Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

The Richard Williams Mystique

Next Friday, at the invitation of filmmaker-editor-director, Kevin Schreck, I’ll have the pleasure of seeing his recently completed documentary, Persistence of Vision. This is the story of the making of Richard Williams‘ many-years-in-the -making animated feature, The Cobbler and the Thief. I’m not sure of the film maker’s POV, but I somehow expect it to be wholly supportive of the insistent vision of Richard Williams in the making of this Escher-like version of an animated feature. A work of obsession.

It’s the tale of an “artist”, someone who sees himself as an artist, and continually pushes through the world with what would seem to be evident proof of such. After all, this man had single-handedly altered the face of 2D animation in a world that was about to throw it away with all its rich history and artistry and strengths. A medium that had developed through the years of Disney with giant, filmed classics such as Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia and even Sleeping Beauty. A medium that had drastically changed to 20th century graphics under the hands of people like John Hubley, Chuck Jones, George Dunning and many others and had just about reached a zenith where it was moving toward something wholly new, something adult.

Instead the medium took a turn in the wrong direction. The economics of television brought us back almost 100 years as films became more and more simplistic and simpleminded in the rush to be cheap. Even the Disney studio went for the poorest subject matter using cost-saving devices to sell their films. Films became shoddier and shoddier, and the economics ruled. The closest the medium would come to art was Ralph Bakshi‘s Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic, low budget movies that traded on racy material in exchange for an attempt at something adult, stories barely held together with editing tape. Animation was getting a bad name from every corner whether it was the sped-up graphics of Hanna-Barbera, the reach to the lowest common denominator with poor animation from Disney, or the shock and tell of Ralph Bakshi‘s filmed attempts at what he saw as art.

Williams took a different turn. He went back to the height of animation’s golden era, inviting artists such as Grim Natwick, John Hubley, Ken Harris and Art Babbitt to his London studio to lecture on the rules and backbone of the animation. He brought some of these people to work on a feature that he’d decided to create within his studio on the profits of commercials. These very same commercials financed the training of Dick and his young staff.

A documentary done in 1966, called The Creative Person: Richard Williams offers an excellent view of his studio. We see snippets of shorts Dick made with his own coin: Love Me Love Me Love Me (1962) or The Sailor and the Devil (1967) wherein we see the training of a young and brilliant illustrator named Errol le Cain. (Le Cain became known for his magnificent, glimmering children’s book illustrations. He was doing most of the backgrounds for The Cobbler and the Thief, and had certainly had a large part in its design.)

We see in this documentary the first hint of The Cobbler when it was called Nasruddin. It was based on a book of middle eastern tales of a wise fool whose every short story tells a new and positive anecdote. Dick had illustrated several books of these tales with many funny line drawings. The book was written by the Idres Shah who had undertaken a role within the Willams studio finding funds for the feature. Eventually, the two had a falling out, and Idres Shah left with his property. Williams took the work he had done as Nasruddin and reworked it into The Cobbler and the Thief. ________________________________Errol le Cain

Meanwhile the work within his studio continued to develop, growing more and more mature. The commercials became the highlight of the world’s animation. Doing many feature film titles such as What’s New Pussycat (1965), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) led to Dick’s directing a half-hour adaptation of The Christmas Carol (1971). Chuck Jones produced the ABC program, and it led to an Oscar as Best Animated Short.

Through all this The Cobbler and the Thief continued. Many screenplays changed the story and the stunning graphics that were being produced for that film were often shifted about to accommodate the new story.

By this time, Williams had developed something of a name within the world of animation. Strong and important animation figures went to his studio to work for periods of time. Someone like Abe Levitow taught and animated for the studio. (His scenes for The Christmas Carol are among the most powerful.) Many of the Brits that worked in the studio and then left to start their own companies were now among the world’s best animators.

Williams had the opportunity of doing a theatrical feature adaptation of the children’s books The Adventures of Raggedy Ann and Andy and took it. A large staff of classically trained animation leaders such as Art Babbitt, Grim Natwick, Tissa David, Hal Ambro, Emery Hawkins and many others worked out of New York or LA as the company set up two studios to produce this film. Working for over two years, Dick’s attention was diverted to work away from his London studio, where commercials and some small devotion was given to The Thief by a few of the key personnel working there. Dick spent a good amount of his time in the air flying from NY to LA to NY to London and back again and again. He concentrated his animation efforts on cleaning up animation by some of the masters, rather than allow proper assistants to do these tasks. By doing this he was able to reanimate some of the work he didn’t wholly approve of. Entire song numbers were reworked by Dick as the film flew well behind its budget and schedule.

Eventually, the film finished in confusion and mismanagement, and Dick moved to his LA studio where he continued commercials and began Ziggy’s Gift, a Christmas Special for ABC.

From this he went back to his London studio and did the animation for Who Framed Roger Rabbit for producer/director Robert Zemeckis. He hoped that work on this feature, which won three Academy Awards, including a special one for the animation, would be the triumph he needed to help him raise the funds for The Thief and the Cobbler. Now that he was safely back in his own studio in Soho Square he felt more focused.

A contract came from Warner Bros., and the work began in earnest.

Dick’s history wasn’t the best working on these long form films. Chuck Jones replaced him on The Christmas Carol to get it finished when work went overbudget and schedule. Dick was putting too much into it. Gerry Potterton finished Raggedy Ann when the budget went millions over with less than a third completed. Eric Goldberg took over Ziggy’s Gift, the Christmas Special for ABC, to get it done on time. On Roger Rabbit, the live action director stayed intimately involved in the animation after his shoot was complete. When it became obvious that things weren’t going well, he stepped in to complete that film.

In all cases of all of these films, Dick never left. He stayed on working separately on animation or assisting to try to keep a positive hand in the quality of the work that was done.

When The Cobbler and the Thief ran into very serious trouble, there was no secondary Director or Producer to come in and complete the work. Instead that job fell to the money men. The completion bond company, essentially an insurance company for Warner Bros. to make sure they wouldn’t lose their money if things didn’t go well, stepped in. They closed Dick’s studio and removed Dick from the premises. The boxed up and carted off all animation work done or in progress. It was all moved back to Los Angeles.

The Weinsteins, through their company, Miramax bought the film at auction and completed it with a poor excuse of an animation outfit they set up in LA. Work was also sent to Taiwan. The script was reworked trying to capitalize on the success of Disney’s Aladdin that had recently opened in the US. If Robin Williams‘ ad libbing could be such a success, imagine how well Jonathan Winters could do repeating that for a character who, in Dick’s original version, had no voice. Now he didn’t stop talking.

The new film failed miserably and deserved to do so. The primary audience, I would suspect, was the entire world animation community coming to look down on the artificially breathing corpse.

Richard Williams, himself, retired and moved far from the mainstream. He continues to work on small animation bits, but his primary work has been in making a series of DVD lectures revealing how animation should be done. This accompanies a well-received book he wrote and illustrated. Meanwhile, the animation community still hopes that something will emerge from that corner.

Dick turns 80 years old on March 19th. He’s still an amazing forceful and exciting personality. I wish I had more access to him (as does most of those who knew him back then.) He’s had probably the greatest effect on the animation industry of anyone since the late sixties. There are still studios thriving today on information they learned from Dick and his teaching.

If you’re unfamiliar with the blog, The Thief, I suggest you take a look.

He’s Alive!

- I thought I’d make the small announcement to say that POE‘s alive. Having completed my presentation for HBO, I’ve put all energies back into completing the opening and trailer for my li’l feature. The brilliantly talented, Matt Clinton is back with us working on the sequence, and we hope to be able to go directly into production once that trailer is done.

We still have a couple of storyboards to work and another couple to rework. With that we’ll complete an animatic of the whole. It’s going to be a fun ride, and I’m glad to be back with Matt on board.

By the way, the artwork at top is sort of a new logo for the film.

______________________________
Splog’s Alive!

- For the past couple of days, I was playing with/fighting with/working with the enormously helpful Matt Clinton to get my Splog back. And then at 1am on Saturday, Hostgator became more of a host and less of a gator and they told me they made a mistake. The problem that was created was THEIR fault, not mine. They put things back together again, but I feel like Humpty Dumpty, sitting on the wall but knowing that my shell is cracked. I gotta get outta this place and find a new webhost.

