image, Grim Natwick, Tissa David, Barrie Nelson, Andre Martin, Ed Smith, Dick Rauh, and John Whitney.

I guess they don’t make Festivals like they used to. There doesn’t seem to be much written about this event, and I wish some of those in attendance would write about it.

From the Wikepedia entry for Bill Tytla, there’s the John Culhane quote: On August 13, 1967, the opening night of the Montreal Expo’s World Exhibition of Animation Cinema, featured a screening of Dumbo as part of an Hommage Aux Pionniers. Tytla was invited, but worried if anyone would remember him. When the film finished, they announced the presence of “The Great Animator.” When the spotlight finally found him, the audience erupted in “a huge outpouring of love. It may have been one of the great moments of his life,” recalled John Culhane. I’m sure there were many such moments.

Just to make it all personal, let me tell you a story, although this has nothing to do with Montreal’s Exhibit.

Pepe Ruiz was the u-nion’s business manager. In 1966 – the year prior to this expo – I was a junior in college, determined to break into the animation industry. Of course, I knew the military was coming as soon as I graduated, but I called the u-nion to have a meeting with Pepe. I wanted to see what the likelihood of a “part time job” would be in animation. This took a lot of courage on my part to see what the u-nion was about. I pretty well knew part time jobs didn’t exist. There was no such thing as interns back then.

Pepe was an odd guy who kept calling me “sweetheart” and “darling” and he told me that it was unlikely that I could get something part time in an animation studio.

However he did send me to Terrytoons to check it out.
I met with the production manager, at the time, Nick Alberti. It was obvious I was holding up Mr. Alberti’s exit for a game of golf, but he was kind and said that part time work wasn’t something they did. (He moved on to Technicolor film lab as an expediter after Terry‘s closed. I had contact with him frequently for years later, though I never brought up our meeting and doubt he would have remembered it.) Ultimately, I was pleased to have been inside Terrytoons‘ studio before it shut down shortly thereafter. A little adventure that let me feel as though I was getting closer to the world of animation.

The photos of the Expo are worth a good look. I’ve singled out those above to place around my text. The picture of Tissa and Grim is a nice one of the two of them together.

Ed Smith was the Top Cel editor at the time, and he put together a creative publication.

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(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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- Howard Beckerman brought a DVD of his home movies of he ASIFA East Animation Festival of 1980. (Actually, I think there are two separate years on this video. People are wearing different clothes in the latter half. However, I can’t be sure.) These are the faces of the crowd who came to those wine and cheese gatherings before the awards. Now, you have sandwiches, wine, beer and soda AFTER the awards. It’s still the place to see a large group of the animation cognoscenti in NY.

I’ve tried to identify as many people as I can and have printed out some stills to do just that. Here are some people to look for.

(L) Candy Kugel / (R) John Canemaker

(L) Russell Calabrese / (R) George Griffin

(L) Carol Millican (center) / (R) John Gati

(L) Tissa David / (R) Sam Magdoff

(L) Nancy Beiman & Dean Yeagle / (R) me, Michael Sporn

(L) Iris Beckerman / (R) Iris Beckerman

(L) Lu Guarnier / (R) Harriette Rauh (right side)

(L) Charles Samu / (R) Will Friedwald & Jerry Beck

(L) Iris Beckerman & Prescott Wright / (R) Sam Magdoff & Irra (Duga) Verbitsky

(L) Francis Lee / (R) Dick Rauh

(L) Don Duga / (R) Joey Ahlbum & Jerry Beck

(L) Dick Rauh / (R) Irwin Lapointe (center w/tie)

(L) Jane Aaron / (R) Charles Samu

(L) Dick Rauh – Pres / Prescott Wright – Guest Speaker

(L) Joey Ahlbum / (R) David Ehrlich & Joey Ahlbum, Chas & Kathy Samu (behind David)

David Ehrlich

Here’s the silent video of the Festival celebrities.
See if you can identify any of those I missed
(and let us know in the comments.)

