Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- In April 1944, Coronet Magazine printed an article about George Pal and the making of one of his very successful shorts done for Paramount. He had been nominated for seven Oscars for the shorts which included When Tulips Bloom, John Henry and the Inky Poo, and Dr. Seuss’ The 500 Hats of Bartholemew Cubbins, and he was given a special Oscar in 1943 for his puppet work.

The short featured is Jasper Goes Hunting. This is one of the last of the films featuring this character, a holdover from the racist days of yore. Sort of a puppet version of Harman-Ising’s Bosco.

Pal’s style animated puppetry involved lots of replacement parts. If you wanted to move an arm, you had to create a dozen arms which would be replaced from frame to frame. It’s a very time consuming process and offers lots of opportunity of messing up a shot and having to start over.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Note that Jerry Beck on Cartoon Brew just recently directed us to an auction
of many of George Pal’s puppets. Some of the puppets for the film featured
in Coronet are among those up for sale. This is the link to the auction.

- Straight from the collection and the kindness of Bill Peckmann comes these three photo captures of a presentation board from Bambi.

One of the photos is missing, consequently on the first picture every other group of four panels is gone. If you look at photos #3 & #4, you’ll see that they should be read across. The top 4 images from #3 should be followed by the top 4 images from #4; then onto the second row.

The same should be true of photos #1 & #2, but #2 is missing. What’s here is so good, though, that I’m posting it just the same.

As with past boards, I post the boards/photos as they came to me. Then I break them up (putting them into proper order) a row at a time. This is to be able to offer you the highest res copy of all.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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And now the breakdown of these three boards:

Here are some model sheets that relate to this material:

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If you’re interested you should check out past posts on Rico LeBrun’s animal anatomy lessons: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

There are another three pages of storyboard that I’ll post soon. Again, many thanks to Bill Peckmann.

- Time to turn the Sunday photo section over to friend, Steve Fisher. He took me at my word when I said I was looking for images of things at the tops of buildings.

He sent the following stunning pictures, and what can I say. Here they are:

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Here’s a shot of the SONY building, which was once the AT&T building.
This is when it was under construction – dead center.

For reference, here’s what it looks like now.
(Pic pulled from AT&T site.)
It was designed by Phillip Johnson.

This and the following images were taken from
SOHO around Green Street.

A pretty mess.

This next group of photos was taken from above
Cooper Union (above), the historically famous Arts school
in Greenwich Village where Third meets Fourth.

Steve was able to get some clear shots of other rooftops
and even another view of the Cooper clock.

Steve writes: The new building at Cooper Union is largely sheathed
with perforated metal panels that act as a sun screen.

The views out to the rooftops of the surrounding buildings thus have
a texture to them that make for some interesting photos, but I would
find annoying as a workplace.

Imagine having a class at Cooper Union, looking out at this.

From a terrace on the building, Steve was able to get
these shots. Here’s looking uptown.

An overburdened rooftop.

On the terrace, there is a ‘green roof’, part of the environmentally
sound design, and a stone eagle that once adorned old Penn Station.

This one, in Queens, shows what many are doing to their modest,
attached brick homes – adding another story, with little regard to the
scale of the neighborhood or how it looks to their adjoining neighbors..

That’s not unlike what happened in San Gimignano,
and we all herald that as great stuff.

And we end in Queens with a something iscious.

- Last Saturday, I posted a couple of pages of a Terrytoon walk cycle from the book by Gene Byrnes, The Complete Guide to Cartooning. This book has a full chapter on MGM cartoons which is credited to Fred Quimby as writer. The book was a strong inspiration for me when I was a kid, and it still sends a chill up my back and gets me wanting to animate when I look at a couple of those images.

I mentioned this chapter last week and have debated whether to post it. I’ve seen it on line at the blog Sweaterthieves (they posted many of the pages), and the ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive has posted seven of the chapters that deal with specific cartoonists. However, this chapter seems to warrant some higher resolution images, and I’ve decided to place it here in case you haven’t seen it or don’t know it.

By the way, if you can identify any of the animators or people in the photos, please leave a comment.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Upper right: Preston Blair / Bottom: Asst Animator Tom McDonald

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Upper: Max Maxwell head of checking / Bottom: Irv Spence

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Middle: (standing) Tex Avery (seated> composer Scott Bradley

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Upper left: (standing) Animator, Mike Lah

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And like Sweaterthieves, I’m enlarging the photo of the storyboard. Without the benday pattern and at a higher res, it’s a little easier to read blown up.

This book also includes some pretty great (non-animation) cartoonists. I’ll pick out a handful and post them next week. I still remember every page from my childdhood when I borrowed this book countless times from my local public library.

- Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs came with a lot of advance on-line promotion. However, it opened today, and I didn’t have a clue. The film seems to have snuck into town on tip toe. Not even bus and subway ads in NY. I’ve seen one ad – two weeks ago – on TV. Even Ponyo had 2 commercials on broadcast TV (that I saw). There were NO newspaper ads.

So the film opens in NY officially unannounced, and the newspapers gave back in kind. All of the reviewers who reviewed the film were not the lead critics; as a matter of fact most weren’t even the seconds. The Village Voice hasn’t even reviewed the film yet!

Don’t these marketing experts, hired by the big studios, realize they could make a buck with these films! Two of the last year’s biggest money making movies were animated. Ice Age III and UP. Half a billion dollar potential is worth a few ads!

Surprise! surprise! It so happens that the majority of them actually liked the film. That has something to do with the good will Judy and Ron Barrett‘s book brings with it, but the film has to stand on its own. Actually, it doesn’t even resemble the book anymore – except for the book’s main story. (As a matter of fact, it looks very ho hum – like 90% of the other cg features dumped on us.

Hopefully, the film will do well and more attention will be paid in the future. Here are some links to the NY papers:

- The third tier writer at The NY Times, Daniel M. Gold, said: In a year in which Hollywood’s 3-D animated films have seemed to set the genius of Pixar’s “Up” against the dubious best of everything else, the impulse to take a break from computer-generated family fare is understandable. (Any urge to see “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” again? I thought not.)
What! No slide show on the Times for this one?
- The second string reviewer for The NY Daily News, Elizabeth Weitzman, gave it Four Stars and said: “Unless you’re on your way to Disney World by way of Hersheypark, ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’ is very likely the most fun your family will have this month.
- Even The NY Post doesn’t put up their lead critic. Kyle Smith wrote the only negative review – Two Stars:”The animated movie greatly expands on the kids’ book on which it’s based in a clever and engaging first half. But the second half leaves a foul aftertaste. Slapdash action scenes play against dreary warnings to fear wealth and beauty. “

Congratulations to those who made it into the Holland Animation Festival scheduled to take place in Utrecht from the 4th to 8th of November. Americans in competition include:

Non-Sponsored Films:
Chris Ware – Quimby the Mouse

Alex Budovsky – Royal Nightmare

Elliot Cowan – The Stressful Adventures of Boxhead

Sponsored Films:
Michael Jantze – Hilton Hotels: Mr. Lux in ‘At your Service’
George Griffin – Lorraine Feather: You’re Outa HereBoxhead and Roundhead in a stressful situation

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For the complete lists of films in competition go here.

- For those who were not aware of it, I have a site designed to showcase the feature we’re putting together, Poe.
This site is called PoeStory.net and it contains clips, artwork and production updates about a long-in-process film. I hope to see it moving sooner rather than later, and this site allows me to keep in touch with it.

You can also find the some of the same material on my studio website at MichaelSpornAnimation.com. Once on the home page click the black cat which links to POE.

By the way, that site – on the Home Page – gives the scheduled times many of my films run on HBO (they repeat monthly.)

- Bill Peckmann loaned the book of collected Good Housekeeping illustrations that were publishrf bryeen 1938 through 1944. (The illustrations actually began in 1934 and were printed complete in an interesting recent book called Mickey and the Gang which was edited by David Gerstein. That book includes so much more than these illustrations – including the text that went with the illustrations. However, I like the printing, on non-glossy paper, of the 1987 book.)

I’ve done two other posts of these illustrations (part 1, part 2) and finish them up with this piece.

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The Victory March, August 1942

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Lake Titicaca, December 1942

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Pluto and the Armadillo, February 1943

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Pedro, March 1943

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Pluto wins A Victory Through Air Power, April. 1943

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Donald Duck Home Defense, August 1943

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Victory Vehicles, September 1943

This edition, published in trhe Alexander Gallery catalogue
is really just the upper half of the strip.

Here’s the whole strip as printed in
Mickey and the Gang.
More white no colored grays.

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From 1943 on, the illustrations became “New Tales from Old Mother Goose.”
This was a revision from “Donald Duck’s Mother Goose” that had
appeared in Mickey Mouse Magazine, published in the 1930′s.
Hank Porter and his writers dealt with a more limited subject in a
more comic-strip sense and used the two color process during the war.

Mickey an Minnie Went Up the Hill, October 1943

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Hickory Dickory Dock, February 1944

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Little Miss Muffet, May 1944

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Hickety, Pickety, June 1944

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Don be Nimble, Don be Quick, July 1944

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Little Robin Redbreast, August 1944

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Humpty Dumpty, September 1944

- Here are a couple of Pinocchio storyboard sequences from the collection of Bill Peckmann. The boards are stated in a relatively small format. I’ve scanned them in at a high res and am placing them here in smaller sections so that they’re legible – at least in the blown-up versions.

