Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

I know I’ve written about some of this stuff before (repeatedly), and I hope my take on it here is a bit different. At least I’m leading somewhere different, so please have a bit of patience with the opening.

- When I was a kid, animation was in the dark ages for the general public. By that, I mean there wasn’t a hell of a lot of material available to allow you to know how it was done or learn how to do it. There were maybe a dozen or so books available.

- Of course the 40s Rob’t D. Feild book, The Art of Walt Disney. Some great information but not many illustrations. What are there are GREAT.

- The Preston Blair book, Animation, good and cheap. Very helpful for an amateur like me.

- Halas and Manvell‘s The Technique of Film Animation had more to do with animation as done in Europe, but it is extraordinarily helpful.

- Eli Levitan, an animation cameraman, had written several books. Animation Art in the Commercial Film is one of the better books.

There were a few others. My local library had them all, and I borrowed them endlessly and just about memorized them all. I owned the Preston Blair book (of course and my parents bought the brand new Bob Thomas Art of Animation for me Christmas 1958.

On ABC you had the Disneyland TV show which became The Wonderful World of Color when it moved to NBC. The Mighty Mouse Show was the staple on Saturday morning. Local channels featured Popeye and B&W Warner Bros cartoons.
I was completely intrigued with some silent cartoons that were run on the local ABC affiliate on early Saturday mornings. Every once in a while a sound Van Buren cartoon would pop up or a Harman-Ising MGM cartoon..

The show that also intrigued me was this horrible “Big Time Circus” starring Claude Kirschner (normally a VO announcer) as a ringmaster who talked to a $5 clown hand-puppet named “Clowny.” They showed cartoons, some B&W Terrytoons with Barker Bill and other early 30s things. They also showed a lot of foreign cartoons badly dubbed into English. They even had Russian features like The Golden Antelope serialized. They had a horrible title on the top of the film and a “The End” title pasted onto the end of the film. I used to tune in to see these B&W European and Russian cartoons. They moved so differently from what I was used to with the cartoons from the US. At 12, I could definitely see the difference and watched closely.

When I started collecting 16mm films I picked up a bunch of these shorts. The timing didn’t get any better.

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On my second day at the Hubley Studio, I met the notorious Tissa David who dug into me quickly for my bad inbetweening. She offered to teach me after hours, which I certainly jumped to accept. In that first contact with her, I mentioned that I had a potential job offer from Richard Williams and I might go to England. She immediately said to me, “Oh, please don’t go there. Stay here. Only the Americans know how to animate properly.” After all those years of watching Russian and European cartoons, I understood what she was saying. (I was also working for my real hero, John Hubley, so I had no real plans to go anywhere.) Dick Williams came to me a couple of years later with Raggedy Ann. By then, I was knowledgeable enough to run the Asst. & Inbtwng dept – about 100-150 people.

But then Dick Williams was changing everything. He was teaching his people in England how to animate the way Disney people did it. He brought those people into his studio to teach: Art Babbitt, Ken Harris, John Hubley, Grim Natwick, and others. I believe Williams changed animation throughout Europe. Mind you, the problems of all those years of history is still there, but it’s enormously better.

What do I call “European Animation”? Well, it’s all about the timing. The characters often move at such an even speed that there is no sense of weight or real character movement. Basically, all characters move the same. The Golden Antelope is all rotoscoped, so the movement is on ones and all traced off the live action. You can tell when it’s not; there’s a sameness in the motion. It’s almost like there are no extremes just motion.

In Europe’s first attempt to imitate the US in a feature, The Tinderbox a 1946 film from Denmark, they were obviously trying to imitate the Fleischers of Gulliver’s Travels. Wild distortions and odd extremes but a lot of the evenly spaced timing. Consequently, with the distorted extremes moving in and out of position at an even pace, it’s doubly peculiar.

Halas and Batchelor‘s Animal Farm is so lethargic in its movement, it’s difficult to watch. However, whenever a Harold Whitaker scene pops up, it’s something to study. The guy was a fine animator. His work definitely sands out. He came from the Anson Dyer Studio, and had somehow learned to animate in the US methodology.

The Disney studio was having its effect , though as animators such as Borge Ring pretty much taught himself to go well beyond the basics of he European mold. He was close with a number of the Disney animators and studied Disney films religiously. His own personal style is definitely constructed from the US mold.

Even through The Yellow Submarine (1968), you see this flat style of animation. Of course, with the more graphic style of George Dunning‘s feature, the even pacing is better hidden in the mood of the piece.There’s also a lot of music that hides the timing problems.

After Dick Williams, began his effort to alter the look of work coming out his studio, there was a big change in the look of work coming from all over Europe. Sure they slipped into and out of the old school of animation, but now they had learned from Art Babbitt and Ken Harris. (I wish they’d had more of Grim Natwick.) Take a look at the marvelous animation done for Bruno Bozzetto in the Ravel Bolero section of his 1977 feature, Allegro Non Troppo. To some extent, now, the best animation worldwide is coming out of England and France, especially from the younger animators.