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- Jake Friedman has a blog that’s nothing short of sensational. His entire focus is on the history of Art Babbitt, making the blog’s title, The Art Babbitt Blog, quite appropriate. Having spent some time with Babbitt, it’s interesting to see the picture of the man on this blog.

The material is very meticulous, but there are some really precious pieces on display. I particularly like the drawings displayed from the silent Terry cartoon, “Scene 30″ of the Terrytoon short Chop Suey.

_______________________________

Bill Plympton and Biljana Labovic during the Deauville, Film Festival in France.

- Bill Plympton called to say that he finally has a NY theater date for his feature Angels and Idiots. This film has played the Festival circuit and is now about to make its theatrical presence felt.

The IFC theater in NY will screen the film beginning the week of October 6th. We have to turn out for the film to make sure that the IFC will extend the run. (They usually do that if they sense there’s an audience. We know there’s an audience – we just have to turn out.)

The film will also open in LA at the Laemmle Sunset 5 – Opening October 26th, 2010.

I hope to have an extended interview with Bill, soon, about the making of this feature. Keep watch. Meanwhile AWN features Idiots’ Diary. This is a diary Bill is keeping about the distribution of the film.

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- I received a nice note from Tony Eastman the other day:

Sue and I have put together a website for my father’s books: pdeastmanbooks.com

Its purpose is to entertain/inform, and at the same time sell books. There really wasn’t a place where you could see all of his books together, plus we thought a short biography (appropriate for children) and a way to get in touch with his family would be useful. I put together the P. D. caricature on the home page from two self portraits he had done.

In case you don’t know who P.D. Eastman was, I suggest you take a look at his film resume at IMDB. After working at Warners cartoons, he became integral in the start of UPA and the story writing of many of their best films. Oh, and he competed mightily with Dr. Seuss in writing MANY best selling children’s books.

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- Katrina Gregorius, an animator and artist in my studio, helped out her friend, Theresa Loong, a member of the Film Shop in Brooklyn, in making a music video. The video is mostly live action with animated bits to spark it up – and believe me it does. The song is Robert Preston singing Chicken Fat “The Youth Fitness Song” by Meredith Willson of “The Music Man” fame. The song was commissioned by President John F. Kennedy for the newly formed President’s Council On Physical Fitness in 1962. A copy was sent to every school in the United States to be played over the intercom so students could do calisthenics to it.

You can see the video here.

- I thought today that I’d post a bunch of photos of things I love in my studio. If you’ve ever seen my office, in the studio, you’ll see that it’s a warren of a mess of things. Lots of books, paper, awards, and other crap.

I’ve always been a puppet fan and as a result people have sent me and given me gifts of a lot of puppets. Most of them are gems that hang from shelves and cover books and tapes.

These first four are puppets that were gifted to me.

They’re all more for display than actually using for marionette shows.

I also love the Japanese edition videos of two of
my films on the shelf behind the witch.

This crocodile hand-puppet was given to me by John Dilworth
during the production of LYLE LYLE CROCODILE in 1987.

Here’s a sculpture of me made by a Russian animator on staff,
Mark Bykov, back in the ’80s. I don’t know why he made me a
caveman, but I’m holding the Dancing Frog character.

This bronze monkey is a birthday gift given me by my Heidi.
It’s a business card-holder, and it holds a bunch of my cards.

This paperweight was designed by Tony Walton for Lauren Bacall.
She gave it to me as a parting gift on the play “Woman of the Year”.

The engraving: to MS (Michael Sporn) love BB (Betty Bacall).

This bronze Praxinascope was the award given me in Ottawa
for THE MAN WHO WALKED BETWEEN THE TOWERS as the
Best Children’s film that year.

Finally, this award was given to me for THE MYSTERIOUS
TADPOLE from the Caroussel International du Film de Rimouski
a Canadian festival for children’s films. It’s an original object.

