Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Maspeth is a small, industrial part of Queens. The neighborhood is semi-suburban with a lot of row houses and small front lawns/gardens. There’s a large catholic contingency within the area, and, consequently, the statuary on the lawns tends to offer more than lawn-jockeys; the lawn-madonna is also a staple.

Steve Fisher lives in Maspeth, and has captured a number of these Madonnas on film. Here are some of his collection.

Here’s the standard for local lawn-Madonnas.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Sometimes they have to be wrapped in Saran Wrap to
protect them from the crazy weather we’ve had lately.

Here, the Madonna becomes Our Lady of Fatima when
two small children-statues are placed kneeling in front of her.
Of course, the lawn-jockey was also one of the witnesses at Fatima.

It’s rare to see Joseph be honored with his own lawn statue.
Fortunately, he’s protected.

The entire holy family gathers with a different
kind of security protection.

Perhaps the protection can get outa hand.

I’m not sure the chef-pig offers any protection at all.
Perhaps the Madonna-in-the-shadow is protecting him.

We all know that it’s hard to keep the flamingoes from
gathering around the Madonna when they see her.

Naturally Christmas brings more, different, surrounding statuary.
This is a fully grown Jesus (with sacred heart exposed) for Christmas.

Mary naturally would be surrounded by a
deformed Santa and a wierd football player.

The one Wise King stands alone.
I take that back, he stands with a ghostbuster.

And, of course, just in time for Halloween,
the Madonna meets varied spooks and goblins.

Thanks, again, to Steve Fisher for his great pictures.

– NYC is currently celebrating Maurice Sendak. This obviously has all to do with the release of the new Spike Jonze feature based on the book, Where the Wild Things Are. The artwork, twelve drawings and two manuscript pages, will be on view in the Morgan Library‘s historic McKim building. The exhibit extends from now through Nov. 1st. (There’s a hefty admission fee – @12 – to the museum, but they also have a William Blake exhibit on display. As their catalogue reads: on display are “Blake’s most spectacular watercolors, prints, and illuminated books of poetry to dramatically underscore his genius and enduring influence.”)

The Animazing Gallery is featuriing another Sendak show. On display will be more than 200 pieces by Mr. Sendak. There will also be etchings, limited editions and posters for sale.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the site Terrible Yellow Eyes, but I thought I’d mention it in case there are those who are not. It’s a site built to post artwork by invited artists who were inspired by Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. There are a lot of good, creative pieces on display at this site.

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– As you all may or may not know, I’m working hard to put together an animated feature length biography of Edgar Allan Poe. I have become somewhat addicted to information about Poe and have continually sought more. Even though the script is complete and some of the voices are recorded, I’ve been planning some significant changes to the scope of the script and story. Naturally enough, I have a site dedicated to this film (Poestory.net) and infrequently update information in the production notes section.

This is the 200th anniversary for Poe, and two interesting events have come to my attention:
. The NYTimes reported that two ceremonial burials will be held for E. A. Poe this coming Sunday to celebrate the author. Poe’s death was so peculiar that he ended up buried in a pauper’s grave, then moved to the current grave. Fewer than 10 people attended the original service. The city of Baltimore is hoping to get it right this time.

. Secondly, The Baltimore Museum of Art has just opened a show that features artwork that celebrates Poe and his stories. Lots of Manet (who did an illustrated version of The Raven – above right – in 1875), Odilon Redon and even a Robert Motherwell.

I’m seriously thinking about making a trip to Baltimore, soon.

- The Rowland Wilson storyboard sequence from Don Bluth’s A Troll in Central Park, which I posted yesterday, had lots of interesting bits. This is made more evident by the number of great models Rowland did for the sequence. Thanks to Bill Peckmann‘s collection, there are many of these to post, and I think you’ll find them interesting. They’re what you want in a model; they excite interest in animating those characters. At least, that would be the case for me.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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A slight adjustment gives a new variant.

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Here, additionally, are more anmial and plant character models for the film.

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Once again, many thanks to the gracious Bill Peckmann for the loan of Rowland Wilson‘s work. I’m a big fan, and it’s a pleasure to even veiw these models never mind post them.

- In the past I’ve posted the series of booklets that Disney released via the Art Corner at Disneyland. How To Draw Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Pluto have been posted. The only one left is How To Draw Chip & Dale. Thanks to Bill Peckmann, I can post this last booklet.

The past booklets I posted were actually rereleased publications that were stapled together and handed out at the Lincoln Center celebration for all things Disney back in 1973.
This Chip & Dale book, however, is the real thing. It was an original published in 1955.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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This is the inner cover which iss a thin cardboard.
as opposed to the yellow pages of paper.

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The directions tell you to flip the pages to see the movement.

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However this page is printed on the back of page 15,
and it’s impossible to flip. It doesn’t matter since the two drawings
aren’t registered to each other and flipping doesn’t work.

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This page appears in all of the booklets.

Here’s a QT of the walk cycle on pg 12.

