3D Process - Chris Landreth's New Film "The Spine"

Speaking of McLaren, the NFB has a bunch of "making of" videos for Chris Landreth's latest film "The Spine".

Story genesis;



Razors are always in short supply in the Great White North.

The Creative Process:



I hope the Academy Award winning producers took good care of the students who did professionals' work.

The Studio, C. O. R. E.



I wish they went into the mechanics of the co-production between NFB and C. O. R. E. The NFB is inscrutable to us Janquis. The relationship between the director and the studio is interesting.

DIRECTING:



The above sequence I find particularly interesting. I like to see how directors interact with their crew.

Landreth's previous film, "Ryan", was Academy Award winning and all. "Ryan" is a well made film, the creative conceits are original and exciting. The art direction and the timing make up for the shortcomings in character expression.

Ultimately, the film is hollow and incomplete for me. The parallel between Landreth and Larkin is forced and unbelievable. The hint that the director's mother was an addict is an unconvincing bit of trickery -the sympathy he asks for needs to be built not shown in a flash and expected. The director's prologue about not being able to control his finances and fearing failure is trite compared to the subject's deep addiction and likely schizophrenia.

"Ryan" resonates -especially with animators -because it's about "us". "Hey, I'm an artist -that could happen to me!" In our minds we know this, and the film exploits that knowledge.


Ryan Larkin's own "Walking", likewise, has many shortcomings. Time and legend have washed them away. Landreth's "Ryan" preserves that work, and is a much deeper -in many ways more artful (because of this more flawed) film.

I hope "The Spine" continues this progress.

McLAREN - #2

Here's part 2 of the Norman McLaren monograph. Janet Benn offers that was given out at a McLaren retrospective at Lincoln Center in 1985. Part One here.

The copyright is NFB 1980. Perhaps is takes half a decade for the government bureaucracy to produce something like this.

Maybe this is why.

THE ARTIST AS CIVIL SERVANT

Ottawa 41-56

civil servant?

Terrific self-portrait illustration

Two most important aspects of McLaren's work: 1) the facility of experimentation. 2) cohesive and appropriate music.

making optical music

coolness

Decoration Day

Memorial Day originated after the U. S. Civil War as Decoration Day.

At the opening of summer, people would mark this by decorating the gravestones of the war dead.  The Victorian Era, of course, had a particular relationship to death.  Co-incident with this was the popularity of cemeteries.  Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetary rivaled Central Park's popularity for Sunday pinickers after Vaux & Olmstead's Manhattan oasis opened in 1873.

Back to the Civil War for Decoration Day, a blog repeat:

Take Me Out...

I'll be at the new Yankee Stadium this afternoon, hopefully watching the Phillies drub CC Sabathia as Cole Hamels puts up zeros on the scoreboard. Even if that's not how it turns out, I'll have the rare comfort of knowing that, for now at least, "my" team is the reigning world champion.

And, once again, as tough as it has been to be a Phillies fan -its worse cheering for the Cubs.

As this terrific illustration by Dan Zettwoch demonstrates.

first 50 years only

Click HERE to see the rest.

Hot Topics

The other day I was regaled with tales of a suburban Hot Topic.

It reminded me of this pilot cartoon we made with Tim Fall and Rob Long who were producers on "Cheers"

Don Dog

I'm having trouble with the embed code. The whole show is on the site.

Bryan Cox is responsible for much of this. He did the character design and the storyboard. Characters are pretty good, the board is excellent.

Here's an "animatic". More of a talking storyboard, or in the ancient parlance: leica reel.

Christina Riley (then Capozzi) did all of the animation. I think one or two people may have done small scenes. This was the first time she used Flash.

Here are some alternate character designs by the singular Phil Marden.

mall cigar shoppe

happy birthday

These were ultimately too stylized for the script-based humor, but they're fun drawings.

Pictures

We're almost finished with unpacking and settling from our move.

view from the entrance

"Hey!" you say to yourself, "That table has a monitor but no computer!"

That's right. The computer had to go to shop today. Again. That's the second time in a month. That's the 4th trip to Tekserve in 2 months.

Macs are too expensive. We're thinking of switching to Windows machines.

view from the microwave and "dining area"

backity back corner

edit room

We thought we'd be subletting this room to a filmmaker we've worked a bunch with, but if he doesn't hustle into it soon we may need to occupy it with workers. Or broken dreams.

through the glass door

There you have a brief photo tour of our new place.

134 W. 26th Street, #603
New York, NY 10001

Visitors welcome!

McLAREN - #1

Here's the first part of several (probably three) of picture biography of Norman McLaren.

I'm not sure where this came from. I think R. O. Blechman may have given it to me several years ago. If not, I picked it up someplace exotic. The National Film Board published it in 1980. There doesn't appear to be any reason for the publication.

The book was put together by McLaren's longtime companion Guy Glover.

As always, click any image to enlarge.

animation's Tennessee Williams

jerk ruined the resale value

table of contents

Is there an animation artist today who could command a monograph like this? The kind of picture bio you might find at gift shop or an airport book store?

His position at the NFB has always made him a distant figure for me. I can embrace John Hubley or Stan Brakhage or Robert Breer because they scraped by on their own resources. They managed to experiment and create without the safety net of staff jobs and big studio capital.

That's not to diminish McLaren's achievements, by any means. I suppose -in the skewed world of animation -I see him as an establishment figure. He's like The New York Yankees; with a payroll like that you better make the playoffs.

introduction

young Norman in the middle

Given (in animation terms) seemingly unlimited resources, McLaren was able to not only follow his own muse -creating several classic experimental works, but foster the work of countless others at the NFB.

the kilt and haggis years

acting and art school

the young professional

London 1936-1939

Immigrant and Independent Filmmaker

New York 1939-1941

The rest of this book will be posted periodically over the next week or so.