So let’s take a look at the differences between the two styles..

- The best of the US style can be seen in those dwarfs in Snow White or the Siamese cat song in Lady & the Tramp or Scar in The Lion King. It’s all in the timing.

- The European style is very obvious in Jiri Trnka‘s 2D animation as in The Four Musicians Of Bremen or Spring-heeled Jack. You can see it in about half of Sylvain Chomet‘s The illusionist (the other half was wonderfully done US style), or, as I’ve already written, Animal Farm – the entire movie.

The US tradition came directly from the wonderful work done mostly after hours at Disney’s studio in the 30′s. They learned how to time animation for weight, for mood, for expression and for balance. Bill Tytla, Marc Davis and Frank Thomas were brilliant at it (though they all did it). The word reached outside the Disney studio and others came into the fold: Ken Harris and Bobe Cannon, Grim Natwick and Rod Scribner, Jack Schnerk and Abe Levitow, Hal Ambro and Tissa David. There are another couple of hundred people I could include if we were naming names. These people all mastered their timing. They knew what they were doing and did it as planned. The animation never does what IT wants to do, but it is controlled by the animator and his (her) timing.

The European style is a very different animal. The timing is flat. It’s usually even paced and moves robotically forward, not always by going in a straight line. The weight is always soft; the emotion is almost nil. The drawings are often beautiful, but there’s no real strength behind that movement.

Things have changed quite a bit since the advent of Richard Williams and his work, but even there I see it at times. In Dick’s work, I mean, I sometimes see it. (Not surprising since I infrequently see it in Art Babbitt‘s animation. – and lest you think I’m biased, I often see it in my own work and have to rework it. (I’m not trying to hurt anyone here, I’m just reporting what I sense and see and feel.) Just talkin’ animation here. It’s basic and can so easily be bypassed. Animation is ALL ABOUT the timing. Norm Ferguson couldn’t draw very well at all, but he was one of the GREAT animators of all time. There was no even-paced timing in his makeup; the same has to be said of Tytla or Grim Natwick. Babbitt did do it. He was one of our great animators, but he infrequently paced his work in a very dull way. I could give you examples, but I won’t look for yourself, because when he’s good, he’s brilliant. Take the scene he did in The Thief and the Cobbler where the evil Vizier, Zig Zag, shuffles the playing cards.

A great example of what I’m talking about has all to do with Tom & Jerry. Take a look at some of those produced by Gene Deitch out of Czecheslovakia in the early 60s. Don’t compare this with the fully-animated shorts produced by Hanna & Barbera at MGM. No, compare it to the films done by Jack Kinney using a pickup studio. Most of the staff was free lance California employees. Turks without a space to work in the studio. Those Kinney films, badly animated though they are, are pure US-styled animation. The Deitch films are equally, poorly animated, but these also are animated with a European staff that animated the way a European would. The timing is rigidly even in its pacing.

You often get that European feel in the cgi work done today.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen scenes where things suddenly go slack and move, seemingly, of their own accord in cg films. Perhaps the two arms will complete a motion that was started by an animator, and (s)he will allow the rest of the motion continue on its own to a final rest stop. It’s not animation anymore, it’s just a completion. I do quite dislike this when and if I see it. (Thought, admittedly, too often I’m not paying attention enough.) There’s a scene somewhere in Paperman where the male, standing in profile, has his two arms moving forward to a rest. They move at exactly the same speed, doing exactly the same thing, and it bothers me. Tissa certainly would have scolded me for allowing such a move to happen. I have to hope and believe that that’s what the animator wanted.

I had actually intended to keep going. One can’t really just say US and European animation styles. After all, there’s also the work out of Asia. The Japanese market, of course, is very different than the rest, and, thanks to what Miyazaki has been doing and his success in doing it, things are changing radically. Where he once blended in with the Anime animation that was all present, things are now changing to more of an emotional, Western appeal. My Neighbor Totoro started something, that changed wildly when he did Spirited Away and Ponyo. When I saw The Secret World of Arrietty, I knew things had changed completely. There was real character animation on the screen. One character was different from the next, and a lot of it had to do with the movement.

I was also fascinated with the work of Satoshi Kon, before his untimely death. His work was growing enormously with each and every film. The movies he made were adult in every sense of the word, and they were beautifully constructed, drawn and animated. I still go back to watch copies of his films. ________“Arrietty”

I was going to write about Katsuhiro Ôtomo, but I realize I’ve taken a sidestep. These are directors, and this article is about animators. In short, there is an Eastern style, and I’m glad to see that because of a couple of directors, they’re doing thier own take on the US version of animation character developement. It’s good to see it happening.

Essentially, the world is becoming smaller. Global animation styles are settling in, and I hope there will be a 2D animation so that the job can be complete in a few more years.

Hurricane Panic.

- There’s a panic going on throughout New York and New Jersey. NYC is scheduled to be in the direct line of Hurricane Irene. Meteorologists have, at last check, scheduled the eye of the hurricane to pass over Manhattan. Should be fun.

