Animation Art Auction

Pinocchio concept art by Gustav Tenggren

Milt Kahl thumbnails from The Rescuers

Back in the '90s, animation art was all the rage. Sotheby's and Christie's both staged multiple auctions that featured animation art from the 1930s to the present. Animation art is no longer as prominent for a variety of reasons. The current economy doesn't leave people with a lot of extra money to spend but probably more important is the fact that digital films don't generate much art on paper or canvas. The art that is created, being digital, is not one of a kind. It can be copied endlessly with no loss of quality, which destroys the whole concept of owning an original.

Profiles in History will be having an auction featuring much animation art on May 14. Even if you're not in a position to buy, you might be interested in a copy of the catalog, which can be downloaded for free. Hans Perk has been talking about some of this art and publishing better reproductions than are in the catalog. You can see his posts here.

Besides Disney art, the auction also features work from Warner Bros, Fleischer, MGM, Lantz, Mintz, Iwerks, Hanna-Barbera, UPA and Bill Melendez. In addition to drawings, cels and background paintings, there are also posters, maquettes, autographs and correspondence. The back of the catalog contains various memorabilia from live action films but starting at page 325 is material from The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and The Corpse Bride.

The animation portion of this is a very nice collection and the equivalent of many animation art books that cost significant amounts of money. Grab your free copy while you can.

The Beauty of Simplicity

I came across this article by Chris Baker at Slate.com about a videogame called Crayon Physics Deluxe. I was very taken with the video below for a variety of reasons. While the game is far from slick, it is ingenious. The player has enormous freedom to create and to plot strategies in attempting to win the game. The fact that it includes drawing doesn't hurt either.

Reading about Petri Purho, the inventor of Crayon Physics Deluxe, was even more inspiring. He works under some basic, simple rules for creating his games.

• Each game must be made in less than seven days.
• Each game must be made by exactly one person.
• Each game must be based around a common theme, i.e., "gravity," "vegetation," "swarms," etc.

The beauty of this rapid prototyping is that not all ideas are good ones. Rather than commit large amounts of time, money and effort to an idea that turns out to be a failure, there is enormous appeal in working simply and quickly to discover the worth of an idea. As Crayon Physics Deluxe proves, an audience doesn't require visual sophistication if the idea is a good one.

There's an obvious analogy here to the animation field. Features and TV series have grown increasingly complex and expensive, and as a result the high risk of a failure distorts the creative process. Projects are forced to conform to what's already been successful and spontaneity is in short supply. If animation is to be revitalized and if independents and small companies have any hope of competing with multinational corporations, the kind of elegant simplicity found in Crayon Physics Deluxe points to an approach that should be taken seriously.

Cintiq or Not Cintiq

There's an interesting discussion going on over at the Animation Guild blog about the use of Cintiq tablets in the various stages of animation production. With the Cintiq, you draw on the computer screen so it resembles paper in that your eyes focus on your drawing hand. It's a relatively new technology and the talk is about the potential for a paperless animation studio, though some artists have reservations about its use.

The Ages of Directors

Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell have an interesting article on their blog about the age when most directors get to do their first feature. They examine the situation from the 1910s to the present day. They say that if they were giving advice to aspiring directors, this would be it:

Start as young as you can, in any capacity. For directing music videos and commercials, the window opens around age 23. For features, the best you can hope for is to start in your late twenties. But the window closes too. If you haven’t directed a feature-length Hollywood picture by the time you’re 35, you probably never will.

I was curious to see how animation directors stacked up. They generally skew older. One reason is that in the early years, animated features didn't exist and for decades they were relatively rare. However, even in the modern era, it's rare (as you'll see below) for directors to start in their 20s.

Certainly there are directors in their 20s working in TV and in the old days on shorts. However if directing live action features is a young person's game, directing animated features is for the middle aged.

So here are some ages of directors for their first animated features. There are omissions here because the IMDB doesn't have birth dates for every animated feature director, which is why something as big as The Lion King is not listed.

David Hand was 37 when he directed Snow White. Ham Luske was 37 and Ben Sharpsteen was 45 when they directed Pinocchio. Dave Fleischer was 45 when he directed Gulliver's Travels. Jiri Trnka was 39 when he directed The Emperor's Nightingale. Jean Image was 43 when he directed Johnny the Giant Killer. John Halas was 43 and Joy Batchelor was 41 when they directed Animal Farm. Paul Grimault was 52 when he directed The Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird. Wolfgang Reitherman was 53 when he directed A Hundred and One Dalmatians. Bill Hanna was 54 and Joe Barbera was 53 when they directed Hey There, It's Yogi Bear.

