Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- As you know, I am an enormous fan of Errol Le Cain’s work. I’ve been posting quite a few of his illustrations for children’s books. (You can see the past posts, if you’re interested, here.)

Today, I’m showcasing a book written by Naomi Lewis from a story by E. Nesbit.
The book was adapted to a film on the BBC, narrated by Nigel Havers. She also adapted The Snow Queen which Le Cain illustrated.

The book contains 30 pages, and every page includes an illustration. I’ve decided to break this into two parts since I don’t want to post tiny thumbnails of the pictures.

I’m not highlighting the text; you’ll have to buy the book for that. I am posting all the great illustrations and hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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To be concluded tomorrow

- Here’s a bit of a breakdown of one of my favorite scenes in Pinocchio during the “Actor’s Life For Me” song. The background and all the overlay/multiplane elements rotate during the move.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The above two images came from John Canemaker ‘s book
Treasures of Disney Animation.

Here are frame grabs from the scene:

How daring for them to have the characters mostly obscured by foreground buildings
or walking off the bottome of the screen. Walt was ultimately the one who made
this decision, but a lot of other people did it along the way.

I doubt you’d see this staging in a current film.

Here’s a QT movie of the frame grabs represented above – it offers a different way of viewing what’s going on in the actual scene.

- Here’s some Bill Tytla distortion that you should take a good look at. Dopey has water in his ears and shakes his head (like a dog) to get the water out.

Take a look at the final heads as the shape of Dopey’s face and head changes. It’s a beautiful piece of animation. The volume remains completely intact as everything else about the head shifts. Yet, the whole feels as though it retains its form. Using graphic distortion, the scene becomes funny and strong and is wholly Dopey in a three dimensional way.
I’d like to know what an Assistant got to do.

I have to admit I was amazed in doing this simple little exercise of taking the drawings – despite the fact that some are missing – and put them on one’s and simply run them one after the other to make the QT film at the end. Yet, once I put the drawings into motion, they became something else. It’s quite the heart and soul of what animation really is.

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Dopey drains.

Animators don’t always get the proper attention. Take these two examples I found this week:

Me

I found this article in Variety, this week; Tues. Sept. 2nd.

‘Man on Wire’ adds related short
Jake Gyllenhaal narrates animated ‘Towers’
By BRIAN COCHRANE

“Man on Wire” is throwing out another line.
Beginning Friday, select screenings in L.A. and Gotham will be followed by animated short “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers,” based on Mordicai Gerstein’s Caldecott Award-winning children’s book.

The 2005 short is narrated by Jake Gyllenhaal and, like “Man on Wire,” centers on Philippe Petit’s 1974 wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

“The Man Who Walked Between the Towers” will screen after showings of “Man on Wire” at the Landmark Theater in Los Angeles and Landmark’s Sunshine Cinema in New York City.

Magnolia Pictures, distrib of “Man on Wire,” hopes the short will broaden the doc’s appeal to family auds. “Man on Wire” just topped $1.5 million at the box office, making it one of the top-grossing docs of the year to date.

It would have been nice for Weston Woods, who is distributing the film, to have told me about this. I’m pleased, obviously, that the films have been paired, but by being left in the dark I’m not very happy. Note that my name doesn’t appear in the article despite the fact that I made the film.center>

Bill Plympton

I found this picture in the Oscars magazine, Academy Report. The picture was taken for the Monday Nights with Oscar series they held back in June. John Canemaker hosted an event of WB cartoons.

Unfortunately, they cut Joe Kennedy (John’s companion) out of the picture
and mislabelled Bill Plympton as Joe.
They also make no attempt to say which one is which name.

- I never got to meet Bill Melendez. However, I did speak with him. In 1976 I was writing an article for Millimeter Magazine. My task was to discuss the commercial scene in animation studios. Among those I contacted was the Melendez studio, and in the first call I got through to Bill Melendez, and we spoke on the phone for more than half an hour.

There was no doubt that I liked this guy. He was affable and friendly and giving. He made my job easy; he answered every one of my questions in depth. Of course, given the opportunity, I had to ask a number of questions that interested me personally about producing the many shows he was making, about his history at UPA, about a number of other impertinent items. I got no sense from Bill that he took this as off-topic, and I tried not to overstep my bounds too far. He invited me to meet with him the next time I was in LA (which I stupidly never did), and couldn’t have been more gracious.

