keyleedaud (REAL ESTATE)

The clock is ticking on Michael Sporn's Kickstarter campaign to help finance his feature based on the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe. Donations as low as $5 are possible. If you are someone who supports drawn animation, independent films or just intelligent animated features, this is a worthy project. Michael has been nominated for an Oscar, won several Cable ACE awards and been making films for decades. He is not a newbie who thought it would be fun to make an animated film, but a veteran director who is bucking commercial constraints in order to tackle subject matter that is common for live action film but all too rare in animation. Below are art samples from the project's website . If the art suggests that this is a film you'd like to see, help it come into existence by making a donation.

Michael Sporn has been developing an animated feature about author Edgar Allan Poe and has decided to use Kickstarter to finance the project . One of the most encouraging things about the increased number of animated features in the last several decades is the content that is not aimed at children or the family audience. Films like Persepolis , Mary and Max , Waltz with Bashir , etc. use animation to deal with adult themes. Michael Sporn is no stranger to those themes. Even his films that appear to be aimed at children, such as Abel's Island , are really about adult concerns. As the cost of mainstream animated features continues to go higher, the films take fewer risks. There are more sequels, more adaptations and just more of the same. Even Pixar seems to be falling into established patterns. Directors like Michael Sporn, working on a shoestring, take more chances than Hollywood. Their continued existence is essential for the health of the animated art form. The only way pop...

What started out as Michael Sporn trying to identify a boy in a picture has developed (in the comments) into several lengthy reminiscences of the Dick Williams Studio in Soho Square in 1973. Commenters who were there include Greg Duffell, Suzanne Wilson and Børge Ring. At the time of the photo, Williams had veteran American animators Ken Harris, Grim Natwick and Art Babbitt working at the studio. Babbit spent weeks teaching classes in animation technique to the Williams crew. The people associated with Williams at this time went on to become leaders of British animation and Dick Williams deserves much credit for providing them with such a singular education.

While I'm not surprised that Michael Barrier and Michael Sporn found this summer's animated features lacking, I am surprised by some of the comments about computer animation. For instance, Barrier says this : What's clear from WALL•E and Kung Fu Panda , as never before, is that computer animation is a dead end, a form of puppetry even more limited than stop motion. There's no reason to believe that its characters will ever live on the screen as the characters do in the best hand-drawn films; given the way that computer-animated films must be made, the vital connection between artist and character simply can't be strong enough. And Sporn says this : When I first saw Toy Story , I realized that the possibility of computer animation replacing traditional animation might actually exist. Nothing prior to that point led me to think that. What I didn’t expect was that I was watching the high point of the medium. People concentrated on animating grass ( A Bug’s Life ), ...

I've been catching up with various sites since getting back from vacation and have found several articles that are thought provoking. Peter Emslie has done two very interesting posts about how generic designs often are. In this one , he shows how he redesigned some characters and explains his thought process. In the second part , he zeros in on how ethnicity has been handled in various places and offers an alternative to the Disney Fairies that are now Tinker Bell's sidekicks. I've known Peter for years and I've come to realize that behind his talented draftsmanship is a very perceptive and articulate artist. I have to admit to not being a fan of John K's work, but I check his blog regularly and do admire his ability to analyze the work of various artists and animation disciplines. As an example, here is an analysis of the work of cartoonist and animation layout artist Owen Fitzgerald and a follow up on Mort Drucker , both of whom illustrated the comic book bas...