Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- I guess I should have been crowing last week about the fact that my film, The Man Who Walked Between The Towers, is now available on ITUNES.
Just go to: ITUNES MUSIC STORE,
go to: MOVIES, click on “SHORT FILMS,
click on “SHORTS”. It costs $1.99.

- Speaking of this film, I say, with a bit of humility, that I’m overwhelmed by some of the recent comments about this movie of mine. Particularly so about Mark Mayerson‘s review on his site. Since I have such respect for Mark’s articles and posts, I was a bit overwhelmed at first. Let me tell you, it’s certainly nice to read such positive comments about the work. Thank you.

- Thanks to Amid’s Cartoon Brew notice about the article in the NY Times. This is a survey of the recent spate of cg feature failures glutting the market.

I expected, eventually, to read such an article since it’s been obvious that things haven’t been going well for some of these features. (Open Season opened this weekend to cheers for the $23 million take – bringing it into first place. But that is a far cry from the $90 million negative cost – not to mention the ad budget. It doesn’t look promising as a success story.

However, as Amid points out, the article gets interesting when we are able to hear, for the first time, that there is poor blood between Aardman and Dreamworks. Obviously, in making Flushed Away, Dreamworks tried to take some creative control, and the fur flew. Hence, they have separated ways, and Dreamworks will no longer be distributing Aardman‘s films.

More power to Aardman for not giving in despite the loss of a nice contract. It’s not often one hears of animators who stick to their guns despite probably financial loss.

I want to apologize to those with AOL. AOL had some problems reading our webhost. I think they’ve finally fixed it. Thanks for bearing with us.

- Though I have no immediate plans to see it on the big screen, I’m pleased that Open Season did fairly well at the box office. The film grossed $23 million on 3800 screens averaging $6000 per screen. It means the film will probably gross (in the U.S.) about $70 million. However, with the negative cost and ad budget I’m not sure it’ll leave much for profit.

That’s not bad considering how poorly Monster House and Everyone’s Hero did. (One wonders if Everyone’s Hero would have done better if had been released at the beginning of baseball season?)

The animation style of Open Season intrigues me a bit. I’ve seen some interesting movement and some really horrible cgi-like (meaning they let the machines do the action) movement in the trailers, and I want to see a bit more. The reviews were unanimous in panning the story, so I don’t expect much there. I’m also interested in seeing the direction of a converted 2D Director, Roger Allers, in a cgi world. Brad Bird did so well with his initial effort in The Incredibles. One would like to think Roger Allers might do the same. However, I’ve never been the biggest fan of the cgi animation Sony has done in the past. The Chubb Chubbs anyone? Their EFFX-cgi work is excellent.

I am curious to know how Roger Allers did both this feature at Sony and The Little Match Girl at Disney this year. I wanted to see the short at Ottawa, but my schedule didn’t work with theirs. It’s also interesting to note that the official website has Roger (Lion King) Allers‘ bio but no mention of the other two co-directors: Jill Culton and Anthony Stacchi.

- I thought I’d take this opportunity to announce a deal that’s just been struck.
Next Spring I’ll have two dvd’s released by First Run Films. These will both be a collection of my Hans Christian Andersen films: #1. The Red Shoes & The Little Match Girl and #2. The Nightingale & The Emperor’s New Clothes. (The last was not released on video or tv before. The video company that helped finance, forgot about releasing it before going out of business.)

(The Marzipan Pig – Click to enlarge.)

Then in the Fall another two will be released including: Abel’s Island, The Dancing Frog and The Marzipan Pig.

All four dvd’s will have extras: additional commentaries, documentaries produced, and lots of stills and graphics. These are fun to make, and we’re starting to plan now.

- Mark Mayerson pointed me to an article in today’s NYTimes about aging Independent Film makers. As an aging Independent Film maker, I found it very interesting. I like thinking I’m in the same category as John Sayles, Christine Vachon, and Errol Morris.

