Writers, Gatekeepers and Distribution

This will probably be the last post for about a week due to several competing obligations. However, there are some things I'd like to point out that are worth reading.

Evan Gore left a comment on my entry on character sympathy that led me to the Animation Writer's Blog which he contributes to. You're undoubtedly aware of John K's stance on animation writers and this blog represents the response of some writers.

That blog led me to nichollsvickers.com, the site of writers Andrew Nicholls and Darryl Vickers, who have written for live action and animated TV. There are two things there very much worth reading about the interference that TV writers regularly suffer from those above them in the hierarchy. The short article (a downloadable pdf file) is "The Nevermending Story." The other piece is a 288 page book (also a downloadable pdf) called Valuable Lessons, chronicling their careers and which unfortunately degenerates into a torrent of stupidities that have rained down on their heads. These writers are obviously far better than the work that they're allowed to do and while my experience in TV is tiny compared to theirs, what happened to them rings true to me.

Finally, the ever-useful Scott Kirsner points to this article in Variety about a feature producer working to distribute purely through the internet. There's no question that it isn't a mature distribution medium yet, but the existing alternative is hardly an alternative at all.

"We knew we didn't have the quality to stand up to a theatrical release," Nelson says. "But we got five offers from DVD distributors." Nelson, however, was shocked by the deal terms, which were typical: No advance without a star or a decent budget. No piece of the backend. The distributor hangs on to its rights for seven to 10 years. And when they sell the DVD on the Internet via Amazon or Netflix, the distrib takes 25% of the gross and subtracts all expenses, including replicating and supplying DVDs and marketing. (Netflix won't take any films without a distributor.)

Nelson was amazed, too, by the distributors' lack of accountability. "They send quarterly reports by country," she says, "But they don't tell you how many units they sold. They don't keep track by film. They don't have systems or bookkeeping capabilities. There's no such thing as making money. What you get upfront is what you are going to see."

I keep saying this and you're probably sick of reading it. Under the old system, before the internet, distribution was scarce. This led to gatekeepers who sifted through thousands of potential projects and picked the ones that they thought would sell. Inevitably, they picked material that had already sold or resembled material that had already sold. The good thing about this system was that the gatekeepers had money, so if you were picked, you were financed. The bad thing about this system is that they controlled content, so they could warp your project into whatever they thought the market wanted.

Now, distribution is essentially free. Every blog, webpage or posted video has a potential audience of billions of people. The new problems are financing your work and figuring out ways to earn money from it. People in media like prose and comics have it fairly easy, in that they can create for pennies. Animation takes more time and effort than other media, which means more of an up front investment and somebody's got to pay the bills while the work is being created.

On the income side, once again other media have it easier than animation. Musicians have figured out that if they give away their music online, they can still make money from concert appearances and merchandising. Unfortunately, nobody's lining up for tickets to see animators talk about their work, so giving away your animation isn't viable.

Charging for downloads seems to be the best possibility at the moment (though merchandising is viable depending on the property).

The point is, given the long odds of getting a gatekeeper to take your project, given the stupidity that gatekeepers inflict on creative people, and given how questionable the accounting practices of the entertainment business are, I don't feel the old system is worth pursuing. Feel free to disagree. While the internet isn't a mature business model yet, this is one case where I think it's better to go with the devil you don't know than the devil you do.

Keith Lango on Inefficiency

Keith Lango has a two part (so far) article on why he thinks animators turn out less footage now than in the past and what the causes of this are. Here's part 1 and here's part 2. If you're an animator or an aspiring one, it's definitely worth a read.

Legacy Characters

The death of B.C. cartoonist Johnny Hart has once again raised the issue of whether a comic strip should continue beyond its creator's death. With animated characters being kept alive long after their creators and their originating studios are gone, the same questions could be asked about our medium. Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter considers the question, and this paragraph caught my attention.

"Further, there's no way anyone can really prove that the newspaper page would be better off if strips died with their creators, other than pointing out a few that have and a general, logic-based hunch that, for example, audiences were more entertained by watching Jerry Seinfeld on Seinfeld than they would have been viewing his run playing Dobie Gillis. As ridiculous as that sounds, I think that's a pretty convincing way of looking at the overall issue. There's no way to keep any piece of art running past the death of its creators without a loss of vitality somewhere along the way, and when that decline defines a significant portion of your public face, it's bound to have a significant effect on the art form."

Lantz and Fleischer DVDs

Jerry Beck of Cartoon Brew has announced a collection of Walter Lantz cartoons that will appear on DVD this July. I'm assuming that readers of this blog are already aware of this, but they may not realize the importance of the cartoons on this set as the Lantz studio has been very poorly represented on video and DVD.

This set contains cartoons directed by Shamus Culhane, a very underrated director who never got the opportunities he deserved. In the '30's, Culhane worked just about everywhere, including a stint at Disney where he was something of a Pluto specialist. He worked on Snow White, Pinocchio (though there's confusion as to how much of his work is in the finished film), Gulliver's Travels and Mr. Bug Goes to Town.

At Lantz, Culhane took a studio that was turning out weak cartoons and jump started them with his interest in experimenting and his aggressive sense of timing. Culhane's best work at the studio was possibly the Swing Symphonies. While he admitted to having no feeling for jazz, he worked well with it and his musical cartoons are really vigorous. Abou Ben Boogie and The Greatest Man in Siam are excellent cartoons and worth seeing.

The set will also contain cartoons by Dick Lundy and Tex Avery. I admire Lundy's craftsmanship but not his directorial personality. He was a good animator and his cartoons are always slick, but I find his point of view to be pretty pedestrian. However, his cartoons contain the some of the best animation in the history of the Lantz studio and are worth watching for the animation alone.

Tex Avery's affect on the Lantz studio was much the same as Culhane. At the time Avery rejoined the Lantz studio, it was out of creative energy. Avery was able to bootstrap the studio with his posing, gags and timing. His four cartoons are a textbook case of how much impact one person can have on the output of a studio.

The animators who worked on these cartoons include Fred Moore, Ed Love, Emery Hawkins, Pat Matthews, Grim Natwick, Dick Lundy and LaVerne Harding. If you are interested in this style of character animation, this set is a bonanza of material.