George Dunning was 48 when he directed Yellow Submarine. Bill Melendez was 53 when he directed A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Ralph Bakshi was 34 when he directed Fritz the Cat. Richard Williams was 44 when he directed Raggedy Ann and Andy. Bruno Bozzetto was 44 when he directed Allegro Non Tropo. Don Bluth was 45 when he directed The Secret of NIMH. Will Vinton was 38 when he directed The Adventures of Mark Twain.

John Musker and Ron Clements were both 33 when they directed The Great Mouse Detective. Gary Trousdale was 31 and Kirk Wise was 28 when they directed Beauty and the Beast. Henry Selick was 41 when he directed The Nightmare Before Christmas. John Lassetter was 38 when he directed Toy Story. Brad Bird was 42 when he directed The Iron Giant. Peter Lord was 47 and Nick Park was 42 when they directed Chicken Run. Chris Wedge was 45 when he directed Ice Age. Sylvain Chomet was 40 when he directed The Triplets of Belleville. Richard Linklater was 41 when he directed Waking Life.

I wonder, given that the majority of the movie audience is under 30, if this is one of the reasons that animated features have a problem capturing the teen market. The age of animation directors is very appropriate, though, for family films, as most of the directors above likely had children of their own at the time they got their first feature assignment.

Schism

I was talking to a friend about the state of the industry and I realized that the gap between TV and features is growing wider on several fronts.

Not too long ago, both features and TV were done using the same technology: drawings on paper. Features have moved heavily in the direction of cgi and TV has moved heavily in the direction of Flash or Toonboom. The reasons for this are economic.

While budgets have generally gone up for animated features, budgets have gone down for TV. Theatrical box office has continued to rise (though most, if not all of it, has been due to ticket price increases rather than increased attendance) but ad revenues for TV have dropped due to the proliferation of channels. The TV audience is constantly being eroded by more choice on TV as well as choices elsewhere (the internet, video games, etc.)

Both features and TV have their problems in terms of content, but the one thing that's undeniable about features is that they operate at a higher level of craft. There is time to revise and to polish. In TV, a minority of shots get revised.

This has repercussions for the animation workforce. In the past, while features were always seen as the top of the industry, there was a certain amount of mobility between TV and features. Today, I'm guessing that there's a lot less. Besides the fact that the software is entirely different, those working in TV have less opportunity than they did in the past to do work that aspires to feature quality (even if TV budgets and schedules guarantee that the work will fall short).

While I believe that any working artist should be as versatile as possible in order to stay employed, I wonder if for the time being we've reached a point where anyone aspiring to work in features has got to stay completely focused on that goal. In the past, opportunities would arise (especially in studios doing their first features) for people to move in from TV. I'm not so sure those opportunities will be as plentiful in the immediate future. Long term, though, all bets are off as the field keeps evolving in ways that nobody can predict.

Quotations from Chairman Mamet, Part IV

The last installment of quotes from David Mamet's book Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business.

"The observed rule in Hollywood is this: 'Feel free to treat everyone like scum, for if they desire something from you, they'll just have to put up with it, and should they rise to wealth and power, any past civility shown toward them will either be forgotten or remembered as some aberrant and contemptible display of weakness.'"

Not exactly "Be nice to people you meet on the way up as they're the same people you'll meet on the way down." Also this:

"Robert Evans wrote in his book The Kid Stays in the Picture that the best films seem to come from the most troubled sets, but with respect to Mr. Evans, I think this is a bunch of hogwash. I think that a producer likes a troubled set, because it allows him to "save the day" and otherwise exert undue and unfortunate influence upon a mechanism that, had he been doing his job correctly, should have run smoothly in the first place."

Here endeth the lesson.

Quotations from Chairman Mamet, Part III

More quotes from David Mamet's Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business.