The new issue of PRINT Magazine has a couple of interesting articles. The ever-at-the-forefront-of-animation-news John Canemaker tells the story of The OpenEnded Group – Shelley Eshkar, Marc Downie, and Paul Kaiser – three artists who use the next technology of computer programming to create virtual dance programs in conjunction with some highly esteeemed dance companies (including Trisha Brown and Merce Cunningham) and performance groups.

An illustration from the article.
(Click to enlarge.)

This past summer they used “artificial intelligence” to reconstruct the coda of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony in a commission for Lincoln Center.

Canemaker’s article goes into some depth giving a good indication of the work of these artists.

- Secondly, the magazine has an article on NY Animator and designer, PES and talks about some of his films while using an impressive display of images to illustrate the article.

- Turner Classic Movies this morning at 11:30 AM has another episode of Cartoon Alley. It features three Popeye cartoons: Can You Take It (1934), which stars the voice of William Costello as Popeye, Child Psykolojiky (1941), one of the last Fleischer Popeyes, and Car-azy Drivers (1954) directed by Seymour Kneitel.

- Thanks to my good friend, David Levy, the award my film, The Man Who Walked Between The Towers, won at the Ottawa 2006 Festival made it into my hands. I had to leave the festival early, and David was kind enough to thank the judges for me and truck the award back home. (I can imagine what could have happened going through customs.)

The actual award (which came with a neat paper document) is a Phenakistiscope. Hold it up to a mirror spin while looking through the slits, and you should see the animated lady. There’s a beautiful green patina covering the bronze of the sculpture. Engraved into it are the words, “Ottawa 2006.” It’s neat.

Since I didn’t get to make a speech, I’d like to thank four people, again. Matt Clinton and Tissa David did the more brilliant animation in the film. Paul Carrillo did some poetic editing. Christine O’Neill managed the whole film and studio wonderfully. Thanks to them all.

And thanks to Chris Robinson and all at the Ottawa Animation Festival. It was a blast, and I have a great souvenir.

– There are other good reviews of the festival by Amid at Cartoon Brew and Mark Mayerson at his site, Ward Jenkins at the DRAWN site, and Bill Robinson at his.

- Suzan Pitt’s film El Doctor premiered on PBS, NY Wednesday night and will be rebroadcast this Saturday, September 30 at 2:30 p.m. Check local listings to see if it’s on in your area. I enjoyed the film.

- Tom Sito has a good article on the history of Animation Schooling. It’s interesting to see how things have grown from earlier days. Even from my earlier days.

- Another cgi animated animal feature opens today. Open Season gets a passing grade of *** stars in the NYDaily News, a negative from the NY POST (“NOBODY can accuse Sony Pictures Ani mation of aiming high with its maiden offering“) and a not-so-passing grade in the NYTimes. The opening line of the Times includes: … the 3-D Imax version, can’t disguise that this is just another movie full of jive-talking computer-generated animals with little new to say. Ouch.

- Here’s a followup to yesterday’s Merryweather dance. These are the frame grabs from the scene in the cottage featuring the Frank Thomas drawings posted yesterday.

Frank Thomas often complained about Eyvind Earle’s color design. He disliked the fact that the fairies had a black bodice. He was especially peeved over this sequence, and I heard him talk about it at least three times. He felt this anchored them to much to the ground and weighed them down. I’m not sure I agree with him; I think the character moves beautifully and retains the weightlessness he sought.

– I’ve enjoyed sharing some of the animation drawings I own via this site, and I hope to keep doing it. The drawings, to me, are so valuable in that they reveal the personality of the animators, even more than the finished films.

I have a bunch of copies of drawings by Frank Thomas from Sleeping Beauty. It’s the sequence in which the three fairies, within the hidden cabin in the forest, use magic to create a dress for Aurora.

Below, on the right, are some of the roughs from this scene. On the left are the final cleanups.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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- Disney doesn’t intend to release Song of the South anytime soon, but you can find the animated segments on line at Animation ID, Thad Komorowski‘s site.

See Part 1Brer Rabbit Runs Away, Part 2 The Tar Baby, or Part 3 Brer Rabbit’s Laughin’ Place.

These all line up with Mike Barrier‘s September 18th posting of the drafts.

Thanks, Thad. This is a nice copy of the film, and it’s good to see it again.