Since lights were out most of yesterday, this post is going to sit tight through Sunday (though I’ll probably add some stuff to it). So because it hasn’t changed on Sunday doesn’t mean we’re down again. It feels good to be back.

______________________________

The Dick Williams Tribute

- As was noted on Cartoon Brew, this past week, there will be several programs at the downtown YTribeca celebrating some of the more famous work of Richard Williams.

On Wed, Feb 27th, at 7:30 pm there will be a screening of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This marks the 25th anniversary of the ground breaking feature which took the combination of live action and animation to a new level. Tarring character actor, Bob Hoskins, the film features almost every character ever created for motion pictures, from Bugs Bunny to Mickey Mouse to Betty Boop.

On Thurs, Feb 28th, celebrating the upcoming 80th Birthday of Richard Williams (March 19th), there will be a retrospective of some of Dick’s best short animated films, commercials and sequences. This program is called The Little Island and More. This will conclude with his first theatrical short, The Little Island (1958), which gained immediate success for the young animator. I was asked to host this program, and I couldn’t be prouder than to do so. I’ll also be excited to see some of the commercials on the big screen again. here are many beauties among thee, and, not yet knowing the list of films, I’m hoping some of my favorite gems are among them.

On Friday, Feb 29th, at 7:30 pm there will be a program featuring Persistence of Vision, Kevin Schreck’s documentary about the making of Williams’ long-in-production feature, The Cobbler and the Thief. This film will be followed by a Q&A between director, Schreck and Amid Amidi. I’m really looking forward to seeng this. Having not yet see the doc, I’m hoping some information will be revealed for me.

I felt very torn when Dick’s feature was ripped from him by the insurance bond company. I remember going to the reworked film they patched together to complete the movie. Tissa David and I sat side-by-side sinking into our seats as some of the most glorious animation ever done skipped by alongside some of the worst animation we’d seen. (The princess’ opening song is one of the most dreadful sequences ever done.) I will definitely be present for that showing.

I’ll, of course, write more about this before the event. For now, I would order tickets if I were you; it’ll probably sell out soon.
Go to 92y.org

Dates: Wed, Feb 27th, 7:30 pm, Thu, Feb 28, 7:30 pm, and Fri, Feb 28th, 7:30 pm

Venue: 92YTribeca Screening Room
Location: 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson St

Price: from $12.00

______________________________

Rocks In My Pockets – Kickstarter continues

- “Rocks In My Pockets” is Signe Baumane’s feature in-production.
She’s mid-way through a Kickstarter campaign, raising money to finish the film. She needs help.

This week she sent out a mass email saying:
“We have only a limited time left, and we would love for you to join our efforts.”

If you would like to be the first to see the film when it is done, please pledge $10
and get a password protected link to the film.

If you would like to have a hand made animation drawing from “Rocks”,
you can pledge $75 and the drawing along with the password protected link is yours!

A rare treat – animation cells from “Dentist” – is on the rewards list, too.
Who is making films on cells anymore? This is an historic gift.

You could also be part of our small team in other ways:
- ‘LIKE’ “Rocks In My Pockets” Facebook page?

- Promote the link to our Kickstarter campaign to your Facebook friends

We are excited to welcome you to our small “Rocks” family!

THANK YOU!
Signe

PS if you are curious how other people feel about this project, please check out
the video testimonials of 15 test audience members we compiled into 3 minute video.

As I wrote in the past, I’ve seen a rough cut of the film, and I love what I’ve seen so far. The combination of 3D backgrounds with textured 2D animation works excellently well and is an inspired decision. The best part about this film is that it’s about something. It’s not just funny for the sake of being funny. I wholeheartedly support what she’s doing and recommend strongly that you look into it and support it in any way that you can.

To prove how much I like Signe’s work so far, I’m in one of her videos. Me and Bill Plympton. We were born just days apart, Bill and I, and now were just minutes apart in this video telling you how great we both think Signe is. Actually, I was prepared for the worst, and I don’t think I did too badly. Shifty eyes, but otherwise OK. This week, I’ll give you the link. Next week I’ll put the video on my blog.
Here’s the link.
the link.
the link.

______________________________

Hitler à la Glass

- The Perfect American is a Phillip Glass opera of the book by Peter Stephan Jungk which opened in Madrid this past week. It found its way to a review in the NYTimes by Zachary Woolfe. Many of Glass’ operas have been biographical sketches of some well known personality. This production doesn’t make it seem like there a Glass gem buried here. ‘s review includes many lines such as “a pleasure to listen to but dull as drama” which make one inclined to isten to the recording and skip the production which was, “Archetypal and specific, good and bad, Disney is, in other words, an ideal operatic character. But Mr. Jungk’s tight, strange novel has been transformed into a slack, mild pageant with an alluring soundtrack.”

“The opera is a score in search of a story. Dantine has gone from narrator to bit player; the tension between him and Disney, Old World and New, has vanished without being replaced by another drama. The book’s most ___ Time is running out for Walt Disney.
“striking set pieces . . . (Sounds like
some of the later animated features.)

“Dantine has sought out Disney’s family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, from Salvador Dalí to Peter Ustinov, reconstructing a bizarre narrative of Disney’s illness and death.”

Let’s just say that even though I’m a fan of Phillip Glass’ work, I’m not going to rush to Europe to see this production (which is headed for London to open there.)

Mike Barrier has brought a lot of attention to the piece protecting the memory of Walt. Apparently the book includes a connection between Disney and Hitler just prior to WWII. It certainly never happened, but neither did a conversation between Disney and the audio-animatronic Lincoln that Disney built for the World’s Fair. There’s a lot of other fantasy in there, apparently, and I’ve come to expect such things of Mr. Glass in his operas.

By the way, no mention is made of Hitler in this review.

______________________________

- In case you haven’t noticed it, John Kahrs, the director of Paperman – the Disney animated short which is among the five Oscar nominees this year – has a little piece published in today’s NYTimes.

They ask him for some of his likes and dislikes, (actually, it may only be his likes) and he shares them with us. This is one of those cute little pieces that money buys. Disney advertises so many dollars in the Times, and the Times pays off with so many pure puff pieces. It was my fortune to get some big time space back when Woman of the Year was on Broadway.The producer bought some ads, and my animation was as puff as they could go for the cover of the Weekend Section of the Times.

I somehow doubt that some of the poorer animators nominated this year, might get their likes or dislikes printed in the NY Times. Minkyu Lee and Timothy Reckart what favorite books are you reading these days?

______________________________

- The lincoln Center Gallery is hosting an exhibit of drawings by Spanish animator, Diego Agudo Pinilla. His short animated film, , premiered last Friday and will be shown again on Monday Feb. 04 at 8:30pm. His film is part of a program called Dance on Camera, program 1.

The gallery is on 25 Central Park West at 62nd Street
Gallery Hours
Friday February 1- Monday February 4
1:00pm – 8:00pm
Tuesday February 5
1:00pm -6:00pm

Take a look; it’s rare for animation art to go on display at Lincoln Center and usually worth catching when it does.

Cobbling

- The feature length cut of The Cobbler and the Thief as was assembled by the remarkable Garrett Gilchrist can be found on line:

here.

A beautiful copy of the workprint.

Let me tell you some thoughts I have about this incredible movie.

It’s sad watching it again. I had only the slightest of involvement on the film. It touched my life more than I touched it. I’d seen the documentary on PBS back in the early sixties. The Creative Person: Richard WIlliams. I was impressed. I scoured the newspapers and any other media searching for words about this film or its mad director, Dick Williams. His London studio had sent me a packet they produced full of publicity articles on papers slightly larger than 8 1/2 x 11. I read and reread all those non-bound pages, and they grew dog eared. Williams, his studio and his film was my obsession for a while. It seemed to be the only place where real animation was being done anymore, back in the sixties,.

John Hubley was my hero, and his studio hired me in NYC. It was supposed to be a three day line of employment, but the job ended up lasting the last six years of John’s life.