- Last reminders for those in the New York area that tonight at 6pm there will be a celebration of the first animated Christmas Special on tv – Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. The film will be screened at 6pm and will be followed by a panel that includes Marie Matthews, the voice of “young Scrooge,” the director’s daughters, Roberta and Judy Levitow, as well as animator Darrell Van Citters, who recently wrote and published the extraordinary book Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, The Making of . . ..

The event will be held at the Paley Center. (Follow that last link for further information.)

DVDs of the show will be given free to anyone who attends.

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- Back in 1972 I entered the NY animation industry. I’d been out of the Navy for a year and had worked for six or seven months at Hal Seeger’s company, Channel Films, as a messenger who’d worked his way up to Film Editor on Wide World of Sports segments for ABC. The day I was offered the official raise to that position was the day I quit. I wanted animation and didn’t want to go down any alluring wrong roads.

The Hubley Studio had hired me for two days to help finish a commercial, and that had extended to several months of steady employment. I was totally green about the animation industry, though I thought I knew a lot – learned from books. (Unfortunately, they don’t teach you how to punch paper in books – nor do they properly train in most places.)

I was a sponge and tried to soak up anything I could learn about animation. I saw all the films I could and listened to anything any professional told me.

One day John Hubley, in passing, asked me if I was going to the NY Animation Festival. I didn’t know what that was, but found out immediately and went to every show I could – around my work schedule.

I once posted an article from Backstage Magazine that wrote about the 1st USA International Film Festival. This was a Festival founded by on Fred Mintz. I don’t quite know what his history was, but he had put together a Festival which ran at the New York Hilton Hotel on 54th Street.

Ultimately, there were three annual Festivals hosted by Mintz, and they were all a bit different from each other. I attended 1 & 2 and missed the tiny third (and last) edition which had moved to NYU.

I just recently found the programs for these, so here’s the one for the original, first “USA” International Film Festival.

1 2
(Click any image to enlarge and read.)

When you opened the yellow cover of the magazine,
a blue hand out fell out. This corrected changes in the program.
An auspicious start.

3 4
Lots of praise from groups like UNICEF.

5 6
The letter from the director, Fred Mintz and
an article about animation by John Culhane.

7 8
Articles by Robert Edmunds (who?) and Charles Csuri (double who??)
Lots of talk about computer animation.

9 10
More articles by Peter Cowie (he’d written a couple of books I’d owned -
I knew who he was) Ken Knowlton (more computer animation – there
wasn’t much computer animation visible to the general public back then.)

11 12
Articles about RIchard Williams (now you’re talking) and
Yoj Kuri (I’d read about him and saw his films for the first time here.)

13 14
Raoul Servais (I didn’t know but would get to know him) and
Norman McLaren (I defintely knew him in 1972 and would learn more.)

15 16

17 18
An article by RIchard Williams (he was already a hero of mine in 1972).
Every Festival had to have a show of Polish animated films back then.

19 20
Zagreb was big at the time. Deservedly so.
I still don’t know what Yaniv Productions was.

21 22
Elinor Bunin and the Zanders were staples in NYAnimation back then.

23 24
Note some of the titles in the schedule: MR. ROSSI BUYS A CAR (Bozzetto),
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Williams), Paul Fierlinger ad, BATTLE OF KERSHENZ.

25 26
More titles: Barrie Nelson’s PROPAGANDA MESSAGE, Zagreb’s VENUS AND THE CAT,
Gianini & Luzzati’s ITALIAN IN ALGIERS, Hubley’s CHILDREN OF THE SUN, George Griffin’s THE CANDY MACHINE.

27 28
Eight years later I would open my own studio and do my
first films for the LEARNING CORPORATION OF AMERICA.

Back cover – WOODY ALLEN talks about DICK WILLIAMS

I have the program for the 2nd Festival. It’s a bit slicker. I’ll post that someday as well.

- Back in 1972, a month after I first started my initial job in animation, New York hosted the First NY World Animation Festival.

I had never been to a Festival of any kind before, and it intrigues me, as you might imagine. There were quite a few world famous animation figures that actually came to town to present their films, talk to other animators and shine.

