Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Last night I was invited to a screening of The Corpse Bride and a gallery opening, adjacent to the theater. The gallery featured a choice collection of puppets, storyboards and production art for the film. Tim Burton was in attendance, and producer, Allison Abbate, and animation supervisor, Anthony Scott, were also there to answer questions. It was a delightfully small gathering, so there was ample opportunity to meet the three and take in the remarkable artwork.

I was particularly caught by the set illustrations of Luc Desmarchelier. They had a particular style, all his own. The other designs by huy Vu and Simon Varela also were brilliant.
(An illustration by Tim Burton – click to enlarge. )

The puppets were larger than I’d thought which made me realize how large their master sets had to have been. Those on display were about 18″ tall. The delicate armatures were part of the feature of the skeleton puppets with intricate little screws holding their joints together. The coach with horse that carries Victor and his parents in the film’s opening was also on display.

They gave opening night guests a copy of the DVD, which seems to feature quite a few extras, and a copy of the book, handsomely illustrated with many paintings. I’m sorry that a number of the set drawings aren’t pictured in the book. But beggars can’t be choosers.

The film is extremely attractive, and its production design should have been rewarded with. at least, a nomination by the Motion Picture Academy. However, we now have this new category, Best Animated Feature, which relegates all animation into the proper box, and we’ll see how long it takes to get a nomination outside of that pigeonhole. Things haven’t changed much since 1941 when Walt Disney quit the MPAA for not nominating Fantasia. He felt he had been slighted and that animation would alwas be relegated as an afterthought.

(A storyboard panel by Chris Butler – reminiscent of Ub Iwerks.)

The gallery will feature these puppets and models and drawings until February 20. If you’re in New York during this period, I urge you to visit. It’s at the Tribeca Cinemas Gallery at 13 Laight Street (at Canal Street) adjacent to the Tribeca Cinemas. Noon-8pm daily.

The 5 Oscar nominations for Best Animated Short Film went to:

“9″ directed by Shane Acker

Badgered directed by Sharon Colman

The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation directed by John Canemaker

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello directed by Anthony Lucas

One Man Band directed by Mark Andrews & Andrew Jimenez

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The 3 Animated Feature nominees include:

Howl’s Moving Castle directed by Hiyao Miyazaki
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit directed by Nick Park and Steve Box

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- On a strictly personal note, I couldn’t be happier for my friend, John Canemaker. He’s a fabulous person who’s continued making films for many years. His enormous and deserved success in animation history only informs the films he’s done. This film had to have been difficult for him to make, and I’m absolutely pleased at the success it’s having.

I’m also happy to see another 2D animated film, Badgered, nominated. Two out the five nominations are 2D, and the predominance of cgi is gone from these categories. None of the cgi features made it. This is interesting.

My suggestion yesterday was that we should stay linked to our roots.
In the past few years animation has taken so many turns that it’s hardly the same business anymore. Yet, oddly things haven’t really changed that much in my view. It’s still about telling a story.

The TV work isn’t too far from the Hanna & Barbera material of the early 70′s except that it moves a lot faster – in Flash, so it looks more fluid. It’s all about how fast it can move not how a character should move.

Back in the 70′s, I remember thinking that the H&B animation wasn’t too far from the silent film animation of the 20′s. It’s done in the same cookie-cutter way on an assembly line of sorts. It didn’t take long before the animation was sent Overseas. Animators stopped animating and did layouts, until the layouts were done Overseas. Now animators do the storyboards.

But wait! Today we have Flash. Does that go Overseas,too? I’m sure most of it does, but in New York, we have Curious Pictures doing a series with 100 Flash animators on staff. Big business. Back to the 70′s.

Theatrical works have definitely gotten smaller since Walt’s death. Animated features used to be special when they were released. I can still remember the thrill of going to Radio City Music Hall to see Sleeping Beauty on its opening week. I had the 1958 book, Art of Animation, by Bob Thomas, with all those wonderful stills. Before going to see it, I knew everything about the film.

Does anyone own the books about the making of Hoodwinked or Chicken Little or Madagascar. Are there books on the making of these films? Some young animation enthusiast?

Don’t get me wrong, there are beautifully crafted films still being made. Just this last year we had the Wallace and Gromit feature and The Corpse Bride. One was visually arresting, the other offered genuine humor out of character animation and craft.

These were both puppet animation films. Though technically more sophisticated in the making, with many more advantages helping the animator, neither has moved beyond anything Jiri Trnka was doing 60 years ago. This is not a bad thing; it just illustrates my point.

We keep reinventing the wheel. We have to stay in touch with our past to see where we can move beyond it.

Continuing my “Best of . . .” list: (films, sites, books or works of art that inspired me or caused me to at least think in a new way about the animation) #4 is a tie going to the two puppet animated features: The Corpse Bride and Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. If you took the two and merged them into one, I think you’d come up with something great.

There is in the Nick Park work some magnificent invention and detail. His film is generally charming and inventive, but it came off a bit light to me. His casting is dead-on: the voices of Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter were hilarious and were well exploited in the visuals. There’s a lot of well-developed character in the clay animation. It has a lightness to it despite the clay’s weight, and any cgi used was well hidden and well done.

However, in a feature film, I look for a greater story. The film was lacking that under-story which would have made it deeper and richer. Unfortunately, this is a complaint that I could make for most of the films produced today – not just the animated films.

Tim Burton‘s The Corpse Bride had plenty of under story but was lacking in the story, itself. It was a simple Russian tale told with lots of complications but never felt complete.

The voices were well cast, and the acting was superb; Emily Watson and Albert Finney were exceptionally good. The animation showed some bits of character, but I wasn’t taken by most of it. Too often it felt like I was watching puppets, and I never got into the head of any of them or felt any of them alive. However, it is probably the most stunningly Art Directed puppet film ever done. This is all I think about when I try to remember the film. If only the Oscars would take notice of animation in such categories as Production Design. Perhaps Eyvind Earle might have been nominated once upon a time. (The one fault I felt was design of some of the characters: too many with hunched backs.) Otherwise, this film’s design certainly stands up with the best – live action or animated.

I felt more inspiration in these two puppet animated films than I did from any other cgi film. In both you could feel the fingerprints of the animators in the life of their puppets. Someone touched the objects on the screen, and that helped them breathe.

The short list of Oscar contenders has been positive for New York with three films on the list. They are Bill Plympton’s “The Fan and The Flower,” John Canemaker’s “The Moon and The Sun: An Imagined Conversation,” and our own “The Man Who Walked Between The Towers.” Coupled with “Badgered” and “Imago,” there are five 2D hand-drawn films on that list of eight.

On the short list for feature animation four of the ten titles are non-computer animated. There are two puppet films, “Corpse Bride,” and “Wallace & Gromit;” there are two 2D films, “Howl’s Moving Castle,” and “Steamboy.”

Since the Hollywood feature establishment has opted to get out of the 2D business, it’s especially gratifying – to one who has staked his life in this art form – to see that it’s still accepted as a viable medium by audiences. Not that I ever had a doubt about that – regardless of who wins the Oscar in March. As a loud and ardent supporter of 2D animation, I couldn’t be happier.