Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– Monday night was the first screening at the Tribeca Film Festival of a program honoring John Canemaker‘s Independent films. There will be two more screenings with tickets still available.

Per the Program Notes:

Continuing Tribeca’s celebration of New York-based independent animators, this program features the work of John Canemaker, a preeminent animation teacher, filmmaker, author and historian, who won an Oscar® for his animated short The Moon and the Son in 2006.

A selection of short films spanning Canemaker’s career will be shown including Confessions of a Stardreamer, Bridgehampton, The Wizard’s Son, Otto Messmer and Felix the Cat, The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, and Bottom’s Dream.

The program will be shown again on the following dates:

Thursday, May 3, 11:59 pm
Tribeca Cinemas – Theater 2
54 Varick Street (Below Canal Street, at Laight Street)

Sunday, May 6, 10:30 am
AMC Kips Bay Theater 14
570 Second Avenue (at 32nd St.)

Trying to be the Alternative Tribeca Film Festival is
the BE Film Festival (formerly known as the Tribeca Underground Film Festival).
They’re screening a number of shorts – both live and animated.
These are the animated films scheduled:

Wednesday May 2
The Park Avenue Screening Room
7:00-9:00pm

Tony is stupid, animation (1:00), Dir. Dir.Sean Mc Bride
Loom, animation (5:00), Dir. Scott Kravitz
Tempolis, animation (10:00), Dir. Manu Gomez

Wednesday May 2
The Bryant Park Hotel Screening Room
7:00-9:00pm

Men, Women, & Capitalism, animation (7:00), Dir. Yuzuke Murakami
Sideshow, animation (5:00), Dir. Lisa LaBracio

Thursday May 3
The Park Avenue Screening Room
7:00-9:00 pm

Pilgrim, animation (3:00), Dir. Matthew Darragh
Road Test, animation (4:00), Dir. Matthew Lee

Thursday May 3
The Bryant Park Hotel Screening Room
7:00-9:00 pm

Apocalypse Cow, animation (3:00), Dir. Kartik Mohan

Friday May 4
The Park Avenue Screening Room
7:00-9:00 pm

The Country, animation (2:00), Dir. Brady Baltezore
The Mole, animation (13:00), Dir. Victric Thng
Koda, animation (6:00), Collective

Friday May 4
Bryant Park Hotel Screening Room
7:00-9:00 pm

Bones, animation (4:00), Dir. Shinsaku Hidaka
Reproduction 3075, animation (1:00), Dir. Ondrej Rudavsky
Teat Beat of Sex,animation (4:00), Dir. Signe Baumane
The Return of Sergeant Pecker, animation (3:00), Dir. Pierre Delarue
Missed Connection, animation (1:00), Dir. Paul Haber

Saturday May 5
Bryant Park Hotel Screening Room
7:00-9:00 pm

Hyacinthe, animation (4:00), Dir. Joann Sfar & Kerascoet
One D, animation (5:00), Dir. Mike Grimshaw

. . . . . . Images from The World Before The Deluge. (Thanks to Boing Boing)

– Having finished a bunch of work for Between The Lions, the PBS show out of WGBH (a greater client can’t be found), we’ve met with a quiet period.
To keep busy we’ve started production on a short segment of the Gertrude’s Follies storyboard feature done years ago.

To see the history of this project go here and here.

What this has done is forced me to push cartoonist Tom Hachtman back to work on the strip. I need some new dialogue written between Gertrude and Alice, and I’d like him to do the backgrounds (only a couple are needed.) He’s a great watercolorist and airbrush artist – the real thing, not computer.
Of course, I prefer the watercolor painting, but I’ll take whatever he’d like to do. It’s his strip and his characters; that’s his decision.
Anyway, I got this card (to the left) from Tom. It thanks me for getting him back to Gertrude. (It’s my treat; the characters are so much fun drawing.)