"The making of movies is magnificently pragmatic. As in combat, as in sex, the theoretical is all well and good if one's a commentator, but the thing itself can actually be understood only through experience. No one on any set, or in any cutting room, knows the difference (if such there is) between realism and naturalism -- they are merely "telling a story with pictures." A couple of guys in a coffee shop set out to write a gag; a couple of guys with a camera set out to film a gag; a couple of guys in an editing room set out to make sense of the trash that's been dumped on their desks. That's moviemaking in its entirety -- anything else is just "the suits." Through it all the clock is ticking: so many days and they take away the camera, so many days and the studio needs to release the print."

And this:

"The dramatic experience is essentially the enjoyment of the postponement of enjoyment. The mouth waters at the prospect of a delicious meal; the palms sweat in anticipatory delight of sex. The enjoyment of the pseudodramatic entertainment has nothing to do with anticipation. It is, not only aesthetically but physiologically, akin to actual ingestion or congress.*

*Consider the difference between enjoyment and stimulation. One leaves the ballet feeling refreshed, as a promise has been fulfilled. One quits the videogame or pornographic film feeling empty and vaguely debauched -- for one has only been stimulated. The brain, here, craves a repetition of the stimulation, as with any drug. One may sit in front of the television for five hours, but after King Lear one goes home."

Quotations from Chairman Mamet, Part II

More quotations from David Mamet's book Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business.

"As the writer changes, year to year, his or her perceptions and interests change. At twenty he is interested only in sex, at thirty in sex and money, at forty in money and sex, at sixty in money and validation, et cetera."

And this:

"The filmed drama (as any drama) is a succession of scenes. Each scene must end so that the hero is thwarted in pursuit of his goal -- so that he, as discussed elsewhere, is forced to go on to the next scene to get what he wants.

If he is forced, the audience, watching his progress, wonders with him, how he will fare in the upcoming scene, as the film is essentially a progression of scenes. To write a successful scene, one must stringently apply and stringently answer the following three questions:

1. Who wants what from whom?
2. What happens if they don't get it?
3. Why now?

That's it. As a writer, your yetzer ha'ra (evil inclination) will do everything in its vast power to dissuade you from asking these questions of your work. You will tell yourself the questions are irrelevant as the scene is "interesting," "meaningful," "revelatory of character," "deeply felt," and so on; all of these are synonyms for "it stinks in ice."
...
These magic questions and their worth are not known to any script reader, executive, or producer. They are known and used by few writers. They are, however, part of the unconscious and perpetual understanding of that group who will be judging you and by whose say-so your work will stand or fall: the audience."

And this:

"a. Make them wonder.
b. Answer their question in a way both surprising and inevitable."

Quotations from Chairman Mamet, Part I

David Mamet is a successful playwright (American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross), screenwriter (The Untouchables, Wag the Dog), and director (The Spanish Prisoner, State and Main). He's written about the act of writing and directing. His latest thought on these things are in his book Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business. Here are some of this thoughts from the book:

"I pass a poster for the current film and count eighteen names of producers.

On the poster?

Note that the poster is traditionally a way to attract the eye, and so the mind, to a novelty. The producers may in fact have contributed something to the film, but who in the world has ever gone to a film because of the identity of a producer? No one.

Then why list eighteen?

And here we have, to the physician, the unfortunate, inescapable, symptom -- here is the sunken cheek, the dark hollow neath the eye, the foul breath and thready pulse, the herald of death: the film, perhaps, is being made no longer to attract the audience but to buttress or advance the position of the executive."

And this:

"Movies are a potentially great art. Like any human endeavor, like you and me, they have inevitably been exposed to and have, in the main, submitted to the power of self-corruption, of self-righteousness, to the abuse of power. But like General della Rovere, like you and me, like the studio executives, they possess the possibility of beauty and, hence, for human transformation: not as preaching, not as instruction, not as doctrine -- all of which, finally, are out of place in the cinema and can awaken, at best, but self-righteousness. Movies possess the power to speak to the human soul, to free us from the weight of repression.

What is repressed? Our knowledge of our own worthlessness.

The truth cleanses, but the truth hurts -- everywhere but in the drama, where, in comedy or tragedy, the truth restores through art.

The audience has a right to these dramas, and the filmmaker and the studios have a responsibility to attempt them."

More quotes to come.

The Simpsons Meet The Fleischers...

...or Barney meets Bluto, if you prefer.