On Thursday night – two days before the storm hit – Gov. Chris Christie declared a “state of emergency” in New Jersey. Since it was barely raining on Thursday, I thought that was a bit of cheek, but perhaps the Mad Gov is afraid of what may happen. You’re in good hands in N.J. Oh wait, Cuomo did the same on Friday in NY.

Mayor Bloomberg, on the other hand, took his
own steps. He demanded evacuation of some hospitals and senior centers that seemed to be in the way of the storm. He also announced that ALL mass transit would be halted during the course of the storm. That means from Saturday noon to Monday morning, who knows when, there’ll be no buses or trains running. I guess we’ll have to walk to make it work when the expected hurricane passes Sunday afternoon.

Of course, as I recently detailed, I assume there’ll be flood conditions inside my studio and have taken a lot of preparations. The last will be to get the cat to higher ground for the duration. He’ll come back with me to my apartment to face two other cats who live there. Lots of hissing and spitting expected atop the heavy sound of rain on the skylight. I’m not looking forward to the aftermath. Though maybe, like the last hurricane, it’ll be all panic and little reality. That’d be nice.

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Another Plympton Show.

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- This past Monday, it was a beautiful day in New York. Under the shadow of the Empire State Building, that evening, there was a program of early and late Bill Plympton films showing at the Big Screen Plaza.

This is an outdoor arena with a very big screen overlooking a food court. Lots of tables and seating places around a rectangular fountain makes for a pleasant ambience for watching animation. They’ve finally gotten it together and have their sound problems repaired (something encountered at a couple of earlier screenings this Summer.)

As the films played overhead, Bill sat at a table in the back where you could buy a copy of some of the cartoons, or his big book. Or, you had the chance just to meet Bill.

The center film of the program was a screening of Bill’s first feature, The Tune. It’s been quite a while since I’d seen this film, so it was a pleasure to rejoin it. The Tune feels like early Plympton, and that’s a wonderful thing. Lots of metamorphosis and surprise distortions and complete nonsense thrown your way, all to the score of songs played throughout, as the lead character searches for a hit tune.

And, as I said, the weather was brilliant.

Bill Plympton, as ever, was the gracious host.

Jaime Ekkens is the coordinator for all Big Screen events.

The film played overhead in the beautifully crisp NY evening.

Bill worked the table.

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the Ghibli Blog News.

- On the Ghibli Blog recently, there have been a number of key posts. Principal among them was the news that Madhouse Productions in Japan has stopped work and pulled all production on the completion of The Dreaming Machine, Satoshi Kon‘s last film. When Kon died last year the studio, under the supervision of designer Yoshimi Itazu, was continuing work on the film. It’s obvious that budgetary cuts have stalled this work and have put it into a full stop even though work was half done. It’s questionable if the film will continue work and complete this master’s final production. Satoshi Kon, of course, is the director of “Millennium Actress”, “Tokyo Godfathers” and “Paprika.”

- Back on Aug 12th, the Ghibli Blog posted this CNN video, an interview with Hayao Miyazaki about the formation of Studio Ghibli. He talks about the inherent problem of an animation studio: at first you form the studio to do the work; then it gets so you do work to keep the studio running. The cart pulls the donkey.

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A Kickstarting Request.

I received the following note and request, this week. I thought it worthwhile to promote it:

I’m a recent graduate of California State University, Northridge’s Animation program, and I’ve recently released my final short film online. Tanks for Nothin’ is a fun little 50′s, retro cartoon about an imaginative tomboy named Lucy, who uses her creativity to get back at her mean older brother. I spent a year developing and animating “Tanks”.

It’s got a great musical score, and every last frame has been lovingly assembled. The only thing it’s lacking is an awesome sound design. I’ve been approached by a talented Sound Designer from an Academy Award winning animated short, who’d like to collaborate on my film. I’m using Kickstarter.com to raise the funds for the sound studio overhead.

If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter.com, it’s a site that helps art projects raise funds from online backers in exchange for rewards. In the case of my project, backers can earn original signed artwork (I’m just starting out, but I plan to make great animated stories for years to come – this is a chance to get my “Rookie card”), a DVD of the finished film, movie posters, and even their name in the credits. I’ve heard most projects are funded by under 5 dollar pledges. Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing platform, so if the project doesn’t reach its goal no money changes hands.

If you think this is a worthwhile project please help out by telling your friends about it via Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Linkedin, etc. I really need help getting the word out there (I only have until Monday Aug 29, 3:02am ET. left to raise the funds).

Tanks for Nothin’ site.

I don’t intend to turn my site into an open venue for everyone, but thought this project of interest, and I hope it does well.

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- I also wanted to post a reminder that Grayson Ponti has one of the best blogs out there (for animation freaks, that is.) The 50 Most Influential Disney Animators offers good bios and passable critiques of many different Disney animators, past and present.

Of course, the two inherent problems with the site are that many great and brilliant animators didn’t work for Disney. They’re all left out.
So, too, are all the wonderful story artists/writers and production designers that have seriousl affected the films (both Disney and non).