Matthew Clinton has finished his first draft of animating the piece that’s about 2 minutes in length. Paul Carrillo has already edited up a hilarious first cut soundtrack of effects and music. All we need is the finishing parts.

It’s funny. That’s what counts.

I’m reluctant to post the strip it’s based on
(I don’t want to give up the joke, though it really doesn’t matter). It’s about Pabs eating his first hamburger – just in case any of you have seen it. (I just had a flash thinking how horrible this would have looked if we’d done it in Flash. Sends a chill through me.)
(Click images to enlarge.)

I just received in the mail a copy of the program from the Seattle Children’s Film Festival that was held in January of this year. They’d done a two program retrospective of some of our films. It was a kick having someone ask for the program; it was fun knowing that our films stay alive.

The program was enough of a success that the curator of that festival has just sent an email sayng that she is curating . . .

“. . . the second annual REDCAT International Children’s Film Festival at REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney Calarts Theatre) in Los Angeles. The festival will be comprised of a selection of the best of Cinema K: Children’s Film Festival Seattle and additional new programs.

I would like to include one of the retrospective programs we showed at Northwest Film Forum: Dr. DeSoto, The Red Shoes, Abel’s Island, and The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.”

Of course, this will be an honor, so our program will be presented at that festival in June. When I have the dates, I’ll pass them along.

All these retrospectives popping up! (There was one in Philadelphia recently, another in North Carolina, and a very big one which will be in NYC this Fall – we’ll talk about it when it gets closer.) I’m starting to feel old, but I’m loving it. (The Seattle program
from last January.)

– Tonight, Feb 19th at 7PM, David Levy, author of Your Career in Animation will be moderating a “Round Table” at MOCCA, the Museum of Cartoon & Comic Art.

Come by and be a member of the discussion group to talk about the current state of the animation industry. Complimentary drinks and a “nosh” will be on hand.

The Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401
NYC, NY 10012
Admission: FREE

As if that weren’t enough,
MOCCA’s website has several online exhibits:
Duck cartoons as drawn by some famous artists
Cartoons Against the Axis with a companion article by Art Spiegelman.
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- Ballots are now out for the ASIFA East Festival #38. All are encouraged to enter; get your application here.It’s the homiest of Festivals with an focus on the Independent animator.

All members of Asifa are invited to come to the open screenings of the films and cast their votes for whichever films they like. These judging screenings will take place at the School of Visual Arts as follows:
Student Judging: Mar 6th 3rd floor amphitheater
Commercials & Promos Judging: Mar 7th 5th floor room 502
Sponsored Films over 2 mins Judging: Mar 8th 3rd floor amphitheater
Independent Films Judging: Mar 14th 5th floor room 502

On the ASIFA East site, President, David Levy, writes 10 tips on entering the Festival.

– Last year’s ASIFA East Festival winners have been gathered in a single program which will be screened in LA next Wed, Feb 27th. It will take place at 7:00 pm at Dreamworks Animation, 1000 Flower St. Glendale, CA.
However you should RSVP; Email your full name, guest name, and daytime phone number to publicity@asifa-hollywood.org no later than February 20th (Tuesday.)

Pictured above, MILCH by Igor Kovalyov.
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The ASIFA-East show is the nation’s premiere animation competition honoring independent animators, professionals and students.

This years program will include:
BEST IN SHOW
Fumi and the Bad Luck Foot -Thunderbean Animation/David Chai

Plus INDEPENDENT FILMS:
1st Place Guide Dog - Plymptoons
2nd Place Milch – Acme Filmworks/Kovalyov
3rd Place Stoopid Movie!!! – David Chai
Excellence in Experimental Techniques Urban Animals – Karl Staven
Excellence in Animation Crossing the Stream – Skip Battaglia
Excellence in Soundtrack Robot Dance Party – Will and Fran Krause
Excellence in Design Siniestro – Dancing Diablo
Excellence in Writing/Humor Tony Cartoons – Sean McBride

As well as winners in SPONSORED FILMS, COMMERCIALS and STUDENT FILMS!