On the second day there, I met Tissa David. During our first conversation, maybe 15 minutes long, I told her that it was my intention to eventually leave New York to work in London for Dick Williams. (We’d written, and Dick said that he’d see me the next time he came through NY.) On telling Tissa this story, after she had just introduced herself by saying I had done the worst inbetweens she’d ever seen, she – in the most sincere and pleading voice I’d heard – said, “Please don’t leave America. We need you here, animation needs you here.” Or it was certainly something very much to that effect.

The story never quite worked, the Cobbler’s story never quite worked. I remember once reading the script and thinking it’s a feature length Road Runner cartoon. There was too much madcap humor at the Thief’s expense. I may have been wrong. The film seems to have been made to challenge animators. It’s difficult to animate the old Holy, Mad witch, but if you put her on a swinging basket while she talks, it’s even more difficult. Two uneven and oddly attached ropes makes it an extraordinarily difficult challenge. The weight and balance become everything. That’s what’s been done. It’s that way with every scene or character or motion in the film. If the challenge to the character in the scene can be made more difficult, then do it. Grim Natwick loved the challenge, helped develop the character, and Dick accomplished it.

This, of course, is not only fine, it’s fun for the very talented animator – animators such as Dick Williams – but the problem is that it doesn’t really advance the story. The animation for this film is beyond complicated and done so extraordinarily well. The more you know about it, the more you realize how hard it was to do and how well it was done.

A couple of Roy Naisbit War Machines

Roy was one of the great Artists Dick introduced to animation.

Today, of course, we have computers that could animate most of the objects in this film. I’m not sure the “War Machine” would be any better, but it would have taken fewer man-hours. All that glorious drawing, Ink & Pt coloring and design was dependent on the perfect timing. The animation. Perhaps in time a computer would’ve gotten it.

In the first third of the film, there are two lovely scenes animated by Tissa David. Both are pencil tests of the princess, Princess Yum-Yum, in the bath. We’re looking over her shoulder and she looks back toward us, where we are off screen. The hair is up in her scenes, appropriate to a bath. In between there’s another pencil test scene of the princess with her hair down, and it no longer looks like the same character. The art is flatter. Tissa’s princess was voluptuous. As a matter of fact, her princess was two. Two mirroring twins who echoed each other in animation (anything to challenge the animator). Princesses Yum Yum and Mee-Mee. At the suggestion of the brilliant Jake Eberts, one of the two princesses was dropped. Mee Mee.

Tissa in working for Dick out of her NY apartment had purchased a Lyon-Lamb machine. Large and a bit cumbersome, this video machine came in the pre-computer days and was wholly a video tape machine. It employed reel to reel tape and was rather large. It had the distinction of being able to shoot something at 24 frames per second and also play back at that speed. After buying the machine, Tissa had built for herself a piece of furniture which acted as an animation stand that could sit alongside her desk. She saved all those video tapes (reel to reel, remember). She intermixed commercial animation she did for R.O. Blechman at the same time. (She needed the commercial work to be able to afford working for Dick Williams. He was self-financing his movie then, and Tissa loved working on his project. It was her only passion for several years.) This occurred for the years immediately following Raggedy Ann & Andy. Tissa had supervised Ann and Andy. I saw it all, I watched Yum Yum and Mee Mee grow. I heard all the stories first from Tissa’s side, then from Dick’s side. I was in a wonderful place in the world.

I also got to see several screenings of Dick’s developing workprint. Just prior to Dick’s making the Ziggy’s Gift TV special, he’d had a screening of 40 minutes of the feature. Many key people were there, and I can remember a few of them. Tom Wilson (Ziggy’s creator) was there with Lena Tabori. They were a couple, though I don’t think romantically. She was an editor who had developed many big Disney art books for Abrams before forming her own company, Stewart, Tabori & Chang and Welcome Books. She was the daughter of actress, Viveca Landfors. She, Wilson and Williams were the producers of Ziggy’s Gift, though ultimately Dick Williams was pushed out when the budget continued to rise as it did on most Williams films. Midway through production, Eric Goldberg got the chance to take the directorial reins and complete the film in a make-shift studio in LA. It was a packed screening. I sat next to Chuck Jones with Sidney Lumet sitting on my left. We three had great things to say about what we’d seen afterwards. How could you not? The animation, coloring, graphics, everything was extraordinary. There was no hint of a story in the 40 minute presentation; I was starting to notice that. I can’t remember many animation people there, though Willis Pyle was one. Tissa, of course, was there. She was getting to see her pencil tests projected.

In time, things broke somehow between Dick and Tissa, and she was pulled from the project. It broke her heart, but she never once mentioned how or why to me. Dick was like that. He loved an animator (or any craftsman/artist) to death until he didn’t. Eventually, he’d worked up enough venom to decide, finally to split from the person. Things might right themselves again, but most people didn’t even know what was wrong. (The same happened between me and Dick. I know why he stopped caring for me, and I know when we split. I didn’t stop loving him or what he was doing. He came close to animation “Art”, there in the seventies.)

_____________________________________

- As long as we’re posting Richard Williams‘ remarkable movies available on-line thanks to the work of Garrett Gilchrist, let me direct you to this one movie title sequence.

Prudence and the Pill was an comedy done in the sixties starring David Niven. It got its share of attention thanks to the title. The “Pill” was in the headlines and had made its way onto many newscasts when Congress legalized the contraceptive for women. Richard Williams studio did the titles and credits for this movie, and one thing stands out about them. Sharing the title with Dick Williams is the incredibly talented artist, Errol LeCain. He is credited as “animator”. The only other “animator” credit listed for this genius of an artist was for the Sailor and the Devil.

_____________________________________
Pi

Honestly, I’ve been hooked on The Life of Pi. I saw the film in a theater twice, once for myself and the second time I went back to see it for Heidi’s sake. On the second viewing she seemed to love it more than I did. I found some things that bothered me, but I couldn’t really respond properly to them. Then this past week I got a new DVD player, and I tried it out, once the basic part of it was hooked up. The Life of Pi, a screener copy, was played to test run the machine. I was hooked up. I couldn’t stop watching it. All the faults I’d found on the second screening melted away, and I loved it again.

The Mychael Danna music played in my head over and over and over. I watched those opening credits at least another half dozen times. They’re beautiful and magic. It’s still playing in my head while I write this.

I wrote to the Effx house Rhythm & Hues saying I’d like to write about the film and its Effx. I haven’t heard back from them. I’ve been annoying enough about this subject that I received a comment from James Nethery saying he’d contacted a Rhythm & Hues animator asking if he’d be interested in being interviewed by me about PI. Thank you, James. That’d be fun.

For me, this year, the best animated scenes were many of those of Richard Parker, the tiger, in Pi. I was also equally astounded by most of the work of the Gollum in The Hobbit. One is straight cgi; the other is what used to be called “motion capture” and is now something much much more. There’s real feeling in both those films, and in both those films those characters exist. There can be no question of it. In essence I have a theory that this – the work in these two films and others like it – is the real purpose of computer crafted animation. Some people have learned how to make a living by faking little dolls talking, but that work – to me – doesn’t have far to go. It’s all in the writing for those films, and writing lately, especially for animation, is poor. Anmation, itself,
is stunned, stultified, unable to advance given the short sidedness of the “Producers”. This would seem to be the era of its greatest potential growth, but then some of our finest animators are forced into an early retirement. Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas and some others were afraid to retire for fear of animation dying. Perhaps it has.

- We’ve come to the end of another year. I face the new year without my trusted computer. You work for a number of years on one particular machine, and you get to know what to expect. Photoshop has its own kinks on each different machine as does AfterEffects or the Wacom tablet. With each machine the same pen and the same tablet gives me wholly different lines no matter how I try to focus the brushes that the computer offers. Finally, finally I get the lines and the shapes that I want on a specific screen with just the right pressure I want to exert, and wallah!

No computer. Yesterday morning, Sunday, the computer just wouldn’t turn on. I found a really trusty place to bring my sick machine to be examined, but, it being New Year’s weekend, this is the one Sunday they’re not opening. So I wait till today, Monday, New Year’s eve (when they’ll close early) and will carry my computer there at 9am to get a check out. No doubt they’ll tell me something before they close at 1pm.