I’m truly sad I didn’t meet him, and now it’s too late. I’m curious to see what will become of his studio; I hope the work continues there.

Bill Melendez obituaries are out there, and they’re not all identical.

Here’s:
Charles Solomon for the LA Times
the NYTimes
the Washington Post
Variety
AWN
Cartoon Brew still stands high.

The ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive has an interesting interview between Bill Melendez and Tom Sito.
Here’s an interview on YouTube.

With the Republican convention finishing up yesterday, it seems appropriate to post a few of the politically related cartoons which Irv Spector did. These were sent courtesy of Irv’s son, Paul. The comments from here on are Paul’s:

All but one — the McCay, natch’ — were done during my father’s time at MGM Tower 12 (The Jones era), and I would imagine — and I assume they were working on the The Pogo Special Birthday Special, and a “real” election year was also forthcoming. I tossed in the McCay which my dad seems to have had! (the answer is: I don’t know, but I do.) The others obviously pale in comparison.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

A Winsor McCay political cartoon.

This is the only Pogo I’m sending you, as it has a bit of “truth” to it,
and the others are kind of stock, although nice drawings.

(MS note: After I just about begged for more, Paul sent these three
drawings from the Pogo period. It’s likely they were drawn by Irv Spector.)

These last 3 are kind of my favorite sort of thing, where
the cartoonists were kind of doing them to amuse themselves
or each other. This is my father’s, although I guess I don’t
have to point out his style by this point.

I’m pretty sure this is my dad’s, but not 100%. Not sure if
you are up on the old California political 60′s, but the Brown is
Gov. Pat Brown (actually quite good, as politician’s go) who was
Jerry’s father, and of course Reagan was governor soon after.

This was done by Nick Gibson, if you can make out my father’s
presence of mind to write that credit halfway between the character
and the right border. Seems my father wasn’t above pontificating a bit
himself. Looks nothing like him, but any profundity is in the text.

Bill Melendez
- I was truly saddened to learn of Bill Melendez’ death via Cartoon Brew. I’ll have to collect my thoughts on this one, having just heard the news, and write a later piece.
Tom Sito also wrote a nice piece on his site worth reading.

Jules Engel
– There’s a new (to me) site set up for the appreciation of Jules Engel‘s work. There you can find a film by Janeann Dill Elegy for Jules which is just that, an abstract elegy. The site also includes a guestbook for others to leave memories or comments about Jules.

There is also a Facebook page for Jules Engel that’s worth viewing. On Saturday, September 13th, the fifth anniversary of Jules’ death, they are celebrating with a host of stories and writings about Jules on the Facebook page. “Everyone is invited to participate. Add a new discussion thread, or post drawings or animations or photos or video tales to share with those who knew him and with those who did not.”

• Here’s Janeann Dill‘s interview with Engel.
• Cartoon Modern displays some color designs Engel did for Magoo’s 1001 Arabian Nights, the Alvin Show, Gerald McBoing Boing and others. Worth the visit. The photo of Engel, to the right, is from Cartoon Modern.
• Asifa Hollywood’s Animation Archive posts some color keys for the Alvin Show by Engel.
• This is the Artsconversation page for Jules Engel including QT interviews and some of his artwork.
• For more information, here is a biographical page including chronology on Sullivangoss.com.

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- It’s quite hard not commenting on the ridiculous firestorm that’s arisen over this Vice Presidential pick of John McCain. The past few days have been filled with sexist photos, wacky stories and endless ravings of the psychotic fringe end of the Republican parties. Honorable good ol’ gals like Christie Todd Whitman and Olympia Stowe were pushed out of the way for the sexy, anti-abortion, hunter of the Alaskan north and comments about her. The stories have filled the airwaves and the emails to the point of exhaustion.

Watching her read the speech written for her by Matthew Scully (who also wrote Dan Quayle’s acceptance speech) was disconcerting. She hit an in-the-park homerun for the meat-eaters at the convention. The first ten minutes of the speech introduced her family; the next fifteen were given to attacking Obama. Since the bar was set so low for her, the fact that she could read was enough to get her to third base. The speech used humor, and Sarah Palin delivered the barbs well. Of course, no mention was made of what she or her running mate would do for the populace.

