Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Continuing with yesterday’s posting of Donald drawings by Dick Lundy from Mickey’s Grand Opera, I have two more scenes to present. Actually, only the first comes from that film. It shows Donald pulling out his sword and belting out that first glorious operatic note.

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This second scene comes from the original B&W Orphan’s Benefit (1934). Mickey walks Donald onto the stage, quiets the rambunctious orphans and Donald goes into this little dance just prior to his performance.

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And here’s the frame grabs from the film which gives you the opportunity of comparing the inked cels from the pencil drawings. The inking hadn’t yet reached the same level of artistry, as you can see.

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- Dick Lundy has always been an animator whose work I’ve enjoyed. I have some drawings that were prepared for publication (for some book or other) featuring my favorite Donald Duck.

In this scene from Mickey’s Grand Opera (1936), Donald has just swallowed a frog which is bounding up and down and taking Donald with him. On a separate level, Pluto, who has been chasing the frog, barks.

I’ll soon post some more from this film with Donald preparing to perform.

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- There’s a comic book interview with Marjane Satrapi at Stripped Books. She shows herself to be a bright and articulate woman, even in English. No surprise in that.
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- Karl Cohen writes to inform me that two animated short films that were screened at Sundance and were invited to be part of the festival’s online shorts program, have been censored. As Nancy Denney-Phelps reports on her blog Sprockets, Signe Bauman‘s Teat Beat of Sex and Because Washington Is Hollywood for Ugly People, by Kenneth Ti and Kin Hung, were rejected by the online store for being, respectively, too sexually explicit and too political.

Director Baumane said about her film that it, “comes from corporations unwilling to take a risk. Corporations never push the envelope; it is individuals. It is remarkable that violence is OK, but not sex.”
Karl Cohen, president of ASIFA-SF, commented: “I see this as another stupid act of censorship that illustrates the dangers of having a few corporations in control of our media. TEAT BEAT OF SEX was commissioned for European television by a distributor and it is being shown there, but it’s considered too controversial to show on iTunes, Netflix, and Xbox. Isn’t something wrong with this picture?”

- This Sunday, Feb. 10th, the BAFTA awards will be held. You can watch them on BBC in America at 8PM EST and repeated at 10PM.

The Animated Shorts nominated are:

The PearceSisters – Jo Allen/Luis Cook
Head Over Heels – Osbert Parker/Fiona Pitkin/Ian Gouldstone
THE Crumblegiant – Pearse Moore/John McCloskey

I can’t help but note that The Pearce Sisters was nominated by BAFT for an award, this year, but it was skipped by the Oscars. Last year, the same was true of Dreams and Desires – Family Ties by Joanna Quinn. It’s a bit disturbing to me. Peter and the Wolf won the prize last year.

The nominations for the Best Animated Feature are:
Ratatouille – Brad Bird
Shrek The Third – Chris Miller
The Simpsons Movie – David Silverman

Not a good category. Ratatouille had best win.

By the way, in case you’re in London this Sunday and want to watch the red carpet in person check out this link for info.

- Mark Kausler has an excellent post giving us his thoughts on the Charles Schulz biography by David Michaelis. Mark includes a gem of a story about getting Schulz to sign a book. There’s something wonderful hearing about any small contact with greatness. See that autograph on his site.
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- Finally, I have to again point you in the direction of Mark Mayerson‘s great blog. He’s posted another mosaic. This time he’s not picking apart a film, but a scene. It’s a Bob Wickersham scene from Thru The Mirror. He couldn’t have started with a better scene from a better film. Rod Scribner, check it out. I can’t wait for Mark’s written analysis.

- There’s no need to tell LA animation enthusiasts that this Friday the 35th annual Annie Awards will take place. I hope all who plan to attend will have a good time. The rest of us will check in tomorrow to find out who won.

I have this old poster from the 3rd Annie Award celebration. It took place back in 1974.

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As you may have noticed it was signed by four animation stars. I presume there must have been a number of these posters signed, and I don’t know how many still have copies. Just the same it’s a fun piece to have.