This was an event that was created by the entrepeneur, Fred Mintz. All I knew of him was a joke Tissa told me. She, a Hungarian, said that Fred was a Roumanian, and the old story was true: if you went into a revolving door behind a Roumanian, you should check your wallet when you come out. Of course, this was a joke, and Fred turned out to be a nice guy who put a lot on the line to get this notion of a NY Animation Festival up and running.

In fact, there were three annual editions of this fest, and I went to all. I met quite a few famous International animators by just showing up.

For some reason, I haven’t been able to locate the program for this first festival (I do have those for 2 & 3), but I found this article in Backstage, which was a commercial Industry newspaper. I’m posting the cover story from this issue and hope it will be a some interest.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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This was the first time I met Bruno Bozzetto, Yoji Kuri, Millie Goldscholl, and many others. I have to say that I didn’t meet a lot of New York animators. At the time, people in the industry stayed away from such events. The older Paramount/Terrytoons crowd wasn’t interested in animation outside of work.

I did meet up with a few of the more art-interested people like Tissa David (who I had just met at Hubley’s), Lu Guarnier, John Gati and a few others.

The events were well attended. Not as many students as there are today, but there were some.

- Last night the 40th annual ASIFA East Festival took place in a rainy NYC at the New School auditorium. There were about 2 hours of award winners to be screened after which everyone moved to the fifth floor to attend an after-party.

The place was packed. I wasn’t able to get anywhere near the food table so I had a few glasses of wine and raced about snapping pictures. Unfortunately, I’m a horrible photographer, so I apologize to all those here for the bad representation I’m giving you. for all the rest of you, these are just some of those I bumped into or who bumped into me. It was fun.

John Canemaker and Irra Verbitsky at the beginning of the night.
.

Amid Amidi and Celia Bullwinkle got to the food pretty quickly.
You can see what I mean about the bad photography. Sorry guys.

Michael Sullivan is in the thick of it.

John Dilworth with Heidi Stallings.
John’s just back from Spain in time for the party.

Irina Margolina and Adam Snyder. She just arrived
from Russia hours before the Festival.

Emily Hubley and Don Duga

Signe Baumane

Doug Vitarelli

Adrian Urquidez looks like he’s having too much fun.

Dave Levy (ASIFA East Pres) and Nancy Keegan tend the wine
while getting caught by me in a hot spot.

Howard Beckerman tries a sandwich. Sorry, Howard,
this was shot from the other side of the room.

It’s a crowded affair.

Bruce Knapp in a dark spot.

Janet Benn at a nearby table.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Michael Zodorozny.
Glad to be able to catch up a bit.

Matt Clinton and Katrina Gregorius from the Sporn Studio
enjoy the food after the long wait on line.

Pilar Newton and Ivan Katz stop by our table and bring
that glowing enthusiasm always there with her.

The Rauch brothers, Mike and Tim, were the stars of the night.
Their film Q&A won the grand prize at the Festival.
Look for the film; it’s brilliant.

Candy Kugel chats while Mr. Rauch, the father of the brothers,
watches in the background. He’s thrilled for his sons’ success.

Debra Solomon in the thick of the party.

Linda Simensky, former ASIFA East Pres.,
came in for the event, as she always does.

Finally, the trio, Michael Zodorozny, John Canemaker and Jennifer Oxley,
who won a prize. Sorry for the overexposed, badly lit shot. But I’m glad
to have it. the party was a success.

It was just about this time that the battery in my camera died.
Time for me to leave, anyway. I had a busy morning to face on Monday.

- Tomorrow, Sunday May 3rd marks the 40th anniversary of ASIFA East’s annual festival.

A couple of hours worth of films will be screened in the New School’s auditorium at 66 West 12th Street. Immediately thereafter a party will be celebrated in an adjoining room of the school.

This has always been the big event of the New York animation community, and everyone’s encouraged to attend. The only admission requirement is a pleasant demeanor.