There are other studios whose cartoons are not available on DVD, such as Famous Studios and Terrytoons, but the Lantz cartoons are probably the most interesting of this bunch and this release is long overdue. If you have any interest in 1940's style animation, I guarantee you that there will be cartoons and moments in this set that will entertain you and show you the high standards that were once commonplace in animation.

If it wasn't for the release of the Popeye cartoons, also in July, I'd say that the Lantz DVD was the animation history release of the year. The Popeye cartoons have had even less presence in home video than the Lantz cartoons, due to some rights issues that have finally been settled.

The Fleischer cartoons of the 1930s are worth watching for different reasons than the Lantz cartoons. The animation is not as slick, but the stories, characterizations and layouts are all of a high standard. In the 1930s, there were many different streams of animation all running in parallel. The Fleischer cartoons were urban, gritty, and focused on adult concerns like sexual competition. In the early '30s Fleischer cartoons, the world is a surreal place where anything could be alive and nothing could be taken for granted.

There's no question that Popeye, especially when voiced by Jack Mercer, was the most complex animated personality of the 1930's, far more complex than anything Disney, MGM or Warner Bros. offered up in short cartoons. It's only when Disney expanded to features that he began to approach the level of character depth that Popeye routinely displayed. Ironically, it's when the Fleischers expanded to features that Popeye began his decline, but that's not until volume 2 of the Popeye set.

At any given moment, there are dominant styles in animation. Right now, we've got the Pixar style, the Cartoon Network/Nickelodeon style and the anime style. While we're immersed in a style, we take it for granted as the way things have to be, but the thing about styles is that they eventually change. The best thing about these historical DVD collections is that they show approaches to animation that we don't take for granted. It's stimulating to see films from different places and different times and I hope that the release of these DVDs will shake things up a little and get people thinking in new (or old) directions.

Movie Downloads

Scott Kirsner has a list and ratings of the various movie download services. This is an immature market so far, but I believe that it's going to become the dominant way that we watch films at home.

Note which services are friendly to independents. It's a given that mainstream Hollywood films will be available. What's important is whether in the long tail world of the net there will be places for other points of view. I think that's animation's best hope for offering a wider range of content to audiences.

Pinocchio Part 6

A couple of notes on the draft. The effects animator on shots 3 and 35 is listed as Struther and Struthers. It's probably Sandy Strothers. Also, the effects animator listed as Case in shot 13 is probably Brad Case, but Alberto Becattini doesn't list him as being at Disney this early. I'm not aware of another Case who might fit the bill.

While the draft lists 1.01 to 1.06 as separate shots, they are continuous in the film. My assumption is that it was easier to treat it as sections in terms of assigning the work.

That opening shot, craning from the church bell tower down through the town and ending on Gepetto's door is similar structurally to the first shot of the story proper, where the camera cranes from the wishing star to Geppetto's house. That first shot spatially connects the star with occupants of the house, declaring the connection between them. This shot connects the world with the occupants and the second act will be all about how the world affects Pinocchio, Geppetto, Jiminy and their relationships.

The shot also mirrors the characters on Geppetto's clocks, but these characters are real and less predictable than Geppetto's mechanical creations. If those clocks are facsimiles of real life, we discover when Geppetto leaves Pinocchio at the world's mercy that Geppetto is as much a facsimile of a real father as Pinocchio is of a real boy. Geppetto witnessed Pinocchio playing with fire and knows of his son's lack of worldliness, yet he gleefully sends Pinocchio off to school, dancing back into his house, oblivious to the monstrous wrong he's just committed.

Jiminy is nowhere to be found either, so Pinocchio goes into the world unarmed. Everything in the second act will flow from these opening moments.

Geppetto in this sequence is all Babbitt's. Babbitt's animation is warm, showing Geppetto's pride in his newfound son. The dancing scene is particularly effective, though it has to be viewed ironically in view of what follows.

Milt Kahl and Les Clark handle the bulk of Pinocchio. Clark's Pinocchio has a less appealing face. The features don't generate the appeal that other animators are able to get. Shots 15 and 30 are typical of the problem. When Pinocchio's cheeks are not cutting into the bottoms of his eyes, the eyes tend to look vacant. Clark also draws Pinocchio's eyes more round than oval, which doesn't help.

Don Lusk and Lynn Karp get the best Figaro scenes here, even though Eric Larson gets a scene.

Marketing Canadian Movies

Steve Schnier, who usually works in animation but is currently in production on a low budget live action feature, has a couple of blog entries about the never ending problem of marketing Canadian movies.

Pinocchio Part 5A

As the spectre pointed out in comments to Part 5, it's likely that the draft is wrong in crediting Ham Luske for any Cleo animation. When I saw the spelling change from "Luske" to "Lusk," I realized that it was far more likely that Don Lusk was animating Cleo rather than someone as important as Ham Luske working on a relatively insignificant character.

There is another error in the draft. Between 61.1 and 63.3 in the mosaic, there's a 4 second shot on the draft labeled 61.4 with animation by Johnston, Bradbury, Karp and De Beeson that's described as "MLS - Pinocchio and Figaro dancing. Pino sees candle burning. (Geppetto singing off stage.)" No question that shot was animated, but it ended up on the cutting room floor.

For all of this film's elaborateness, there are some cheats. It's standard for animation that's over a panning background to be done on ones. In scene 11, some strange things are happening. It could be the DVD transfer, but it appears that every 5th frame of the panning background is on 2's. The animation is all on two's, but on every fifth frame it's on 3's! Even if the DVD transfer is guilty of causing this, there's no question that the animation is on 2's while the background pans on 1's.

We know about Tytla's Stromboli, but here he handles a lot of Geppetto. He probably has the most sustained acting in this sequence and does a great job with it. While some feel that Stromboli is over-animated, Tytla's Geppetto is a very clear and direct performance. Tytla handles Geppetto's fear and surprise well in addition to Geppetto's pleasure at discovering Pinocchio is alive. This sequence is exactly the kind of thing that allows Tytla to do his best work. The acting is grounded in strong emotions and the shifting emotions give Tytla the chance to show off his range as an actor. Stromboli and Chernobog are more bravura performances, but there's an honesty to Tytla's Geppetto that makes it closer to his work on Dumbo and personally I prefer it.

