A Matter Of Life And Death - Opening Sequence

RIP Jack Cardiff

A great artist has died: Jack Cardiff was 94, a cinematographer of genius and a notable director. Perhaps the most brilliant "painter of light" with Technicolor that the movies have had--I certainly would given him that title without any hesitation. He worked with Hitchcock, Olivier, and John Huston("The African Queen") to name a few highlights, but for me it was his collaboration on the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, "The Archers", that seals it.

Kim Hunter in the opening minutes of "A Matter of Life and Death", one of my favorite films. It was the first Powell & Pressburger film I saw, and its color took my breath away. Id never seen anything like it before.

Obviously this isn't about "animation", but animation is filmmaking, and this is filmmaking of the highest standard-and also, the most imaginative and artistic. Thankfully not "artistic" in the usual way it's used for film-something noncommercial, or worse, dull-but in the very same sense as it's applied to the best of animation. I've always felt that animation has as much to teach live action film as the other way round, and I've been pleased to find that some of the top talents in live action today agree. Yet so much of what could be done with design, color and every other aspect of assembling a film shot by shot, scene by scene seems to make no use of the extra-ordinary applications that animation can produce so brilliantly.

In Jack Cardiff live action had a man who thought out of the box, and the results are obvious. Each of the shots reproduced here is a screen capture from his films. I could and should add more, but these are what I found from some of the DVD review sites on the net. One of those has a terrific review of AMOLAD, great reading for anyone, which is here. If it doesn't make you want to see it, nothing will. I've seen it myself several times with an audience(Martin Scorcese, a huge P&P fan, was responsible for its rerelease some years ago), and it's a wonderful experience, but it's on DVD as well. However you watch any of these films, turn off the phone, sit yourself down and don't do anything but give them your full attention for their running time. I'm sure it will take only the first few minutes to see why..




from "Black Narcissus", another masterpiece

So here's to the life work of a very important figure in our shared industry-film. Hail and farewell, Jack Cardiff.

Bob Winquist, Design Student

[guest]Design instructor: Tom Pope. Assignment: "Basketball hoop with attitude". Student: Bob Winquist. click to enlarge


Tom Pope was a year or two behind my class at Calarts, and it was great to see him at the get together for Bob Winquist in January. He'd brought with him an amazing rarity with a great story attached that he shared with all of us in his remarks to the crowd. I asked him if he'd share the artwork and its backstory here, and he kindly agreed. With the help of fellow classmate Zac Moncrief the very large framed piece was scanned so it could appear here. Tom's story follows below:

"I was fortunate enough to be a design student of Bob Winquist's for two-and-a-half years. So many people have shared so much about the pleasures and recieved wisdom gained from Bob that there is little new which I can offer. That said, Bob did give me something that not all his students can claim.

One day in Bob's class, winter of '90, I was offering my usual sea of valuable insight. At the end of class, Bob asked me if I wanted to teach the next week. I said sure, but... if I gave an assignment, would he do it?

Of course he would. So I thought of something random, as he oftened appeared to do. "A basketball hoop with attitude." I couldn't wait until the next week!
A week later, projects were pinned on the wall of the class room. It being second semester, there were less people in class and less projects since most people were knee-deep in their films by then. But Bob's assignment was right there among the others as promised. It was beautiful, but I hope I talked about someone else's first. I did my best to talk about and critique each assignment constructively and focus on their distinct merits as Bob always, always, always did.

After class, I asked Bob if I could keep his assignment, and he said of course. He signed it "Bob Winquist, 2/27/90" with a flourish on the back. I had it framed, and it has hung on the wall no matter where I've lived ever since. (I also have a handful of the other assignments in my parents' attic in Georgia.)

When I heard that there was going to be a remembrance for Bob I knew that I had to bring the piece. When I heard that we would be allowed to speak, I knew I had to talk about it. The response it got made me realize how lucky I was to possess an example of Bob's generosity in concrete form. The best part of all was the interest that Bob's own family showed in it. If I hadn't been aware of just how special Bob's own handiwork was, I was then.
Jenny has been generous enough to share this forum and to allow me to share this "wonderful", wonderful piece with a wider audience."

My pleasure, Tom. Thank you.

Walt Disney, Railroader

From the collection of veteran Disney story artist and comics guy Don Dougherty come these terrific shots of Walt enjoying his obsession, apparently taken at the studio. As to who's who and exactly what year these were shot, I'm open to suggestions.
EDITED TO ADD: A commenter named Steve offered this great extrapolation on the photos:

"The top and bottom photos, as I recall (don't have my Broggie book in front of me) was taken in December 1949 during the Lilly Belle's first steam up. That's Eddie Sargent standing between Walt and Roger. He did the drawings for the Lilly Belle.

