Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- This past weekend was a crazy one. I’m an Academy voter, and I try to see most of the films so that I can feel confident in my vote – which probably doesn’t count for much, but I feel responsible. Consequently, there’re a lot of films to watch in Nov, Dec and Jan.

Well, something strange is happening this year. I’ve been getting invitations to screening with stars and directors present. I don’t know how I’ve gotten on the “A” list, but I’m enjoying it.

Last week, watching Babel with the director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, was much more fun than watching the DVD. It’s also the way that exciting and tense film should be seen.

This weekend, Miss Potter had a screening at the Museum of Modern Art followed by a dinner at the Plaza Atheneum (read expensive). Renee Zellweger, Emily Watson and Ewan McGregor were there to greet every table. There were lots of other interesting guests watching and eating alongside us. Karen Ziemba‘s a Broadway star who sat alongside us, and we had a great conversation about her upcoming show – the final Kander & Ebb musical, Curtains. It had played at the Ahmanson in LA and is now moving to Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theater later in the Spring.

On Sunday, there was a screening of Clint Eastwood‘s Letters from Iwo Jima. And yes, he was there as was Ken Watanabe and a number of others from the all Japanese cast. The acting was brilliant throughout the film, which was far and away one of the best of the year. I wasn’t the greatest fan of Flags For Our Fathers, but this one is brilliant.
The film was followed by a reception in their honor.
What a treat to shake the hand of a real master.
(Click image to enlarge.)
(Above: Eastwood with Watanabe moving away, just right of him. I would normally be too shy to take a photo, but there were many Japanese photographers shooting at this short photo moment, that I knew it wouldn’t be obtrusive of me to snap it.

Of course, most of the films aren’t screened this way, and I’ve been seeing five films a week for the past three weeks. My eyes water incessantly, but I’m loving it. The films I’ve seen this way have all been good ones. I wonder if the star factor would make up for clunkers. Somehow I doubt it.

- In the past two weeks I highlighted the Gertrude’s Follies work and the artist behind it, Tom Hachtman. He and his wife, Joey Epstein, have been doing Trompe L’oeil murals in the area of the (New) Jersey Shore, where they live.

Since I’ve recently been showing Tom’s artwork, I thought it might be fun to show off some photos of the work he, Joey and two other women – Katie Mae and Christine Myshka. Tom’s caricature (Anime style) of the three women appears to the left. Joey on the left, Katie Mott center and Christine on the right.
(Click on any image to enlarge.)

As you can see, they put these murals up in the homes of local people who are looking to decorate their rooms.

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Imagine the surprise of people who try to read one of the books in this library in Colt’s Neck N.J. – “the children’s office.”

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3. One for the Mets fan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. One for the Yankees fan.

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5. This is the mural for a kitchen.
6. Painting for a Bagel Shop.

Times Square at a specific point in the memory of the client.

- At Bill Plympton’s Christmas Party this past Thursday night, I ran into Xeth Feinberg. He told me that he was going to eventually find someone whose work would prove to me that Flash isn’t such a horrible program.

(Left the email invite for
Plympton’s Christmas Party.)

I obviously give the wrong idea with my writings. I don’t hate Flash, but I do dislike the lack of professionalism it engenders in the hands of less experienced people. These are the people who claim to be animators once they make an image move, and using the relatively simple program enables them to move images without much complication.

Great animation, of course, reveals character. As yet, I don’t think I’ve seen any real characters or character development done in Flash. I’m sure this isn’t the fault of the program, but the fault of those using it. It isn’t a pencil that makes bad drawings; it’s the person using the pencil. I’m also sure I haven’t seen enough to make any sweeping generalizations. I do see limitations in the medium, and I suspect expert Flash animators do, as well.

As a matter of fact, I quite like a number of Xeth’s pieces. He’s done a large number of films and has remained totally independent of the normal system.
His Bulbo character and the films he did with Bulbo provided me with early proof that interesting animation could be done in Flash.
His Queer Duck provided proof that Flash could conquer large subjects in large territories. I still haven’t seen his Queer Duck feature, but I have seen at least five extended pieces starring this character. They’re funny, and entertaining. I’m interested to see how it stretches over the course of 90 minutes. Features are another matter. To me Art Direction really comes into a place of importance in a bigger film, and the animation has to get better than it does in shorts. Looking for character development. (Click images to enlarge.)
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Watching some early parts of Debra Solomon’s upcoming work showed me another side of Flash that absolutely piqued my interest. I look forward to seeing how her movie-in-progress develops.