- 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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- Thanks to my good friend, David Levy, the award my film, The Man Who Walked Between The Towers, won at the Ottawa 2006 Festival made it into my hands. I had to leave the festival early, and David was kind enough to thank the judges for me and truck the award back home. (I can imagine what could have happened going through customs.)

The actual award (which came with a neat paper document) is a Phenakistiscope. Hold it up to a mirror spin while looking through the slits, and you should see the animated lady. There’s a beautiful green patina covering the bronze of the sculpture. Engraved into it are the words, “Ottawa 2006.” It’s neat.

Since I didn’t get to make a speech, I’d like to thank four people, again. Matt Clinton and Tissa David did the more brilliant animation in the film. Paul Carrillo did some poetic editing. Christine O’Neill managed the whole film and studio wonderfully. Thanks to them all.

And thanks to Chris Robinson and all at the Ottawa Animation Festival. It was a blast, and I have a great souvenir.

– There are other good reviews of the festival by Amid at Cartoon Brew and Mark Mayerson at his site, Ward Jenkins at the DRAWN site, and Bill Robinson at his.

- Suzan Pitt’s film El Doctor premiered on PBS, NY Wednesday night and will be rebroadcast this Saturday, September 30 at 2:30 p.m. Check local listings to see if it’s on in your area. I enjoyed the film.

- Tom Sito has a good article on the history of Animation Schooling. It’s interesting to see how things have grown from earlier days. Even from my earlier days.

- Another cgi animated animal feature opens today. Open Season gets a passing grade of *** stars in the NYDaily News, a negative from the NY POST (“NOBODY can accuse Sony Pictures Ani mation of aiming high with its maiden offering“) and a not-so-passing grade in the NYTimes. The opening line of the Times includes: … the 3-D Imax version, can’t disguise that this is just another movie full of jive-talking computer-generated animals with little new to say. Ouch.

- I arrived at the Ottawa Animation Festival a day late. I’d also have to leave a day early, so I found out after-the-fact that my film, The Man Who Walks Between The Towers, won the award for Best Children’s Short Film. A bonus treat.

This Festival is one of my favorites, and I enjoy attending it so that I can catch up with a lot of friends I see too infrequently, meet some filmmakers whose work I admire, and even catch up with some New Yorkers I don’t see often enough. This Festival is not too large, like Annecy, where you end up exhausted running ragged unable to keep up, nor is it too small that you spend much time trying to find things to do.

There are parties every night. Usually, I go and leave quickly. The thumping music, large crowds, dark lights, flashing spotlights and pulsating sound pushes me out. I understand the attraction, but I’m getting old. Give me some quiet conversation. This year an alternate to the parties was “Chez Ani” set up in a local bar filled with Constructivist Art posters and a manageable sound level with just the right crowd capacity to make things light but engender talk.

I met up with a lot of old friends I see too rarely. Some of these included: Amid Amidi, Mark Mayerson, Suzan Pitt, Jerry Beck, Emru Townsend, John Halfpenny, Janet Perlman, Skip Battaglia, Tamu Townsend, and Chris Robinson, himself.
There were new people to meet: Sabine Hitier, Julie Zammarchi, Peter Barg, David Nethery, Andrew Menter, John Libbey, and Konstantin Bronzit.
And there were the New Yorkers I see too infrequently: David Levy, George Griffin, Jeff Scher, Chris Boyce, and Pilar Newton. (I met too many people to mention, so please forgive if you don’t see your name.)

I always like the film selection at this Festival. It’s a touch on the dark side, which is generally to my taste. Some of the films I’d seen for the first time and enjoyed included:
Sabine Hitier’s Step By Step, Svetlana Filippova’s Sarah’s Tale, Regina Pessoa’s Tragic Story With Happy Ending, Simon Narath’s Leviathan, Run Wracke’s Rabbit, and Michaela Pavlatova’s The Carnival of the Animals.
Films I’d seen before but enjoyed revisiting included: George Griffin’s It Pains Me To Say This, Suzan Pitt’s El Doctor, Skip Battaglia’s Crossing The Stream, those United Airline ads, and Pes’ Game Over. Actually there were too many good ones to include.