Of course, I suspect the worst, the motherboard (what a name) is probably damaged, though I hope not. I hope I just haven’t been properly putting the cord in place, and it’s not getting the electricity it needs. But, as I said, I expect the worst. I expect to have to buy a new machine and hire the computer repair place to dig out all my files and reconstruct them for me on the new computer. Then I’ll have all those programs like Photoshop and AfterEffects and the Wacom tablet that I’ll have to buy new software (since I don’t have the outdated disks I once used to install them onto the dead machine. If I do have them, they’re n storage somewhere in New Jersey or the Bronx or whereve that particular lot of things is stored.) Money just seems to grow on trees when you don’t have any. I’ll figure it out.

I’m more worried about my files. I’ve been working months on the opening of POE and have about 40 secs of finished animation sitting dormant on a possibly dead disk. I have animatics I’ve been doing for presentation – not one piece of art outside that machine – for HBO that I’d hoped to finish this weekend. Forget that. Just hope you don’t have to do them yet again. Files and files and files. Many of them are saved on an external drive, but not the last two months worth of work. I’ve been remiss in saving back up. You can be sure I’ll visit “justcloud” or “backupGenie” or some-such in the future and will become a regular habitué.

Life’s so full of precarious options, and you can’t let them get you down when they don’t seem positive. Everything happens for a reason, and I’m sure there’s a reason for this, too. Maybe I should be shifting completely over to Mac. I’ve been a PC supporter all along, but have a powerful Mac sitting at my brother’s loft for protection. All my other studio computers are in storage in some other state. No, the key studio computer – the one we used for all our editing – is safely ensconced in my brother’s loft. When you can’t trust a storage unit, trust the most reliable person you know. And I have been working Mac at Buzzco all these months (working mornings on Mac and afternoons on PC on the very same scenes can drive you schizo quickly. Something as simple as using “Ctrl” is one place on PC and another on Mac. How many times, after the fact, have I had to do an operation a second time because my fingers went to the wrong place. All niggling complaints, I know. Especially when I have a real complaint/worry. Hopefully, I’ll have all those files back. I’m sure I will.

My brother also has all of Tissa David’s artwork for POE. I’ll need to get that soon, too. I want to inbetween what she’s done to see how it moves as anmation rather than animatic. After all she posed at the animatic on sixes or twelves as her whim carried her. We both agreed that it would ultimately have to be redrawn and reanimated for the final, but now I’d like to keep it as is (except for the opening sequences so that we can get her younger version of “Eddie” to look more like the older version. Bo, I have that logo on there. I just remembered that. It took months for me to satisfy myself with logo-looking portrait of Edgar Allan Poe to use for the Tee-Shirts and postcards, etcetera to send out for the Indiegogo souvenirs. I’m pretty sure that’s also on the computer I use at Buzzco. It’ll wait till Wednesday to find out. When I go back to Buzzco.

Thinking back to the time we worked on that animatic of POE. Tissa never touched a computer. Her drawings were done on punched letter sized paper – 8 ½ x 11. She animated (“animaticed”?) using a penstick on the paper. No rough drawings, and they were all rough drawings. They were finals, most of them will be finals. Life was so much easier back then, yet from the entry position so much harder. It was more fun though, lots of communit. Today we’re all bent into the glow of the television screen and we probably listen to earphone music or noise, and we don’t intercommunicate with those around us. Not like the olden days, when we’d have conversations while doing the work. Of course there was the shut up time, but there was also the community time. How many times did Heidi comment, when walking into my studio, “It’s so quiet here.” You guys have to get music. We did play music once upon a time, but then it all went into the earphones. Everybody into their own TV world. Alone with the animated character. Sorry, it’s a stupid complaint from someone getting to be an old timer. An old timer worried about his machine doing that line that took a long time to perfect. Wondering if he’ll ever get it back again.

___________________________________

Update

J.J. just called from the New York Computer Help group. It wasn’
t the “notherboard” but a power line that was the cause of the problem. He has the part in stock, and I should have my computer back – fully functional – by 3pm. Only $160.

Let me tell you, I recommend them highly. If you’re in New York and need any computer help, go there. They’re friendly, fast and great. They could have taken me for a ride if they really wanted. I expected to have to pay through the nose to get that repaired. They’re life savers. It’s going to be a nice New Year.

New York Computer Help
53 EAST 34th STREET, 3rd FL.
NEW YORK, NY 10016
(Park and Madison Avenues)
(212) 599 0339

- Yes, today is Walt Disney‘s birthday anniversary. He would have been 111 years old. It’s also the anniversary of this Splog. It’s seven years old today; my 2,552nd post. They’ve gotten a lot longer than the initial posts. They’ve also gotten more verbal rather than visual, though my attempt is always to keep it visual. I like putting up pictures, especially if the pictures are ones you see so infrequently.

Yesterday, was a first. I had prepared a review of the new McKimson book, I Say, I Say . . . Son!; I’d spent a hell of a lot of time putting it together. And I was supposed to post it yesterday morning. But I forgot. I never put it up. It’ll be posted tomorrow, but I can’t get over the fact that I’d forgotten to send it out there. Mark Mayerson caught it. This was the first time that I did that, and he checked in to make sure I was OK. Maybe I am, maybe not. Could be Alzheimer’s, could be I just forgot it. I have had some time with that review, and a lot of stuff has gotten in the way with it. I’ll be curious to hear any of your comments on it.

Over those past seven years, there are some posts that I’ve been particularly proud of having run and others that were just filler. It’s interesting how I get pleasure from some posts that you might not expect.

I certainly like posting things that one rarely sees on the internet and enjoy putting out material that every animator should own.

For example, I like putting up storyboard images such as these from Pinocchio: this was composed of photos from animation pencil tests from Pinocchio. Bill Peckmann and John Canemaker contributed.

Some of the actual board was here. The coachman’s ride.

I also enjoyed posting the board from Mr. Toad’s Ride, excerpted from The Wind in the Willows.

Or there was Dumbo takes a bath here.

There was also all the material from The Sword in the Stone as I posted not only the board from mad Madame Mim’s section of that feature, but I included some great artwork by Bill Peet from that film.

I also liked the walk cycles from 101 Dalmatians, here.

I’ve written often enough about his work for you to know that I’m quite a fan of Yurij Norshtein.
There were the chapters from that wonderful little book about Yurij Norshtein:

Norshtein Comics – 1
Norshtein Comics – 2
Norshtein Comics – 3
Norshtein Comics – 4
Norshtein Comics – 5
Norshtein Comics – 6

As a matter of fact, there were a whole string of posts I did about Norshtein when I was reading Claire Kitson‘s brilliant book Yurij Norstein and Tale of Tales: An Animator’s Journey.
for example there was this post on Norshtein’s Battle of Kerzhenets.

Or there was this post about a breakfast I had arranged in my studio for Norshtein and Feodor Khitruk. It was a wonderful morning for me, and I enjoyed sharing it on my blog. (It was sad to note that Feodor Khitruk died this week, December 3rd. I’ll try to put together a proper post to note his life’s work.)

I have been enormously influenced by Norshein, the Hubleys and other animators, such as Tissa David or Jiri Trnka or Bill Tytla. It gives me pleasure to talk about such influences. You can just go to the blue names to the right of the blog to click on those names that are well represented.

Some of these stories really stand out for me. For example, there was this story about Finian’s Rainbow, a Print Magazine article by John Canemaker. I can’t tell you haw many times I’ve gone back there, myself, to look at the material again.

I also enjoy continuing a dialogue I see on the internet. If it gives me a chance to expound on animation, film or acting it often brings me pleasure. There was this post and others about it, thanks to a series by Mark Mayerson, that gave me time to think aloud on this blog.

I have a strong love of design in animation, and I can’t help but call attention to it. George Cannata is a brilliant artist and deserves all the attention he can get. See here and here.

Or John McGrew here and here.

Or T. Hee was brilliant. See here or here.

I also have a wealth of artwork and plenty of information on Rowland B. Wilson. Start here or here or here.

__________________________

You know, there’s just a lot of material here.

