Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Returning to 101 Dalmatians, I have Milt Kahl‘s artwork for Scene 88 which continues Roger’s rendition of his song, “Cruella de Vil.” In this first half, the point where he throws the arm of the sweater around his neck is the highlight. It plays beautifully against the timing of the slow walk down the stairs. The scene is a beauty. This is the first half which will be concluded next week.

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The following QT includes all the drawings posted above.

There’s a bit of distortion in the Xerox copies
so the registration goes in and out.

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

Click on the right side of the lower bar to watch it one frame at a time.

- I saw Andrew Stanton‘s film John Carter this past Tuesday. Actually, I saw part of the film; I walked out after about 80 minutes. It was unwatchable in my book. Hundreds of computer created alien creatures with long necks and horns on their heads, and they all looked alike even though they were supposed to have personalities, I think.

Meanwhile, John Carter is bounding miles around the Martian desert jumping all over the place for no particular reason. Creatures are shooting weapons at . . . oh who cares!

The film’s like a video game, completely without wit or any real intellect. It’s tedious beyond belief and a total waste of time. Go at your own risk. I don’t think it was worth the money it cost to make; Pixar could have made Finding Nemo 2 & 3 for the price. (By the way, Mars Needs Moms wasn’t good, but it was MUCH better than John Carter.) But I guess my opinion on this is really superfluous, and I’m not sure why I wrote anything about it.

- On Wednesday I got to see a dress rehearsal of the new Disney theatrical Broadway presentation, Newsies. This is a brand new show adapted from the Disney movie of 1992 that starred Christian Bale and Robert Duvall. Alan Menken wrote songs for the film, and he’s rewritten songs for the show. Harvey Fierstein has written the book for the Broadway musical, and it’s set to open on March 29th.

The show talks about the child labor laws in the early part of the 20th century and the organizing of a u-nion of the newspaper sales force to protect them from the likes of the major industries seeking to make bucks off their backs. (Needless to say, this is a show for our times, as the super conservatives try to destroy collective bargaining thus destroy labor laws and u-nion representation.)

The show is full of rousing musical numbers, intense power dancing choreographed by a brilliant Christopher Gatelli and superb direction by Jeff Calhoun. It’s amazing with such a large and constantly moving cast, that Mr. Calhoun is able to keep the sight lines so beautifully clear. Excellent work. The cast does not include major stars, and that’s wonderful – almost like something new on Broadway. Jeremy Jordan, who leads the pack of “Newsies,” is obviously going to be a star.

Great use of space for a large cast.

The set design was by Tobin Ost, and it’s basically steel girder like objects that move around the stage forming and reforming different constructs that serve many purposes. It reminded me (very marginally) of the brilliant set to Company by Boris Aronson back in 1970.

There seems to be a bit of work to go in finalizing the show (I would have liked to have seen more intimate moments – especially in the dance work), but it really is all there. A fierce piece from Disney, that I hope does well. It’s supposedly set for a limited run, but I think that’s questionable. It’ll run for a long time – a crowd pleaser.

- I love a post that’s been placed by Hans Perk on his great site, A Film LA. It’s a real breakdown of the original Disney Hyperion Studio. Hans gives maps and directions to where this historic studio stood, and then proceeds to map out the entire studio giving us charts, photos and background information where everything stood.

I’m not sure we even have this with the main studio lot anymore. It was the Hyperion studio where the Disney brothers grew and outgrew themselves, producing all those great Mickeys and Silly Symphonies and Snow White and a lot of the preliminary work on Bambi.

I’m always taken aback by the meticulous detail that Hans provides for us over and over in all these incredible posts on his site.

- In the recent days I’ve been just about all consumed with the Miyazaki canon of films. I spent an enormous amount of time reviewing, watching, scouring Spirited Away and have really been taken with the film, the animation, the direction, the story.

This led me to watch some of the earlier films to see where the film came from. Kiki’s Delivery Service wasn’t much help, though it was good to see where he came from. However, I have been a fan of Princess Mononoke and watching that again gives me a lot of ideas and thoughts. The animation for that film is somewhat limited, but the use of well drawn crowd scenes and maneuvers really is enlightening. Watching some of the natural woodland planning, backgrounds and direction is quite special, and I have to admit a certain awe with how he pulled it out of the film with such seeming effortlessnessand beauty.

