Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- For my amusement, I’m posting an article written by Grim Natwick for the November 1969 issue of Cartoonist Profiles. Following the article, I’m posting the original typescript & handwritten finish by Grim. The manuscript is a carbon copy, the handwritten done in pencil.

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(Click on any image to enlarge to a legible size.)

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(Note: I’ve crossed out Grim’s address & phone number)

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- I came across a couple of articles I found in the NYTimes and was entertained by them.
The second one (posted & chronologically) was one Grim Natwick had saved and which ended up in my hands.

It’s entertaining in that it reveals an enormous number of feature projects that UPA had planned doing. John Hubley had obviously given an extensive interview in that article which was timed to try to draw as much publicity around the Oscar nomination of Rooty Toot Toot. Toward the end of the article he talks about possible features they were hoping to do. I think this was probably more Hubley’s plan than UPA’s.

A little more digging, and I found I’d had another less interesting article (#1) published a year earlier by the same writer.

#1 #2

Hans Perk has posted the drafts to Building A Building on his site, A Film LA. It brought an immediate memory back to me.

When I was 12 I got my first 8mm projector. This was before the days of dvd, before the days of vhs. I rigged the projector to project one frame at a time so I could study every frame of the films I was able to buy. Ub Iwerks’ film, Jack and the Beanstalk was probably the first of the films I watched this way. One frame at a time. As a matter of fact, I traced the characters off the projected screen. (Little did I realize it was Grim Natwick’s anima- tion that I was studying so ardently. He wasn’t enormously impressed, years later, when I mentioned this to him in an interview. Regardless, his influence on me was strong.)

Building A Building was another of these I studied; it’s a film I loved the second I saw it – even in that silent world of 8mm.

There were a lot of films I went through, but only a few I treasured (the 8mm library wasn’t a great one.) I was a big Iwerks fan, and his films were accessible back then. Aladdin’s Lamp, Sinbad the Sailor, and a Willie Whopper film; What Makes Daffy Duck gave me a real appreciation for Art Davis’ direction; Little Lulu’s Bored of Education gave me Bill Tytla’s direction; a couple of Heckle & Jeckles offered the treat of Jim Tyer’s animation.

It was a bric-a-brac animation education, but it colored my thoughts. My early influences became Bill Tytla, Grim Natwick, Art Davis and Jim Tyer. A feast for someone in love with animation and the graphic arts.

- Today any kid can watch anything they want. It’s all available. After seeing Lady and the Tramp in 1955, I wasn’t able to see it again till 1962. The same is true of all of those Disney classics – every 7 years, and that was it. Unless there was a Disneyland TV special compiling clips.

Today, any child can watch any of the features, then make frame grabs from the film. They can put a section up on YouTube if they want. It’s a whole new world, and there seems to be less to see, somehow. Is it all appreciated? Does any of it get to be special?

I wonder if in being forced fed that “specialness” , I was made to appreciate something in any greater way. Does a child, today, desperate to go into animation, have the same influences? Are they better and greater since the film choices are so much better? I’d love to know if the overabundance of seed thrown by the wayside is equal to the paltry few doled out. I guess it’s a question I can’t answer.

- 4 animated features are currently in theaters. Here are the box office receipts for the past weekend:

Monster House grossed $11,500,000 with an average daily per-theater take of $1079.
The Ant Bully grossed $8,145,000 with an average daily per-theater take of $890.
Cars grossed $2,467,000 with an average daily per-theater take of $1500.
A Scanner Darkly grossed $454,000 with an average daily per-theater take of $1726.

Next weekend Barnyard enters the fray. My favorite figure is for A Scanner Darkly which makes the highest per screen average. Maybe some intelligent entrepeneur can try an adult animated feature with an other technique rather than rotoscoping. Imagine Waking Life with a drawn, not rotoscoped, style. (It wouldn’t have worked with Scanner.)

(Click on either image to enlarge.)

– Back in August 1990, a crowd of animation folk gathered to celebrate Grim Natwick‘s 100th birthday. At one point, during the celebration, a photo was taken of many of the elder statesmen positioned on the stage.

It was a blast being there; events like this probably occur in LA often enough, but they’re truly rare in NYC. I spent a good part of the evening talking with Bob Little, who had painted BG’s for many – if not – most of the Paramount cartoons, and I had a great time doing so. I thought it funny that we both had to fly out to LA to meet.

I recently located this photo that Tom Sito sent me, and thought it’d be fun to post it. Below the original, I’ve posted a key to identify those on stage. I’m not sure why Walter Lantz didn’t make it to the photo, but he was most certainly there. Only one person remains unknown in the picture. (Please let me know if you recognize the gentleman in the back row.)