I haven’t even gotten into the wealth of material on loan from Bill Peckmann with his stunning collection of illustration and comic art. It’s just magnificent, and I am so proud to be able to post whatever he sends me whether it’s Rowland Wilson or Harvey Kurtzman, Gahan WIlson or Dick Moores. There’s just a bounty of artwork, and it all demands viewing. What a treasure is there. What a pleasure to post it.

All I can say is that I intend to keep it up. There’s so much more to post, so much more to enjoy,

Happy Thanksgiving

_____________________________

- For the past few Thursdays, I’ve been posting a notebook that animator, Eugene Salandra compiled. These were notes he’d taken of classes taught by Tissa David in New York during the late 1990s. These notes and the notebook, itself, were completed with last Thursday’s post.

However, Eugene did one better. He reviewed the notes, typed them into a presentable form and revised them for the sake of clarity. Looking at these encapsulated and abbrieviated version of the noteboo, I feel it’d be remiss not to post them as well as the rough version that we’d already posted. So, thanks to Eugene’s generosity, here is a labor of love he put together. We’ll all benefit from them.

1 2

3 4

5 6

7 8

9 10

11 12

1314

1516

1718

1920

2122

2324

You can see the earlier parts by going to these links:
_______________part 1, part 2, part 3. part 4, and part 5, and finally, part 6.

- Robert Lawrence Productions was a thriving studio in New York in the days post-UPA. Many of the animators moved from UPA, once they closed, to Robert Lawrence. Grim Natwick/Tissa David worked there (freelance), Lu Guarnier/Vince Cafarelli worked there, and consequently, Vince collected a lot of artwork from the spots he did. This post features a lot of that artwork. You’ll see how great the design and styling was at the studio, even though I don’t know what clients or sonsors they were done for. The designers certainly took off where UPA left off.

But first, let me share two in-house studio gags done at UPA.

1

2
At UPA – NY, Lu Guarnier was the only animator
who had a window. Vince Cafarelli and Pablo Ferro
were Lu’s Assistants/Inbetweeners, so they also
had the luxury of a window.

_______________________

- OK, now onto Robert Lawrence. The more I look into this company’s work the more impressed I am. The quality of designers and animators on board was extraordinarily high. I have a lot of Layouts for films that are completely lost. I’m not sure what most of the images are for or what the stories of the spots was. I just have drawings, and most of them are impressive, even more so in some ways than much of the UPA work I’ve seen.

So let’s take a look.

First there is the promo art. As an introduction to the company, here are four self-promo pieces that were used as trade ads for the company.

I’ve assumed that these images were created for a print ad in some magazine or another. There are three of them; one comes in a 2-color version.

1

2

3

4
____________________________

Now we get into some of the fun stuff. Here are the layouts done in a million styles, all beautifully drawn and designed. I feel like I want to say thank you to some of the artists involved. If only I knew who the artists were. The drawings and cels were all done on paper with a “Signal Corps” hole-punch. (Looks like Oxberry, but the center hole is the same diameter thickness as the square pegs.)

1
This is a beautiful gag told a million times,
but done perfectly in this drawing.

2

3
The inked arms in #1 are the variant. (Possibly a correction?)

4
A cel not opaqued but beautifully inked.

5
Obviously #5, 6, & 7 are the same characters in development.
It looks like #5 is probably the finished model.

6

7

8

9

10
This looks a bit like Howard Beckerman’s style, but I’d
probably bet against that. The characters aren’t cute enough

11

12
There’s a whole series of chef models

13

14

15

16

Then there’s a series of Cowboys.

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24
Then there’s the farmer milking the cow. Casting problems.

25

26

27

28

29
How adorable is that?
for Jello.

- From 1991-1992, Tissa David, taught a class in animation which was open to anyone who wanted to attend. R.O. Blechman offered his studio, The Ink Tank for a loction where the classes were held after hours. Those who worked in the day could attend the evening sessions..

Eugene Salandra, a talented young animator, took notes in the classes, and recently I’ve been posting those notes here, with his permission. Some of the lessons seem a bit dated since they were done for 2D animation which was shot under a camera. However, all of the notes are important since learning the information will help you understand the proper use of the “camera” even if the camera is a computer.

Unfortunately, this is the last of the notes. Eugene also did tighter notes which were more cleaned up, and I may post those as well. I have to read them all before I decide one way or the other.

You can see the earlier parts by going to these links:
____________________________________part 1, part 2, part 3. part 4, and part 5

Here is part 6:

49 50
(Click any image to enlarge so as to be legible.)

51 52

53 54

55 56

57 58

59 60

61 62

63 64

65 66

67 68

69

- In 1991, Tissa David taught a class in animation for free, open to anyone who wanted to attend. This was sponsored by R.O. Blechman out of his studio, The Ink Tank. It was held after hours, so that those who worked in the business could attend.

The talented animator, Eugene Salandra, kept key notes of the classes, and with his permission, I’ve been posting those notes here. Some of them seem a bit dated these days since they were done for 2D animation that was shot under a camera. However, all of the notes are completely relevant since learning the information will help you understand the proper use of the “camera” even if the camera is a computer.

You can see the earlier parts by going to these links:
_____________
____________________________________part 1, part 2, part 3. and part 4

And, here’s part 5:

1 2
I repeat these first two pages.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

30 31

32 33

34 35

36 37

38 39

40 41

42 43

44ab

45 46

47 48

To be concluded next Thursday

Many thanks to Eugene Salandra

At the memorial service for Tissa David five people gave speeches. I have some of those talks and am posting them here. I also have some photos that I’ll post with them. The photos are identified at the end of the post.

The Program

The entire evening was hosted, essentially, by Tissa David, herself. A 90 minute video shot at NYU has Tissa talking about her career and animation, in general. I’ve chosen a lot of clips from this video. Our entire program starts with Tissa talking to the audience about her love for animation. Short clips then precede every section of later film clips screened, and the very last word of the evening is also Tissa’s.

John Canemaker was the first speaker:

Sunday in the Park with Tissa.

November 6th, 2011.

I walk across Central Park at noon to Tissa’s residence on East 83rd Street, a cozy one-bedroom apartment that always smells of baked apples and spices. It’s where she has lived since coming to New York from Paris in 1956; and that’s the year she began working as assistant to master animator Grim Natwick at UPA Studios, then located on Fifth Avenue.

It is a perfect autumn day: crisp and cool, trees in full-color spectrum, bright sunlight. The New York City marathon is in full swing. Barricades, crowds cheering the runners, detours to get you where you need to go. Friendly, happy people everywhere. New York City at its gridlocked best!

Tissa is waiting patiently outside her building, age 90 and ready to go. She wears a white peaked cap, purple/pink sweater and a stylishly long, beige raincoat over wool slacks and shiny black shoes. And she holds a rubber-tipped black cane.

She attended Catholic mass this morning, as she does every day at St. Ignasius Loyola, a church around the corner on Park Avenue run by Jesuits. As is our custom, I lean down to air-kiss one cheek, then the other, saying, “in the European manner.” She smiles and mimics me: “Yes. In the European manner.”

She takes my arm as we walk very slowly toward the Metropolitan Museum of Art two blocks west of her apartment.

She expresses interest in seeing the new Met galleries for “Art of the Arab Lands.” Both sides of her family are Armenian and the rugs of the Arabs stir her, she says.

“Have ever been to Spain?” she suddenly asks.

“Barcelona,” I answer.

“Barcelona is not Spain,” she responds. “It is — Barcelona. I mean a city like Granada, such a beautiful city. The Moorish influence in the city’s architecture and art.”

Tissa has strong opinions about everything, especially art. I remember some years earlier running through a gallery at the Met containing one of Damien Hirst’s dead animals in formaldehyde, trying to keep up with Tissa as she hissed like a cobra: “Diss-gusting! Disssssss-gusting!”

Her tastes are eclectic, but she maintains a special passion for Giorgio Morandi, who once said, “Nothing is more abstract than reality.” There is something in Morandi’s quiet, reclusive, deeply thoughtful, and pared-down paintings that speak to her on both personal and professional levels.