I like to think that this is all going into my recent concentration of my POE film, and I’m sure it is. I have so many thoughts about that one. It’s a project that’s pushing me forward like I can’t tell you, and the only inspiration I seem to be getting is from these Miyazaki films. I know the financial direction the film’s going to have to take to get done (next to no money), but I’m determined, and I’m hoping some deal arrangement can be made very soon.

The Kickstarter campaign is the juice for the whole thing, and I can’t tell you how important that’s been for me. I’m trying desperately to get a couple of heavy hitters to get that money realized, but nothing yet. Your support has been enormous and enormously helpful.

Anyway, back to Miyazaki. I have been watching the films of this master, but my tide is turning a bit. I received the new UPA book, When Magoo Flew by Adam Abraham, and have been reading that. Of course, it’ll lead to the shorts when that new DVD package reaches me – hopefully soon. The Jolly Frolics collection.

When I’ve finished reading it, I’ll write a review, and let me tell you it’s a fast read for me even though I’m trying to take my time. There’s a lot of solid research in there with a lot of strong details. It spends quite a bit of time talking about the politics of the time and studio.

However, once into it, I’m hoping for a bit more lyricism in the writing as a way of capturing the inspiration from the work they did on some of those gorgeous films. Perhaps I’ll only be able to get that from watching the films.

However, I still haven’t left the Miyazaki films, and I will write something probably too long when I get into it. The guy has my head twirling, I have to tell you, and it’s a bit hard for me to turn around and think about UPA with the material I’ve been getting from the Japanese contingent. I also want to watch 101 Dalmatians a little closer. I have seen the opening about half a dozen times in the last couple of weeks.

- For some reason I was inspired to watch some of Bakshi‘s Fritz the Cat, this past week. I remember posting in the past on a couple of the sequences.

There was one on Johnny Vita‘s dynamic BGs at the time. They were a bit revolutionary for what they were. Johnny had gone through Greenwich Village with Bakshi photographing the environs. He then did a line drawing over the photos and painted the art under the lines, using Luma dyes. Bright shiny colors that he sometimes was able to mute. (It’s hard to tell the real colors from the DVD which all look like mud. I enhanced everything in photoshop to try to get colors that I remembered from 1972.) These were almost ragged versions of what Ken Andersen had done on 101 Dalmatians, but they were done on the fly. No time or money. Here’s that original post.

Then I did one on a scene in a bar where Fritz meets Duke, the crow, who will not only save his life but will take a bullet at Fritz’ sheer stupidity. Here are some drawings from Marty Taras of that scene.

Then, I also did a post on some storyboard drawings of the bathtub orgy at the film’s beginning. You can find those drawings here.

Here’s another set piece, a series of pans. I’ve hooked a couple of the pans together, but have kept many as single frame elements to be better seen. A whole melange of styles mixed in here, and no doubt Bakshi had seen what Hubley was doing to pan through screen time.

Opening part of a multiple exposure pan.

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Then there’s the flight over the Brooklyn Bridge where Fritz crashes the car and the Duke saves Fritz’ life.

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And finally, we have the best set piece of the movie. The climax that falls in the middle of the film, and the rest of the film can’t get over it.

Minor mayhem breaks out in Harlem, Duke gets killed, accidentally, and a riot breaks out. It’s all Fritz’ fault, of course, and he naturally runs from the scene at the end of the sequence.

Cosmo Anzilotti, the AD told me that this was Jim Tyer‘s scene. It doesn’t quite look like his work – rock steady and beautiful. I can and do believe that it is his work. Some great great poses.

Supposedly, Tyer hated working on the film. He was a die-hard Catholic who hated the cursed animation being done. Bakshi loved Tyer, as well he should have.

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The cops are pushed into a corner.

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A rock hits one . . .

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. . . who pulls out a gun and fires.

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Duke is hit.

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The metaphor of pool balls sinking into their holes
represents Duke’s last breaths on earth.

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Duke is dead.

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The most important piece of writing on Fritz the Cat is an older piece done by Mike Barrier and readily available on his site. Read it if you have any interest in the film. Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 -Part 4 – Part 5

- Ah you didn’t think I’d forget the HARD SELL, did you? Unfortunately, I can’t. I am trying to get my little epic into the production hard line.

POE is a telling of Edgar Allan Poe’s short life story, and we’ve done a lot of art and preparation. Now we want a couple of minutes of good final product to show how great it’ll be.

Kickstart POE is the project in the works, and I need your help. Please take a look at the page, give any small support you can, even if it’s just to tell your friends about it.

Many thanks.