– The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has put up a nice posting by John Kricfalusi focussing on the “stars” of The Flintstones (read: Artists behind the scenes.)

These comments actually come from The Flintstones Laserdisc set, but it’s good to have them on line, including clips to back up the comments. We don’t all have Laserdiscs, and it’s great having accessibility to them.

- I arrived at the Ottawa Animation Festival a day late. I’d also have to leave a day early, so I found out after-the-fact that my film, The Man Who Walks Between The Towers, won the award for Best Children’s Short Film. A bonus treat.

This Festival is one of my favorites, and I enjoy attending it so that I can catch up with a lot of friends I see too infrequently, meet some filmmakers whose work I admire, and even catch up with some New Yorkers I don’t see often enough. This Festival is not too large, like Annecy, where you end up exhausted running ragged unable to keep up, nor is it too small that you spend much time trying to find things to do.

There are parties every night. Usually, I go and leave quickly. The thumping music, large crowds, dark lights, flashing spotlights and pulsating sound pushes me out. I understand the attraction, but I’m getting old. Give me some quiet conversation. This year an alternate to the parties was “Chez Ani” set up in a local bar filled with Constructivist Art posters and a manageable sound level with just the right crowd capacity to make things light but engender talk.

I met up with a lot of old friends I see too rarely. Some of these included: Amid Amidi, Mark Mayerson, Suzan Pitt, Jerry Beck, Emru Townsend, John Halfpenny, Janet Perlman, Skip Battaglia, Tamu Townsend, and Chris Robinson, himself.
There were new people to meet: Sabine Hitier, Julie Zammarchi, Peter Barg, David Nethery, Andrew Menter, John Libbey, and Konstantin Bronzit.
And there were the New Yorkers I see too infrequently: David Levy, George Griffin, Jeff Scher, Chris Boyce, and Pilar Newton. (I met too many people to mention, so please forgive if you don’t see your name.)

I always like the film selection at this Festival. It’s a touch on the dark side, which is generally to my taste. Some of the films I’d seen for the first time and enjoyed included:
Sabine Hitier’s Step By Step, Svetlana Filippova’s Sarah’s Tale, Regina Pessoa’s Tragic Story With Happy Ending, Simon Narath’s Leviathan, Run Wracke’s Rabbit, and Michaela Pavlatova’s The Carnival of the Animals.
Films I’d seen before but enjoyed revisiting included: George Griffin’s It Pains Me To Say This, Suzan Pitt’s El Doctor, Skip Battaglia’s Crossing The Stream, those United Airline ads, and Pes’ Game Over. Actually there were too many good ones to include.

All in all it was a fine Festival with many highlights. I’m glad I went and I can’t wait to get my hands on the award. Thanks to Dave Levy for accepting it for me; I couldn’t have found a better surrogate.

Here are some snaps I took. Excuse the focus problems. I bought the camera on Wednesday and still haven’t quite figured it out.

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1. The National Arts Center is the center of the Festival after Friday. Most screenings, meetings, and events are held here.
2. Chateau Laurier is the hotel where the Television Arts Conferences are held. Daily meetings and talks about the business side of animation.

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3. On Friday double-decker busses took us to this tent on the outskirts of town for the picnic. A lot of people are occupied with carving pumpkins for competion.
4. Inside, two lines of food are set up: sandwiches, chili, cake, beer. What more could we need?

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5. David Levy and Chris Boyce, with whom I ate, finishing their cake and beer.
6. In the mornings there’s a Q&A for filmmakers about their films. Tom Warburton and Kihachiro Kawamoto appear out of focus (a bad photographer) but their answers were sharp.

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7. Amid Amidi signs books on Friday night in the lobby of the National Arts Center.
8. Dave Levy and Chris Robinson sign books on Saturday evening. Chris’ publisher, John Libbey, confers with him.

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9. Jerry Beck and Robert Marianetti wait nearby for the start of the final shorts competition screening on Saturday.
10. The road from my taxi as I left on Sunday at 3:30 am. Long customs lines, stopovers in Philadelphia, lost and missing luggage all contributed to the Festival experience.