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Chip cycle on threes.
Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

Go here to see the lecture series posts:
Mickey / Donald / Goofy / Pluto
Here to see How To Draw Mickey.
Here to see How To Draw Donald.
Here to see How To Draw Pluto.
Here to see How To Draw Goofy (Jenny Lerew‘s Blackwing Diaries.)

I once pointed out that a good walk should be drawn
with the two feet a distance apart from each other.
This creates a sense of depth in that walk. You might look
for this when you see other walks on line. You’ll be
surprised at how many professionals do it and how many
beginners don’t. Lately the latter is beating the former.

- The last post to focus on Paul Julian’s work, pulled images from the credit sequence to Roger Corman‘s film, The Terror. Corman used Julian for a number of title sequences, and I hope to showcase several of them here.

However, the print selection is not the best. In this post taking frame grabs from Swamp Women, the print includes an obviously added on title card using B&W footage. The color film that follows is so deteriorated and choppy, in this print, that it’s hard to discern what color the original art was. So I’ve tempered it a bit to get rid of the magenta look. I suspect I’m getting close.

The imagery is definitely Julian’s. He had an obvious Ben Shahn influence to some of the work although he gets a bit more surreal in his compositions and designs.

There are fewer camera moves in this title. I’m sure the budget was low. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were in the hundreds (not thousands) of dollars.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

This first title on the rented DVD looks like it was pulled from a B&W print.

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– The news that a McDonalds will be built within the Louvre is something of a shock to the system. For some reason, I would’ve thought this had happened years ago. Doing it now is somhow passé.

Last year we did a little short from the feature storyboard done a million years ago, based on Tom Hachtman’s comic strip Gertrude’s Follies. The segment involves Gertrude and Alice introducing Pabs (Picasso) to his first hamburger. Since our story takes place in Paris, they’re at a MacDonald’s within shooting distance of the Eiffel Tower. Had I known there would be a Mickey Dee in the Louvre, it would have been more appropriate to put it there.

Maybe we should redo the short.

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- Last week Amid Amidi started several threads of a conversation about te economics of posting films on line. This was followed up by Mark Mayerson on his blog, going into contracts with some depth.

This all followed some thoughts I’d been having about a short film we did in this studio last year. I entered it into one Festival and was soon rejected. Since then I’ve been sitting on it, debating how to exploit it.

It’s the film, discussed above, the pilot for the Gerturde’s Follies film. It was just a kick making it in the studio in between a couple of paying jobs. I wouldn’t mind doing more of them and might actually go ahead with that idea. But for now, I’m making the rash decision to post the film here and now. I’m only going to keep it up for a week or so, and then I’ll replace it with some stills. But for now I’ll forego Frederator’s $50 or Cartoon Brew’s $200.

An image from the cover of Tom’s book
collecting some of the Gertrude Strips. ________________
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- On the NYTimes website John Lasseter talks about the “digital archeology” behind adapting Toy Story and Toy Story 2 into 3D movies. He doesn’t really say much, but you can hear his voice saying it while looking at stills from both films. (For actual information, read the accompanying article.) Lasseter sounds tired and listless, as if he were in the middle of a junket and had repeated this material a hundred times that day.

This slide-show feature on the NYTimes site often has some interesting bits to show or explain. The slide sow for Shane Acker’s 9 offered some details about the production design for the film. Similarly, for Coraline, Henry Selick takes us on a tour of shooting 3D with puppet animation. He details the differences between the real and the “other” worlds of Coraline. Lots of stills of drawings, puppets, people in process and screen shots illustrate the excellent narrative. For Pixar’s Up, Pete Doctor takes us on a backstage tour of the character development behind the film. There are lots of models and early stills of artwork as they get to the characters. Each character also has its own sound cue. This is a sophisticated talk from Pixar, one wonders why so shoddy for the 3d re-releases.

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Daniel Thomas MacInnes writes on his The Ghibli Blog that Miyazaki is working on not one but two features: one for 2011, the other for 2013. Daniel doesn’t have titles or news about what the films are about, baut he does investigate the idea that two films would be so closely produced, back-to-back. Interesting if you’re a Miyazaki fan. ________________ .
The Shadows Dream is the latest Op Ed animation offered via the NY Times by Jeff Scher.

The intro on the Times site reads:
“Fall’s later sunrises bring longer shadows to the morning rush hour. On any particularly sunny morning, the shadows of people in the city seem to constitute a fleeting parallel universe at our feet.”

Jeff is really on to something with this piece, and I can imagine it going a lot further than it does here. I hope he continues with these experiments. Again, Shay Lynch’s music is exceptional. (I’m curious to hear the score he wrote for Paul Fierlinger’s feature.)

John Canemaker has loaned me a scene of drawings by Frank Thomas from the Jungle Book. Actually, they’re not the actual drawings but s/s xeroxed copies.

75 drawings in all, I’m going to post this scene between Mowgli and Kaa, the snake, however, I’ll have to break it up into a couple of posts. Here’s the first part, and I’ll follow up next Monday with more. Eventually we’ll post them all and have a QT movie of the full scene.

I’m not a fan of this film, however, I can’t deny the animation is mostly excellent and sometimes brilliant. Needless to say, Frank Thomas delivered some beautiful work. This scene is a typical example of his work even though it’s not one that calls attention to itself.

