Monday Morning Motion Graphics: Pictures of Pictures

These are two clips from a sequence we did for Gail Levin's American Masters' Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides.

Since Starman, Jeff Bridges has chronicled the production of all his films with his widelux camera.  He then prints a small run of books as wrap gifts to cast and crew.

Presenting photography in documentary can present a tough issue.  Showcasing the image is the primary task, so you want to respect the image, intent and cultural context of the picture.

In this case presentation is made even more difficult by the ultra-wide format of the camera.

So we decided to show the books instead of creating a digital graphic presentation.

The idea was to evoke an intimate, personal feeling with the books.  The photographer has an unusually personal relationship to the subjects, so we felt as though the "hand" should feel present here too.

So we shot a test in a couple hours, it was probably about three minutes long.  A few days later, Jed Parker, the film's editor, trimmed it to the length they needed.  We then reshot to match that length.

The Push Pin Conspiracy

Here's an article from the March 6, 1977 The New York Times Magazine marking the 20th Anniversary of the Pushpin Graphic.  Written by Harold T. P. Hayes 

Gratefully, no doubt, considering the unlikely circumstances of its origin, The Push Pin Graphic will celebrate its 20th anniversary on  March 24 with a retrospective exhibit of past issues at the Mead Gallery in New York City.  The Graphic is one of the least known periodicals of its time, except to its small audience, which views it either as counterrevolutionary or irrelevant. (The February number, its most recent, has 32 pages of drawings and text devoted to "The Complete History and Knowledge of the World.")  It is mailed free to its several thousand readers, but none of them, however they may regard it, will pay as much attention to what it says, as to what it shows.

The Push Pin Graphic is the propaganda organ of the Push Pin Studio, a handful of New York illustrators, designers and photographers whose work, like the Graphic itself, has to be seen to be believed.  The studio's first marketable product, rendered in a loft on East 13th Street, was a gross of cork place mats.  Today, the Push Pin Studio has become an attitude, its influence considerable.  Over the years, Push Pin designers have come and gone, some to establish themselves in their own right (Paul Davis, Ed Sorel, Sam Antupit, Reynold Ruffins). But its chief proprietors,  Seymour Chwast and (until he left two years ago to form his own studio) Milton Glaser, are its most celebrated members, and heir works have been exhibited collectively, under the Push Pin Studio name (at the Museum of Deocrative Arts in the Louvre, Milan's Castello Sforzesco, London's Reed House), and separately: Chwast's at the Brooklyn Museum and the Galerie De Delpire in Paris, and Glaser's at the Museums of Modern Art in New York and Brussels.  In the past 20 years or so, having slipped in through the back door, the Push Pin Studio has come to be viewed as one of the two dominant schools in the international movement of graphic design.

Graphic design, a clumsy term, is the craft of reproducing words and images.  It is held, as a ship by water, to the mechanical processes of reproduction, but only in the sense that the strange chicken head shown above (The Graphic's Eustace Tilley) could not exist as a graphic design without the paper and machines needed to print it.  It is a craft that works on the eyes of the public, who respond to it without knowing where it comes from.  A subway map is the work of a graphic designer, so are magazine illustrations, and traffic signs.  So the CBS "eyes" and NBC's controversial N.

Whether all this may be described as an art form is unclear.  "As the term 'graphic arts' is currently used,"  observes Glaser, "it can be applied equally to printed objects that are works of art (etching, engravings, woodcuts, etc.) and to those that convey only specific information (menus, announcements, books, etc.).   Thus, both Picasso and the man who prints your laundry tickets can legitimately call themselves graphic artists."

But it is also significant that graphic design today is a business -an arm of industry seeking to sell something -or, as in an earlier time when terms were simpler, "commercial art".  Graphic designers do not work for themselves; they work for clients.  They tend to position themselves in the business world as illustrators, printmakers, photographers, typographers, art directors and visual consultants.  In some cases they are directly responsible for making the product sell; in others, they are the last desperate line between sensibility and raw avarice.

Whatever their specialty, they are trained artists, and to a remarkable degree they have come to be responsible for the surface cosmetics not only of American society but -through their influence on communications and multinational corporations- of much of the rest of the world as well.  They consult now with architects and city planners; they shape advertising and design trademarks.  They advise on museum exhibits.  Some have invaded the territory of industrial designers by creating tools, furniture and toys.  A select few of them have created this country's exhibits at world fairs.  And one design firm, Chermayeff

& Geismar, devised the symbol of the American Bicentennial.

Graphic designers concern themselves with the look of things, as graphic artists always have, but many of them do so now for more urgent reasons: "We have to deal with the clarification of information in a crowded environment," says the designer Rudolph deHarak.  "The amount of communication data today is immense.  What we are trying to do is synthesize information so that it may be conveyed efficiently and economically.  We try to reduce the problem to its essentials."