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-Back in the year 2000, ASIFA East, celebrating their 30th Anniversary, produced a book outlining the history of their festival. All of the award winners over all of those 30 years were listed, and a lot of images featured some of the highlights of the past festivals.

I loved this little xeroxed booklet. It let me feel like I was an important part of this organization’s history. The booklet was designed and edited by Mark Segall, with help from Howard Beckerman and Bill Lorenzo.

Now that ASIFA East is about to celebrate their 40th Festival, I thought it not a bad idea to post all of the pages from that little publication.

Here they are:

Comment by Howard Beckerman | Back Cover

(Click any image to enlarge to read,)

pgs 6-7 | pgs 8-9

pags. 10-11 | pgs. 12-13

pags. 14-15 | pgs. 16-17

pgs. 18-19

pgs. 20-21 | pgs. 22-23

pgs. 24-25 | pgs. 26-27

pgs. 28-29 | pgs. 30-31

pgs. 32-33

pgs. 34-35 | pgs. 36-37

pgs. 38-39 | pgs. 40-41

pgs. 42-43

pgs. 44-45

pgs. 46-47

pgs 48-49

pgs.50-51

pgs. 52-53

There are a lot of films that won here and went on to win everything else out there. Frank Film, Your Face, A Soldier’s Tale, The Chicken From Outer Space and many others started out at this little fest and became Oscar/EMMY contenders/winners.

You never know what’ll show up – be there Sunday at 6.

- Having been to the Ottawa Animation Festival last week, I thought back to the great grandparent of this Festival. Back in 1967 there was a world gathering of animators at the Montreal World Fair which set the stage for all other North American Festivals. Here’s a repeat of the program I posted back in 2006.

This was a special issue of Top Cel, the NY animation guild’s newspaper. Dated August 1967, it celebrates the Montreal Expo animation conference and exhibition held that summer. Obviously, this was the place to be that year if you were an animation lover.

Just take a look at that list of signatures of attendees. Some of them are:
Chuck Jones, Peter Foldes, Manuel Otero, Edith Vernick, Abe Levitow, Don Bajus, Bill & Fini Littlejohn, John Halas, Ward Kimball, Ken Peterson, Shamus Culhane, Carl Bell, Pete Burness, Ub Iwerks, Gerald Baldwin, I. Klein, Gene Plotnick, Ian Popesco-Gopo, Carmen d’Avino, Bill Mathews, Len Lye, June Foray, Bill Hurtz, Spence Peel, Paul Frees, Steve Bosustow, Dave Hilberman, Stan Van der Beek, Les Goldman, Jimmy Murakami, Mike Lah, Robert Breer, Tom Roth, Art Babbitt, Feodor Khitruk, Fred Wolf, Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Paul Terry, J.R. Bray, Walter Lantz, Otto Messmer, Dave Fleischer, Ruth Kneitel, Bruno Bozzetto, Bob Clampett, Karel Zeman, Dusn Vukotic, Bretislav Pojar, Jean Image, Grim Natwick, Tissa David, Barrie Nelson, Andre Martin, Ed Smith, Dick Rauh, and John Whitney.

I guess they don’t make Festivals like they used to. There doesn’t seem to be much written about this event, and I wish some of those in attendance would write about it.

From the Wikepedia entry for Bill Tytla, there’s the John Culhane quote: On August 13, 1967, the opening night of the Montreal Expo’s World Exhibition of Animation Cinema, featured a screening of Dumbo as part of an Hommage Aux Pionniers. Tytla was invited, but worried if anyone would remember him. When the film finished, they announced the presence of “The Great Animator.” When the spotlight finally found him, the audience erupted in “a huge outpouring of love. It may have been one of the great moments of his life,” recalled John Culhane. I’m sure there were many such moments.

Just to make it all personal, let me tell you a story, although this has nothing to do with Montreal’s Exhibit.

Pepe Ruiz was the union’s business manager. In 1966 – the year prior to this expo – I was a junior in college, determined to break into the animation industry. Of course, I knew the military was coming as soon as I graduated, but I called the union to have a meeting with Pepe. I wanted to see what the likelihood of a “part time job” would be in animation. This took a lot of courage on my part to see what the union was about. I pretty well knew part time jobs didn’t exist. There was no such thing as interns back then.