The most noticeable thing about this long sequence is how many different people had a hand in it. It's got a wide assortment of animators on every character. Other Geppetto animators in this sequence include Walt Kelly, Fred Moore, Bill Shull and Art Babbitt. Pinocchio gets handled by Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl (his Pinocchios in this sequence cuter than in the last), Frank Thomas, Marvin Woodward, Phil Duncan, Bob Youngquist, Les Clark and Harvey Toombs. The rest of the characters fall into the same pattern. As a result, it's difficult to talk about performances because few animators besides Tytla got more than a few shots in a row for their characters.

At the end of this sequence, we're finished with the first act of the film. Except for a brief time after the credits, we've stayed inside Geppetto's house and all our time getting to know the film's protagonists. This film builds more slowly than more recent animated features, which usually start out with an action sequence rather than risk boring the audience. There's been lots of comedy and three musical numbers already, but the first act has been all about meeting the characters, setting up their relationships and establishing what Pinocchio needs to do to become a real boy.

From this point forward, the film moves out of Geppetto's house and into the wider world. The second act is all about how the protagonists fail each other.

The Web as a Funding Source

Here's an interesting article in Variety by Scott Kirsner about filmmakers who are trying to raise money for their projects on the web.

Consistency

People who work in animation know that there has to be consistency between designs and motion. If your character looks like Snow White, it has to move in a more realistic fashion than if your character looks like Dora the Explorer. If Snow White moves like Dora or if Dora moves like Snow White, the results are ludicrous.

I think that the quality of animation since the coming of cgi is getting more subtle. Having done both drawn and computer animation myself, I'm aware of the process of layering motion. In stop motion, you've got to conceptualize everything about your animation before you start as you're going straight ahead. In drawn animation, you have the ability to alter your timing after the fact, but it still takes effort to change details like hands or faces. With cgi, each moving item has it's own timeline and graph, so it's relatively easy to add motion on top of motion or change the timing of one aspect of a character while leaving the rest of the motion unchanged. What we see on screen, at least in features, is motion that's been refined to a high degree.

However, just as there has to be consistency between design and motion, there has to be consistency between acting and character. While the acting has become more complex, the characters have not. What we get in a lot of cgi acting is unjustified subtlety. The acting is too dense for what the character needs to communicate.

The solution is either to simplify the acting or to add complexity to the characters. Unfortunately, animation has a history of refining form while ignoring content, so I expect that the gap between acting and characters will continue to increase.

JibJab in Washington

I received an email from Evan Spiridellis, one of the founders of JibJab, saying that they've done a new 2 minute piece satirizing the news media that will be premiered at the TV and Radio Correspondence Dinner in Washington on Wednesday night. The attendees include the major broadcast and cable news personalities in addition to various politicians, including the President.

The dinner will be carried live on CSPAN and their short will also show Wednesday night on The Tonight Show immediately after Jay Leno's monologue. Anyone registered at JibJab can access a behind the scenes production blog on the making of the film (though I don't see a link; perhaps it will go up on Wednesday).

Lethem on Copyright

Here's an interesting interview with novelist Jonathan Lethem about his views on copyright.

Pinocchio Part 5

Cock Robin Mosaic

Perhaps I've started a trend. I certainly hope so. Over at Michael Barrier's site, Barrier and Jeff Watson have contributed a commentary and mosaic respectively for the Disney Silly Symphony Who Killed Cock Robin.

Crunch Time Again

Postings may be less frequent for the next 6-8 weeks. As the school year ends, I've got grading to take care of. In addition to that, my thesis is crawling towards the finish line. I've got revisions to do on it and an eventual defense. Another item is family business that must be taken care of in mid-April, so I'm trying to move everything forward at the same time.

You have my solemn pledge, however, that the Pinocchio mosaic will be finished, though it may be slow going for a while. Maybe I'll be surprised and things will go more smoothly than I expect, but just in case, this is a warning.

Pinocchio Part 4A

First, I want to address a definite omission in the draft and a probable omission. The scene between 20 and 33 is not listed in the draft. It's possible that the Jiminy animation is by Don Towsley, who did the preceding two Jiminy shots, but immediately after the mystery shot we have Jiminy done by Bernie Wolf, John Elliotte and Ward Kimball. As the mystery shot doesn't hook up at its head or tail with other shots, it could be animated by any of the above. It is likely that Cornett Wood animated the snapping violin string.

The probable omission is scene 38. George Rowley is listed twice for scenes such as scene 36, and I'm guessing it's because he handled the clock characters as well as the shadow animation. Scene 38 is the only scene with the clock characters where Rowley isn't credited and I suspect that's an omission. Kimball was too valuable to assign to mechanically moving characters and there is no reason why scene 38 should be different than the surrounding scenes.

We have three sequences in a row where Pinocchio is basically a blank slate. In the first, he comes to life. In this sequence, his relationship with Jiminy is solidified. In the next sequence, Pinocchio finally meets Gepetto. The problem, as has been pointed out by Michael Barrier, is that Pinocchio is a completely passive character and that reduces the dramatic interest. Pinocchio isn't in conflict with anything or anybody because he has no opinions and there is no threat to him, except for playing with fire in the next sequence.

Disney commented during the making of Snow White that they had to spend the time so that the audience could get to know the characters. This is what's happening here as well. The whole first act of the film is spent introducing the characters and their relationships. The dramatic conflict doesn't enter into the film until the second act.

As I go through the draft, my admiration for the lesser-known animators keeps on increasing. I always assumed that Kimball was responsible for Jiminy's song here, but Don Towsley does Jiminy's scenes on the violin and Bernie Wolf handles a particularly goofy Jiminy in scene 33. John Elliotte starts Jiminy's lecture to Pinocchio and contributes one shot to the song. All of them have the ability to create poses that are as pleasing as Kimball's and their work is really not distinguishable from his in terms of drawing or timing. Thanks to the draft, we can finally appreciate their work.