Bruno Bozzetto has been doing a number of very short films in Flash, and he told me that he loves working with it. The shorts are funny and provocative pieces, and it’s interesting to see someone of his caliber working with it.

Nina Paley’s Sitayana series absolutely delights me. She’s done a number of beautifully drawn shorts in Flash that are full of creative touches with beautiful design. Again, they’re ultimately going to be joined together as a feature. I love the shorts and look forward to seeing how they connect as a whole.

I’m curious to see where one of these artists, or someone whose work I don’t know, will take this medium in the future. However, to me it just seems a way of handicapping yourself for the sake of the simplicity it offers.

I also wonder if any of these artists will go past the realm of the drawn images. I see enormous character development in Paul Fierlinger’s films and suspect that the Mirage technology, which Paul uses, isn’t too far from Flash. I’ve diddled with both and find similarities. (ToonBoom studio is even easier – to me – than Flash.) Hence, that tells me that someone will take the tool into another dimension. I look forward to it.

– Yesterday I highlighted some of Federico Fellini‘s cartoons. I thought I’d pick out some of the drawings he made of the people in the pictures he was making.

A lively exuberance fills almost every image – not unlike his films of the period. My favorite drawing, though, is the portrait of Nino Rota, his composer and dear friend. There’s an enormous sensitivity there.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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1. Nino Rota at the piano.
2. A drawing of Broderick Crawford in Il Bidone.

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3. Aurelio Biondi in Amarcord.
4. A “female with stripes” from Women of The City.

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5. Woman in the Bedroom from Roma.
6. Marcello Mastroiani in Fred & Ginger.

– Continuing yesterday’s thread of cartoon/storyboard material and their relationship . . .

- Everyone in the film business should know Federico Fellini‘s films, but I wonder how many know that Fellini was an artist. He was primarily interested in being a cartoonist and aimed his career in that direction. He did a number of comic strips, a lot of caricatures and spot cartoons.

(Fellini in his studio drawing.)(Below, a comic strip Fellini did in 1940.)
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It was only during World War II that he got caught up in a group of film makers and put all of his energies into motion pictures. However, this didn’t stop him from drawing.

Fellini did poster designs for many of his films, storyboarded sections of his movies and caricatured many of his actors. He frequently did cartoons on his sets Рmany of them quite risqu̩.

The Voyage of Mastorna was a graphic novel he did in collaboration with Milo Manara. Fellini storyboarded his part and Manara reworked the boards into the book.

Fellini wrote this about the book:

When did I first think of a story for a movie like that of the Voyage of Mastorna?
I can’t remember. I have always believed that my movies were awaiting me, all finished and ready, the way a station waits for a train that is pulling in. . . .
. . . Just as I, a director, can now talk about a film that I have made. The problem is that I never made Mastorna. It is a story that has accompanied me for almost thirty years and, as I have said many times, helped to shape, with ideas that belonged to it and it alone, nearly all the movies that I made in its place. A stimulating, fascinating presence, with perhaps I did not know how to live without. A pilot ship that would guide me out of the harbour, obliging me to take different voyages, to face unknown adventures. In other words, to make other movies. And so, Signor Fellini, why have you decided to abandon once and for all that story if it was.

Here is a section of the book. On the left Fellini’s board, on the right Manara’s reworking:

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(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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3a 3b

4a 4b

5a 5b

6a 6b

7a 7b

-Back to Gertrude’s Follies, the film.

I talked last week about my excitement over the comic strip by Tom Hachtman, Gertrude’s Follies. We worked up a storyboard and script for a feature. It was a bit of a rush since I found the distributor of a low budget comedy film who asked for something similar in animation. I thought we could get him interested. I wanted to strike while the iron was hot. The guy didn’t get it, thought it wasn’t funny, didn’t even understand it. His company folded six months later. A one hit wonder.

We tried to stay close to many of the strips and found a direction.
Here are two weeklies from the strip.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

The equivalent part of the storyboard follows. To give a short syopsis of the story thus far:

Trying to be somewhat current, we built the story around an upcoming, all-encompassing exhibit Picasso was going to have at the Museum of Modern Art. At the same time, Gertrude had just sent off a big book to her agent in NY. A party was in order, and we join them in this section of the storyboard as they prepare for the party. There’s a guided tour going on at the house as they prepare, and Hemingway arrives early.
(This is about 20 mins into the film.)