- It’s animation drawing Wednesday, and I have a few more scenes by Milt Kahl of Roger from 101 Dalmatians. However, I want to take a short break from those scenes which are large and difficult to scan in.

I have a number of scenes of Mickey from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. They all came with nothing. No exposure sheets, no registration marks or pegs, no anything, So, basically, I’m just showing off some drawings, trying to register them as best I can and then giving a guess of an exposure to hint at their motion. But I think there’s something to be gained, or I wouldn’t be doing it.

Since there’s no indication of a repeated step from Mickey, and knowing it’s in the scene, I doubled it in the QT movie to see how it works. It’s all fun and variations for me here.

This is Seq 7 Scene 4 animated by Les Clark. Mickey is instructing the newly livened broom to march step and follow him.

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______________________

The following QT includes all the drawings posted above.

The registration is a bit loose. Sorry but, these are obviously
copies of copies and there’s plenty of shrinkage and distortion.

Click on the right side of the lower bar to watch it one frame at a time.

- In reviewing The Secret World of Arrietty, the brilliant new Ghibli film, I wrote about the fluidity of their animation and its basis in a real rather, than a cartoon world. Unfortunately, most of the animation done in features coming from the Western world (specifically the US world) is done in a cartoon way using pops and smears. This affect creates cartoon characters and clichéd ones at that. It’s not a type of animation I love for feature films.

Of course, if you’re designing an Aladdin, where the Robins Williams/Eric Goldberg Genie is a hyper cartoon character, that’s the only way to go – stylized cartoon. That was its natural design. But for 101 Dalmatians/Peter Pan/Beauty and the Beast – no. That’s not what you should be doing. However, it seems to be the only way to go in the films coming out of Hollywood.

I thought, over the course of a couple of posts, I’d give a couple of good examples of these pops and smears I’ve been bothered with in the recent past. Let’s start with “smears” something I find particularly egregious in animation pretending to create a “real” world.

To show what I’m talking about, here’s an example from the first real – and I might say brilliant – use of this technique.
Animator, Bobe Cannon, together with director, Chuck Jones, came up with the technique for the outstanding Dover Boys film.

Here’s our villain, the main target of the smeared frames:

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It’s the villain that moves in exaggerated smears.

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He moves slowly at start and stop of moves.

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But moves wildly in between phrases of dialogue.

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The middle poses couldn’t be wilder or faster.

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And comes to quick halting stops with small patches of dialogue.

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Then, if anything, we’re going wilder.

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Slowly out of quiet hard pose . . .

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WILD as Jones backs the animation move with a tighter cut . . .

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. . . and a wild camera move.

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Come down to another solid, hard pose and move dialogue.

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Here’s a later sequence as the villain kidnaps our heroine.
All cartoon, all comedy, all arch, all on purpose.

He moves wildly via smears inbetween phrases of dialogue.

Line of dialogue – move – dialogue – move.

Every action comes off the exaggerated speech by the arch ( and I do mean arch) villain.

When he gets to the car it moves very naturalistically.

No smears here.

Tangled is a tangled version of the brilliant fairy tale, Rapunzel. The makers have completely distorted the tale to a mish-mash point where it makes no sense, but that’s irrelevant to this post. What is relevant is that they continually rob the characters of a reality by pushing, rubbing and smearing them throughout.

The first example of this technique shows up as Rapunzel opens her window. Technically, you start slow, you compress the middle to one or two images, and you slow out over a long beat. The inbetween chart would look something like this:

Here’s Rapunzel opening her window:

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It’s not really a human motion; it’s a cartoon motion. But it’s subtle enough this first time, that we can get away with it. Let’s just call it fast. However, too often the animation falls into this mode, and by midway through the film, there are no real characters left; just cartoon characters.

I take that back. Mother Goethels is always true to a human animation style. She is a real character, and Donna Murphy’s performance grounds it behind the fine animation by Jamaal Bradley, Nik Ranieri and others.

The most egregious in using these smears is the horse character, but if it were only that one, it would work. The horse is a stand-alone. It’s personality IS a cartoon. The horse, after all, isn’t a horse in this film. It’s shaped like another Disney horse, but it moves more like a dog. And it’s ALL pops and smears.

Look at these frames of it getting up from the ground, lickety-split:

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The move above is funny, not based in reality. What we have is a cartoon horse. This is not the horse Prince Phillip rides in Sleeping Beauty. It’s not even a good caricature of it.