The Dirty Birdy

- Last night was John Dilworth night at the Big Screen Project. As you can see from the above photo, this is a 30 foot video screen plunked mid block off Sixth Avenue between 29th & 30th Streets. John invited lots of friends for the two screenings. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate, and we had a cool, windy, rainy night.

The event, however, wasn’t spoiled because there was an enclosure into the building, and we were able to look out at the monitor. They hand out closed circuit radios (with earplugs – you take home with you) to hear the sound track (in stereo) while watching from the warm comfort of the building. It’s a food court so there’s plenty of food to purchase or you can have a drink, since the area we watched from was a pub. It made for a fun and interesting experience.

The program was well organized and coordinated by Jaime Ekkens for Big Screen Project.

Looking out to the screen from the bar.

The films absolutely seemed to glow on the crystal clear monitor.

The Oscar nominated CHICKEN FROM OUTER SPACE.

There are plenty of other animators up this April to showcase their films. Go here to see the April schedule. Emily Hubley‘s films are up next on April 11th.

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- This past week I received a book in the mail, 100 Animated Feature Films. When the book arrived, I was so taken by the cover design (an image from Lotte Reiniger‘s Prince Achmed, the first full length animated feature) that I immediately opened and started into the book.

I was curious about the taste of the author, Andrew Osmond. Would it be another list that would be more studio oriented or more, perhaps, something a bit more siding with the Independent studio. Would his taste run more to the current films or the Golden Age? He’s written a number of articles about Satoshi Kon and Miyazaki for Britain’s The Guardian, so one has a good idea of his preferences.

In fact, I found myself pretty well pleased with a lot of the listings. It’s a bit more Anime than I would have gone toward, but I can easily understand the choice. However, there are many expected and deserved choices within the book. I’m glad to see Reininger’s Prince Achmed listed, as, of course, is Snow White. Other Disney titles include: Pinocchio, Bambi, Fantasia, Dumbo, Beauty and the Beast. There are also a bunch of Pixar films, some of which are: only one Toy Story (the original), The Incredibles, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo and Up.

Surprises were finding some titles such as:

The Thief and the Cobbler. The final film version of Richard Williams’ feature, on the market, is horrible. The one in the works for 30 years was visually stunning. This is listed here for what it might have been.
Sita Sings the Blues. This is the only Flash animated feature included. A truly solo work, Nina Paley, created a thinking film with a lot of glorious sections.
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. This is a spin-off the television series, and doesn’t have the weight that any title in such a book deserves.
A Scanner Darkly. I might have chosen Waking Life over this title, but I suppose this has a more coherent story. Regardless, I’m glad to see one of Richard Linklater’s films included.
Avatar. Jim Cameron fought to make sure people didn’t consider this animation. I guess, he’s lost. Animation or Live Action, it’s not a very good film.
Both of Sylvain Chomet‘s films: The Illusionist and The Triplettes of Belleville. They both belong here.

Surprises not found in the book:

Gulliver’s Travels. Osmond includes Hoppity Goes to Town, but leaves Gulliver out. Excuse me, but Batman Beyond OVER the beautiful Fleischer gem? Something doesn’t smell so good.
Ratatouille. This is certainly one of the best of Pixar’s films. To include Finding Nemo and not this excellent feature by Brad Bird is just crazy. I suppose he had Bird’s The Incredibles and he wanted to write about Andrew Stanton.
And if you’re going to include films for the sake of the director, wouldn’t Chuck Jones‘ only feature, The Phantom Tollbooth, be included?
Neither UPA feature: Magoo’s 1001 Arabian Nights and Gay Purr-ee were both left out of the book. Given the heavy number of Japanese features, I would have found one to keep out to include a UPA example.

However despite any gripes, I have to say the book is solidly written and intelligently put together with a lot of thought going into the choices. It’s expected I’d have opposing thoughts on the titles included, but I admit to being intelligently challenged by the author. Andrew Osmond did a fine job, and the book is graphically attractive. I do wish, though, that the type were a bit larger. It looks like it’s about 8pt. and it’s too small for my aging eyes. The book was published by BFI Screen Guides.

The images above can be found in the book.
1) Animal Farm
2) 101 Dalmatians
3) The Yellow Submarine
4) Ivan and His Magic Pony
5) The Tale of the Fox

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I saw this film on line last Tuesday. Cartoon Brew posted it on Wedneday. If you saw it there, I’m pleased; if not this is for you. Matthias Hoegg‘s BAFTA nominated short, Thursday, can be seen online here. It’s an excellent film with a lot of the character necessarily developed through the animation. At the same website, there’s also an interview with Matthias about the making of the short. Take the 7 minutes to watch the film. A good use of cgi and 2D.

He’s represented by Beakus. Their site also showcases a number of his films.

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A lot of things seem to have happened in the past few weeks. I thought it time to just ramble about some of them.