Friz Freleng and Tex Avery signed the top of the poster.

Chuck Jones and Art Babbitt signed the bottom. (I’m not quite sure how Art Babbitt fit into this group, but it’s great to have his signature there.)

– I’d also like to congratulate my friend, John Canemaker on having won the Winsor McCay Award which has been presented annually since 1972. How appropriate that he’s written the definitive book on McCay and now he wins the award named for the father of animation. It’s a fitting tribute, indeed. Congratulations also to the other two Winsor McCay award winners, Glen Keane and John Kricfalusi.

Speaking of John Kricfalusi, his blog features the first of a number of articles Milt Gray will write with John about Bob Clampett. This should be an exciting series of posts worth looking out for. Milt worked for years with Michael Barrier conducting many of the interviews gathered for Mike’s book, The Hollywood Cartoon.

- A film I always thought somewhat under rated is Disney’s The Sword In The Stone. The background art is sensational, and several sequences are brilliantly animated.

Bill Peet‘s adaptation from TH White‘s book, The Once and Future King, loses some of its poetry in the adaptation, but the book’s storyline features a lot of rambling making it hard to construct a screen story. I’ve watched this film quite a few times over the years, and somehow it always gives me a bit of a charge that comes with many of the older classics.

The extras on the dvd seems to consist predominantly of storyboard drawings by Bill Peet. So why not show them off? There’s no continuity to attend to, hence the images are gathered in small clusters. The sequence everyone jumps to analyze and discuss is the Wizard Duel between Merlin and Madame Mim (animated by Milt Kahl.) Consequently, a lot of the drawings on the dvd come from this sequence. I, personally, would have loved seeing some of the squirrel section. I found it quite moving and full of real character stuff. It would be nice to see how Peet developed this.

There’s no hint of a continuity on the dvd, but I’ve heard that the storyboard drawings in the vault are just placed in manilla envelopes with no suggestion of an order. It would make sense that they’ve just plopped these images on the dvd as they have with no order, details or related information.

_______Here’s a creature that never made it to the battle of the wizards.

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___________Another fantastic creature that didn’t make it into the film.

I’m not sure if this drawing is also from the duel. Or was it another sequence where Wart becomes an animal – cut out of the film?

This looks like it may have been planned as a home for Merlin. Did it inspire anything for The Rescuers?

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___________It’s magic !

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Here are a couple of models Peet obviously did –
_______________________probably more for himself than anything.

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- There are a couple of sites that I visit regularly and don’t mention often enough in my writing. Let me try to remedy that here.

Tulgey Wood is a fine Disneyana site on which Jim Fanning posts plenty of remarkable material. His posts often get a rise out of me.
Those about actor, Roger Mobley, brought back curious memories. I don’t think I’ve thought about the Disney TV series Gallegher, Boy Reporter in the 40-odd years since it aired.
Likewise, his post of the page from the 101 Dalmatians comic book popped that magazine back into my mind all these years since I saw that strip as a child. This is an appealing site that I enjoy visiting.

Every day I stop off at Alan Cook’s blog, Cooked Art. Alan often posts some of his own fine art and he keeps us up to date with the development of his own film. I enjoy seeing his progress. However, he also directs us to other items he sees out there. He informs of interesting posts, movies and art. I usually like to see what he suggests so that I can keep current with the hot spots.

Most recently, Alan has highlighted Randall Sly’s excellent site Character Design. The most current posts there are worth a look. You can see the development of a couple of recent characters. Ursula from The Little Mermaid slowly takes shape through many rejected forms. It really is informative to see. This site also features a lot of interviews worth checking out, and portfolio reviews of newer designers.

- David Gerstein has an extraordinary site that I haven’t featured often enough. It includes lots of animation history with a number of key pages to scour. I particularly liked one he has which features early animation music.

David has a large number of books on the market that are worth knowing.
His Mickey and the Gang, is an excellent book which was designed initially to collect the Good Housekeeping monthly pages produced by the Disney studio between 1934 and 1944. These pages highlighted the latest Disney release. This book features a lot of information to be found nowhere else. I highly recommend it for any animation or Disney enthusiast.