Today, however, instead of entering the museum she prefers that we walk; or, as she pronounces it in her soft Hungarian accent, “ve vauk.” Passing windows containing the Temple of Dendur, we pause. The slightly uphill route winds Tissa and she points her cane toward a cement wall. We sit watching marathon runners dash past, cheers erupting from the young crowd around us who greet the exhausted competitors, who have run for hours through all the boroughs and down Fifth Avenue and into the park for a finish near Columbus Circle.

A runner in a Superman costume hobbles by. Tissa is enjoying everything about the moment and the day, and so am I.
We talk of mutual friends. She remarks how happy she is that Michael Sporn is working on a new film. She says how much she loves Emily Hubley’s feature, The Toe Tactic.

Emily’s father, the legendary animation designer/director John Hubley, defied sexist barriers against women animators in the 1950s and 60s by hiring Tissa to animate several prestigious commercials and shorts. Tissa loved working for him, even if, she candidly notes, he was “cheap” when it came to salaries.

After ten minutes or so, we continue down the path and sit on a bench in the sun near Greywacke Arch, as runners gallop and limp across the bridge.

Inevitably, Tissa speaks of her longtime mentor Grim Natwick. And soon comes the mantra that is well-known to all her friends: “I really learned everything I know about animation from Grim.”

She learned her lessons well. After Natwick retired, she slowly became recognized as one of the world’s great animators, and a pioneer who forged a brilliant career in a male-dominated industry. Charm, vivacity, female sensuality radiates from her superbly staging and well-timed animation, which is weaved into an admirable economical style. “You don’t do many drawings, “ she often advised novices, “but you know how to use them.”

She thinks about animation constantly. She wonders how she would animate the Met’s splashing fountains. She ponders the numbers on digital clocks, which change shape instantaneously.

“I stare at the numbers,” she says, “and think about how I would animate the change from one to the other.”

“It isn’t fully metamorphic,” I suggest, “but a decision about where the animator would ease into the new change.”

Tissa thinks about that. “I would make the inbetween drawing closer to the ‘old’ number before the change,” she decides, “so there is a snap into the new number.”

I ask Tissa if she ever wanted to marry or was in love. “Oh yes,” she answers. “I was in love many times and wanted to marry a doctor. But I was glad that he was shot by the Russians.”

Seeing my shocked expression, she quickly adds, “I mean that it was better that I never married him because I would have quickly been miserable and it would have never worked out.”

What about Grim?

Laughing, she says she loved him and he loved her, but it was never a romantic love. “He was my teacher. He was like my father.
“The greatest love of my life,” Tissa admits, “ was the art of animation.”

She reflects that parts of her life have been hard. I assume she’s referring to the 1944 siege of Budapest, and her daring escape from Communist Hungary, or difficulties through the years finding her way as a female artist.

But she is thinking of more recent and personal troubles. “Between 2000 and 2010,” she explains, “I lost two brothers, two sisters, nephews and a niece. The loss of so many loved ones was almost overwhelming. I’m still angry with my younger sister Margit for dying and leaving me. She killed herself with smoking,” Tissa explains with bitter sadness.
We make our way up Fifth Avenue, then turn eastward toward her apartment.

“Thank you, John. It was really great to get out and valk.”
I thank her for the opportunity to escape my cloistered work habits.

“You’re a long distance runner,” I say, “like the marathon racers.” She smiles and reminds me that I wrote that line in 1977 as the heading of her chapter in my first book The Animated Raggedy Ann & Andy. I don’t remind her that the full title was “Tissa David: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Animator.”

At her apartment house, we air-kiss “in the European manner.” My offer to help her down two steps to the front door is refused.
“I can do it,” she insists.

And she did.

This talk was followed by clips from the Hubley films:
Cockaboody
Eggs
Everybody Rides the Carousel (the Meryl Streep sequence)

Howard Beckerman followed John Canemaker

Tissa David

Tissa, after working at Paris based studios, entered New York animation in 1955 at UPA situated diagonally across from the Museum of Modern Art and John and Faith Hubley’s Storyboard, Inc. It was the right place for her.

There had been few women animators in New York in past decades but, among the men, the held opinion was that women couldn’t do the job. There was also a general attitude that the craft was dominated by Americans. To them animation was a trade for which females and foreigners need not apply. UPA, however, was a progressive studio where the staff included various minorities and nationalities. As one talented African-American artist remarked, “When you walk in here you feel comfortable and welcomed.”

Tissa was greeted by animator Grim Natwick. His European art studies long behind him, he was the choice crew member to interview the then English challenged Tissa. Natwick was direct, ___________Tissa and Grim at Christmas
“What do you think of animation?”
Tissa hesitated , then replied, “Animation is animation.” That satisfied Natwick. Tissa was given a try out on a character from the studio’s popular Piel’s Beer commercials and then hired. The brief meeting with Grim was expressly important because the film that inspired her to get into animation was Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for which Natwick had animated 80% of the lead character. Tissa became Grim’s assistant beginning an association that lasted 35 years.

In time, Tissa became an animator in her own right at local studios giving life to TV commercials. Later came requests from producers with a broader range of diverse characters. These included John and Faith Hubley, R.O. Blechman and Michael Sporn all who came to depend on her animation skills and unique intellectual qualities. Tissa entered a legacy laid down by earlier European animators, illustrators and designers whose influence profoundly effected American cartoons. Working at Disney and Fleischer Studios, their affinity to old world castles, cottages and colorful personalities added credibility, charm and warmth to animated features.

Tissa also played an outstanding role in the ASIFA-East chapter. She organized and corralled the membership lists and dues collections. This was at a time when new graphics guilds were entering the field with lists of 2000 or more, but Tissa proudly managed our 250 or so enthusiatic members.

She was a prime promoter and facilitator of the ASIFA-East Film Festival, and tabulated the voting results as well as commanding the arranging of the event’s refreshment tables. Under her discriminating gaze many of us schlepped wine bottles and tubs of cheese.

I worked with Tissa at various studios around the city and remember a gratifying moment one rainy day when she and Grim came to one of my classes. They had gotten lost in SVA’s internal maze, arriving late and dripping wet. Though tardy, they added substance to the class by answering questions and giving weight to the realities of the field. To the familiar student concern about whether the character of Snow White was traced over live-action actors, Grim, chalk in hand, sketched Snow White to clearly illustrate why her cartooned proportions didn’t allow for rotoscoping.

There’s one anecdote regarding Tissa that I’ve repeated many times, but it still warms my heart, so pardon me if you’ve heard this before. I feel it’s worth repeating since it indicates Tissa’s warmth, humor and life-energizing spirit that rose above everyday twists and turns.

Tissa often traveled to Europe to see family and to animate for small studios. She also had a country house in Southern France. In the spring of 1974, while working in Holland, she contacted Iris and I about attending the animation festival in Zagreb. Her suggestion was that we meet her in Paris a week before the event. She kept a small Volks station wagon there and proposed that we drive across Europe to Zagreb. We accepted gladly. It would be a wonderful journey with a great guide. After a night in Paris we drove south through agrarian countryside evoking the colors of Van Gogh and other post impressionist painters. We stopped in a small town so Tissa could check out her French country place and then we found a small, inexpensive hotel for the night. Tissa suggested that Iris and I take a back room and she a front room. Our lodging was simple, but when we opened the shutters to let in the good night air, we saw the shining moon behind silhouetted castle towers. We slept soundly.

The next morning at breakfast we wondered if she had slept well. “Oh it was terrible!” she replied, “Big trucks rattling past my window all night!” We traveled on through southern France and into northern Italy. One late afternoon we arrived at a local hotel and prepared for a night’s rest before entering Venice. We agreed that this time Tissa would take a back room and we a front room. We slept soundly.

In the morning came our question,” How did you sleep?” It was terrible!” she replied, “There were people playing guitars and singing all night in the courtyard!”

Tissa David will be remembered as a person of taste, humor, artistic skills and a wide understanding of people and the world in general. She observed and interpreted things in a private way. She appreciated much but was opinionated and disdainful of things that didn’t meet her standards. Tissa was a dedicated animator on all manner of productions from workaday TV announcements to celebrated award winners. Though a very private person, she was a friend and mentor to many. She was a treasure in our midst. For all of us who knew and admired her, she will be missed.