- Bill Plympton‘s feature, Idiots and Angels, has hit NY’s IFC Center like a storm. Bill seems to be attending quite a few of the screenings with Q&A’s added. News about the show is everywhere in NY. The film got glowing reviews from the NYTimes and the NYPost. No word from the NYDaily News (which didn’t review My Dog Tulip, either.)

Bill’s been working overtime promoting the movie. Since he’s self distributing the film, it takes real drive to get the attention he’s created. His is a lesson we can all learn from. It’s a small part of the job making the film; the largest part is selling it. Kudo’s to team Plympton for a job well done.

Bill’s film had an Academy screening this past Thursday in New York and will screen for the Academy in LA on Oct. 31st, Halloween night. It’s quite a coup, I think, to see that he’s gotten the film on their schedule to make sure members can see it. The Oscar push has already started (and Nikki Finke took note in her column.)

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- Last week John Canemaker appeared at the Museum of Modern Art with a talk and book signing for his Two Guys Named Joe. The house was packed and the talk was light and informative. The power-point show was choc-a-block with great photos and artwork. Many of them didn’t appear in the book.

John has a way about these talks that just keep you interested and entertained. To get a good idea, he was on NPR’s Leonard Lopate show that same day as his MOMA talk. You can listen to it here.

Meanwhile, there are two articles by John posted on the Print Magazine website. One about the Disney Family Museum and a second about the Irish Animation scene. Both are enormously informative reads. The Irish article includes several embedded videos.

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- Darrell Van Citters has started a new blog dedicated to Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. Take a look. He has pieces on some of the artists. An article about designer Bob Inman is particularly informative as is another about Phil Norman. This is fast becoming a must-view blog.

You’ll remember that Darrell has written one of last year’s best books, called The Making of Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. I’ve read the book three times already and suggest you all buy a copy.

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- While away on Vacation, I missed John Dilworth‘s talk at the 92nd Street Y (downtown). The ASIFA East blog covers this event well and I suggest you all turn there to read a report on the event. Sounds like it was fun, as I expected it might have been.

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- I’d been entertaining the idea of travelling down to Washington D.C. to attend the rally which John Stewart is gathering. It’s sort of an anti-Glenn Beck rally. Arianna Huffington is supplying free buses from NY to D.C. and back. It makes it just too damn attractive. But I’ll have just returned that week from a trip to Ottawa, and I’ll be feeling my age if I do go down to Washington.

I’ll have to miss it.

By the way, I believe the Festival in Ottawa has given me a hotel room where I’ll have access to the Internet. This means I’ll be able to add updates to my regular blog posts, even during the Festival. I did this the last time I was up there, and it worked out well.

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- I’ve gotten a lot of flack in NY recently for comments I’ve posted about the Dash Shaw trailer posted on Cartoon Brew. Too bad. I didn’t like what I saw and I commented. We’re accepting too much crap these days, and animation as a medium is taking a bad hit for it. Some of us have to start saying that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes; oh, and he’s also not an Emperor. It’s just my opinion, and you, certainly, can think I’m wrong. He does have one of NY’s greats working for him – Biljana Labovic. If anyone will make the film worth seeing, it will be she. Her work on Bill Plympton’s films went unsung for too long, and she finally got a co-producer credit on Idiots and Angels. I think highly of her opinion, and she must like the work or she wouldn’t be there. So maybe it’s my age or my ego somehow out of whack, but I’ll stick with my opinion until I see something that changes my mind.

However, for those who do like his work, Dash Shaw will lecture at SVA on Nov. 4th. Here’s a press release for this event:

Thursday, November 4, 7pm
SVA Theatre
333 West 23 Street

The New York Times has called artist and SVA alumnus Dash Shaw (BFA 2005 Illustration) “a hard-core experimentalist” and “a hell of an artist, constructing vivid, uncanny compositions with a spectacular sense of color and space.” With the publication of Bottomless Belly Button (Fantagraphics, 2008) and BodyWorld (Pantheon, 2010), Shaw has quickly established himself as a leader among today’s graphic novelists. The animator and director of IFC’s The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D., Shaw is currently working on the animated feature The Ruined Cast. The event is free and open to the public and presented by the The Alumni Society of School of Visual Arts.

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- I still roil over the young death of Japanese director, Satoshi Kon. He was a brilliant animation artist who deserved greater attention. International success seemed to be just starting to touch his films, when he died. I’m glad I had the opportunity of interviewing him several months before his death. (I wrote about it here.)

His film Paprika will play at the Gotham Screen International Film Festival, on Oct. 13th at the Tribeca Film Theater, 54 Varick Street (just off 6th Ave, south of Houston). Tickets are $8 – $10.

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- Today’s NYTimes reviews the new DVD release from WB: Essential Bugs Bunny Collection. It’s a 2 disc set with one disc containing not very essential material or shorts. The reviewer for the Times ends with this paragraph:

Better that you explore the several volumes in the “Looney Tunes Golden Collection,” also from Warner Home Video. Here you will find all these and more, including “What’s Up, Doc?,” a semi-autobiographical cartoon from 1950 that is not in this “essential” collection, yet is essential to any understanding of the artist. Among other insights, it includes an epiphany by Mr. Bunny that rings so true I just can’t get it out of my head: “I was a rabbit in a human woild.”