While looking at The Simpsons Handbook, I was struck how the construction of the characters resembled the construction used at the Fleischer studio. The Fleischers never really outgrew this approach to construction. You can see it as late as the Stone Age cartoons, which were some of the last things they did before losing the studio.

You know how in It's a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart gets to see what the world was like if he was never born? Looking at The Simpsons model sheets, it's like looking at a world where Fred Moore was never born.

These characters are created out of separate, static shapes. The lines that define the shapes are completely lacking in rhythm and there's no attempt to use line to tie the shapes together.

None of the Fox primetime animated series seem to be interested in flexible shapes, which really is a shame. I've heard that Fox considered stretch and squash old fashioned, but as you can see, The Simpsons approach isn't exactly new.

Which Way Do We Go, George? Which Way Do We Go?

Keith Lango comments on the conclusion to my MRP and Peter Hon adds some very good thoughts about the time and effort it takes to do an independent film.

I know exactly what he's talking about. I've been debating whether to start a graphic novel, where I could tell a lengthy story, or do a short animated film. I'm guessing that they'd take me the same amount of time, but one would allow for a more complex story. However, I wonder if I'm not thinking boldly enough.

I think that trying to make a short film that's as polished as professional work is a mistake. Adding up the man hours (more like man years) that are spent on any studio production (TV or film), it's almost impossible for an individual to invest the same amount of time. To make a Pixar quality short as an individual, you might have to start immediately after the doctor slaps your behind in the delivery room and you might not finish before landing in your death bed.

So the thing to do is focus on content. That's where so much of studio animation falls short anyway. Studio content is aimed at the widest possible audience and the audience goes for it because it's similar to what's been done before.

Say something new (or say something familiar in a new way) and forget about slickness. If what you're saying isn't worth paying attention to, slickness won't change that. Furthermore, how many ideas are worth spending years of your life on? If you've got one, I sincerely congratulate you. However, an awful lot of animated films aren't worth the time spent to watch them, let alone to make them. Rather than worrying about refining our work, maybe we should worry about saying something interesting.

I'm not attacking the idea of craft, but I've never felt that craft was enough. Just as many animation artists publish sketchbooks, maybe we need an animated equivalent. Whether drawn, stop motion or cgi, maybe we need to work for more spontaneity and less for refinement. Elevate content over form. Forget about sanding off the rough edges. Make your statement quickly and move on.

Peter Emslie

I've known Peter Emslie for decades and admired his cartooning for just as long. He's one of the two best caricaturists I consider friends (the other being Bob Jaques). While the majority of Peter's professional work has been illustrating cartoon characters for merchandising and for children's books, he's done some caricature work professionally. He's the cover artist for the Walt's People series of books and has contributed to Entertainment Weekly.

Peter has started a blog where he'll showcase his caricatures as well as his mastery with a Winsor Newton brush. He also has a website to show off additional artwork. Anyone who values classical cartooning will enjoy Peter's work.

Michael Sporn

On Wednesday evening, I attended an ASIFA-East event marking the DVD release of four more of Michael Sporn's films: The Emperor's New Clothes, Nightingale, The Red Shoes and The Little Match Girl, all based on stories by Hans Christian Anderson.

Mike and several people who worked on the films were there, recalling details of their production methods and war stories about dealing with clients. Mike admitted that there were several films that he found hard to watch because they reminded him of the struggles involved making them.

I worked on two of these films from Toronto, so I had no idea what went on behind the scenes. There were major voice track changes on some of them, causing the films to be revised while in progress. In addition to that, Mike has already gone on record (see his comment here) about giving his animators an enormous amount of freedom. I can personally testify to that.

It's amazing to me, though, given the client changes and the freedom given to animators, that the films are all recognizably films by Michael Sporn. I'm not sure how he manages to pull this off, though I think that his taste is at least partly responsible. Somehow, when he's making creative choices or selecting a crew, his decisions invariably work (though Mike would be first one to lament the compromises he's been forced to make).

Mike breaks many of the rules we take for granted. He has no house style and doesn't dominate the artists who work for him. He works with impossibly low budgets and short schedules. His crews are smaller than average. He doesn't send work overseas. He and his studio are proof that many of the rules for making animated films are just habits, and many of them are bad ones.

Mike is close to financing a feature based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe. I hope that the deal goes through as I look forward to seeing the finished film. In the meantime, check out the DVDs.