Pinocchio doesn't have a lot to do here, but he is very appealingly drawn by Ollie Johnston. There's a pudginess to Pinocchio's face and a tilt to his eyes that make him an attractive looking character. While Milt Kahl designed Pinocchio, when I compare Johnston's drawings to Kahl's in the previous sequence, I much prefer Johnston's. His proportions are more pleasing. Harvey Toombs handles a couple of shots of Pinocchio trying to whistle. Kahl takes the final shot of the sequence, which he handles beautifully, contrasting Pinocchio's confident march with his clumsy, off-balance fall after getting tangled up in the paint pots.

Pinocchio Part 4

Pinocchio Storyboard

Michael Sporn has started posting the storyboard to Pinocchio, supplied to him by animation historian (and Oscar winning animator) John Canemaker. There is no question that Pinocchio is one of the most important animated features ever made, so the attention it's now getting from bloggers like Hans Perk, Sporn and myself is very welcome.

In a previous comments section, the spectre asked what the Pinocchio layout artists did. Comparing the board to the finished film is the best way to understand it. The boards do not contain the same level of design and detail in the backgrounds and the camera angles are only approximate. The layout artists are responsible for nailing down the camera angles, composing the shots and designing the backgrounds. My assumption is that the credited layout artist for a sequence was drawing as well as supervising the work of other artists.

Clash of the Morons

Viacom is suing YouTube for $1 billion dollars for copyright infringement. This lawsuit demonstrates stupidity on both sides.

YouTube is not funneling any of the revenue it makes back to the people posting videos or the copyright holders. Many other video sites already have functioning payment plans. Scott Kirsner has put together a list available here. It's not like YouTube has to invent things from scratch. They can easily see what's available in the marketplace and craft a plan based on what others have done.

Viacom is trying to hold back the future. The Hollywood studios tried to strangle TV and home video in the cradle. Not only did they fail, they soon turned around and embraced both of them as major revenue streams.

And Viacom is hurting itself. With no Viacom content on YouTube, people watching online video will be satisfied to watch somebody else's content. What kind of business model withholds a product from customers and encourages them to move to the competition?

I support the idea of copyright. I believe that a creator (or the company that finances a creator) has the right to profit from work. No argument there. However, I see copyright in different terms than it currently exists.

In a digital world, you cannot control copying. Why devote time and money to fighting it? Better to acknowledge that copying will occur and figure out a system where every time content is copied or viewed, the copyright holder makes money. That way, rather than fight copying you can encourage it and profit from it at the same time.

The only way to protect a secret is to not tell anyone. Once one other person knows it, you've lost control of the content. You cannot guarantee that the other person won't spread the information around. That's how it is now with digital copying. Once you've made your work available to the public, you cannot stop it from spreading around. You can copy a file with as little effort as whispering to a friend. When the cost to reproduce something is that low, there's no effective barrier to prevent it.

It's not going to be easy to set up a compensation system and I suspect that initially there's going to be disappointment over the amount of money that digital copying generates. Rather than these two giant companies wasting resources fighting over an antiquated law, they should be lobbying the government to adapt the copyright law to unlimited copying for the digital age.

Just like the studios eventually made peace with TV and the VCR, they're going to make peace with online video. Even a moron can see that. Why not skip the lawsuits and just get on with it?

Marketing Tips

Scott Kirsner has a list of marketing tips that have come up at the South By Southwest Film Festival that are worth reading.

Pinocchio Part 3A

The Blue Fairy is a Deus ex Machina, or machine of the gods. Gepetto has expressed his wish for Pinocchio to be a real boy, but the only way the story can move forward is through supernatural intervention.

The fairy says, "Good Gepetto, you have given so much happiness to others, you deserve to have your wish come true." Throughout the film, however, we never see Gepetto interact with a single human being until Pinocchio is made flesh and blood. We don't know it yet, but Gepetto is a recluse and I can only assume that his carvings are what have given others happiness.

This sequence is almost completely exposition. The conditions for success are laid down ("Prove yourself brave, truthful and unselfish...") and Pinocchio accepts them. Jiminy is bound to Pinocchio. The sequence is more necessity than entertainment.

It's no surprise that this sequence was directed by Ham Luske, who supervised the live action for the character of Snow White, and that the Blue Fairy was animated by Jack Campbell, who animated Snow White under Luske's direction. Where Snow White was about 5 heads high, necessitating redrawing the character over the live action, the Blue Fairy is completely human in her proportions. She looks traced from live action. Marge Belcher, who played Snow White for the camera, here plays the fairy. Given how little screen time the fairy has and given how unchallenging the acting is, one can only wonder why Disney decided to go with this design and with rotoscoping for the character.

Jiminy is mainly handled by Bernie Wolf in this sequence. Many of the shots are simply reactions where Jiminy comments to the audience. However, there are two stand-out scenes. The first is 37, where Jiminy gets so exasperated with Pinocchio's ignorance that he breaks out of hiding and interrupts. You can clearly see Jiminy's rising impatience. The other scene is 50 where Jiminy bargains for a badge. His excitement and enthusiasm are palpable.

Ollie Johnston and Milt Kahl handle Pinocchio. Johnston gets the scene of Pinocchio coming to life. The pose where he covers his mouth with his hands emphasizes the fleshiness of Pinocchio's cheeks, a sharp contrast to the inflexible shapes of his puppet self.
Pinocchio comes across as naive and pleasant in this sequence, but he really has nothing to do except ask questions. Certainly Johnston and Kahl make the character visually appealing, but there are limited acting opportunities here.

One name conspicuously absent from the draft is Oskar Fischinger's. Reportedly, he was responsible for the squiggley line effect that emanates from the fairy's wand when she appears and disappears and when she taps Pinocchio and Pinocchio comes to life. George Rowley is credited for the effects in all those scenes. Perhaps Fischinger's name was removed when he left the studio or perhaps he only developed the effect and Rowley is the one who did the scene-specific drawings.

Pinocchio Part 3

I strongly suspect that there are inaccuracies in the draft for this sequence. It surprises me that Art Babbitt would be credited with the Blue Fairy for scene 21 and that Berny Wolf would be credited for her in scene 45. I would guess those scenes would be by Campbell, but maybe I'm wrong.