Howard’s talk was followed by a clip from Raggedy Ann and Andy
her Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers sequence.

R.O. Blechman was the next speaker. His short talk was planned but spoken off the cuff, improvised. There’s no transcript of it.

He started by quoting a poem Tissa liked by T.S.Elliott in which Tissa had substituted the word “animator” for “poet”. Bob also told the story of an article about his show Simple Gifts in which he called the 5 designers, “Artists.” Bob was surprised that Tissa had confronted him by telling him that she was an “Artist” yet there was no mention of her in the promotional article.

Bob’s talk was followed by clips from his studio:
3 commercials for:
– Perrier
– Banco
– WQXR radio
a clip from a promotional trailer for Candide, a film Bob sought to make as a feature.
a clip from The Soldier’s Tale, Blechman’s Emmy winning adaptation of Stravinsky’s work.

Candy Kugel was the next speaker.

Tissa was my role model—a pathfinder. When I entered the animation industry in the 1970’s there were no other female animators beside her and I was experiencing the same sexist attitudes as she did. And I was in awe of her ability—her fluid line and acting. And finally, I was always grateful for her introduction__________(LtoR) Blechman, Tissa, Vince Cafarelli, Candy Kugel
to international animation and ASIFA.

The first time I was introduced to Tissa was on the telephone in the summer of 1972. I was about to go to Italy for my last year of art school after spending summers interning at Perpetual Motion Pictures.

My boss, the designer Hal Silvermintz, told me that Tissa knew everyone in Europe and she could give me the names of studios so that I could visit them while there. She did, and I did – in Rome, Zagreb and Budapest. And then, since Annecy would have its festival that June, she encouraged me to go and gave me the address to write for certification.

I did go to Annecy and it opened my eyes to international animation in a way I could never have imagined before. There was no internet then, no DVDs and no video collections—the only way you could see these movies was projected in a theater. And I do remember briefly meeting Grim Natwick (who drew me a Betty Boop) and Tissa.

When I returned to New York, it was a bad time for animation so I went to Los Angeles to try my luck there. In New York I had had the good fortune to be treated well by my bosses—my main responsibility was to help the designer.
I had some rudimentary animation experience, but the real animation was done by experienced animators, and they came from a culture of secrecy.

In LA I went to Disney with my “reel” and portfolio and found a whole other set of obstacles. The front gate passes had “Mr.” printed on the guest line. This was during the feminist movement and I jokingly said to the woman behind the window—“I guess you don’t see very many women here”—she scratched off the Mr and roughly handed it back to me. I met with 3 men, including Don Duckwall. They told me I drew nicely but that women just don’t have what it takes to be an animator. Women lack timing. Maybe I should consider becoming a designer or background artist.
“But I want my drawings to ACT!” I protested. They smiled and shook their heads.

In the end, I returned to work fulltime at Perpetual. I was determined to learn how to animate well. I got to know Tissa through ASIFA and she offered to help me.

Perpetual picked up a project that had an incredibly low budget, so they gave it to me. Whatever I could manage would be enough. Vincent Cafarelli had recently started freelancing there, and although he was open to helping me, he encouraged me to seek out Tissa’s advice. They had worked together at UPA and he had great respect for her. He even told me I flipped like her.

Tissa invited me to her home and she demonstrated some things. And gave me homework. I went a few more times—I wish I could say that I was a stellar student, but I’m afraid her criticism, although completely deserved, was too biting for my fragile ego.

She was my idol—I loved her work – her beautiful line and her acting. I respected her immensely—but I think I must have been a great disappointment to her. At that time, I was the only girl working her way to become an animator in an established animation studio in NY. I imagine she was hoping for a protégé equal to her talents.

But even without the lessons we remained friends. She followed my career closely and we worked together in ASIFA.
We both understood the difficulty in working in a “man’s profession.” I was criticized by the ink and paint department for not being one of the girls—I was a guy because I used a pencil and not a brush. Outside of Perpetual there were animators and assistants who thought it wrong of me to take a man’s job. Some kiddingly said they would “break my fingers.”
I admired Tissa even more, knowing exactly what she had been through.

But we never spoke about it after our first meeting at her apartment: I gingerly asked her about how she dealt with the male animators—their practical jokes, the macho culture–were there rumors about her and Grim? She looked at me harshly and waved her hand. Who needed to complain—it was just part of the job.

I will miss Tissa—her generous spirit, her biting wit and her talent. There are too few of them out there.

Candy’s talk was followed by clips from 3 films done for Michael Sporn Animation:
Lyle Lyle Crocodile
The Red Shoes
The Story of the Dancing Frog

Arlane Nelson was the next speaker.

As Michael said, I am one of Tissa’s nieces. An interesting side note, Tissa was one of 10 children, 7 girls, 3 boys. In my generation, the next one, there were only a total of 3 girls among all the nieces and nephews.

I’d like to begin with an email one of my Hungarian cousins sent me:
“Tissa was known to love music, and we had talked a lot about our favorite performers: Horowitz, Goild, and many other artists. However one thing that is not common in elderly people, is to be open to new things, as Tissa had been. Once I saw a movie about the life of Manuel de Falla, which has a lot of music inserted, one even recorded during his short life. The recording is very interesting because when Falla wrote his masterpiece, El Amor Brujo, he wanted to reject it because the passion radiating from the piece is in total contrast with his deep catholic faith.

Manuel de Falla, just as Kodaly did, collected folk music, the music of the flamenco playing gypsies. El Amor Brujo totally gives back this surreal feeling. In the movie, in order for the illustration to be perfect, two songs, that are accompanied by a large orchestra, were sung by a young female gypsy singer with the technique typical to flamenco. The passion radiating from the recording is scary. I showed it to Tissa who said that this woman is like a storm. And she started telling me stories about being in Andalusia, listening to flamenco music, and how much she liked it.

The other memory is connected to flamenco as well. Many people think that they like this musical style, while they only meet the civilised versions. I have watched Saura’s movie, called Flamenco in which there is a part when two old gypsy men sit on a chair and sing without music. One of them has golden teeth, the other one has silver teeth. This is of course not singing according to European standards, this is rather some endless, sharp, painful, and aggressive shouting, confined among borders. As far as my experience goes, only a few can understand this deepness of art. Tissa understood it, we talked a lot about it later on, and she pointed out the complicated symbols in the text that I had missed on my own.”

Anyway, I live in the Washington metropolitan area and as such, we used to see Tissa a lot; more than any of our other relatives. She’d be down to visit us several times a year and sometimes, we came up to visit her. I’d like to share a few of my memories of who Tissa was.

Growing up, we kind of knew that Tissa was a famous person and we were very proud of this. I can remember, when my sister and I were small and Tissa came to visit, we had to wait until the morning, but we would go charging in and have her tell us the latest Letterman shorts she had done. So we’d know the stories before anyone else did.

Tissa loved cooking. Whenever she came to visit, she took over the kitchen; you entered at your own risk. Except for the dogs, who usually waited in endless vigil watching every step, every action with rapt attention for the treasures they knew would fall. One of the things I found__________Tissa cooking in her NY kitchen
inexplicable was her use of
cooking implements which would increase exponentially with availability. A dish she would make in her tiny kitchen might take 2 bowls and a pot. The same dish in our house, could take 7 bowls, 5 pots, and 3 pans. Any time you walked in to the kitchen, all burners would be going, some would even have two things on at the same time. A couple of things would be waiting on the side for a burner to free up, some other dishes would be done, there would be something at the chopping board in mid process, and usually a vegetable of some kind hanging out in a colander in the sink. Or trying to get a recipe from her was always a challenge. For example, when she was trying to explain how to make galuska to us: You started with a cup of flour and one egg. Then you added milk. Okay. So, how much? Well, as much as it takes so that if you stick a spoon straight up into the batter, it would fall over very slowly. There was another time I wanted to make Beigli for Christmas. Tissa said she would send me my aunt Dusi’s recipe because it was the best. Again, you started with 70 decagrams of flour, grated in some lemon rind and then sour cream. How much? Well, this time you had to add just enough so that the dough would behave when pinched like an old woman’s skin. Needless to say, without centuries of Hungarian cooking practices ingrained, whenever I did anything with Tissa, I ended up taking a novel’s worth of notes.