Pinocchio is duped by some cads. These are the three full sized boards which take us through the nose-grows sequence (minus Stromboli).

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Now here are those same three boards broken into sections.

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Of course, if we’re talking about studying Pinoochio, I have to direct you back
to the drafts on Hans Perk‘s great site and
the mosaics on Mark Mayerson‘s equally excellent blog.

- The brilliant artist/designer/background artist, Paul Julian, illustrated a stunner of a children’s book in 1953. Piccoli is the story of Piccoli Sogni (little dreams) a tiny girl who lives in a matchbox. A stranger gives her as a gift to a sad young boy. She helps to inspire him creatively.

The story is by Phillippe Halsman which he had written for his daughters. He was a celebrated photographer who worked with Salvador Dali on the book Dali’s Moustache. In 1958 he was chosen as one of the 10 greatest photographers in an Internation poll. His 1959 book, Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book, collected more than 200 recognized photographs.

Paul Julian, of course, is well known by animation enthusiasts as one of the principal background artists for many of the most famous Warner Bros cartoons. He also gained some fame for his art direction of the UPA masterpiece, The Tell-Tale Heart.

His work has always seemed just slightly this side of the surreal, to me. His color choices were masterful and the many backgrounds he did reflect his own style. See this excellent post by Hans Bacher on his important blog, Animation Treasures.

John Canemaker loaned me a number of color copies of the book, and I tried to get an accurate read on the colors from the copies, but I suspect they’re still a bit off. Here are Julian’s illustrations for Piccoli:

The inner cover of the book.

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At times the art looks influenced by Gregorio Prestopino.

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This is actually a composite of two different illustrations
on two separate pages in the book.

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- As I did with the past few Mondays, I’m posting some Disney model sheets on loan to me from the generous Bill Peckmann. Here we have Pinocchio. I’ve seen about half of these models before – usually in much worse states – though some of them are very new to me. (Check out #5, #11 & #20.) All are photostats and in fine shape. This film is an inspiration to any animator, so they’re fun to post.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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What! No Gepetto?

I do have this badly damaged 16fld cel. After all, he has to be represented. And when would I get a chance to show it off?

- Back in 1995 a film of mine, Whitewash, won the Humanitas prize. This is a Hollywood award for writing a film that celebrates humanity. (The official website says this: “Stories that affirm the human person, probe the meaning of life, and enlighten the use of human freedom.”) the award is presented to the writer. Ntozake Shange would receive the prize. I did the treatment, she wrote the first draft and I did the last two. I gave and give her full credit.

She didn’t want to go to the ceremony. It sounded like a treat to me, so I went out to pick it up for her. (There was also one for me.)

I flew to LA for the day and got there in time for the ceremony. When it came time, they called out her name (with a little difficulty), and I went up. My short thankful speech opened with, “It may surprise you but I’m not Ntozake Shange.” There was a big laugh from the group and just at that point, my day was made. There at the center front table laughing very hard was Larry Gelbart. Whatever else happened that day I don’t remember. I had made one of my writing heroes laugh. That was my real Humanitas prize. I also got to meet him later.

I was saddened to my core yesterday when I’d read that he had died. So many people this year, the grief is almost overwhelming.

- When you take a lot of photos looking for themes to present, you end up with a pictures that don’t quite belong, but they’re interesting enough to hold on to them. Today I’m going to stick my hand into that grabbag of picture leftovers and put them up as a bunch of photos that didn’t quite belong. About half of these were sent by my friend Steve Fisher. Since they’re the more interesting pics, I’ll group them all in the latter half.

As you know by now, I can’t get enough of Psychic shop photos.
I took this one of the only Psychic I’ve seen with an ATM shop
installed just outside the front door. Handy.

The other night, we had a full moon with lots of passing clouds.
This was the view from 59th Street and Lexington Ave for about
two full minutes. Clouds rolled in and covered it immediately.

The full moon might have explained this protected street lamp.

“Step away from the Saint.”
A gem from Steve Fisher.

I’ve always been a sucker for shots of grass with lots of deep focus.
Trite and clichéd, but it gets me going.

The same goes for telephoto shots capturing color temperatures.
I’m not good at taking these photos, but that won’t stop me.

Steve Fisher has a different kind of eye. He turns two overlapping
trees into a Jackson Pollack.

Just take a step or three back and
you get a different kind of Art.

Likewise his shot of this sky is more evocative.
Isn’t this a scene from Dumbo?

These shots of signs by Steve were more than evocative.
Our society inside out.

Steve shot these pictures at a local street fair in Queens.

Finally, how could I not end with a shot of the studio cat,
Robbie, watching PONYO dance across the waves.