- It’s Walt Disney‘s Birthday; too bad he isn’t around to celebrate it. But it’s also the first anniversary of this blog, so I can celebrate that. Cheers!

Disney in the Times and Time Magazine.
. This past weekend there were a number of interesting developments, reported in the NYTimes, regarding the Disney animation department. On Friday (as reported Saturday in the Business Section), the studio will let go of 160 employees – 25% of the animation staff.
. Then on Sunday, we learned that they’re about to produce a number of short films for distribution to open before some of their features. Apparently, they’ll make the new shorts with fewer people.
. Reports that John Lasseter decided to overide Musker & Clements choice of Alan Menken to write the songs and score The Frog Princess seems to be creating a bit of a stir. You can read about it on Jim Hill Media.

For some reason all this confusion (maybe it’s just I who is confused) reminds me of the period after Walt Disney died in 1966. It seemed that the studio had some difficulty operating without him. Decision making was difficult since everyone wanted to continue the legacy.
The primary question seems to have been, “How would Walt have done it?”

Roy Disney was able to push the studio along for a short bit, but things started going wrong under Ron Miller‘s (Walt’s son-in-law) leadership. Ron knew nothing about animation or films – he was known for being a football player. His decisions took the studio down the wrong road. Profits rolled in but were not quite what they should have been. There was also a lot of dissension.

(Click on the images to enlarge to a readable size.)

An unsuccessful hostile take-over attempt gave the studio a jolt and brought in some big-time operators – Eisner, Wells and Katzenberg who really brought the studio up to date and got the profits to start multiplying.

They also jump-started the near-dead animation department back into life. The Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King were certainly their doing.

Now, the studio is in a new era – the Iger years. I thought it might be interesting to look back a bit to the somber days of animation at the Disney studio – The Black Cauldron, anyone?

The above article appeared in Time Magazine in 1976 about the company’s business affairs, and I thought it a good read given the history that came after this.

Disney at The New Yorker
- How appropriate this week for The New Yorker magazine to have an extensive review of Neal Gabler‘s biography of Disney by their film critic, Anthony Lane. This article is available on-line and is worth the read. Go here to read it.
The on-line site also features a 1971 article by Calvin Trillin about Disney World.
Go here for this article, entitled “Are Ya Havin’ Fun?”.

The Golden Pencil
- As mentioned last week, we won the award for Best 2DAnimation at Tony White’s 2D or Not 2D Festival held in Washington State. It was a treat for me to hear from Tony that we’d won a “Golden Pencil Award.

Today the “Golden Pencil” arrived. It’s hilarious. A large stub of a pencil. I enlisted animiator Matt Clinton to pose for some snaps with the award.

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1. Matt animating with the “Golden Pencil.”
2. A CU of it in his hand.

A close-up of the “Award” among some other awards.
It’s not as close to the camera as it looks here.

- This past was a filled weekend.

On Saturday there was a screening of the film Babel which Heidi and I attended. The director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, was present to meet and greet at a post-screening gathering. The film was exciting and certainly one of the better films of the past year, but he was a charming man to meet. Because of this screening, I wasn’t able toi attend a screening of Michel Ocelot‘s French animated feature, Azur et Asmar. I’d have another chance Sunday. (Click any image to enlarge.)
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In the evening, Debra Solomon hosted a birthday party for herself. It was a fabulous event with a lot of people to say hi to. Ray Kosarin, Lisa Crafts, George Griffin, Candy Kugel, Jody Gray, and John Schnall were among those there. It was really a good evening. At the party, George and Candy both encouraged me to go to the Azur et Asmar screening. So Sunday morning that’s where I headed.

– Oh no! It was sold out. There was a standby line for people who had their fingers crossed. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get into the IFC center to see the film. Their on-line site didn’t allow you to buy advance tickets, so we were out in the cold.

On line (I mean a real line on which you wait), I met up with Ray Kosarin, Lisa Crafts and Ken Brown. We went for coffee and had a nice time, regardless. We’ll all have to see the film another time.

- Today’s the actual birthday of Debra Solomon. She had sent me a drawing a couple of weeks ago, which I’ll post here. Titled “Relaxing at Home,” it’s not the way to celebrate a birthday, but it’s a funny drawing.