An interesting side note to the speech. According to the NYTimes, Matthew Scully, the speech writer, wrote the text on the teleprompter helpfully spelling the word “nuclear” phonetically — as “new-clear.”

I’m waiting to see her on the stump when there are no speech writers around and no John McCain stealing the screen as he wobbles behind her, impatiently waiting for her to finish so he can pander down to her.

By the way, what’s with this Republican Party? Are they all white, fat and over 60? That’s how it looks on tv. Tonight the “BIG” speech is scheduled, but we’ve all seen McCain give speeches in his angry intemperate way. I expect more of the same, but we’ll see. Hopefully, he’ll have some help.

- After last week’s popular post on cartoon skeletal systems, there’s only one thing that can top it, in my book.

Here are frame grabs from The Skeleton Dance. It was a monumental piece of film making at the time, using the soundtrack for more than noise. It advanced the music score by Carl Stalling to the front and made an important and historic attempt at animated art, It was “drawn” by Ub Iwerks (but not by himself.)

The short is part of the dvd, Disney Treasures : Silly Symphonies.
You can watch the film on line here.
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(Click any image to enlarge.)

- Since the new Little Mermaid sequel – no wait, it’s a prequel – has just been released, I thought this a good time to post some of Kay Neilsen ‘s illustrations done for Disney back in the 30′s when they were initially thinking of doing the film. These frame grabs come from the extras on the Platinum Edition of the dvd.

(Click any image to enlarge)

The following is a continuation of the piece that was posted last Friday. This is the remainder of Irv Spector‘s storyboard for the Paramount short, Galaxia. Paul Spector, Irv’s son, is the author of this piece. Paul’s notes, comments and more docs follow the storyboard.

Notes from Paul Spector:

Following are a few more Paramount/Famous items that of possible interest that my father boarded and sometimes animated as well. Some might make good accompanying pieces, or good for comparison, if you own the Harveytoons DVD, as that lacks any substantial info/extras. In a couple of these I’ve exposed my father’s ledger from this era (remember, he was freelancing) for the voyeur in you…and me.

What was the pay? The item on top named “Boris” is Galaxia, before it had a permanent title. The two Cats beneath it are different cartoons _________(Click to read full page)
using a repeating character during the same period.

L’Amour the Merrier (1957, Noveltoon). My father wasn’t above recycling his own themes. Preceding Galaxia by several years, in this, the matchmaker introduces himself as Louis Jacques Honore Napoleon Renoir. Hector the Garbage Collector wants to marry the kingdom’s princess. Renoir ends up with the princess, Hector with Renoir’s sister.

(click any image to enlarge.)

Le Petite Parade (1959, Modern Madcap). The title of this cartoon is the answer to one of the more frequently encountered questions on cartoon websites: “Does anyone know the name of the cartoon where a weekly parade goes by a house, and the sanitation truck that follows hits a bump and always leaves a pile of trash at the front door?” Yet again, the homeowner is a matchmaker, although that has little to do with the plot.

Sir Irving and Sir Jeames (1956, Noveltoon). Servant and master role reversal after protracted period of mistreatment.

Abner the Baseball (1961, two-reeler). Abner is an anthropomorphized baseball who narrates about getting banged around in a game, climatically about a long home run by Mickey Mantle. This was written and narrated onscreen by Eddie Lawrence, a popular comedian of that era who also usedthe bit in his act. Actually shy of a full two reel by a few minutes, I believe this was Paramount’s animated-short entry for an Oscar. Here is the beginning of the script accompanied and my dad’s ledger.

(Click to read.)

Chew Chew Baby (1958, Noveltoon). Yanked from airing on television due to the cannibalistic theme. Likely for the same reason it is not on the Complete Harveytoons DVD. That’s a shame because it moves along better than most, mainly the result of Sparber’s direction pushing it along – he didn’t get to direct too many — and the spot-on obsequious and condescending voice work of the American toward the pygmy. This rough model of the pygmy is not exactly as he appears in the cartoon, but it’s all I have.