- Today’s guest writer is Grim Natwick. This is a short-lived column Grim Natwick wrote for Cartoonist Profiles magazine.
This particular one was printed June 1980. It’s an article about cartoon voices.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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Here are a couple of interesting links:

- Thanks to Drawn, here’s a link to a collection of Bill Mauldincartoons.

- There’s a entertaining video of a “Rube Goldberg” machine made of sticks, stones and leaves at Make:Blog

– These are the last of the drafts I have for Pinocchio.

They continue from the last sheet I had posted where Jiminy was getting the clocks to finally quiet down and preparing to go to sleep (posted back in April) , and these which represent the arrival of the Blue Fairy.

I’m curious about the design of the Blue Fairy in this film. She’s markedly different than any other character in Pinocchio. They filmed the entire movie to use as a reference guide for the animators, but only the Blue Fairy is so tightly linked to the rotoscoped drawings. However, it seems quite appropriate for her to be different; the other-worldly quality is enhanced by the rotoscope and the effects glimmering off her dress and eyes and the glow around her body. It’s beautiful.

However, her difference accents the difference that was starting to show up in acting styles among the animators. Tytla and Babbitt, roommates for a long while, couldn’t have been more different in styles.

Geppetto is probably Babbitt’s greatest animation; the character is complex in design and simple in spirit. He feels a bit like an older man being played by a masterful young actor.

Stromboli is an explosive temperament on display. The character even distorts between poses to accent that violence. Oddly, in small ways, this character reminds me of Grim Natwick’s giant in the Iwerks film, Jack & The Beanstalk . Stromboli is much more complex, but his roots are still back there in that theatrical crudeness of the earlier 30′s.

The Disney studio was at the height of its sophistication, and they were beginning to be more demonstrative about it.

If anyone out there has more of the Pinocchio drafts, we’d all love to see them.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

- In case you haven’t heard of Didier Ghez‘ three volume set of interviews published as Walt’s People Vols.1 & 2 and, just released, Vol. 3, you should look into it.

The books give a number of excellent in depth interviews with different artists who’ve worked with Walt Disney over the course of his career. They’re a wonderful tool for anyone interested in animation history and a good read for anyone interested in animation.

The most recent volume #3 includes interviews with: James Algar, Lee Blair, Joe Grant, Ben Sharpsteen, Bill Justice, Volus Jones, Ward Kimball, Burny Mattinson, Floyd Norman, and Bill Peet.

The first book features interviews with: Rudy Ising, Dave Hand, Bill Tytla, Ken Anderson, Jack Hannah, John Hench, Marc Davis, and Milt Kahl.

The second book includes: Friz Freleng, Grim Natwick, Frank Tashlin, Ward Kimball, Floyd Gottfredson, Frank Thomas, Eric Larson, and Woolie Reitherman

If you go to the Xlibris site, the primary distributor, you can get a sample of the interviews conducted within each of the books.

– The 2006 Cannes Film Festival, currently in progress, has only two animated shorts in competition this year. One French, one Swiss. They are:

Icefloe is a Swiss animated film directed by Cédric LOUIS and Claude BARRAS.
The film tells the story of Marine, an obese young girl, who suffers from the heat of summer and the way other people look at her. She dreams of a better life among the penguins on an ice floe.

Conte De Quartier – A French film directed by Florence MIAILHE.
In a neighbourhood about to be torn down, construction wrecking ball in sight, seven characters cross paths. A rag doll with an inner secret is relayed from one character to another, creating a skein of tangled destinies inspired by tabloid news items.

Florence Miailhe used sand-and-oil-paint-on-glass animation and a digital camera to make the film. Technically it feels a bit like the style developed by Caroline Leaf in The Street.

You can see a sample of it here.

Neither film is listed in competition or Panorama at Annecy or Zagreb. Maybe Ottawa?

- Mark Mayerson has posted a fabulous letter by Dick Lundy, dated 1978, which gives a first person breakdown of his own career. It’s quite remarkable and an entertaining read.

- I didn’t mean for yesterday’s post to turn into a “praise Grim Natwick” nor a “get on Art Babbitt” statement. I hope it didn’t come off that way.

As I’ve said in the past, I treasure the drawings I have that were done by Art. I study and love every frame of any piece he’s ever animated. I just have more fun, personally – and I underline that word, personally, reviewing Grim’s animation.

I also didn’t say that Marlon Brando was a better actor than Laurence Olivier. They just came at it from different angles, and my preference has always been the more natural side of the acting world.