Pepe was an odd guy who kept calling me “sweetheart” and “darling” and he told me that it was unlikely that I could get something part time in an animation studio.

However he did send me to Terrytoons to check it out.
I met with the production manager, at the time, Nick Alberti. It was obvious I was holding up Mr. Alberti’s exit for a game of golf, but he was kind and said that part time work wasn’t something they did. (He moved on to Technicolor film lab as an expediter after Terry‘s closed. I had contact with him frequently for years later, though I never brought up our meeting and doubt he would have remembered it.) Ultimately, I was pleased to have been inside Terrytoons‘ studio before it shut down shortly thereafter. A little adventure that let me feel as though I was getting closer to the world of animation.

The photos of the Expo are worth a good look. I’ve singled out those above to place around my text. The picture of Tissa and Grim is a nice one of the two of them together.

Ed Smith was the Top Cel editor at the time, and he put together a creative publication.

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(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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Here’s the last of my reports on Ottawa. I’ll post photos later today when I have more time.

- Saturday in Ottawa at the animation festival was, for me, centered on my program/retrospective at 1pm. But first there was a conference at 11am which was moderated by Richard O’Connor (of Asterisk Pictures) about adapting other media to animation. Guests included David Polonsky, the art director of Waltz With Bashir; Frank Caruso of King Features Syndicate, who talked about adapting strips to animation; and me. The session was lively thanks to J.J. Sedelmeir’s interesting questions from the audience.

The end of this session gave me barely 30 mins to run to the Museum of Civilization where the retro took place. Literally, I had to run to get there in time.

Fortunately, there was a decent group, with a lot of the New Yorkers represented. The films didn’t feel quite right as projected on this screen in BETA format. They were overmodulated on the tracks and the images felt too contrasty. Probably the tapes; I’ll have to check when they come back, though I remeember these same tapes looking good at MOMA.

All in all, I felt the show went well.

We couldn’t get a bus in enough time to make the 4th competition screening, so I walked back to my hotel; a 45 min. trek.

That evening, I arrived early, at the same place, to attend the Richard Williams show. I got to say hi to Eric Goldberg, who I hadn’t seen since early Pocahontas when Tom Sito toured me through Disney showing off The Lion King, which was in completion. It’s been a while.

The theater was packed for Dick, and on every seat was a nine minute dvd sample of Dick’s
16 set masterclass dvd. John Canemaker had put together a nice program: the titles to Charge of the Light Brigade, some late commercials,a rarely seen trailer for The Thief, and scenes from the new set of instruction dvds Dick and his wife have produced. These dvd’s look informative and entertaining. However, my favorite clip shown was footage of Dick following people walking in London. It
_________Dick and John a bit out of focus _________________was hilarious.

After the program, Dick and John Canemaker seemed occupied with throngs of people, so Candy Kugel and I went to dinner. We then walked to Barrymore’s where they were holding a party at 11. There, we met up with Nancy Beiman and stood on line for about a half-hour. Eventually, we decided to blow off the party since there were only a lot of students on the long line; no one we knew. Those people would get there much later after the screenings, and we weren’t up to the wait.
By now, both Candy and I were anxious to get home.

Sunday, I had another show at the Museum of Civilization, but I also had a plane to make. It meant getting through an intro to the films and rushing out to the airport without watching my program. At the airport I met up with John Canemaker, who turned out to be on the same plane sitting just in front of me.

We ate lunch in the Ottawa airport, caught the plane and rode into the city together. I’ll meet up with John, tonight, at the Museum of Modern Art’s program of Dick’s work. It’ll be a rerun of the Saturday show.

All in all, I’d say this was one of the better Festivals. The films were great, and in the end they really make a festival. Kudos to Chris Robinson and all those who were so helpful behind the scenes. And a special thanks to all the pre selection jury members. Great job done.