The British engine with Walt in the middle was never run at Carolwood--it was damaged as it was being shipped over from England. However, you may want to note that when Walt was in the store buying that engine, another gentleman was trying to buy it as well. His name was Harper Goff. He didn't get the engine, but he did get a job at the Disney studios.

Must be clicked to see them better. Thanks for sharing, Don[and Steve]!

Mary Blair's Alice Redux

From the Cowan Collection

Bob Cowan (he of the incredible collection of animation art) was kind enough to share this with me, and allow me to post it for you.
I really love this painting. Click to enlarge it.

iPhone App'imation: Randy Cartwright writes an Animation timing app for Apple.

Randy Cartwright: animator, story guy, committed iPhone geek. My kind of fellow. With a self-taught ability to program, this veteran Disney artist has created a neat little application for lucky owners of Apple iPhones and Touchs: an animation timing program called(aptly enough) Animation Timer.


Randy taps the Timer

It wasn't long ago that Randy told me he had this idea to write his own program for the iPhone, something that would be eminently useful and that no one else had yet done. As there are already a gazillion apps of all kinds for the thing, that would be an admirable feat. A very short time later, he'd done it and voila! It lives. Simple to use and at $2.99 a lot less than the old Minerva stopwatch Cartoon Colour used to sell.

Randy's official App store statement(reiterated on his app website) is as follows:
"Animators can use a stopwatch to time out actions but there has always been an annoying problem. Stopwatches show time as 1/100ths per second but movie film runs at 24 frames per second. To find out how many frames you need to do a tiresome calculation containing 41.66667 each time. I’ve always wanted a stopwatch that would show the time in exactly the format I need so I decided, what the hey, I might as well make one{...}."
The stopwatch action starts with either shaking the phone or tapping the screen. Each additional tap marks the time, which can be shown in either film footage, film frames, NTSC video frames or PAL video frames, as well as in seconds.

If you're interested, all you need to do is search for "Animation Timer" in the iTunes App store. And you don't need the iPhone to use it--it works with the iPod Touch. Very cool.
Enjoy!

The man and his program

Shane P. and Shannon T. and Coraline J.

Shane Prigmore and Shannon Tindle are swell guys: friendly, generous with thoughts and props, and fun. They also draw and design like a bat out of heck.
At top is an example of Shane's work; Shannon's is below; click to enlarge them(and there's much more where they came from-see the links below to their blogs).

Dreamworks has them right now, but several years ago they were working on a stop-motion feature based on an exceptional book by Neil Gaiman, my new favorite author(be sure to read his latest, "The Graveyard Book", which just won the Newbery medal as the outstanding children's book of the year-also keeping in mind that in my opinion Gaiman, like all great authors, doesn't write so much for children as for himself).



I went to see "Coraline" on Sunday. It's a film that both men gave a lot to, along with many other brilliant artists.
I should probably do a separate post just about the film, but for now here's a sampling of some beautiful work Shane is sharing on his own blog, and Shannon's equally inspiring paintings are here. Go see--there's a lot more and it's all simply wonderful.

Lastly, here's a link to what's far and away the best of the several Coraline trailers, on YouTube. Really worth watching, even if you've seen the others.

Leo Matsuda

He's amazing, that's all.
Leo Matsuda
The above from his blog--his impressions after watching "The Wrestler". Click to enlarge. And be sure you head over & visit his other work.

Bob Winquist at Chouinard Art Institute c. 1950

Yesterday's gathering to celebrate Bob Winquist was a wonderful event--a great time had by all. Every story and memory related by his family, friends and former students made Bob alive and present again.

I was especially proud of everyone from Calarts--all of you do Bob so much honor and I agreed with every word of all you had to say. I had very little to do with bringing it together so I don't speak with any special authority, but personally I wanted to express how thankful I am that everyone came down--or up. I'm sure we all agree it was a party Bob would have loved.
This is a snippet of very old 16mm footage that I'd meant to show but events took on their own momentum and only a few people saw it later in the Palace. It's the youngest Bob yet--a full decade or so before the photograph that accompanies my earlier post. I'm pretty sure these outtakes (from among Bob's huge stash of stuff boxed away in his last home) were part of an instructional video on Bob's particular speciality, paper sculpture when he was teaching at Chouinard. A few examples of his large-scale work can be briefly seen behind him.