The scene between 26 and 26-10 isn't in the draft and Jiminy in scene 26-10 is credited to Jack Campbell, whose only animation in this sequence so far has been on the Blue Fairy. It's far more likely that Campbell did the unnumbered scene and that Ollie Johnston did 26-10, though it's possible that 26-10 is by Kahl.

More commentary on this section to follow.

Jones Against the Tide

Courtesy of Paul Spector (son of animator Irv Spector), here is a really interesting article by Chuck Jones from 1964. I don't believe it's ever been reprinted. Certainly, it was unknown to me. The article comes from program notes for a screening sponsored by ASIFA.




The article is worth reading for Jones' view on the state of the industry during a major transition. This was the second big industrial transition for the business (the first being the introduction of sound) and for most of the veteran animation personnel of the time, it was the first big shift in the business since they joined it.

We've been through a lot of transitions in the last 15 years (the collapse of drawn animation, the growth of cgi, the introduction of 2D software like Flash, increased globalization, etc.), so it's interesting to see how Jones viewed 1964. He fought a losing battle, first trying to reinvigorate theatrical shorts at MGM and then retreating to TV, but fighting to work for prime time with its higher budgets rather than for Saturday mornings.

While he justifiably casts stones at UPA and Hanna-Barbera, the irony is that Jones didn't do much with the opportunities that he found for himself. His timing and posing became increasingly mannered and his TV work became dominated by dialogue. While he cursed the darkness, the candles he lit didn't burn very brightly. He obviously had hopes for the future, but the truth is that his best films were already behind him, just as they were for UPA and Hanna-Barbera.

Pinocchio Part 2A

This sequence, on the surface, is fairly mundane. But it is a critical sequence in that it introduces the main characters and gives us a chance to get to know them in a relaxed way. It's also a very complicated sequence in terms of staging. There are many shots with three characters done by three separate animators. Getting them to work together and not upstage each other is a major logistical problem.

It's no surprise that this sequence was given to Wilfred Jackson. The Disney directors of the 1930's and of the features are not discussed much. That's probably because they served Walt Disney's point of view more than their own, so their personalities are never allowed to dominate. Still, Jackson was known for his meticulous attention to detail, including timing. He was the director of The Band Concert, a short that had to match an intricate musical score and also had many threads to be woven together.

Here, Jackson makes the sequence look effortless. We never lose track of where the characters are or what they're feeling about the various events. Figaro and Cleo are successful comic relief characters, but Gepetto is critical to the success of the film as the relationship between him and Pinocchio is the centerpiece of the story. That relationship is what allows both characters to grow.

Jackson also juggles a large crew: Gepetto is animated by Babbitt, Moore and Thomas; Jiminy by Towsley, Anthony and Elliotte; Figaro by Larson, Bradbury and Calonious; Cleo by Larson, Lusk, and Karp. The animators are mostly cast by character, but there are still several animators per character whose work has to be coordinated and the resulting performances are seamless. You can see subtle differences when you know who animated a particular scene, but without the draft I'd never have noticed.

I think that Babbitt's Gepetto is his masterpiece, but that's probably because I prefer warmer characters. to cold ones like Babbitt's Queen in Snow White. Christian Rub's voice for Gepetto is great and Babbitt builds on it to make Gepetto a very grandfatherly figure, full of enthusiasm and a sense of fun. Moore's two Gepetto scenes are somewhat livelier than Babbitt's and are well placed in the sequence. Frank Thomas's Gepetto is an afterthought in his scenes, which are all about introducing Pinocchio as a puppet. Thomas has the unenviable task of animating a dead character and still make the motion appealing, something that he succeeds in doing. However, I think that the film missed a bet here. Gepetto is literally an animator, bringing Pinocchio to life, and rather than focus on Pinocchio it would have been nice to see Gepetto’s pleasure at watching Pinocchio move. Perhaps that was a little too self-referential for the studio.

One of the most impressive things about this sequence is Disney's bench strength. Don Towsley is not talked about much, but his handling of Jiminy here is excellent. He retains the character's charm from the first sequence and the reaction shots keep him in the picture even though he's reduced to an observer for most of the time. Scene 3.1 is a beautiful piece of action animation as Jiminy launches himself away from Pinocchio. The gag in 33.1, where Jiminy pretends to be a mechanical figure on the music box to escape detection is lifted from Chaplin's The Circus, if anyone cares. Towsley's no slouch in the acting department, either. His reaction shots and shots commenting on the action are all convincingly in character.

The Jiminy scenes taken by Dick Anthony or John Elliotte are equally well done. Anthony's gag with Jiminy's hand on a woman figurine's rump has very strong poses. Elliotte's animation in 19.1, reacting to the stern-looking pipe, contains wonderful contrast in facial expressions. We always associate Jiminy with Ward Kimball, but Kimball is completely absent from this sequence and we don't feel his loss.

Eric Larson creates a great character in Figaro. The cat is cute, but has definite dislikes and is easily annoyed, giving him a well-rounded personality. Frank Thomas contributes some good scenes of Figaro interacting with the Pinocchio puppet.

Jack Bradbury is another unsung animator who is probably better known for his comic book work than for his animation. Yet scene 81, where Figaro opens the window, is by Bradbury and it's a great piece of physical action that's completely believable with no cheats.

Don Patterson does all the clocks and their gags. It's one of the few times you'd be complimenting an animator by describing his work as mechanical.

I'm not qualified to talk about colour and backgrounds, but I do want to point out how theatrical the set lighting is. Looking at a scene like 2.1, 25 or 85, you can see how the backgrounds have been lit as if with spotlights, creating staging areas for the characters to operate in.

From the standpoint of story, Pinocchio is without life in this sequence except for what Gepetto imparts. We care about him due to his design, courtesy of Milt Kahl, but also due to the care that Gepetto takes in crafting Pinocchio. Gepetto's clocks are more evidence of his abilities and played for laughs, but remember them because they're a key to his character and I'll be saying more about them in the future.

Note also that Gepetto uses Pinocchio to kick the cat. That small piece of vicarious cruelty never reoccurs, but it's another clue to Gepetto's background.

