Art Is...

Leave it to a proprietary college like SVA to ask the big questions in their advertisements.

For much of the early 21st Century New York City subways were covered with their "Art Is..." campaign, a series of posters executed by their luminous faculty.

Paul Davis

I don't understand the mysticism imparted on the word "art".

Maybe I do. It's assumed that if something is "art" is not as "good" as something else that is "art" -that it's a qualitative judgment, not a quantitative definition.

Milton Glaser

Mystifying art gives critics something to talk about and colleges an excuse for failure.

Working in advertising, the most self-awarding of all industries, you often hear people relate commercials to art. Commercials are never art. They are (often) well conceived, beautifully executed, imaginative -all those things we ascribe to museum pieces. So what distinguishes them?

We can start with the mystic. Art illuminates the human condition/universe channeled through the voice of the creator. Even if its anonymous or collective (like film, symphony, etc.) art has a distinct voice.

Now lets move to the physical. Art is created with no practical purpose in mind.

A commercial is trying to sell you something. Propaganda is trying to convince you of an agenda.

James Victore

To me it's a simple definition, and an easy distinction.

Masks, ceremonial drums, tuxedo jackets -these may be beautiful and profound but they are altogether something different from art. We experience them differently, they have a different purpose. Great, possibly. Art, no.

Screaming Video

Probably shouldn't be posting this, but here goes.

Before starting up our next series with Steve Brodner for a major cable network we flew some ideas by CBS. They were lukewarm but asked us to make some stuff.

We've been trying to figure out a good approach, this is our second attempt.



I like the little animation bits, Christina did a good job -but the overall overall is lacking.

Treasure! Dig!, The Book - part one

Yesterday's post by Michael Sporn reminded me of a book I found a few years ago.

In 1973 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich published "Dig! A Journey under the Earth's Crust" written and illustrated by John and Faith Hubley as a companion to the film.

This copy is a discard from Letcher County Public Library in Whitesburg, KY. There are a scant 20 return dates stamped, the earliest May 9, 1974 then no more until August 29, 1977 and the last being July 22, 1993.

Click on the images to enlarge.


It looks like some art was specially created for the book.


But most are frames from the film.

Still the layout is interesting.

And the new art utilizes the book form's strengths.
Even the reused work showcases Hubley's graphic smarts.
A full page typically follows a page with several panels.

Although this changes up as the book progresses, creating a cinematic pace for the reader.


The limited tones also resonate with Hubley's economics -both financial and graphic.

There are narrative jumps in a book that you won't find in his films.



The book has a familiarity to it. I wonder if this was in the library at St. Dominic's Elementary school. Probably not, but the style is quintessential "mysterious grade school" to me. It feels like those forgotten books that were magically mine in the corner of our tiny library.

This title may not have been that for me, but it must have been for someone. A pre-teen bookworm completely unaware of the artists' place in the Pantheon of American Film.

Almost Forget Today's Post

Partly due to Michael Jackson, mainly because work on a piece for the upcoming Ottawa International Animation Festival guidebook.

"Leave Me Alone" directed by Jim Blashfield who will be the subject of a retrospective this year
-and hopefully a good write up in Festival Reader.

This will be maybe the fourth piece I've written for the Festival and the first profile subject I don't know personally.

2009 Poster designed by the talented Theodore Ushev

Festival essays have tricky requirements. They need to be informative and factual but they should give you insight into the personality of the filmmaker's work. The essays have to be enlightening without being critical -that's the tricky thing. An artist's flaws are often the keystone their work. You have to find another way to get to their core.

Lord's Day

I trust you're checking the weather reports and brief news bits before Mass this Sunday, and that's how you've wound up here.

After service ask your preacher if it would count towards your attendance record if you skipped next week to watch "The Light of the World", the feature film epic from Jack T. Chick (best known for his comic book style tracts).

"The Light of the World" is referred to as an "80 minute film without live action."



It's 80 minutes of pan and scan, fire and brimstone. While the theology behind the script is ill-read and possibly dangerous, the artwork is great. Great in the way superhero comics are "great", or Frazzetta. But "better" than Marvel action men, in my opinion.

Scheduling

Been spending a lot of time with scheduling lately.

Most of the time you've got to create a schedule before you know exactly what the work entails, more often still you're given a deadline and have to make the production fit.

In the latter case, time can help dictate production methodology, but the day to day schedule might not meet your prediction.

For example, in our recent motion graphics for Apartment Finder we predicted we'd storyboard everything in three days (which we did) and follow that up with color models proceeded by motion tests. Turned out we went right into animating the first segment. It was just more sensible.

That could have been a disaster if the client hated the work. We were sure they'd like it and that this would be simplest presentation. This method allowed us to produce the work over a week ahead of schedule although the daily workload bore no resemblance to the initial schedule.



The rule of thumb for drawn animation is that it will take on animator one week to produce 15 seconds of footage. You can usually take that same amount of time for art production.

These days drawn animation mixes so much with digital animation that scheduling gets hazy. Things that would be done in as pencil tests or through complex art production procedures (photocopied zooms, multi-layered pans, flipped or reused drawings) are done in conjunction with the animation stage usually with final art.

Then if you get into Flash or utilizing the keyframe elements of AfterEffects scheduling becomes even more nebulous. Once you're into to production its predictable, but before the work starts only experience can give you a general idea of how long it will take.



We like to use good ol' Microsoft Excel to build our schedules. It's brutish, but infinitely expandable. Thirteen segments of a film can line up in order and you can match that up with the pipeline of a thirty second commercial, some web shorts, and some kids' interstitials to make certain the proper staff can be predicted and your artists can flow from one production to the next.

I'm The One Who Loves You

Today we have "Yo Gabba Gabba" and the They Might Be Giants DVDs.

OK enough. Decent design, competent animation. Solid music.

But the music isn't this good.



These shows were produced by Rankin Bass and Animated at Halas and Batchelor in London.



The great Jack Davis did the character designs. Rankin Bass regularly called on the Mad Magazine artist as well as his colleague Paul Coker, Jr.

Maybe it's my American chauvinism, but this music speaks with a clarity and vitality that Merseybeat skiffle only hopes to match.