Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Well, it’s official. The last two weeks of this blog are gone for good, but my “Web Host” tells me they’re more efficient since upgrading their cables. For some reason, a number of links to my site on others seem to have broken. Thank you for your patience with this nonsense.

- There were three particular items that I want to repost since I thought them valuable. I know that’s unusal for a blog, but what the hell – this is a Splog.

I had posted some Letterman art, 3 pages of Pinocchio production drafts, and art from a couple of my films by Bridget Thorne. I’ll start today by putting up the Pinocchio drafts (which are at the end of this page.) I’ll use Saturday to post the Letterman material, and I’ll post Bridget’s art and backgrounds next week.

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- These three pages of the Production Drafts for Pinocchio finish off the “Little Woodenhead” sequence and have Gepetto introducing the puppet to Figaro and Cleo.

I have the sheets for this film through the Blue Fairy sequence and will post more of them next week.

- I’m still waiting for Disney to release a “Platinum” edition of Pinocchio. It’s arguably Disney’s best crafted film – certainly, it’s the highlight of the “Golden” era. It deserves extras up the kazoo. Unfortunately, these days the extras they offer from Disney don’t include the valuable commentary tracks of past DVDs. They offer games and puzzles for children. It’s sad for the collector to have to know what can be offered and accept what will be offered.

As I pointed out recently (lost to the archives) the Disney Rarities DVD is not the gem it should have been. Bad transfers, inadequate extras and no commentaries – other than the one for A Symposium On Popular Song by Richard Sherman which was added in a clumsy fashion making it pointless.

- Mark Kennedy has been posting some invaluable notes on color and composition by the late, Rowland Wilson. All you artists out there should take a look at these documents. I first met Rowland back at Phil Kimmelman‘s studio on “Conjunction Junction” for Schoolhouse Rock. Dick Williams then introduced him to me years later at Raggedy Ann & Andy. The guy was a consummate artist and a powerhouse of knowledge about his craft. You’ll have no doubt about it once you look at these notes.
Mark has a interesting, very informative site. I look forward to visiting it every day.

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- This is my second attempt at posting this LIFE Magazine story on Rooty Toot Toot from a March, 1952 issue. They obviously enjoyed the UPA films back then, and luckily for us they posted it on something concrete – like paper.

Next Sunday, March 26th there will be a UPA program to be held at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. The films scheduled include:

Bobe Cannon’s “Gerald McBoing-Boing”, John Hubley’s “Rooty Toot Toot”, Ted Parmelee’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Pete Burness’s “When Magoo Flew”, as well as shorts produced for “The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show”, “Deerfoot Dan” and “Blues Pattern”.

There will also be a preview of a forthcoming documentary THE BOING THAT SHOOK THE WORLD.

In between the films there will be two panels hosted by Jerry Beck. His guests will be: UPA animators and designers including Bill Melendez, Alan Zaslove, Willis Pyle, Fred Crippen, and Sam Clayberger. There will also be contemporary artists: Mark Kausler (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, THE LION KING), Lou Romano (production designer of Pixar’s THE INCREDIBLES) and author/historian Amid Amidi.

It sounds like an amazing show that I only wish I could attend. I’ll have to satisfy myself with those amazing studio photos posted by Amid on the Cartoon Modern site.

Sunday, March 26 – 6:00 PM
The Egyptian Theater
6712 Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood, CA 90028

Where did I leave off ?

On Monday, a couple of hours after I posted a story about Rooty Toot Toot, my site went down and took the SPLOG with it. It’s been a tough couple of days trying to deal with the “upgrade” of my Web Host. They got the site back yesterday, and it’s taken till now to get this much of my blog back. (I guess I was given a “downgrade.”) It looks like my last two weeks worth of material has disappeared into their database . . . or maybe it’ll show up in a couple of hours. Who knows? (You can’t trust computers, these danged things!)

As soon as I get my “Image Browser” back, I’ll reconstruct last Monday’s UPA posting and try to go on from there. If the last two weeks were lost, I’ll try to recover some of what I posted this coming weekend.

In the meantime, on a lighter note, there’s a funny bit about a custody battle in Sweden fighting over a Donald Duck comic book. Go to the end of today’s “Arts, Briefly ” NYTimes article.

- Today I give you a stereo painting by Oskar Fischinger. Jeff Scher pointed it out to me, and I thought it too stunning an image to keep to myself.

Just place it in your stereoptican viewer and see it in 3D. Alternatively, hold it up to your nose, and slowly pull it away until the two images fuse into one. Or, as I prefer, just enjoy it as is.

(Click on images to enlarge slightly.)

This image came from the Artscenecal site. To see another of Oskar Fischinger’s stereo paintings go here.