There's an expressionistic shot where a camera move links up the wishing star outside Gepetto's window and Gepetto in bed (scene 83), reinforcing the scene from the first sequence where the camera cranes down from the star to Gepetto's workshop. As the blue fairy will soon arrive, this reminder of the connection of heavenly power and Gepetto sets up what will follow in the next sequence.

Pinocchio Part 2

Commentary to follow.

ToonBreak

Scott Kirsner has an article about ToonBreak, a new video website that's set up to feature animation and share revenue with contributors. This is a long tail type of aggregation, where Shawn McInerny is attempting to create a destination for people seeking out animation. Individual contributors may not experience financial success, but the site is non-exclusive. If you've got a film, you've got nothing to lose by posting there. Should the site be successful, the entire animation community would benefit from a high traffic location that shares revenue.

Disney Exhibit Contest

Once Upon a Time Walt Disney, the exhibit which ran in Paris, will open at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on March 8 and run until June 24. fps has two double passes to give away and is running a contest that ends on March 2. You've still got time to enter.

The Danish Poet Online

This year's Oscar winner for best animated short, The Danish Poet by Torill Kove, can be seen free online here. A tip of the hat to Alan Cook for pointing out the link.

Pinocchio Part 1

Click on any of the above to enlarge.

I have no idea how long it's going to take to complete this, but it certainly seems to me to be worthwhile to do. Here's the first sequence from Pinocchio. You've probably noticed that I've started using tags with these entries. The tag 'Mosaics' will call up all the mosaics I've done as well as the related commentaries. I'm reserving the 'Pinocchio' tag for just the Pinocchio mosaics, so it should be convenient for you to call them up as we go.

(I note that the 'Mosaics' tag does not bring up entries all the way back to the beginning of this blog. I'll see if I can make this work better.)

Thanks go to Hans Perk and Michael Sporn for posting the animator drafts on which this is based. Thanks also to Alberto Becattini, whose list of animator credits has been a huge help in identifying lesser-known animators for these mosaics.

Because of Pinocchio's length, I'm going to post whatever I have to say about a sequence at the same time I put up the mosaics.

When I first saw these drafts, I was surprised at how many other animators handled Jiminy in this sequence. Looking at the animation carefully (and these mosaics don't do them justice; they're just a reference), it's clear that Kimball's cricket has a larger head, hands and feet than those of Luske, Wolf or Towsley. Towsley's proportions are more traditional cartoon than Kimball's, which are close to Dick Huemer's approach to the early Scrappy.

Kimball uses a hold for the word "true" at the end of the opening song. It isn't Kimball's fault, but you can see the cel scratches and dust stop moving during the hold and the whole screen goes dead. It was more obvious in 35mm than on video or DVD, but it always bugged me. I wish that he'd used a moving hold.

Kimball's poses in scene 2 are amazing. Every one of them has a beautiful line of action and drips appeal. The dialogue is not particularly juicy from a content or emotional standpoint, but we instantly like this cricket because he exudes charm and friendliness. The drawing and motion add enormously to what's in the voice track here.

The crane shot from the wishing star to Gepetto's workshop is straight out of German Expressionist film of the 1920's, using spatial continuity to imply a connection between things. Here, the two brightest spots on the screen are the star and Gepetto's window and the camera has told us that one will have an affect on the other.

In general, the use of the multiplane and other camera moves in this sequence makes the world feel large. The camera and we are exploring the space along with Jiminy. This sense of scale wasn't common in short cartoons and it literally took the creation of oversized artwork to make it work.

The effects animation is very rich. Shadows, dust, heat distortion and glows are present. The backgrounds are very detailed and Gepetto's workshop is stuffed with visual interest.

In the first five minutes of the film (including credits), we've been introduced to a character we like and a world that charms us visually. These days, many films feel the need to start off with an action sequence so that the audience doesn't get bored. In 1940, there was time to seduce the audience, letting us get to know a character before the plot kicks in. If nothing else, we know that Jiminy is important and someone we have to pay attention to.

UPDATE: In comments, the spectre pointed out that I had mis-identified effects animator John McManus as Dan MacManus. The correction has been made in the mosaic.

Disney and Pixar

There's an article in Variety worth reading called "Disney animation gets Pixar-ization."

Machinima

I've been aware of the existence of Machinima for a while, but as I'm not into video games, I haven't bothered to search any out. If you're not aware, Machinima are films where the visuals have been created using videogame graphics.

Slate.com has story on Machinima that includes several samples. It's a good, quick, primer as to what it's all about. Personally, I found the music videos based on songs from Avenue Q and by Avril Lavigne to be the most satisfying pieces, mainly because the music created a structured narrative for the visuals.

The most interesting thing about Machinima to me is the democratic nature of it. Not everyone can draw or create cgi characters and environments, which in the past prevented many people at trying their hands at animated films. Machinima provides people with ready-made characters and sets and game play educates them as to how to get visual results on the screen.

I don't want to re-open a can of worms, but I have to add that in their way, these films are motion-captured. They're definitely not created by keyframes. While the Machinima creators are not wearing body suits with tracking markers, their real-time manipulation of controlling devices puts these films in the mocap category.

It's only a matter of time, if it hasn't happened already, before there's a TV series or low budget feature created using this approach.

Guerilla Marketing

Steve Schnier has a blog entry on how he got coverage for his forthcoming movie, Pubic Lice: The Motion Picture, in the Toronto Star.

Marketing is an area that most studio-based animation artists never get near. There are too many layers of management between artists and marketing departments. However, independents are forced to do it all themselves, so if you have plans to create anything independently, Steve's advice is worth reading.

Why Niche Brands Win

There's a very interesting article over at Chris Anderson's Long Tail blog about large companies that work hard not to be associated with some of their own brands. Needless to say, I think that there's a lesson for animation studios here. I've thought for a long time that there's a market for animated features that aren't aimed at the family audience and are made for relatively low budgets. If Hershey, Nike and Black & Decker can make this work, there's no reason an animation studio can't.

Television and Children's Health

I wrote about a Cornell University study that linked autism and the amount of TV watched by young children. Now there is a British study that not only suggests the same link, it also suggests that TV interferes with the production of the hormone melatonin. The study claims that this affects the immune system, the sleep cycle, and the onset of puberty.