- Back in the late thirties when the Group Theater was formed, these actors went to Russia to search out Stanislavsky, an acting teacher who preached at the bible of natural movement – getting in touch with your inner soul to project through the acting.

On Broadway, now, is a revival of Awake and Sing. Clifford Odets was a member of the original Group Theater, and his plays reflected their “common man” attitude to theatrical productions. They weren’t trying to do spectacles or Royalty plays, they were trying to project the “average Joe” back from the stage. It changed theater, created Henry Miller and a whole breed of acting styles. Compare, ex-Group Theater performer, John Garfield’s performances of the thirties with someone who was praised to the hilt back then, Paul Muni. Completely different acting styles – one natural and one overemotional and unrealistic.
The same was and is true of animators’ performances.

At Disney’s, these guys took their animation seriously. Some, such as Fred Moore and Norm Ferguson, thought they had it right and continued their own paths. Some looked into Stanislavsky and rejected it; others adopted it wholeheartedly. Still others, such as Grim Natwick, did it naturally and always had. Just as in the theater.

Next time you look at Fantasia, try just watching the acting styles. There’s nothing more Stanislavsky than Bill Tytla‘s scenes in Night On Bald Mountain, and there’s nothing less Stanislavsky than anything in the Pastoral.

I have my own, odd thoughts about animators – great, master animators – these are the only ones I’m talking about.

I think there are two types of animator. Both types, I think, are brilliant but I have my preference. Basically it’s the same breakdown I have with live action actors: the difference between Laurence Oliver and Marlon Brando. Both are geniuses, but I’d go out of my way to see one of them more than the other.

One works from the outside in, and the other works from the inside out. It’s Royal Academy vs. Stanislavsky.

Animators:

– One is a brilliant mechanic of an artist who gets every pose every gesture just right. The movement of the character is perfectly flawless, the accents are always in the right place, the timing is perfect, and the weight captured is exact.

The character is developed but usually in a manipulated, studiously planned way. Usually, this animation, to me, is cold. Give the character a fake nose, and Laurence Olivier could be playing it.
(Art Babbitt, at the top of the triangle, is to me the model for this type of animator.)

(Natwick dwng from a Mountain Dew spot – click to enlarge.)

Then there is the emotional animator. The poses, gestures, actions of the character are emotionally executed by the animator as if this were the only way it could come out. The drawings are often violent and immediate – pencils ripping through paper and dark blotchy artwork.

This animator often puts emotion above mechanics, but (s)he digs to the depth of the part to find a real living thing. It isn’t always beautiful, but there’s a gem of a character on the screen. Like any living organism it’s unexpected and natural.
(Grim Natwick, to me, is the prime example of this type.)

No, I’m not saying if you draw dirty, rough, violent drawings you’ll be a great animator. I’m speaking somewhat metaphorically – although the two examples I gave actually did draw that way. I’m sure Art Babbitt did one or two rough, violent drawings in his life, but his animation feels tight, controlled, yet beautiful. Grim also did one or two clean drawings in his time – I have one, as a matter of fact, but his animation is controlled by his feelings, accumulated knowledge of craft, and emotions. It all feels immediate, spur-of-the moment. It’s alive!

I’ve only ever watched animated films with this guide going in the back of my head. Mind you, also, I have enormous respect for both of these types; it’s just that I prefer the emotional type. More than wanting my characters to think, I want them to feel.

My temptation, here, is to give the obvious list of animators and where they fall in my model, but I think for now I won’t. CGI also fits into this mold, but it’s not a great picture. I’m curious to hear what others think of this model.

- To continue with yesterday’s posting of Grim Natwick‘s Cheerio commercial, this is the cycle of sharks snapping/chasing the girl. I don’t think any of the drawings are wholly Grim’s. The numbers on the drawings are done in Tissa David‘s handwriting, so Grim may have worked out the breakdown chart with her and asked her to animate the shark to his timing. Bits of each shark are definitely his: the darker lines – the nose on 21, the shark’s mouth and guitar on 22, and the face on 26.

(Click on any drawing to enlarge.)

- Tomorrow night the Museum of Modern Art is hosting a show featuring comedian and show biz personality An Evening with Eddie Lawrence.

Performer, writer, painter, and “Old Philosopher” Eddie Lawrence /strong> recalls his career on stage, screen, radio, and television, reminiscing about his relationships with the artists Fernand Léger and Henri Matisse, and media personalities like Major Bowes, Judy Holliday, and Johnny Carson.

- And speaking of MOMA, they now have on line an interview with Ralph Eggleston re the Pixar exhibit at the Museum.