I remember once having a conversation with Tissa in which she quite definitively stated that it was a shame Scotsmen wore kilts as they had some of the ugliest knees in the world. I want to say that she thought the Germans or Dutch would have been better suited. Despite his having ugly knees, tho, Tissa admitted to a fondness for Sean Connery.

Tissa was also a very generous person. We were always welcome at her place as long as you did not mind the conditions. Anyone who was ever at her apartment knows it was rather small. But we would make it work. I remember one time when I was 8 or 9, there must have been 7 of us there. I can still see myself picking my way carefully across the floor of sleeping bodies to get to the bathroom. My children especially looked forward to our New York trips: the rules of living conditions were suspended and there were so many things to engage little minds. Then when my mother was sick, Tissa packed up and moved in for as long as it was going to take helping to take care of my mother so that she could have her wish of dying at home. It was this same wish of Tissa’s, I’m glad I had some part in returning.

Another thing that was important to Tissa was her faith. She always had this quiet, laid back, do what you are going do attitude. I always thought it was part of the reason she seemed so at peace with things, even her death. No matter what else happened or changed, Tissa had this. She was very different than my mother in this way. Tissa didn’t fly off the handle, or ram things down your throat, or sweat the small stuff. She knew what was important to her and the rest didn’t bother her. Tissa also was very adamant that my sister’s memorial marker have a cross. Despite my sister’s claims to atheism, Tissa was convinced that Tamar found redemption in the end.

Before I had children, I used to go to the movies every weekend, so, Tissa and I would compare notes on films we had seen. Very often, they would be showing in New York weeks before the artsy theaters in DC picked them up, so Tissa would let me know what to add to my list. However, we often found we had different sensibilities. One such film was The Triplets of Belleville. Tissa told me I had to see it: it was wonderful not only as an animated film but also for the story of the boy and his grandmother. After I saw it, I called Tissa and told her that yes, it had been a wonderful film, but she should have warned me about the frogs. Tissa paused a moment and then said “Oh, yes, the frogs. That was a very funny scene.” I responded “No, it wasn’t funny, it was tragic and you should have prepared me.”

Tissa did not like technology, but accepted it as a necessary evil. However, she refused to take the time to understand how things worked. Many times when I came up to see her, Tissa would have some contraption that she needed me to install or set up: an answering machine, a VCR, an antenna, the HD receiver, a hand held sudoku game, etcetera. Once I was done tho, she didn’t want to know the details, just the buttons she needed to press. We tried for years to get her onto email, but she wouldn’t hear of it. There would be no computers, no cell phones, no tablets, nothing of that kind ever with Tissa.

The last time I brought my children up to see Tissa – at the end of July – you could see how happy it made her to sit and watch them play. She always enjoyed the children in her life, even after we thought we had grown up. She was kind and nurturing and a mother to us all. Whether she was teaching us, encouraging us, forming us, feeding us our favorite creamed spinach, or just loving us. She was an important fixture in all our lives and one we will make sure no one ever forgets.

Arlane’s talk was followed by a long clip from a film Tissa animated for me,
The Marzipan Pig.

My speech followed. It was the last of the evening. I gave it extemporaneously, and there is no transcript of it. I tried to be as funny as I could, and that worked. The following is the original speech I walked in with. It’s not good, bathetic and inapropriate for the final talk. My changes worked. To give an indication of the final, though, I’ve decided to leave this here.
Michael Sporn

Forty years ago, on Tuesday Oct 10, 1972, 1 had just started my second day in animation working for John and Faith Hubley. I was scheduled to work three days to help finish a commercial. Helen Komar was the only other person working on that commercial with me. She was the production coordinator. My second day there, and I was working as intensely as 1 could. 1 loved being there, I was finally doing animation and getting paid for it.

That day, 1 continued to work through my lunch break; I wanted to get it right. That’s when T heard this voice with a sharp Hungarian accent say loud enough, “Who has been doing such HORRIBLE inbetweens?” Sheepishly I looked up and had to admit that we all knew she was talking about me. Especially since I was the only one doing inbetweens. That’s how I met Tissa David.

Tissa proposed I come to take lessons from her; she would help teach me what she could about animation. This meant I spent a lot of time doing homework that Tissa would give me inbetweening over and over and over again animation drawings that were usually from a scene that Grim Natwick had animated. Back then, Tissa had a sharp way of telling you how bad you were. It didn’t take me long to find the humor in what she had to say, especially since 1 was even more of a critic of my own work than she was.

Things changed a bit over the years. Tissa grew more and more reserved with her opinions. She made an obvious attempt to moderate herself when she thought it was too harsh. However, I always tried to encourage her to fully express what she thought about my work, and I like to think she was honest with me throughout.

Somewhere along the line I stopped asking for help with animation. Slowly we became more friends rather than teacher and student. When she left the Hubley studio to work for Richard Williams on Raggedy Ann, knowing full well that I was a big fan
of Dick Williams’ work, she maneuvered a job for me on the production. Starting as an inbetweener, I worked my way up to the position of head of Assistants and Inbetweeners.

After that, I was hired by Bob Blechman to be his Asst Director working on a Christmas Special. Before we got to that we did a number of commercials together. Once Bob had difficulty finding an animator, and 11 talked loudly and enthusiastically about Tissa’s work. She soon started working with Bob in a relationship that lasted years.

When I formed my own studio, I directed a number of half hour shows. Tissa was happy to work for me in many capacities. She did storyboard, layout and sometimes animation. We helped each other often by just being there. That made a lot of the jobs more fun, and helped me feel even more proud of the work I was doing.

The last couple of years weren’t about animation, really. Yet the two of us were able to keep laughing throughout. And talking. Talking about museum shows and films that we saw. Sharing books we’d read or just sometimes talking. I was never much of a phone person so it had to be face on.


Tissa in her Living Room
Photo by Mate Hidvegi

In the end 1 learned that Tissa had developed a brain tumor. Of course, I didn’t know whether that meant she would have a long slow death or a quick one. 1 went one Saturday afternoon and laughed quite a bit with Tissa. When I brought up old names and places and events, she remembered them clearly. If she tried to remember something, she couldn’t, and the conversations would end flat. It meant I had to keep talking.

I left that afternoon and expected to return five days later. But that day I got a call from Susan Davis telling me that Tissa had died that day. She didn’t feel well in the morning, lay down for a while, and didn’t wake up.

I think her passing won’t really hit me for a while. I’ve been spending a lot of time editing this footage. Now this memorial is done, and I think the reality won’t hit home until Christmas. Every year, I’ve received a wonderful fruit cake from Tissa. In fact, I still have a couple unopened. I know that one won’t arrive this year, and I’ll miss my fruitcake this year.

This talk was followed by the last animation work Tissa did,
part of the animatic for my feature, POE.

.

Some Photos of Tissa
.

1
a 1942 drawing by Tissa’s close friend, artist,
Judit Reigl. The drawing is in the collection
of Tissa’s sister, Katalin David.
Thanks to Mate Hidvegi, Katalin’s son, for sending it.

1
Tissa far right

2
Tissa in an Art Gallery in the 60s

3
At Grim Natwick’s 100th birthday
(L to R) Duane Crowther, Tissa, Grim Natwick
in front of them: Frank Thomas, Virgil Ross

4
Tissa on her 90th birthday celebration dinner

5
Tissa with John Canemaker

6
(L to R) John Canemaker, Tissa, Me, Heidi Stallings

7
Tissa in St. Ignatius Loyola Church, 84th St, Madison Ave.

8
Tissa with Aron Hidvegi, her grand nephew

9
Tissa exiting her building

10
Tissa with Mate Hidvegi, her nephew

Tissa in her living room

12
Tissa looking out toward the East River.

4, 5, & 6 photographed by Joe Kennedy
7, 8, 9, 11 & 12 photographed by Mate Hidvegi
10 photographed by Aron Hidvegi