Stereoscopic imagery is quite an interesting offshoot in the art world. It’s fascinating that Fischinger would have been so involved in it. Salvador Dali was also interested. You can find a number of his images on line at 3D Gallery Anaglyph, however you’ll need your red and blue glasses to view them properly.

– To give you an idea of our studio and its makeup, I thought it worth posting some photos of the physical space. These were all photographed by Paul Carrillo, our brilliant editor.

This photo gives you an idea of what you see as you first enter the studio. This is the main room, where much of the action takes place. Animator, Matthew Clinton is working in the far corner on his computer. Laterally across from him (several stations down from the moviola) is Paul’s desk. I like the open feeling of it.

This photo shows the reverse of the one above; it’s taken from Paul’s desk facing the front desk. The front door is out of frame to the left.

We’re animating-coloring-completing a Rosemary Wells story. Unlike most of the films based on her books, this is an original story of hers which tries to encourage young children to read. The title and art styling come from another book of hers.

Mary Chapin Carpenter sings a new song written for the film.
(Click on images to enlarge.)

Matt’s almost finished with his sequence and is compositing it in color. By the time he’s done with his section, I’ll be done with mine and the two of us will animate the finale/song sequence together. We’re actually using art from a book done by Rosemary to illustrate some of the song, but we’ve mixed an animated band in with it. Bunnies.

- If you’ve been following the Production drafts that I’ve been posting here, you may want to follow-up on Michael Barrier‘s site today. He has definitive comments by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston about assigning credit, historically, from the listings on the drafts. It obviously makes sense. These drafts help locate scenes in production – the person listed on the draft was the last one to work on it. Anyone who had come before was taken out of the picture – dropped from the drafts.

- At AWN, Chris Robinson has written a very good article about George Griffin‘s latest animated short, It Pains Me To say. Robinson does more than review the film; the article is an analysis, inspired by the film, of the entire process of animation, Griffin, and film making. A good read about a film we’ve been waiting to see.

- Meanwhile, if you’re at all pumped up about the Oscars & animation, you should take another look at the films on AWN’s animation showcase. It’s a great service the site offers us.

- With all the brouhaha over Oswald, maybe it’s time to give the original superstar some attention. Mickey has been left behind and ignored by the Disney studio, itself, for the past how-many-years showing up in a couple of distorted cgi abominations and otherwise used for nothing more than a theme park escort.

It’s very nice that Oswald is back in the fold, but when you have a licensed character – many licesnsed chararacters that have been so abused by the current owners, it’s hard to get excited for what we’ll see of Oswald in the future. I expect John Lasseter will only be able to do so much. The bigger guys (marketeers) still run the front office.

This box of Big-Little coloring cards was given to me as a gift many years ago. It’s fun every once in a while to flip through them.

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- The ASIFA Hollywood Archive’s site has a good overview of Art Babbitt’s career with a short bio of Babbit by Tom Sito and a good filmography.

- Here’s another grouping of three production charts from Pinocchio. These sheets take us from where we left off into the “Little”Wooden Head” musical number.

A wider variety of animators enter the picture. Art Babbitt’s involvment with Gepetto puts him front and center, and it looks like Don Towsley is leading with Jiminy.

My original posting of the sheets for the opening sequence received a strong and positive reaction. A lot of good questions were posted, and I think most of them were answered by some astute, knowledgeable readers. I got quite a bit out of it and hope others did as well. I have sheets up through the Blue Fairy sequence, so I’ll keep posting them till I run out.

For some reason, I get a thrill just going over these sheets. I guess I’m just a sucker for these early films, and these sheets give me the feeling that somehow I’m in on it. I often wonder if the films being made today have the same effect on younger people; I hope they do.

(Click on any image to enlarge it to a readable size.)

– This is a camera layout for Gulliver’s Travels. It gives a good indication of how small the artwork was at times. The field guides look all off proportion. This layout was certainly just an indicator for the final layout, however it’s obvious that the guide they’re using is not the traditional Acme proportions but the ones Disney used at the time.
(Click on image to enlarge.)

(Hans perk on an earlier posting gave a field guide comparison chart – Acme to “Disney”. Check that out here.)

Also interesting is how thin the paper is: not the best quality and very transparent. The peg holes, of course, are those that were unique to the Fleischer studio.

A couple of things yesterday turned me toward the past.

- Three celebrities died over the weekend. I only had an actual communication with one of them. ABEL’S ISLAND was in the throes of new production. Tim Curry had been recorded and edited in London, and I was riding the high of his voice. We were about to record Heidi Stallings as Amanda, Abel’s wife and had one principal voice left to cast and record.