All in all it was a fine Festival with many highlights. I’m glad I went and I can’t wait to get my hands on the award. Thanks to Dave Levy for accepting it for me; I couldn’t have found a better surrogate.

Here are some snaps I took. Excuse the focus problems. I bought the camera on Wednesday and still haven’t quite figured it out.

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1. The National Arts Center is the center of the Festival after Friday. Most screenings, meetings, and events are held here.
2. Chateau Laurier is the hotel where the Television Arts Conferences are held. Daily meetings and talks about the business side of animation.

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3. On Friday double-decker busses took us to this tent on the outskirts of town for the picnic. A lot of people are occupied with carving pumpkins for competion.
4. Inside, two lines of food are set up: sandwiches, chili, cake, beer. What more could we need?

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5. David Levy and Chris Boyce, with whom I ate, finishing their cake and beer.
6. In the mornings there’s a Q&A for filmmakers about their films. Tom Warburton and Kihachiro Kawamoto appear out of focus (a bad photographer) but their answers were sharp.

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7. Amid Amidi signs books on Friday night in the lobby of the National Arts Center.
8. Dave Levy and Chris Robinson sign books on Saturday evening. Chris’ publisher, John Libbey, confers with him.

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9. Jerry Beck and Robert Marianetti wait nearby for the start of the final shorts competition screening on Saturday.
10. The road from my taxi as I left on Sunday at 3:30 am. Long customs lines, stopovers in Philadelphia, lost and missing luggage all contributed to the Festival experience.

– This will be my last post until I return from Ottawa on Sunday. I look forward to meeting a lot of new folks there and seeing some great films.

This has been a difficult week, and I’ll be glad to get away for a few days. Hopefully, the Yankees will clinch the pennant while I’m gone. I’ll miss the champagne celebration.

While I’m gone, I’ve decided to be emotional and let my Claude have the spotlight.

Today, was his Dancing Day. He died in my arms this morning.

- In 1976 the first edition of the Ottawa Animation Festival was held. I attended with a contingent of people who were working on Raggedy Ann & Andy, and we were there to be inspired, see a lot of great films and have a good time. One of those times when you felt connected to everyone there.

Bruno Bozzetto‘s , Allegro Non Troppo was a special midnight screening on the program. A surprise screening; a feature none of us had heard about.
(Click to enlarge.)

Of course, we all knew the work of Bruno Bozzetto. He was undoubtedly a master of comic animation. His films had won enormous prizes everywhere, and his output was large. There’d been many screenings of his films through ASIFA-East, and they were always popular.

The screening was one of the brightest I’ve ever sat through. It was hilarious, beautifully animated, and intelligent. The audience came out excited about animation, alive, and encouraged to party. It was a memorable night and it helped make that festival one of the stand-out Festivals I’d ever attended. I’m sure many there would say the same.

Now the question I have is whether the films of that 1976 festival were as great as I remember or that specific Festival so great? Or was it both? Caroline Leaf‘s masterpiece, The Street, won the grand prize and most of the films were brilliant (including Caroline’s other film The Owl Who Married a Goose.
Allegro Non Troppo just served as the enormous cherry on top of the cake. It was a grand festival and I always hope that others I attend will reach that level.

I look forward to the coming Ottawa Animation Festival starting Wednesday, Sept. 20th. Bruno Bozzetto is both a judge and the recipient of a retrospective of his work. Maybe this will be the one that will match the first.

Tonight ASIFA-East will present a screening of Allegro Non Troppo.
I was scheduled to moderate a Q&A with Bruno Bozzetto, but due to some personal problems of mine Candy Kugel will host it. She’s graciously stepped in to help me out at the last moment, and I have to thank her enormously.
At 6:30 pm – The School of Visual Arts, 209 East 23rd Street, 3rd floor amphitheatre. Admission is FREE.