- This last week saw the death of two Japanese animation masters. The very young (46) 2D director, Satoshi Kon, died of pancreatic cancer on Tuesday.
Then we learned that the brilliant puppet animator, Kihachiro Kawamoto had died on Monday. (Cartoon Brew has an excellent obituary for him.)

He was an acolyte of Jiri Trnka‘s, having travelled to Czechoslovakia to work with the great puppet filmmaker. Kawamoto’s own short films were gem-like little jewels which often told harrowing Japanese folk tales. Films such as The Demon (1972), Dojoji Temple (1976) and House of Flame (1979) are pure film yet they retain the spirituality of old Japanese mysticism.

Aside from the numerous beautiful short films he animated and directed, he did two features: The Book of the Dead and Rennyo and His Mother. He also supervised the cut out feature, Winter Days, a film inspired by the renka couplets of celebrated haiku poet Matsuo Basho. 35 of the world’s top animators created two-minute segments for the film. The most popular of these was Yuri Norstein

Again I saw him in Ottawa in 2006 at an animation festival. His feature, The Book of the Dead, was being screened. He spoke to an audience at a Q&A for the filmmakers. It wasn’t quite the same feel meeting him this time, but it was more relaxed and a treat, all the same.

He died of complications from pneumonia on Monday, August 23 at the age of 85. He was a brilliant puppet filmmaker – one of the very best.

- I have to take note of the passing of Satoshi Kon. There’s a short piece via Charles Solomon, about him on Cartoon Brew, which I suggest you read. The links there brought me to this piece with more information. He died abruptly of pancreatic cancer. His diagnosis on May 18th was that he would have at most 6 months to live. He died August 24th at the age of 46.
There’s an excelelent obit in today’s NYTimes by A.O. Scott.

L to R: Me, the interpreter and Mr. Kon

I had the pleasure of interviewing him back in June, 2009. Unfortunately the recording of the interpreter, who spoke so softly, was not good, and I couldn’t get much of a transcript. He was polite, positive and a pleasure to meet, even though a great deal didn’t come of the conversation. His art around the room was stunning. I am decidedly a fan of his work. He died Tuesday, a terribly sad end.

You can see some of this art in the blog post I wrote that day. Go here.
Richard O’Connor also wrote a short, nice pieco on his blog, Asterisk Animation
You should also check out his films Millenium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprika.

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- Back in February 2007, Hans Perk offered the storyboard and some notes on the shelved Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Plight of the Bumblebee. This was on his site A FIlm LA. It was animated by Fred Moore, Hal King and Cliff Nordberg and was shelved partially because of length. Jack Kinney, the director, calls it the best Mickey film (though it’s definitely not despite the generally fluid yet unispired animation.)

This is important because Thad Komorowski offers the entire pencil test of the film on his site.

Hans suggests that Mr. Lasseter call down to order the film completed since it’s already so close. Nothing happening since that was written in 2007. I’d guess that Lasseter won’t take notice.

Anyway, this is great payoff. Thanks Hans and Thad.

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- John Canemaker‘s column about Charles Burchfield receives an excellent comment from Richard O’Connor on the Asterisk Animation blog. The connection is made to the new show of Burchfield’s work at the Whitney Museum of Art. Richard’s article is worth a read, and John’s article is, obviously, also worth reading.
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- I’d like to remind those in New York that there are three features on the horizon (or in one case, already here), about to play in theaters.

Paul and Sandra Fierlinger‘s film, My Dog Tulip, starts at the Film Forum next week, September 1st. For this film, we’ll feature three separate reviews by the animation staff (that includes me, of course, as well as Matt Clinton and Katrina Gregorius) here at the studio. We’ll probably post it on Tuesday, a day before the opening.

Bill Plympton has his feature, Idiots and Angels, opening at the IFC Center on Oct 6th. I intend to offer an interview with Bill before the film opens, so you can look forward to that. The film has played at many Festivals, so there’s been ample chance for enthusiastic animators to get a preview. If you haven’t seen it the chance will now be there.

Currently playing at the Angelicka is the feature Tales from Earthsea. This was directed by Goro Miyazaki, the son of Hayao Miyazaki. Goro was chosen as a potential way of handing down the father’s directoral mantle when Hayao was planning to retire. When Hayao saw the final of Tales from Earthsea, the father decided not to retire. Instead he made one of his best features with last year’s US release, Ponyo. He’s currently doing another two features. He and his son didn’t speak during the making of the film.

The best review I read of this film is, naturally, on The Ghibli Blog by Daniel Thomas MacInnes.
There’s also a good interview with the book’s author Ursula Le Guin.

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- A small footnote. Disney has decided to withdraw its animated product from the Annie Awards. That’s right Toy Story 3 and Day & Night will not be competing for Annie Awards this year.

