Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

My apologies for problems with this site these past three days. My webserver has been having all sorts of problems, and it’s seriously affecting my sites. Hopefully, we’re beyond that problem.

- Acting as a companion piece to Mark Mayerson‘s recent posts re Shamus Culhane‘s direction on The Pied Piper of Basin Street for Lantz in 1944, I am posting these drawings from the early spots Culhane directed for Ajax Cleanser.

As Culhane reports in his autobiography, the call came out of the blue in 1949 from an advertising agency offering these commercials which became enormously popular. Culhane formed a studio hiring Art Heinemann to design the three elves in the spot, and Art Babbitt teamed with Shamus to animate it. The ad campaign lasted until the late 1950′s.

(click on either image to enlarge.)

It’s interesting to see how varied the rough and the clean–up are from each other (they both are for the same number.) The clean-up is also obviously designed to be inked not xeroxed (which predates 1959).

I bought these drawings which while marked as animation drawings by Culhane, are probably not. The rough could possibly be his work, but I don’t think so.

It looks more like Emery Hawkins, but that’s not much more than a guess. The clean up looks like the work of Gerry Dvorak, but that’s also an educated guess. If anyone out there has a better idea, let me know.

I’m also sure that this spot ran in the mid 1950′s. I distinctly remember seeing it originally on tv when I was a child. To see one of the Ajax commercials go here to see a number of early tv spots.

We’re back! Finally, after being informed yesterday morning that I had a “Kernel Panic” (I swear that was my first. It felt more like “Kernel Anger”), my server returns 24 hours later.

– Had you read what I posted yesterday, you would have learned that I was promoting, yet again, the program which opened yesterday at the Film Forum. Cartoons: No Laughing Matter is a program of adult animation. (By “Adult” animation I don’t mean “Slutty” animation, or “Adolescent” animation; I mean animation designed to be viewed by “adults” who understand intelligent, sophisticated, mature themes. It felt good to not have to lower my sightline for animation.)

My three favorites on the program were Lisa Craft’s sophisticated work, The Flooded Playground, Suzan Pitt’s El Doctor, and George Griffin’s It Pains Me To Say This. All three explore dark material in a sophisticated, complex way. However, each and every film on the program inspired me to get off my butt and do something good.

- At yesterday’s 8pm screening, six of the film makers were there, in person for a Q&A. Lisa Crafts, George Griffin, Andy & Carolyn London, Suzan Pitt and Debra Solomon were recorded by the Film Forum and will be placed on their website as a podcast. Go here for that link.

- There is a review of this show at the Village Voice.

- Mark Mayerson’s new blog, Mayerson On Animation, as expected, is developing in to one of my favorites. It’s one of the first stops I make each morning and it’ll continue to be. Try it. you’ll like it.

- Thanks to the site Drawn, I’ve been drawn to Bibi’s Box, a wonderful site full of links and attachments and information.

- As a lover of Futurism, the art and art movement of the early 20th century (how could you not love a movement of artists so drawn to the violent world that they all joined the military in WWI and were mostly killed off – thus virtually ending their movement) it delights me to visit the British site Futurism and The Futurists. Lots of fabulous images and enormous dedication to the movement that deserves it.

- Here, for no good reason, is a layout drawing John Hubley did for his film, People People People.

This was a film done for the 1976 BiCentennial about overpopulation. It is told without dialogue – a musical soundtrack – since it was done for USIA and planned to be shown predominantly outside of the United States to non-English speakers.

(Click on image to enlarge.)

It starts out relatively slowly telling the complete history of the United States in four brisk minutes. The film soon picks up speed to the point where scenes are down to 12, 8, and 6 frames apiece, and pans are whipping miles across the screen. All of it is hitched tightly to Benny Carter’s excellent score.

The layout of rabbits curiously foreshadows the work John would do on Watership Down.

That unfortunate feature has small glimmers of greatness; one wonders what could have happened if an artist had directed the final.

I just went to Funnyworld #20 and reread the article by Michael Barrier. I knew there’d be a good bit to quote: “Fortunately, Rosen* left enough of Hubley in the film to permit us to gauge how differently the two men approached the film: Rosen’s rabbits merely bleed; it is Hubley’s rabbits, in their few minutes of screen time, who live and die.”

*The producer turned director who fired John Hubley.

- Last night ASIFA East held its shindig at the New School. There was a screening of the award winners which lasted about 2½ hours but generally moved quickly. A quiet gathering in the garden followed the screening.