Darren McGavin was performing in a local off-Broadway production. His voice would be perfect for Gower, the frog, the only one to see Abel during his castaway year.

I searched high and low for an agent. I looked through all the guides. I called Actor’s Equity, SAG, NABET. No one had any link to him. Finally, in desperation I called the theater management and explained my position asking if they could kindly relay the message to Mr. McGavin’s agent or manager. It took a couple of days, and I received a call from Darren McGavin, himself. He was furious with me and took out his anger on the phone. The tone of the call was to ask how dare I go through the back door and insult him like this! I tried to be positive, I tried to be courteous, I tried to explain my low position. Eventually, he asked me to send him the script and he would consider it.

However, the bad footing I’d made could not be repaired, and I wanted no bad vibes to enter my film. Gower could have not a tad of anger in his existence. Lionel Jeffries, a brilliant character actor and director, was playing on Broadway opposite Peter O’Toole’s Henry Higgins. Lionel Jeffries voiced Gower brilliantly.

I’m truly sorry I did not get to work with Darren McGavin; I thought him a brilliant actor and a part of my mind’s ether. I’m sorry to see him gone.

- T. Bosustow visited yesterday and I reviewed any thoughts or comments I had about UPA’s films and personalities with him. The session remained with me, and thoughts of UPA were present all day. Rooty Toot Toot kept replaying in my mind to the point where I have to search it out and watch it today.

That film was an enormous influence on me.
I think it’s one of the top five animated films of all time and should be seen over and over by animators as a reminder of what their goals should be while working in this business.

If John Hubley had not had his company, Storyboard Productions, he still would have entered the animation pantheon because of this film.

Fortunately, those in LA will have an opportunity to see it projected on a big screen on March 26th at the Egyptian Theater.

My favorite photo of John Hubley.
(Click on images to enlarge.)

- To GOOGLE Rooty Toot Toot brings you to a small chatty comment on political radio broadcaster Wendy Wilde’s blog. There’s a short poem by Walt Kelly quoted there. It relates to the Blacklist permeating the entertainment business at the time of writing. (Maybe the film relates to this as well. Maybe both relate to what’s going on in the political air today.)

The rooty toot toot of the very minute,
The booty boot boot of the band,
The cutey cute cute of the less than astute,
Shivers and shudders the land.

I thank Kathryn Eagan for posting this poem on that site so I would get to see it.

-The Museum of Modern Art completes their tribute to current French animation this week. The schedule for the remainder of their film program is as follows:

Wednesday, March 1
6:00 The Dog, the General, and the Birds. 2003. France/Italy. Nielsen. 75 min. T1
2003. France/Italy. Directed by Francis Nielsen. Screenplay by Tonino Guerra, based on his book. With the voice of Philippe Noiret. Legendary Italian screenwriter Guerra—the author of films by Federico Fellini, Theo Angelopoulos, Vittorio De Sica, and Michelangelo Antonioni—tells the fantastic and brooding story of a Russian general who tries to thwart the advance of the Napoleonic forces on Moscow by using flocks of inflamed birds. As he lives out his last years in St. Petersburg, he is haunted by the memory of his barbarism toward the birds; aided by his faithful dog Napoleon, he tries to make peace with their brethren. 75 min.

also shown Sunday, March 5
1:00 The Dog, the General, and the Birds. 2003. France/Italy. Nielsen. 75 min. T1

Thursday, March 2
8:15 The Triplets of Belleville. 2003. France/Belgium/Canada/Great Britain. Chomet. 80 min. T1

Saturday, March 4
2:00 The King and the Mockingbird. 1980. France. Grimault. 85 min. T2
1979. France. Directed by Paul Grimault. Screenplay by Jacques Prévert, Grimault. Grimault was a major influence on Hayao Miyazaki and other contemporary Japanese animators, and his masterpiece is this adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s short story “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep.” With dialogue by the celebrated poet Jacques Prévert, the film is a true marvel with all the requisite fairy tale tropes: a despotic king, a taunting bird, a beautiful shepherdess and a lowly chimney sweep, paintings come to life, and a retro-futurist underworld of sparkling caverns, Venetian canals, and roving bat-police. New 35mm print. 85 min.

4:00 La Table tournante. 1988. France. Demy, Grimault. 80 min. T2
1988. France. Directed by Jacques Demy and Paul Grimault. With the voices of Grimault, Anouk Aimée, Mathieu Demy. Inspired by the success of his 1980 feature The King and the Mockingbird, veteran animator Grimault reedited some of his short films from the 1930s to the 1970s into this feature. Jacques Demy, the director of wonderfully fanciful live-action films like Donkey Skin and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, portrays a true poet at work: Grimault at his editing table, magically transforming paper and ink into flora and fauna. 78 min.