My strong interest in Russian animated films brings me often to Animatsaya In English. “Niffiwan” hosts this site out of Canada. It features the latest in Russian animation bringing information about many new and excellent filmmakers, all translated into English.

I can’t tell you how much of a resource this site is for someone interested. Currently featured is a film by artist, Aleksey Karayev. He animates with paint on glass. This is his third film, Dwellers of the Old House, and it’s a gem. The photographs on this site illustrating Norstein’s work methods is a gem. Any fan of this master has to treasure it. For a short YouTube moment, you might look at this Russian commercial by Yurij Norstein.

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If you haven’t seen the coke ad featuring the cartoon balloons, Amid Amidi has posted it on Cartoon Brew. Look at it; it’s hilarious. Great use of cgi. Maybe there’s a feature in there?

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-Last night I was invited to an event built around the documentary No End In Sight. I’d already seen the film, and, as a matter of fact, have already voted for it for Best Doc Feature. (It didn’t quite make sense to me that they would have featured this film at a special dinner since voting ended last week for the documentaries.)

But I don’t look a free meal in the eye, and I wanted to meet this film maker. On a Saturday night, they booked the Cinema II, one of those high end theaters on the upper East Side of Manhattan. A line stretched around the corner for the other films playing at the triplex, The Bucket List and There Will Be Blood. We skipped that and moved to the theater where we were sent in.

Names were on the reserved seats (it’s a kick to be one of those), and this was helpful in that one could see some of the others there, a crowd of lefties and celebrities: Amy Goodman (of Democracy NOW!), Eli Pariser (of MoveOn.org), Jane Fonda, Giancarlo Esposito, Carol Kane and documentary filmmaker, Barbara Kopple, among others. Candy Kugel was the only other animator in attendance.

After the film, Ariana Huffington had a short Q&A for director-writer, Charles Ferguson. Following that, there was a meal at the excellent restaurant, Plaza Athenee. Ariana continued the Q&A after the meal, and it got interesting when a couple of people there weren’t quite as supportive.

It became a somewhat intense evening. That’s probably how it should be after that film. It’s an account of all the steps taken to get us to where we are in the war in Iraq. No one seemed to speak for any of the participants in the film, but the four in charge in the White House seemed to do all the dirty work themselves. It’s a strong movie. I was pleased to have met Mr. Ferguson there.

- William Steig’s first big children’s book was CDB published in 1968. This book was an enormous success. It used letters to communicate ideas. The cover tells it all. C D B (see the bee – get it?).
Below are a couple of other pages illustrated to demonstrate further how he took the idea forward.

The book was enough of a success that there was a sequel – C D C published in 1984.

Most people, I think, are familiar with these two books but do not know the original sequel (published before CDC.) That book is The Bad Speller, published in 1970.

I thought I’d post a couple of images from this book. They’re pretty amusing, and I think the drawings border the work Steig was doing for The New Yorker and mixing it with his children’s illustrations. Several of the images definitely predate some of the books he would eventually write.

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– The one of the “Nine Old Men” who generally seems to be left out of the starllight is Les Clark. At least, it seems that way to me.

He started as an assistant to Ub Iwerks (inbetweening Steamboat Willie) ang did his first animation on The Skeleton Dance. (A skeleton plays the xylophone-like ribcage of another skeleton.) He brought the lessons he learned from Ub to the rest of his animation. He became the Mickey expert (animating the mouse in The Band Concert). He animated Snow White dancing with the dwarves, scenes of Pinocchio, himself, as well as the little train in the Baia sequence of The Three Caballeros.

John Canemaker has a nice chapter on him in his book, Nine Old Men & The Art of Animation. (I cribbed the image above from that book.)
Perhaps Didier Ghez will uncover some excellent interview for an upcoming edition of his fine series of books, Walt’s People.

Here’s a series of drawings from The Country Cousin where a mouse devours a piece of cheese.

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