My favorite of all the films screened was MILCH, Igor Kovalyov‘s beautiful film. It won 2nd Best Independent Film. It was the third time I’d seen the film, and it’s just as powerful. It takes a bit of thought. I also love the United Airlines commercial by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis. I don’t remember what prize that spot took, but it’s a beauty of a film that I’ve seen many times and still enjoy.

When I get a complete list of winners and don’t have to depend on my memory, I’ll post them.

Old friends and new who I met at the after party included: ASIFA East’s current president, David Levy, its last president, Linda Simensky, as well as AWN’s Ron Diamond, Jason McDonald, Adrian Urquidez, Yvette Kaplan, Deborah Solomon, Ray Kosarin, Candy Kugel, Heather Kenyon, Biljana Lubovic, Willy Hartland, Bill Plympton, John Dilworth, Masako Kanayama, Janet Benn and Skip Battaglia.

There were plenty of others there, but my memory is fading fast. Too many people at too many parties this past weekend.

My sadness at this version of this Festival is that there was no Charles Samu Award offered or given (I thought MILCH would have been perfect for it). This, I thought, was going to be an award in honor of the most enthusiastic animation devotee I’d ever met. It was created after Charles’ death in 1989 in conjunction with the Leo Dratfield Fund and Robert Flaherty Film Seminars. This award was a link to the past and a link to the rest of the world of film and animation. But then when I realized last night that there was to be no such award, I also realized that most of those newer folk in the audience wouldn’t remember who Charles was or care. Without the award, they never will.

Somehow, to me, the ASIFA East Awards ended up getting smaller by dropping at least the mention of his name on this prize.

- Wednesday there’s the program at The Film Forum, CARTOONS: No Laughing Matter?, which I’m looking forward to. It’ll be nice to meet up with some animators from the more experimental world that ASIFA tends to ignore.

- Last night The Tribeca Film Festival closed out with their award show. (Actually it didn’t quite end – I have another screening of my film this morning.) It was held in a large Chinese restaurant called The Golden Bridge (nowhere near San Francisco but just across the street from the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge). It was one of the largest restaurants I’ve ever been in. We were seated at a table near the entrance where we could easily view most of the celebs as they entered. However, like most Chinatown restaurants, there was the constant banging into you as waiters and others squeezed by to get to another place. The food kept coming, and it was mostly good, but no one knew what it was we were eating, and the waiters couldn’t speak English.

Once the food was done, the awards began. This is the only festival I’ve encountered that gives out actual art as the award. I won’t always hang my certificates, but I will hang an Alex Katz or a Jeff Koons. (To see what the awards look like go here.)

They didn’t give an award for animation (most of the animated films were out of competition) but did for short – narrative and documentary. It totally confused the film makers sitting alongside us when they were named winners for “best documentary narrative”. They hadn’t realized they’d made a documentary. It turns out it was just the person calling out the winner who’d made a mistake. (“The Shovel” by Nick Childs – Director, Writer, Producer and Steve Hardwick – Producer.)

As a matter of fact the real best documentary winners sat on the other side of us. (“Native New Yorker” by William Susman – Producer/Composer and Steve Bilich – director.) A lucky table.
We’d spent a couple of hours talking to these guys on both sides of us, so when they’d won we couldn’t have been happier.

After the awards, they shuffled everyone into the open-bar room (a large but not-as-large) room where everyone was comfortably but tightly packed. They cleared the tables out of the larger room, but, of course, most stayed in the back room. Heidi was spotted by a friend she hadn’t seen in the last five years, and the two of them caught up. Her husband, it turns out, was the audio mixer for Dreamworks’ Over The Hedge, so the two of us chatted for a bit. Small world – no matter how far you run away from the animation, it’s always catching up with you.

- Tonight we’ll really catch up with animation as ASIFA East hosts their festival. It’ll be interesting to see who shows up at this event; usually most of the town’s animation types make an appearance. Certainly it’ll be fun.

– In the what took so long category is the new, fabulous blog Mark Mayerson has put together. It’s clean, direct, accurate, and informative. Mark is far and away one of the finest historians out there, and it only enriches us all to have his thoughts on line regularly.

For quite some time, Mark’s site dedicated to the work of animator Al Eugster has been one of the benchmarks of animation history on line. This older site features some very valuable photos and archival material on one of the great animators.

I’m sure I’ll often be pointing out a lot of the valuable material he offers on this new, welcome site. For now … visit Mayerson On Animation.