The unfortunate part is that what Bobe Cannon did in the Dover Boys can’t easily be done in cgi. The Dover Bioys employed the brilliant cartooning of Cannon; cgi is really just a playing with computerized puppetry. You can stretch and squash somewhat, but distorting as desired isn’t always possible. So they stretch and squash and do very fast motions and hide it all under a veneer of out-of-focus. It ends up looking like just fast motion and not a true distortion – as they probably desired. The best you can hope for is image #3 just above. Now compare that to image #10 in the Dover Boys group. Not quite the same are they.

God forbid someone in cgi wants to do what Jim Tyer did. It’s impossible.

Here’s one last horse. We start rock steady – then zip, blur, stream. Ease in and race back out – zip, blur, stream. To be honest, I’m not sure what’s even happening in this scene (the horse is somehow changing into rock and vegetation?), but I let it go past as cartoon.

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To sum up what I’m trying to say. Animated features have sunk their heads into the ground. Everything has become arch and stupid. We’re not trying to develop characters but, instead, trying to do some wild movement. Movement that has nothing to do with character development. That’s a problem, if you ask me.

If you want to imitate Tex Avery or Bob Clampett, fine. If you want a seriously developed non-cartoon character, then stay away from pops and smears. It works for Aladdin, but it also limits feature films. I think Tangled is a good example of that. Outside of a few characters, I see little believable animation there. It’s all just tricks and stunts that pulls away from true, honest animation. It’s a comment on a character rather than a development of the character.

Of course, that’s my opinion. It’s so obvious to me when you see a Ghibli product like The Secret World of Arrietty or anything Mayazaki does. Their animation grows more and more subtle while Hollywood moves in the opposite direction – gags and clichéd actions. I don’t understand why Disney product approves of this. Thank god for animators like Andreas Deja who refuses to go this route, and is in absolute control of the characters he animates. There are others like him, and I applaud those artists. I wish they were all of that shape and belief.

- Here I complete Seq. 02 Sc. 15, animated by Milt Kahl for 101 Dalmatians. This is the song Roger has just completed and playfully sings as Cruella de Vil exits. I have several more scenes from this sequence and will probably continue on with them next week.

They’ve all been animated, for the most part, on twos by Kahl, and it shows that not every drawing has to be on ones, which is the current fashion. Kahl knew what he was doing mechanically.

We start with the last drawing from Part 1.

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______________________

The following QT includes all the drawings from the scene.
Including Part 1.
The registration is a bit loose. Sorry but, these are copies of
copies and there’s plenty of shrinkage.

If you click on the right side of the lower bar
you can watch it one frame at a time.

You can find the drafts for this film on Hans Perk‘s invaluable site, A Film LA. You’ll find this particular scene on page 30.

Mark Mayerson has also devised a helpful mosaic for this film and written some extraordinary commentary about the scenes. You’ll find this mosaic page here.

- In 101 Dalmatians, Roger sings the song, “Cruella de Vil,” immediately after Cruella leaves the house. I have three of Milt Kahl‘s scenes from this song, and I’ll post all three. We start with Roger on the stairs coming down from his upstairs studio. You’ll remember that he actually started the song upstairs, making a racket, to force Cruella to leave. Here we go with Seq. 02 Sc. 15, animated by Milt Kahl.

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Missing an inbetween

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______________________

The following QT includes the drawings posted above.

The registration is a bit loose. Sorry but, these are copies of
copies and there’s plenty of shrinkage.

If you click on the right side of the lower bar
you can watch it one frame at a time.

- Here is the final part of Scene 45 from 101 Dalmatians as animated by Milt Kahl. When this scene was loaned to me, it took less than a mezzo second for me to recognize it. I love it and have studied it frame-by-frame off the video (first a VHS then the DVD) many times. It’s a seminal scene for me. Just gorgeous.

I’ve always loved the first fifteen to twenty minutes of Disney features (at least up
through Sword in the Stone.) Their intelligent introductions of principal characters usually comes in those first few minutes, and it’s always done with class. I think of Pinocchio, Gepetto, and Jiminy Cricket or Dumbo’s birth or Lady as a puppy or Bambi’s birth and discovering the world of the forest or Peter and Tink meeting the Darling children and “Off to Neverland.” These moments are thrilling to me, and usually the rest of the film doesn’t hold up to this.
101 Dalmatians doesn’t fail to deliver in this respect. Exposition and introduction are done so beautifully.

The animation is, for the most part, on twos. There are a couple of ones at the very end ot the scene as Roger shakes his wrist. If you want to visit the first two parts go here for Part 1 or here for Part 2.

We start today with the last drawing from the second post.