The people at Disney/Pixar feel that anyone can join ASIFA and vote for the awards. They don’t say that they haven’t won against the Dreamworks product for the last few years. Rotten Tomatoes, indeed.

Here’s the Variety story, if you can’t get it without a subscription.

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Speaking of Day & Night, I received a copy of the book which sells for only $10 at Amazon.

The book is better than the short film – it takes less time to read. The graphics are better; it’s not a melange of hand drawn work and cgi inner-body motion. The cg is replaced with watercolors. The artwork by author/illustrator Teddy Newton is more constant than the film and decidedly better.

The story – it’s the same sophmoric tale. However, you don’t have to listen to the ending’s narrator telling us what we already know. I doubt I’d ever have bought this book, but thanks the excellent publisher, Chronicle Books, I now own it. This publisher always does a good job with their product.

- Chuck Jones: Memories of Chldhood is a film by Peggy Stern. John Canemaker also served as producer and director of animation.

In 1997, John brought Peggy Stern and Chuck Jones together for a series of interviews that became the basis of this film. Jones often sketched his boyhood self as he related his memories. These sketches later inspired the documentary’s animated sequences, which Canemaker directed.

Just prior to his death Jones saw a rough version of the film and was delighted. His family sunsequently provided Ms. stern with additional archival material. The end result is an intimate film about the early years of Chuck Jones’ life.

This film is going to air on Turner Classic Movies Tuesday, March 24th at 8 p.m, and it will be followed by three classic Jones shorts: Duck Amuck, One Froggy Evening and What’s Opera Doc.

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- An exhibit celebrating Manga and Anime is opening tomorrow, March 14th, at the Japan Society in New York. has

The films that will be shown include:
___ Katsuhiro Otomo’s classic, Akira (1988)
___ Masaaki Yuasa’s Mind Game (2004)
___ Satoshi Kon’s, Paprika (2006)
___ Patlabor 2: The Movie, by Mamoru Oshii _____ (1993)
___ The Place Promised in Our Early Days _____ (2004), by Makoto Shinkai
and
___ Super Dimension Fortress Macross:
_____ Episode 9, 17, 18, and 27 (1982-83),
_____ designed by Ichiro Itano.

Screenings will begin Saturday, March 14 and will continue until June 14, 2009.

The exact Anime screening schedule in the auditorium is here

A listing of Manga on display is here.

The NYTimes has a review of this show in today’s paper.

- Yesterday, I had the opportunity of meeting Satoshi Kon prior to the first screening of the retrospective being held at the Walter Reade Theater in NYC.

In the brief 10 minute interview I was given, I had prepared a number of questions to send in advance for the sake of the interpreter. We brought along a small camera to video tape and record the session. I had hoped to transcribe the interview and post it today. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a problem. The interpreter’s voice was just above a whisper and barely recorded. We have to redigitize the track and work on it to get her voice audible enough to transcribe. We’ll post the interview later this week.

There was some still art framed and mounted in the hall, though. I photographed it and caught a lot of reflection off the lights in the hall. Regardless, here are some of the images I shot. The photographs don’t do justice to Mr. Kon’s beautiful artwork. There are plenty of others I didn’t have time to shoot.

Go see the exhibit and films if you’re in NY. The full schedule is posted in my initial writing on this series. Here.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The above three images are all “Key Art” for Millenium Actress.

Me, the interpreter and Mr. Kon

The two images above and the two below are from
the storyboard of Tokyo Godfathers.

My apologies to Mr. Kon for the poor reproductions. I’m hardly what I would call a photographer, however I did want to give a sample of what fine work visitors would see at this exhibit and program.

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Sunday’s NY Times features a good article on Tom Sito ‘s new animation series for PBS, As The Wrench Turns. The show premieres July 9th.

- Something tells me this post will get a lot of people angry at me.

There was a bit of a conflict for me on Tuesday night in New York. Bill Plympton screened his film, Idiots and Angels, for much of the animation community here. While Wall-E played at the Academy at 6PM, Plympton’s film started at 4PM. It was a tough hustle to get from one to the other. What was more of a problem for me was having to leave work at 3PM to see Bill’s film. I couldn’t make it work, and I’m sorry I missed it.

I wasn’t as sold on Wall-E as every review I’d read to date. The film, to me, felt less like an animated film than a special effect film.

Spoiler Alert

The story of Wall-E, for those of you who don’t know, is about a robot who has been left on earth (presumably for about 700 years) to try to gather the residue of the planet left behind by the humans. They’ve made earth inhospitable for their own survival. Wall-E is the robot left, with a companion roach, to gather the garbage and compact it into large piles of cubes. He eventually falls in love (robot love) with a more modern robot sent to earth to search for signs of vegetation. Wall-E finds a plant and gives it to her.

Humans have moved to a large spaceship and are treated much too well. They’ve all grown enormously fat not moving from their lounge chairs. The machines are in control, until one human takes charge with the help of Wall-E and brings people back to earth.