- There’s a lot of animation in NYC this weekend. Of course, the ASIFA East celebration/party/Awards presentation is Sunday at 6PM at the New School Auditoruium, 66 East 12th Street.

Tonight, the Tribeca Film Festival comes to a close with their awards presentation and party. I’ll be rooting for Emily Hubley’s short to win a prize there.

- To continue with yesterday’s posting of Grim Natwick‘s Cheerio commercial, this is the cycle of sharks snapping/chasing the girl. I don’t think any of the drawings are wholly Grim’s. The numbers on the drawings are done in Tissa David‘s handwriting, so Grim may have worked out the breakdown chart with her and asked her to animate the shark to his timing. Bits of each shark are definitely his: the darker lines – the nose on 21, the shark’s mouth and guitar on 22, and the face on 26.

(Click on any drawing to enlarge.)

- Tomorrow night the Museum of Modern Art is hosting a show featuring comedian and show biz personality An Evening with Eddie Lawrence.

Performer, writer, painter, and “Old Philosopher” Eddie Lawrence /strong> recalls his career on stage, screen, radio, and television, reminiscing about his relationships with the artists Fernand Léger and Henri Matisse, and media personalities like Major Bowes, Judy Holliday, and Johnny Carson.

- And speaking of MOMA, they now have on line an interview with Ralph Eggleston re the Pixar exhibit at the Museum.

- These drawings are a cycle from a Cheerios commercial animated in the late 50′s by Grim Natwick for Drew Robert Lawrence Productions. This again highlights the importance of a good assistant for 2D animation. Tissa David assisted Grim on this spot, and her cleanups are sensational. You can see all the detail that Grim actually includes in his drawing when you look at how the clean-up person properly does the job.

There’s a large shark on another level chasing the girl. I’ll post those tomorrow.

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(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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– This Sunday, May 7th, ASIFA East is having their 37th Animation Festival. The screening starts at 6pm at the New School Tishman Auditorium 66 West 12th Street Between 6th and 7th.

It’s always a great affair where students mix with pros, all the studios come out, and award winners flash their certificates. This acts as the central gathering for the NY animation community. If you’re in NY, you gotta go.

- There’s a lot happening in animation in NY this month, between ASIFA East, Tribeca and the upcoming Film Forum program. There are also a lot of local colleges having their graduate screenings.

- Yesterday, the Tribeca Film Festival had their Directors’ luncheon. It was held at a restaurant called Ono in the meatmarket section of NY, 9th Ave. & 13th St. I saw Jeff Garlin and Robert Wuhl there. Jane Rosenthal and Robert DeNiro made short speeches, and a number of animators were in attendance: Emily Hubley, Bill Plympton, Alex Budovsky and Patrick Smith.

They set us apart at tables built around our specific type of film. I got to sit with live-action film makers from Toronto, Australia, Germany and a Festival director from Georgia (the country set between Russia and Turkey not the one in the deep South). I loved it and had a great conversation with these guys about the problems of making films in the different countries. Not-too-oddly enough, they’re all the same – money. Though the woman from Georgia talked about the cut-off they’ve had from Russia, itself, which has caused severe problems to their economy. (A different kind of money problem.)

All in all it was entertaining, enjoyable conversation, and the food wasn’t bad either, though it arrived slowly.

- There’s a sneak peek at a Maurice Sendak book in progress. It’s a 3d pop-up book about monsters from the 30′s. Robert Sabuda is a pop-up book artist who is helping with the design.

- The following drawings compose a walk cycle by Shamus Culhane done for a commercial in the early 60′s. I have the rest of the rough animation drawings, but I found the walk cycle interesting enough to post here.

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(Click on any of the images to enlarge.)

He uses an odd numbering system, but the walk cycle is solid. Animated on one’s, it has a typical 12x beat. Each foot lands on the 12th frame. This is the standard walk tempo; it’s a typical march beat: 120.

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I like what the leg does as it kicks out between the 4th & 5th drawing pictured above and between the 10th & 11th on the bottom line. I’m also amused by the stretch of the push off leg on the last drawing pictured; it just grows.

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The assistant has a job to do, but the other 200 drawings in the scene take the character to even wilder proportions. This, of course, is what makes the assistant a necessity in good 2D animation. I’m not sure what or if the equivalent is in cgi work. Unfortunately, I think good assistants are non-existent anymore – at least, in New York.

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