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The legs move to their own level at this point.

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A drawing is skipped here (to be inbetweened.)

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A drawing is skipped, needs inbetweening.

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______________________

The following QT includes the entire sequence
which includes all drawings posted.

The registration is a bit loose. Sorry but, these are copies of
copies and there’s plenty of shrinkage.

If you click on the right side of the lower bar
you can watch it one frame at a time.

.
For more on 101 Dalmatians check out the animator drafts on Hans Perk‘s great and resourceful site, A Film LA. Hans has also posted Bill Peet‘s story treatment for the film several years ago. See it here.
For a look at the art direction of the film including some beautiful reconstructions of the BGs as well as some of the BG layouts go to Hans Bacher‘s great site One1More2Time3.
Andreas Deja has one of the more extraordinary blogs to visit. He just posted some beautiful drawings by some of the key animators on 101 Dalmatians as they set about to find the characters. See them here as well as a comparison of Milt Kahl‘s characters against Bill Peet‘s version. here

For those who own Fraser MacLean‘s excellent book, Setting the Scene, you’ll know that on pages 182-188 there’s an extensive discussion of this opening sequence from the film with plenty of beautiful images of the set.

- Here is the second part of this scene from 101 Dalmatians. Roger is at the piano; Pongo has moved the mantle clock ahead by a ½ hour. Roger turns, yawns and checks his watch against the clock.

Milt Kahl animated Roger. Bill Peet did the storyboard drawing to the right. (In fact, he did the entire storyboard by himself.) This is the first of four scenes, I’ll post here – Sequence 1 Scene 45. The animation is, for the most part, on twos. There are a couple of ones at the very end ot the scene as Roger shakes his wrist. (Much of the rest of that will come with the conclusion, next week.

We start today with the last drawing from the first post.

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An inbetween is missing from this part.

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The goes on ones for a few frames as Roger shakes his wrist.

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The following QT incorporates all the drawings from
this post and those in Part 1 as well.
All posts will be combined in the final piece.

All drawings were exposed on twos unless indicated otherwise.

The registration is a bit loose. Sorry but, these are copies of
copies and there’s plenty of shrinkage.

.
For more on 101 Dalmatians check out the animator drafts on Hans Perk‘s great and resourceful site, A Film LA. Hans has also posted Bill Peet‘s story treatment for the film several years ago. See it here.
For a look at the art direction of the film including some beautiful reconstructions of the BGs as well as some of the BG layouts go to Hans Bacher‘s great site One1More2Time3.
Andreas Deja has one of the more extraordinary blogs to visit. He just posted some beautiful drawings by some of the key animators on 101 Dalmatians as they set about to find the characters. See them here as well as a comparison of Milt Kahl‘s characters against Bill Peet‘s version. here

For those who own Fraser MacLean‘s excellent book, Setting the Scene, you’ll know that on pages 182-188 there’s an extensive discussion of this opening sequence from the film with plenty of beautiful images of the set.

Ken Anderson’s sketch of the room.

- Did I ever tell you that I love 101 Dalmatians? This film hit me hard at just the right time in my life; I was susceptible. Here was a new way of animating humans, almost a caricature but not quite. Those opening scenes of Roger playing the piano and Pongo looking out the window in search of two mates (one for him; one for Roger) are just first rate.

Milt Kahl did Roger, the human, and I have four scenes all used within the first fifteen minutes. They’re good. This is the first of them, Sequence 1 Scene 45. He’s turned to look at the clock, yawns and checks his watch. We’ll take it up to the yawn today. The animation is all on twos. The assistants were told to leave the line a bit rough, so some of Milt’s scratches were left to be xeroxed onto the cels.

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The chair pops to its own level behind Roger.

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______________________

The following QT incorporates all the drawings from this post
All posts will be combined in the final piece.

All drawings were exposed on twos as indicated by the numbers.

The registration is a bit loose. Sorry but, these are
copies of copies and there’s some shrinkage.

.
For more on 101 Dalmatians check out the animator drafts on Hans Perk‘s great and resourceful site, A Film LA. Hans also noted, in the comments section below, that he had posted Bill Peet’s story treatment for the film several years ago. See it here.
For a look at the art direction of the film including some beautiful reconstructions of the BGs as well as some of the BG layouts go to Hans Bacher‘s great site One1More2Time3.
Andreas Deja has one of the more extraordinary blogs to visit. He just posted some beautiful drawings by some of the key animators on 101 Dalmatians as they set about to find the characters. See them here.