McCay's Dream of the Rarebit Fiend

This July will see the publication of Ulrich Merkl's collection of all of Winsor McCay's comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. While the strip is not as well known as Little Nemo in Slumberland, it contains some of McCay's most interesting work. Nemo deals in spectacle from a child's point of view, and while Rarebit has no shortage of surprising visuals, it focuses more on adult hopes and fears. You can find details about the book, including sample pages, here.

Shane Glines on Animagic

I don't know anything more about the Animagic layoff and the production of Nate the Great than I've read at the link below. I also don't know Shane Glines, though I think he's a very good designer and somebody with excellent taste. Unfortunately, the story that Glines tells is all too typical about the way many animation projects are run these days. Read the thread on Animation Nation.

Andrew Loomis in German

Andrew Loomis was a commercial artist who worked in the 1920's to the 1950's. In addition, he was a teacher and the author of a much sought-after series of art instruction books such as Fun With a Pencil, Figure Drawing For All It's Worth, Creative Illustration, Three Dimensional Drawing and Drawing the Head and Hands. The books are all out of print and command high prices on the used book market. There are two Walter Foster editions that are highly abridged versions of the books, but they are disappointing to anyone who has seen the originals.

It turns out that Figure Drawing For All Its Worth is still in print in Germany and can be ordered from Bud Plant for $29.95 U.S. Definitely worth owning and a bargain to boot.

Persepolis

Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel about growing up during the Iranian revolution and her exile from Iran in the aftermath. It's a great book and one that is being made into an animated feature in France. (There are other clips from the film available here, here and here. Like the above trailer, the dialog is in French.)

Satrapi is involved in the creation of the feature and not only is it drawn animation in her own style, the film will be (gasp!) black and white like the original graphic novel. There couldn't be a stronger contrast between this film and the forthcoming Tin Tin films mentioned below. I can only hope that Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg see Persepolis at the earliest possible opportunity.

Chuck Jones' Strangest Cartoon. Ever.

Now Hear This (1962) is a hard to find (and to watch?) cartoon directed by Chuck Jones at Warner Bros. You might describe it as his version of Porky in Wackyland done in a post-UPA style. In any case, thanks to YouTube, you now have an opportunity to see it.

Tintin Done Right

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have announced that they're making several films based on Herge's Tintin using motion capture. Variety reports that,

Jackson said WETA will stay true to Remi's original designs in bringing the cast of Tintin to life, but that the characters won't look cartoonish.

"Instead," Jackson said, "we're making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people — but real Herge people!"

Show of hands. How many people choose which movies to go to based on whether they can see skin pores?

DreamWorks bought the film rights from Herge Studios in Brussels, Belgium. Company is led by prexy Fanny Rodwell, Remi's wife when he died in 1983.

"We couldn't think of a better way to honor Herge's legacy that this announcement within days of the 100th anniversary of his birth, May 22, 1907," Rodwell said.

Now I understand. There's no better way to celebrate Herge's 100th birthday than by taking the cartooning style he developed, the "ligne clair" school which has influenced generations of cartoonists, and adding all the details that Herge was too stupid to include. What a shame that Herge didn't live long enough to see his work corrected. I look forward to the day when Spielberg and Jackson have their work corrected as well.

Munro

This is a delightful short written by Jules Feiffer and directed by Gene Deitch. Feiffer worked in animation in the 1950s at Terrytoons and it's a sad commentary on the state of the business then that they let him get away. Who knows if things would be any different today?

Besides his weekly comic strip, Feiffer also went on to write novels (Harry the Rat With Women), plays (Little Murders), movies (Carnal Knowledge) and children's books (The Man in the Ceiling). The film accurately mirrors Feiffer's expressive drawing style.

This film was also a turning point in the life of Gene Deitch. His desire to make it led him to producer Bill Snyder, who promised Deitch funding if Deitch would go to Prague and oversee another of Snyder's projects. Deitch ended up staying in Prague, where he lives and works to this day.

This film is very much in the UPA mold. Deitch worked at UPA, so it's not surprising that he found the story attractive or that he embraced Feiffer's design style. Like many UPA films, it relies on a narrator and satire more than it creates believable characters. However, the film is charming and the satire still works; the bureaucratic mindset hasn't changed much in the intervening years. Here is Stephen Colbert's "truthiness" years before he invented the term.