Watching the film, it was starting to get claustrophobic while they were on on earth, so I was glad to see them leave. Something had to advance the story. The new world on board the spaceship ends up with robots chasing other robots back and forth, up and down the large ship. It gets awfully tiring, quickly.

The technical abilities are high, and the film is done with the greatest professionalism. But they’re machines being animated, and I never felt close to them. The Iron Giant, from that film, was a hostile, war machine and was supposed to stay a machine, but I felt more for that character than I did for Wall-E or his cutely developed girlfriend, EVE.

The film has a better concept than story. It’s the bane of all movies these days. If you can narrow the story down to one sentence, it’s more concept than story and has a harder time being successful. Wall-E feels a lot like Short Circuit 3 with no humans – for at least the first half.

I was, again, impressed with the incredible artistic abilities of the Pixar people, but I didn’t feel as though I were watching an animated film. It felt like a live action film (until the balloony fat people entered) with high effects. Perhaps that’s a positive; I’m not sure anymore.

Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo, Snow White. These films were magic to me as a child. I imagine Wall-E is like every other effects film to today’s children. I can’t imagine it will inspire future generations to get into the field. Maybe, you never know.

I’m sorry I missed Idiots and Angels; I’m sure I’ll see it in Ottawa.

Today’s NY Post gives Wall-E a four star review which ends with, “Some day, there will be college courses devoted to this movie.” The Village Voice‘s glowing review says, “a film that’s both breathtakingly majestic and heartbreakingly intimate.” I can also understand their POV. See it for yourself.

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- I wanted to remind those in the New York area that the animated films of Satoshi Kon will be playing at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater.

The complete retrospective starts tomorrow, Friday, and continues through next Tuesday. Go here to see my recent post including the schedule and other information.

I hope to meet Mr. Kon tomorrow and will report on that this Saturday.

– Coming to Lincoln Center Film Society, a complete retrospective of the works of Satoshi Kon. All of his films will be screened, from the first film Perfect Blue to his last, Paprika. Included will be the 13-part tv series, Paranoia Agent, which has not been previously screened here.

The highlight of the retrospective will be a chat with the director on the opening night following the 6:15 screening of Paprika.

The films of this director are extraordinary works that hue closely to live action but remainly, distinctly, animated films. My introduction to his work was Tokyo Godfathers which was another variant on 3 Godfathers, the John Ford film. (As was Three Men and A Baby and Ice Age.)

The complete schedule is as follows:

Satoshi Kon: Beyond Imagination
June 27 – July 1, 2008

June 27
2:30PM Perfect Blue
4:15PM Millennium Actress
6:15PM Paprika followed by A Conversation with Satoshi Kon

June 28
2:30PM Tokyo Godfathers
4:30PM Perfect Blue
6:15PM Millennium Actress / Sennen joyû
8:15PM Paranoia Agent (Part One: Chapters 1-7)

June 29
1:00PM Paranoia Agent (Part One: Chapters 1-7)
4:15PM Paranoia Agent (Part Two: Chapters 8-13)
7:15PM Tokyo Godfathers
9:15PM Perfect Blue

June 30
2:00PM Tokyo Godfathers
4:00PM Paprika

July 1
2:30PM Paprika
4:20PM Millennium Actress / Sennen joyû
6:15PM Paranoia Agent (Part Two: Chapters 8-13)
9:10PM Paprika

Michael Barrier posted a good review of Paprika back in Aug 2007 when it opened in the US. He also had an extensive feedback page on Kon’s other films.

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- Speaking of Tokyo Godfathers , it is part of an all animation programming week at Ovation TV. The shows featured this week include Tokyo Godfathers, The Triplettes of Belleville, Spirited Away, The Ub Iwerks Story, Dante’s Inferno (a puppet film), and Wallace and Gromit Go To Hollywood (a making-of documentary).
Check their schedule here.

Tokyo Godfathers is featured tonight and replays several other times this week. This is the schedule:
Today -June 17/2008 8PM 11PM
Wed – June 18/2008 2AM
Sat – June 21/2008 8PM 11PM
Sun – June 22/2008 5PM

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- The Annecy animation festival sounds as if it were a good one.

I’m pleased as punch that Nina Paley‘s feature, Sita Sings the Blues, received the prize for best feature. I hope it leads to distribution; the film’s a gem and deserves all the attention it can get.
Congratulations, also, to Bill Plympton for the Special Prize he received for Idiots and Angels

Oswald Iten‘s fine, new blog gives a good account of the festival and celebrates a number of events and films.
This site looks to be one to save; I linked to it last week when I first came across it: Colorful Animation Expressions.

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- I tend to get excited when a new, young filmmaker gets some attention with the fruits of their labor – a crisp, new short film. Elizabeth Hupcey‘s short, The Unopened Door, was one of only two animated films selected for presentation in the WMHT (PBS – Albany, NY) film festival. The film will air Thursday June 19th at 10 pm. I saw the film a while back, and it deserves all the attention it gets. Congratulations to Elizabeth.