I have no way of judging the validity of the study and I'm sure that there will be follow-up studies that will test these results. However, if true, there's no question that this will have an impact on the animation industry.

Canada has specialized in production for the pre-school TV niche. World-wide, there are many cable channels that are aimed at pre-schoolers and many media conglomerates that make a measurable portion of their profits from that audience.

I'll be watching for further studies and the media responses to this issue. As I mentioned previously, I'm curious to see if the children's television industry starts to behave like the tobacco companies or the oil industry. I'm sure that nobody ever expected cartoons to present the same health threat as lung cancer and global warming.

The Films I Return To...

In my entry called Criticism, I mentioned "the films I constantly return to." In the comments, Sean LeBlanc asked me what those films are. I've been thinking about it and I've come to a disturbing conclusion. Few of them are animated.

I mention this because over at John K's blog, there's a discussion going on about whether the only people who can write for animation are cartoonists. I'll let you read it and come to your own conclusions, but when I think about animation vs. live action in terms of their effect on me, my conclusion is that the content in animated films is rarely complex enough.

I know that theatrical shorts were handicapped by their length and by having to generate laughs. Certainly, there are several that manage to transcend these limitations. Bad Luck Blackie and Duck Amuck are two that succeed as entertainment while leaving you with something more to think about. Independent animation like Hubley's Moonbird and Ring's Anna and Bella evoke emotions that most other cartoons ignore. Mike Sporn has tackled themes that other animated film makers haven't touched.

And I know that the majority of animated features have been child-friendly, which limits the type of content that's acceptable. There are a handful that speak to larger concerns for me. Pinocchio and The Iron Giant are two that dwell on personal responsibility, a theme I respond to. Spirited Away deals with issues of maturity and opening yourself up to the world.

However, I can name a dozen films by John Ford that I'd rather watch than any of the above. And there are films by Chaplin, Jean Renoir, Howard Hawks, George Cukor, Frank Capra, Frank Borzage, John Huston, etc. that are also more attractive to me.

I'm not implying that my taste is better than anyone else's. We all respond to different things. I certainly admire the craft of the best animated films. I enjoy studying the work of animators and animation directors. But from a content standpoint, the number of films that I would defend against live action is relatively (maybe pitifully) small.

I don't doubt that the writers John K. has been forced to work with have been less than the best. The economics of Hollywood being what they are, anybody capable of writing for movies or live TV does so because it pays better and carries more prestige than writing for animation. But maybe the problem with animation is that cartoonists write it. That's not to imply that bad writers are preferable, but what would animation look like if it was written by Samson Raphaelson, Robert Riskin, Dudley Nichols, Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, Frank Nugent, Paddy Chayefsky, Robert Towne, William Goldman, Francis Ford Coppola, or Charlie Kaufman? And what about TV writers like Steven Bochco, David E. Kelly, Aaron Sorkin, Phil Rosenthal, and Larry David? I can name works written by them that are at least as good as any animated film I'd champion.

Whoever ends up writing animated films, the bar has to be set higher.

Ryan Larkin Has Died

Ryan Larkin, the Oscar-nominated animator, died on Feb. 14 from cancer. He was best known for his films for the National Film Board, including Walking and Street Musique. Recently, he created three five second bumpers for MTV. At the time of his death, he was working on a film entitled Spare Change. According to a CBC radio report I heard, the film will be completed and released this coming Fall.

The Toronto Star obituary is here and The Globe and Mail obituary is here.

Steve Schnier's Movie

It isn't animated, but it's an example of somebody from the animation business generating their own opportunity. The Toronto Star has an article about the creation and progress of Pubic Lice: The Motion Picture.

Brad Bird Splinecast

When it rains (or is that snows?), it pours. Three entries in one afternoon...

Anyway, Splinedoctors has posted a podcast interview with Brad Bird.

Money From Web Video

Scott Kirsner, the author of the Cinematech blog, has an article in the N.Y. Times about people who have been earning money from the videos they upload to various websites. This link will take you to a Cinematech entry that links to Kirsner's chart of video sites that pay for content and his book The Future of Web Video.

There's been discussion on other sites about an animation studio running a contest where they invite content submissions and keep the rights to all entries. Anyone producing content right now is foolish not to place it with one of these video sites. You maintain full ownership of your work. You have the potential to see some cash from it. Best of all, if your work proves popular with an audience, you may attract industry interest and you are negotiating from a position of strength.

The big players in film and TV are not looking for creative properties, they're looking for an audience. They're stuck having to guess what creative properties will attract that audience. If you can attract your own audience, you've beaten the system.

Halas and Batchelor

This is a new book that I was completely unaware of. Halas and Batchelor were, for years, the leading British animation studio. They were the first British studio to do a feature, Animal Farm, and did other features as well, including one of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta called Ruddigore. The book also includes a DVD, though I'm not sure what the contents are.

Animators will probably be familiar with the book Timing for Animation by Harold Whitaker and John Halas. Whitaker was one of the leading animators at the studio.

Here's the link to Amazon in Canada and in the U.S. Neither has a cover image, which I nicked from Bud Plant.

I haven't seen this and have no idea how good it might be. If anyone already has a copy, please leave a comment with your impressions.

Criticism

I'm close to crossing the finish line on my thesis, which is why things have been somewhat quiet here. However, I've come across two pieces of jazz criticism that make me reflect on animation.

Gary Giddins' book Natural Selection contains a piece on Billie Holiday entitled "On Her 90th Birthday." It opens with this:

"We live under the sway of artists who haunt our lives, who take hold at an early age and never let go; they inform us of our progress in the world as our perceptions of them change. Faulkner once said that Don Quixote had to be read three times, in childhood, adulthood, and old age, because it is really three books and aspects of it are available only in stages. Over time, we bring more connections to works of art - connections that belong to us, not necessarily to the work or the artist."

Over at Slate.com, Clive James writes about Duke Ellington. The entire article is worth reading, but this quote really hit me.