Regina Pessoa‘s Tragic Story with Happy Ending and Joanna Quinn‘s Dreams and Desires – Family Ties seem to be the big award winners at the Annecy Animation Festival.

These are all of the awards given last night in Annecy:

Short films
Histoire tragique avec fin heureuse (The Annecy Cristal) France
Rabbit (Special distinction) United Kingdom
One D (Jr Jury Award for a short film) Canada
Dreams and Desires – Family Ties (Audience award) United Kingdom
Dreams and Desires – Family Ties (FIPRESCI award) United Kingdom
Delivery (Xiberras award for a first film) Germany
Dreams and Desires – Family Ties (Jury’s special award) United Kingdom
Histoire tragique avec fin heureuse (TPS Cinceculte Award for short film) France
Cherno na byalo (Unicef award) Bulgaria

Feature films
Renaissance (The Cristal for best feature) France

TV series
Pocoyo “A Little Something Between Friends” (The Cristal Best TV production) Spain
Zombie Hotel “First Day” (Special award for a TV series) France

TV specials
Petit Wang (TV special award) France

Educational, scientific or industrial films
The Birds & The Bees – A Secret You Shouldn’t Keep (Educational film award) Korea

Advertising films
Médecins sans frontières “Human Ball” (Advertising film award) Belgium

Music video
Thomas Fersen “Hyacinthe” (Award for best music video) France

Graduation films
Abigail (Special distinction) United Kingdom
Ego (Jr Jury Award for a graduation film) France
Astronauts (Best school or graduation film) United Kingdom
Walking in the Rainy Day (Jury award for a graduation film) Korea

- In case you haven’t heard of Didier Ghez‘ three volume set of interviews published as Walt’s People Vols.1 & 2 and, just released, Vol. 3, you should look into it.

The books give a number of excellent in depth interviews with different artists who’ve worked with Walt Disney over the course of his career. They’re a wonderful tool for anyone interested in animation history and a good read for anyone interested in animation.

The most recent volume #3 includes interviews with: James Algar, Lee Blair, Joe Grant, Ben Sharpsteen, Bill Justice, Volus Jones, Ward Kimball, Burny Mattinson, Floyd Norman, and Bill Peet.

The first book features interviews with: Rudy Ising, Dave Hand, Bill Tytla, Ken Anderson, Jack Hannah, John Hench, Marc Davis, and Milt Kahl.

The second book includes: Friz Freleng, Grim Natwick, Frank Tashlin, Ward Kimball, Floyd Gottfredson, Frank Thomas, Eric Larson, and Woolie Reitherman

If you go to the Xlibris site, the primary distributor, you can get a sample of the interviews conducted within each of the books.

– The 2006 Cannes Film Festival, currently in progress, has only two animated shorts in competition this year. One French, one Swiss. They are:

Icefloe is a Swiss animated film directed by Cédric LOUIS and Claude BARRAS.
The film tells the story of Marine, an obese young girl, who suffers from the heat of summer and the way other people look at her. She dreams of a better life among the penguins on an ice floe.

Conte De Quartier – A French film directed by Florence MIAILHE.
In a neighbourhood about to be torn down, construction wrecking ball in sight, seven characters cross paths. A rag doll with an inner secret is relayed from one character to another, creating a skein of tangled destinies inspired by tabloid news items.

Florence Miailhe used sand-and-oil-paint-on-glass animation and a digital camera to make the film. Technically it feels a bit like the style developed by Caroline Leaf in The Street.

You can see a sample of it here.

Neither film is listed in competition or Panorama at Annecy or Zagreb. Maybe Ottawa?

- Mark Mayerson has posted a fabulous letter by Dick Lundy, dated 1978, which gives a first person breakdown of his own career. It’s quite remarkable and an entertaining read.