- Before getting into my Photo Sunday posting, a bit of info about NYTimes stories.
. The NYTimes today has an article by Charles Solomon on Disney’s new plan to release newly-made animated shorts before their features. They’ve got four in development with one in production – Goofy in “How to Install Your Home Theater.”
. Yesterday, the NYTimes had a story in their Business section about Disney’s lay-off of 160 people. I guess none of them will be used to make short films.
. Finally, today’s NYTimes Book Review has an interesting review of Neal Gabler’s biography of Walt Disney.

- Shirley Walker died on Friday. She was the composer of a number of animation scores (most notably the Batman series). You can read an obituary for her at Music For The Movies. An interview with her at Soundtrack.net is here.

- This photo was posted with a lot of others on Oct. 22.

John Schnall wrote to say that he had “design notes on one of the posted characters; the ‘schnall’ character is quite a bit off model. I’ve attached some notes that might be useful in truing up the model to the character; hope they’re helpful.”

In addition to this revised model, I thought today I’d post some photos of a recording session done for the music of The Amazing Bone back in 1984.

The score was composed by Jeremy Steig, the son of William Steig and a famous jazz flutist.

It was performed completely by Jeremy and the noted bass player Eddie Gomez. As a fan of jazz, it was glorious for me to be working with Eddie Gomez, who had once been a member of the Bill Evans Trio. I breathed Bill Evans‘ music for a long time.

(click on any image to enlarge.)
Above:Eddie Gomez confers with Jeremy Steig about the score they’re composing & performing.

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1. Eddie Gomez plays his bass.
2. Jeremy Steig plays pan pipes.
3. Jeremy Steig plays assorted bottles.

The score took about 7 hours to record and mix.
There were many breaks for Eddie and Jeremy to confer in the bathroom. It got to the point where the engineer/mixer asked them to please stay in the recording session because the breaks were taking longer than the session.

I didn’t care what it took. I was in heaven experiencing the music. The two performers did a great job, and I loved every moment.

During a break Jeremy and I sit to discuss the music so far. It was great.

All photos were taken by the producer, Paul Gagne. He’s become a long-time friend. I thought I remembered a photo of him with Jeremy, but I don’t have it.

- We had a job last year that was a curious production.

Scholastic teamed with Fisher-Price to produce a series of specialized dvd’s. Read With Me featured an adapter that read the dvds and turned them into inter-active games for young children. The idea was to adapt very famous kid’s books in animation. Then the same books would have interactive read-along type; lots of clickable games and alternatives, teacher advice for parents and lots of goodies.
(Click any image to enlarge.)

Each dvd had about 40 minutes of animation in toto. The stories were roughly 5 minutes, and the rest was game/alternates. We basically had to learn a new organizational language in dealing with the Scholastic methodology. It all flowed rather smoothly given how much animation was being done for so little money and with so small a crew – seven people did everything.

We did five of these book/disc adaptions.
The Little Engine That Could, Corduroy, Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs & Ham, Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Some of the titles were fun and turned out beautifully, others were an enormous chore and turned out good.

The read-along story part of it looked much like a read-a-long book, but animated. We stayed exactly faithful to the books we were adapting, and had to find a way to capture the illustrations exactly. The type animated in sync with the narrator’s reading. I have to say I wasn’t always pleased with the readings, but that wasn’t in my ability to alter. Since the client had a lot – I mean a lot – of comments and changes, I was glad not to have the soundtracks to rework. We plugged in a lot of sound effects, but if they wanted anything more, they found their own way to add to it.

The films were animated quickly in varying ways. Alexander, for example, had four animators working on the story reading; another three people including a full-time editor did animation and stills for the game parts. The games were dependent on the read-along section, so they were always waiting for us to finish scenes to pass on to them.
The Little Engine had five animators doing the story, whereas Corduroy (my favorite) had three and Chicka Boom had two.

It was all a tense, coordinating challenge. Adrian Urquidez did a brilliant job of keeping it all together and on schedule. However, when the job came to an end, we were ready to take a break. It was a year’s hard work.

Some of the credits included:
Production Coordinator: Adrian Urquidez
Animators: Michael Sporn, Matt Clinton, Diego Turcios, Lisa Crafts, Nouri Zander, Ray Feldman and John Dilworth
Editor: Paul Carrillo.