The crowd that was there to remember Bob was big, and it was easy to get happily lost among friends you haven't seen in about 18 or 19 years.
Thanks again, all.

A Bob Winquist Party-Calarts, Saturday January 31 at 4pm

Calling all interested parties:

A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE OF BOB WINQUIST

TOMORROW: Saturday, January 31st at 4pm in the Main Gallery at Calarts


Bob circa 1960
Bob Winquist led a life that extended far beyond his tenure at Calarts as instructor, mentor and head of the Character Animation department, but for so many of my colleagues that was where we met him and how we remember him. If you read the comments left on my original post it's plain that even though most of us hadn't seen him for well over a decade he's been fresh in our minds all along--a fact that I think we'd all have liked to relate to him if we'd had the chance to get together again.

While we can't do that, we can get together and remember Bob, kibitz with his family, and pay the man some well-deserved tribute.

Martha Baxton of the Character Animation dept. is taking RSVPs: mbaxton@calarts.edu

But it really isn't essential that you do that, and there's no token of admission required-just show up. Guacamole on Bob. Informal of course.
It should be great fun. I know Bob's nieces and family are looking forward to seeing this other side of their uncle's life, one that meant a lot to him.
Incidentally, I've heard from some fellow alumni that they've received no official word or details of this happening at all, although I was told the Alumni office was going to send out invites...so please pass this info along to anyone you think would like to attend.

(If you don't know who Bob Winquist was, please read my post of last September here.
Also, read the Los Angeles Times' obituary that was published a week after his death.)

ETA Thanks to Cartoon Brew for their post about this event-much appreciated

Mary Blair and Alice...by Kent Melton and Electric Tiki

From Electric Tiki. Kent Melton after Mary Blair

Here's something that's got to rate as one of the neatest collectibles ever--sculptures of Alice in Wonderland and the White Rabbit based on Mary Blair's artwork(and licensed by Disney, of course). When I first saw this I just about jumped out of my skin. Fantastic!

Alice stands about 5" tall and should retail somewhere in the $120 range. For two figures of this quality in a limited edition it'll be well worth it.

This was an idea hatched by the company that made them, Electric Tiki--to create figures that based on Mary Blair's visual development and try to capture her unique style in three dimensions--and I think it's a great one. I've seen Alice here from every angle and the detail and appeal is all there. Below is a detail of the artwork that the figures are based on. They were the only reference used by the sculptor--the fantastic Kent Melton.

I can't wait to get my hands on this set(it will be sold as a pair). The ETA is summer '09. Until then, enjoy the preview.

Donald Duck and Ginger Rogers

Ginger at work, winding Donald. Check out the version wearing what looks like a sombrero behind her.

Lovers of classic film often double as lovers of everyday items from the same era--clothes, magazines, housewares--or toys. Watch enough films of the 1930s and occasionally a famous face will spring out from the prop settings : Betty Boop, Snow White, Bugs Bunny, etc. It's always a treat to see something that would be a vauluable collectible now featured then as what it was meant to be in the first place--an inexpensive child's plaything. There are many examples. This might be the most extensive: in a really fine comedy from a great year for movies, Garson Kanin''s 1939 film "Bachelor Mother" has terrific performances from Ginger Rogers, David Niven, the incomparable Charles Coburn--and Donald Duck.



It's quite a display of product placement: Disney providing numerous sizes and permutations of Donald Duck toys for their distributor, RKO. And one particular windup waddling, quacking Donald has a crucial role throughout--right up to the denoument of the story. Curiously, although the Duck is in the film as part of a large department store's toy department stock, I've spotted no glimpses of Mickey or any other Disney characters on the set. It's all Donald--dozens and dozens of him.


Bachelor Mother is such a well-written and cleverly plotted comedy--one of the very funniest of its era. That it could be made at all well after the Production Code was in full effect is a testament to--well, I don't know what, but it has some really wild double entendres (and some flat out jaw-droppers), unsurprising as the story is one of an unwed mother--albeit a mistaken one. It just works, squeezing comedy out of every opportunity, as well as some charming if improbably screwball romance.

He even features in a brief, slightly hallucinogenic montage

The screen caps here (only a few of The Duck's scenes represented) are from a colorized version on YouTube; it was made in glorious black and white and should be seen that way. Look for it on Turner Classic Movies.
Your trivia for the week.


quacking away

Fred Moore Los Angeles Times Obit

I've just finished reading today's New York Times obituary on Andrew Wyeth and have turned to organizing the files on my laptop. In doing so I rediscovered this, from a friend at the Los Angeles Times who follows this blog. So, just for the record, from November 25, 1952:

The baby of the family: Andrew Wyeth 1917-2008

I really believed he'd live to be at least 100.