In studying the scene you might pay attention to what is on one’s (1-12) as opposed to what is on two’s (13-27) and figure out why.

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(Click any image to enlarge to full animation paper size.)

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More to follow next Monday.

Here’s the QT of all the drawings from this scene.

[ Javascript required to view QuickTime movie, please turn it on and refresh this page ]

Mowgli & Kaa
Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

Back in August, 2007 I offered this post of the subway art at the Prince Street station on the BMT. It’s still there and still just as interesting. So here’s a reminder.

- As I stepped into the BMT subway station at Prince and Broadway, I was taken by the tile work that had been introduced to this station since I’d last entered it.

In the old days, the elaborate tiles would decoratively detail the name of the station. As a matter of fact, it’s quite extraordinary that there’s such beautiful work throughout the subway system, and even more extraordinary that they still keep it up.

Anyway, throughout this station, the tiles depicted silhouettes of different riders and working personnel. Everything from the student to the station cleaners. I did a little bit of research and found that Janet Zweig, who designed it, says that the frieze, “…celebrates the significance and individuality of the citizens of New York. … It depicts 194 silhouetted people … taken from photographs of New Yorkers in all their variety… arranged as a 1200 foot narrative that contains smaller dramatic narratives within it.” The artwork was installed in 2004. I guess it’s been a while since I’ve been in this station.

While waiting for the N train to arrive, I had to snap some stills.

The brushes this guy carries either makes him a chimney sweep
or a subway cleaner.

Here’s a student off to school. He looks like he’s out of the 1920′s.

This guy’s either going to clean the station or
about to mug this woman searching for her wallet.

Oh, wait. Is that the same guy about to empty the trash can?
The other two 1920′s Yuppies are trying to keep their distance.

Here’s a closeup. They look exhausted and as though they’re arguing.

A closeup of the guy with the trash.

Here are two more shoppers. Looks like they bought a rug.

My train comes into the station, and I can’t photograph them all.

From the window of the train I shot some more of these silhouette people.
Eventually I’ll come back to see who else is there.

Here’s a piece originally posted in June 2006. I thought of it when I recently came upon my book of Toonerville Trolley comic strips. I thought I’d like ot post some more, but think it might be worth reposting the following first

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- I’ve been a big fan of the “Toonerville Folks” for a long time. I didn’t find the strip for a while. When I was young, a local TV channel, an ABC subsidiary, ran a lot of old silent Aesop’s Fables. They had classical music backing them up; usually Bizet filled the bill.

One year they upgraded by throwing a number of the Van Buren shorts in betwen the Terry silent films. These Van Buren films, many of them directed by Burt Gillette or Tom Palmer, were odd. There were a number of films with Greek gods as their stars. Then came the shorts with Molly Moo Cow and those with the Toonerville Trolley characters.

I liked these and learned from the credits that they were adapted from a comic strip by Fontaine Fox. So, I sought out the comic. Of course, in those days, prior to computers, all you had was the library to research things. My local branch had only one or two examples of the comic strip which ran from 1915 through 1955.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

The animated shorts were made in the mid-thirties when Van Buren tried a run to improve their films. Neither sound and color nor the acquisition of the rights to this strip didn’t help; even the “terrible tempered Mr. Bang couldn’t help.” The studio closed before the decade had ended.

In 1978 I worked with R.O. Blechman as his Assistant Director to put together the PBS show, Simple Gifts. This was a package of six segments woven around Christmas themes with a number of different illustrators designing the segments. One of them, the one I was most attracted to, was The Toonerville Trolley. Blechman bought the rights from King Features (at an enormous price) for a four minute film in the middle of the program. I’d worked hard to get to animate the piece. I did a one minute sample of the film in my off time at night, and I thought it was pretty good. However, Blechman was afraid of losing me in the day-to-day operation of his studio. (We were doing more commercials than show, and I hated it.) Bill Littlejohn did a nice job of animating the entire Toonerville Trolley which was completely subcontracted out to him. That was probably appropriate since Bill worked at Van Buren when they originally produced these shorts.

- As promised last week, I’m here to offer another part of the storyboard for Don Bluth‘s film, A Troll in Central Park. As with the initial post, this board was drawn by the extraordinary artist, Rowland B. WIlson. Also as with part one, the material was graciously loaned to me by designer, Bill Peckmann.

I don’t have a copy of the film or I’d offer some frame grabs for comparison. Though perhaps we’re better off just accepting Rowland’s work for itself. This film was one of the last of the Sullivan-Bluth films out of the Irish studio. They subsequently moved to Arizona to do Anastasia for Fox.

Looking at these boards I began to wonder what Rowland would have done had he directed a film, himself. Perhaps the closest is the Trans-Siberian Express, Pushkin/Vodka commercial done at Richard Williams’ studio in the 1975. I wouldn’t mind owning a copy of that first spot they did.

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Next up, we’ll post a stash of Rowland’s models for this film.

Here are a couple of short clips from this film on the Bluth site: #1, #2
Sections of the film are also currently on YouTube. Here’s Part 1.