Daily post &SpornFilms 02 Aug 2008 08:08 am

Time for a Plug

- It’s time to plug a couple of new dvds I have in stores.

If you’d ask me which are the favorites of all the films I did, three of these four being released would be among my choices. Other than The Hunting of the Snark, I’d have to name The Marzipan Pig as a great film. I also love Abel’s Island and The Story of the Dancing Frog. The fourth film, Jazztime Tale was for me a daring experiment. I tried for a musical climax since the film was about Fats Waller. It’s a purposefully soft movie that comes together during a performance by Fats. It’s not my favorite film, but it’s one that sure has become popular and successful.

You can find these dvd’s on Amazon for $12.99.
They’re $9.72 direct from the distributor, First Run Features.

I found this good review here.
Mike Barrier had nice things to say here. I’m proud of his comments: “The Marzipan Pig is the kind of book that would scare the pants off most Hollywood animators, skating as it does along the very edge of preciosity—and Michael uses every word of the book—but the Sporn version is mysterious and touching, and often beautifully animated.”
I also love all 9 reviews that appear on Amazon for the vhs tape of The Marzipan Pig.

From my blog:
Here’s a piece on Bridget Thorne‘s great backgrounds for Abel’s Island.
Here’s a sample of some of the storyboards for The Marzipan Pig that appear on the dvd.


Here’s a character from The Marzipan Pig. Tissa David animated the entire film, herself, and did a caricature of herself with this woman whose purse is stolen by an owl.
Stephan MacQuignon colored the drawing and Robert Marianetti added shading. Christine O’Neill did the cut and paste on the drawing to cel operation.

_____________

The followup to this pair of dvd’s will be a boxed set of six dvd’s to be released in October. You can see what all six dvd’s contain here.

The box set packaging appears below.


The boxed set will include these titles:
The Hunting of the Snark, The Marzipan Pig, Abel’s Island
Whitewash, Champagne, The Talking Eggs, The Red Shoes,
The Little Match Girl, The Story of the Dancing Frog,
Jazztime Tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, Nightingale

8 Responses to “Time for a Plug”

  1. on 02 Aug 2008 at 10:40 am 1.David Nethery said …

    Thanks for the links . I’m getting these from Amazon today !

    Those are some of the best DVD covers I’ve ever seen . Very attractive design and color. (I hate most animated DVD covers … garish, airbrushed off-model drawings. I’m glad that yours have been given the proper treatment.)

  2. on 02 Aug 2008 at 10:49 am 2.Jerry Edwards said …

    I bought the Abel’s Island DVD as soon as I noticed it available for pre-order from Amazon. I enjoyed watching it as soon as I got the DVD. I originally taped it from the PBS TV series “Long Ago And Far Away”. I later bought the VHS release and was surprised to see that the PBS version was editied. “Abel’s Island” has always been one of my fave non-Disney animated stories, and high on my DVD want list. I’ll look for the boxed set you mentioned – I feel it would be a good way to get the other titles, most of which I’ve never seen.

    I’ve been lucky enough to get most of my fave non-Disney animation on DVD. My main want is still your HBO musical version of “Mike Mulligan and His Steamshovel”. I taped it from HBO years ago and still enjoy watching it, but would love it on DVD.

    Enjoyed the piece you did on Bridget Thorne’s backgrounds on “Abel’s Island”. I also enjoyed reading about what each animator did on the film.

    I’m sure you’ve heard the story before, but a friend mentioned he couldn’t get your website to come up at work because it was blocked. The blocking program reads your website as “Michael’s Porn Animation” so your website is blocked as porn. I laughed so hard when I read that – partly because I had shared with my friend my first reaction when he shared your website name with me. I immediately wondered “why are you listing a porn site?” – just thought you might enjoy the story although you probably have already heard similar ones.

    Thanks again for the pleasure your animation studio has given me – especially Abel & Mike Mulligan!!

  3. on 02 Aug 2008 at 11:05 am 3.Michael said …

    Jerry, you’ll be interested to know that the PBS version wasn’t an edited version. That was the original planned film. For the dvd we were required to have a full half-hour, so we had to add some scenes. It was easy choosing some we had to cut out of the book – such as Abel attaching a leaf to his back and trying to fly home.

    A couple of our other films had the same problem. The Dancing Frog added a song number that was in the original but I never liked. “Waiting”

    Ira Sleeps Over added a musical sequence of Ira remembering his favorite moments with his teddy bear.

  4. on 03 Aug 2008 at 3:21 pm 4.Eddie Fitzgerald said …

    Can’t wait to see it! Congratulations!

  5. on 04 Aug 2008 at 7:19 am 5.Stephen Macquignon said …

    Looking forward to picking up a copy! :)

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