Andrew Wyeth, youngest of five children of N.C. and Carolyn Wyeth, died at home in Chadds Ford today. Not in the house he was born in, but much closer in distance and spirit than most of us probably will.

When I was little Wyeth's work was everywhere--it was ubiquitous. His "Christina's World" was featured in most books and magazines when "great American art" was covered. He was clearly famous, widely respected and hugely popular. And his work left me cold.

To me, it was too dry(as it happens, the arcane use of dry-brush tempera was his most favored medium). From the subject matter of barns and fields to the handling the rough, scraped, impassive feel of his art left me with a general feeling of dispepsia. Obviously the technique was incredible, but it came across as obsessively pinched and somehow sour to me.

Anyway, that was my superficial impression as a teenager. Later I came to look at his work very differently.


"Portrait of a Dog", a study of Andy Wyeth by his father N.C.. Age 15, he's here with his best friend, his dog, and engaged in his favorite occupation: drawing. It's a beautifully colored painting but unfortunately it's only been reproduced in black and white.
I got to know Andrew Wyeth anew in 1986, as a result of a marvelous documentary that appeared as part of the PBS series "Smithsonian World": "The Wyeths: A Father and his Family". If you can find a copy of this amazing documentary, get it and watch it. Every artist owes it to themselves to be immersed in it for an hour. It's spellbinding--and it made me reconsider the art of Andrew. I'd always loved N.C. Wyeth's work and I still do--in fact I appreciate it more as time goes on--but in the context of his amazing family and his incredible father, the approach that Andy Wyeth took to his own art became more understandable and multilayered to me. In addition, his watercolors were a whole other thing--the latter-day works, and most especially the vivid paintings he did at the very beginning of his career, barely out of his teens.

"The Road to Friendship" 1941, watercolor. Farnsworth Art Museum, © Andrew Wyeth
But again, it was the great influence that the Brandywine River valley had on the elder Wyeth that made me take that initial trip there, to return multiple times. The landscape had a spellbinding effect on the entire Wyeth family, and once you're actually there it's completely understandable. It's a haunting, lovely, mysterious area rich in history and inspiration. The Brandywine River Museum(a converted mill on the bank of the river) is devoted largely to once-local artists--most famous as illustrators: N.C., Howard Pyle, Dean Cornwell, Harvey Dunn and Jessie Wilcox Smith, among many others--almost all influenced either by Pyle or later by N.C. as students.
As a perfect compliment to the art, the house that N.C. built for his family and the adjacent studio where he painted most of his incredible works are open to the public most of the year--all except for those months when Andrew was using the property for his own daily work, as he was doing until very recently.

I wanted to mark the passing of Wyeth here because more than his own art, his life--the life his father made for him and the other children(Henriette, a painter; Nathaniel, an inventor and engineer; Carolyn, a painter, and Ann, a composer and musician)was full to bursting with an appreciation for the wondrous and inspiring in the everyday--the beauty. tragedy, and mystery of it. If you ever see the documentary or can read the very good biography of NC--or better yet, the collected letters of NC Wyeth that were published some 20 years ago--you'll be unable to get all of the Wyeths out of your mind. And the instruction and exhortations that NC pounded into his children are ones that I think all of us in our profession should take to heart. Andrew remembers his father telling him re: the world around him: "Andy, we [artists] must be like a sponge--sop it up! soak it up! But be sure-remember-to squeeze it out once in a while".

NC Wyeth in 1903

Devin Crane Paints Love And Tears

If it seems like I'm doing a lot of plugs lately it's simply that there's so much going on that's worth knowing about. Even if you're not local to Los Angeles(or California), there's always the the chance to go to a gallery's website and digitally browse an artist's show from anywhere on the globe.

In two weeks the very talented Devin Crane will have an opening of his show "Love and Tears" at the Helford Gallery in Culver City. Devin is a development artist at Dreamworks by day, and he's just as busy painting like a madman in his private time as well. He often focuses on the female form (though not exclusively) and many of his portraits are based on people he knows well.
He grew up in L.A.(as it seems so few people actually have), with a movie-loving kid's imagination, and all the odd contradictions that this strange place offers an artist. This show will feature some lovely, melancholic, textured imagery. Go see it.

It opens on Saturday, January 24 at 7pm.

Love and Tears
Paintings by Devin Crane
Corey Helford Gallery
8522 Washington BLVD
Culver city Ca, 90232
310.287.2340