"The alleged progession from mainstream to modern jazz, with bebop as the intermediary, had a political component as well an aesthetic one and it was the political component that made it impossible to argue against at the time, and makes it difficult even now. The aesthetic component was standard for all the arts in the 20^th century: One after another they tried to move beyond mere enjoyment as a criterion, a move that put a premium on technique, turned technique into subject matter, and eventually made professional expertise a requirement not just for participation but even for appreciation. The political component, however, was unique to jazz. It had to do with black dignity, a cause well worth making sacrifices for. Unfortunately, the joy of the music was one of the sacrifices. Dignity saw enjoyment as its enemy."

I find both these pieces to be elegant. They offer insights through precise, well-crafted prose. The insights, with some adjustment, can be held up against animation to see if they offer new and useful perspectives. The Giddins quote makes me consider the films that I constantly return to. The James quote raises issues about the nature of non-narrative films and films that are dominated by design.

I deeply regret that so little writing of this sort exists about animation, but what's worse, I suspect that more such writing would exist if only animation was good enough to inspire it.

A Mickey Mystery

A fan/historian going under the internet handle The Spectre pointed out that the draft for Mickey's Birthday Party lists the Music Room as responsible for the majority of footage in the two Mickey Mouse dance sequences. Ken Muse is credited with a small amount of footage for the first scene and Riley Thomson a small amount of footage for the second. Footage attributed to the Music Room (which was really the director's room) means that the scene either had no animation or had existing animation lifted from another film.

When I did the mosaic for the film, I definitely didn't look closely enough at the draft and assumed that the credited animators were responsible for the whole thing.

In comments when I printed the mosaic, Galen Fott said that he had a drawing of Mickey that he was told was from Mickey's Surprise Party, which was a commercial that the Disney studio made for Nabisco for use at the 1939 World's Fair. Galen's drawing matches the costuming of Mickey in that cartoon, but there is no dance animation in it. Furthermore, the pose in Galen's drawing matches a frame in Mickey's Birthday Party pretty closely.

At this point, I do believe that the dance animation pre-existed Mickey's Birthday Party, but there are several unanswered questions. Was the animation originally done for Mickey's Surprise Party and cut from the film for some reason? If not, what film was the footage done for? Finally, who animated this great dance? It always looked like Ward Kimball to me before I got a look at the draft. Is it Kimball? Fred Moore? Of course, it's possible that Muse and Thomson animated the scenes for an earlier film and then added some new material to make it fit into the new film.

If there is anybody out there who can shed some light on this mystery, I'd love to hear from you.

Don Graham on Rotoscope

"The only thing an artist has is the fact that he can do something that can't be done with a machine. He should say to himself, "Am I going to let a machine work me out of a job and a profession?" That is what it is going to do, unless the artist keeps moving. It is up to him. As long as jobs have to be done, and have to be done economically, the rotoscope is the quickest way to do it, the challenge will always be there. So it is up to the artist to deliver. He must do a drawing and say, "See here - my drawing may not be perfect as far as realism is concerned, but it has a spirit the rotoscope can never give you." -Don Graham, July 26, 1937

Hans Perk has posted a series of transcriptions (starting February 5) of Disney action analysis classes from 1937, while Snow White was still in production. The above quote is only one of many interesting quotes about rotoscoping in the transcripts. As Hans points out, these same issues are now relevant to the use of motion capture.

Jack Kirby Bio Coming in October

Today is the 13th anniversary of Jack Kirby's death, and Mark Evanier has chosen today to announce the forthcoming publication of Kirby: King of Comics from Harry N. Abrams this October.

I wrote about Kirby last August. He remains a major influence on innumerable artists, animators and film makers. Mark was lucky enough to work with Kirby and has spent the years since his death researching this biography.

But there's more. Mark, being an extremely knowledgable comics historian, is interested in minutiae that the general public would never care about, let alone understand. He's continuing to research Kirby to the nth degree and will publish a second biography a few years from now for the hardcore comics fan.

I eagerly look forward to both volumes and I'm especially pleased that Abrams is publishing the first book as they are a major publisher of art books. Kirby deserves the best.

PM on Animation

PM was a New York City newspaper that leaned heavily to the left. Kip Williams has put a collection of PM articles on flickr, which include material relating to the Disney strike (PM was pro-union) as well as some Disney war work and an article about animation done for TV in 1941 by the Douglas Leigh company.

Marketing 101

So here's the scenario. The Superbowl attracts one of the biggest TV audiences all year. It's a marketer's dream to get their product or service in front of so many people. Disney buys time to plug their forthcoming cgi animated feature Meet the Robinsons and runs this commercial.

The family's sitting around the TV, not necessarily aware of the film until this moment. The commercial fails to answer two very basic questions. Who the heck are the Robinsons and why should we want to meet them?

Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Fox

This article in the Toronto Star tells the story of comedian Brian Froud and writers Daniel and Steven Shehori, who created a play called Swiss Family Guy Robinson, a re-imagining of Swiss Family Robinson starring the cast of the Fox TV series Family Guy. The play was a hit at the Toronto Fringe Festival and also enjoyed a run at the Diesel Playhouse and the college circuit.

The three contacted Andrew Goldberg, Seth McFarlane's assistant, seeking approval for the show. Goldberg told them that he didn't have the legal authority to even mention it to McFarlane until Fox approved it. The three then contacted Fox's legal department which refused permission for them to do the show. Fox did not request a copy of the script or a video of the play. They did not attempt to negotiate a royalty. They just said no.

Ironies abound here. For one thing, there is a version of MacBeth called MacHomer using the cast of The Simpsons. Fox has allowed the performance of that play, which has toured 130 cities. For another thing, one of Family Guy's standard laugh-getters is parodying other pop culture. One of the latest examples of this is the wholesale rip-off of the sequence in Anchor's Aweigh where Gene Kelly dances with Jerry the Mouse. Family Guy shamelessly rotoscoped animation by Ken Muse and Ray Patterson, pasting the character of Stewie over top of Jerry.

So here's a case where Fox says no to the kind of thing they've approved in the past while at the same time doing what they won't allow others to do. Besides turning down income, they're preventing exposure for Seth McFarlane's show and encouraging creative people to avoid working with Fox. Who's the genius who made this decision?