DeHarak speaks for most designers today who fall within what is described as the Bauhaus/Swiss School style.  It is a powerful influence dating to the 20s when a group of artists in Weimar sought to reduce to an underlying logic all the pars of a whole, from rocking chairs to housing developments.  A reaction the gilded age, the Bauhaus style was spare to the point of austerity, functional, clean-lined and comparatively anonymous.  By reductivism the designer could arrive at a grid system to project his solutions toward organic unity.  Equally important was the Swiss School which, in a complementary fashion, began to reassess typography as a visual tool.  Curlicues went out and bare-boned type came in.  The absolute ultimate in no-nonsense lettering was a typeface that came to be called Helvetica.  It remains today.  The Mobil sign, again, is a derivative.

All this seemed to many designers, and still does, the most sensible way to dispense information in an orderly fashion to a mass society near deafened and blinded by too many words and images.  It was an idea especially attractive to large industries seeking a public identity both visible and coherent -a neat, uncluttered way for monoliths to meet their public.

Thus has Bauhaus/Swiss flourished in the 20th century, and its elegant geometrics would no doubt have spread all the more had it not been for the pungent breath of Push Pin, gathering force in the late 50s and swelling to a gale in the anarchistic 60s.  With premeditated irreverence, the Push Pin Studio was formed to provide clients an escape from the present into the reassuring heterogeneity of the past.  Push Pin (which is nothing more than a pin

clockwise from upper left: Chwast, Glaser, Chwast, Chwast, Chwast (Threepenny Opera), Glaser (Dylan), Glaser.

with a rounded head) is no style, say it progenitors, it is all styles. The celebrated poster of Bob Dylan -as much a banner for the movement as the Bauhaus/Swiss Mobil sign -derives from a silhouette cutout by color motifs from Islamic art. By the late 60s, museum curators were cataloging modern graphics by two generics: post Bauhaus/Swiss, and Push Pin Studio.

While Bauhaus/Swiss is more visible today as institutionalized art- through its corporate signs and symbols, trademarks and annual reports -Push Pin has been a more intimate expression: poster art, book jackets and, especially magazine illustration. Graphic designers elsewhere watch American magazines with avidity, and it was through this medium, in the pages first of Esquire, Show, Audience, Ramparts, Playboy and later New York, where Glaser was design director, that Push Pin's influence spread. Glaser and Chwast say Push Pin is in fact as much a literary statement as an art form. It pursues the psychological implications of an assignment, dealing in irony, indirection, hyperbole and sometimes deliberate nonsense. Its artistic commitment is, first, to sensibility, and to this end it insists on the right to draw from any graphic element of the past. Consequently it is often referred to as nostalgic, and indeed, Push Pin is credited by many in the field for the revival of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, not only in graphic design but as manifest now in interior decorating, fashion and furnishings as well. But it draws as freely from other and older traditions, and it is to the further credit of its designers that, while the contemporary art history through the 19th Century, Push Pin, with its commercial skills, has managed to voice its echoes to the present.

More War

These are screen grabs from the second big animation sequence in 1972's The War Between Men and Women.

In this sequence, the Thurber-based cartoonist played by Jack Lemmon makes drawings on a board which come to life and attack him.

These are grabs from a VHS, so they're pretty bad quality.

The scene is fairly dark, so I bumped the brightness a touch.

She turns, angry, towards him.

Soon she's shooting arrows at him and his pal.

A whole army comes out of the board.

There's even some pain-in-the-neck animation that likely required photo rotos (note the bad eyeline).

Before he conjures a man to engage in battle.

Putting a hard hit on the women.

These drawings seem less "Thurber" than the opening sequence.  They're rough and loose like Thurber, but it seems like the complexity of the sequence took the animators' hands in a different direction.

There are a couple more nicely done sequences we'll share in the future.

Mickey Wishes You Happy Birthday

Here's a little (to big) gem from the 1930s.

Everybody's pal, Mickey Mouse, in greeting card form.

It folds open.

And keeps opening.

And finally opens "wide" enough to say

Happy birthday.

This was priced at $95.  But the kind proprietor of Skingle Antiques in Moorestown, NJ let me unfold it for free!  Interested buyers should click the name to email him.

Branding

Here's a photo we got in the e-mail the other day.

We'll update if we learn it helps with enlightenment.

Sam Shaw

I would be speaking for thousands, hundreds of thousands, of film lovers if I were to say John Cassavetes films were a revelation to my young mind.  They hit me in my mid-20s when Symphony Space ran a series of weekend double features.  I would love to produce -heck, I'd love to just see -animation that has real emotional connection of Husbands or even Opening Night.

Last night there was a signing for a new book of Sam Shaw photos at the Players Club.  We were asked to cut together a little montage for the show.






Shaw was the producer on many of Cassavetes films. But he was also a his friend and a friend to many of his subjects. In fact, he was the guy who suggested Arthur Miller write the part for Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits and his photos of Marilyn became the inspiration for the iconic scene from The Seven Year Itch.

Top Cel Vol 2, #03 3/22/45 -Letters, Disney's 1944 Earnings.

OUR UNION

At Famous, Form 10 requesting approval of increases was okay by the company to go to the WLB on Feb. 12.  the raises are as follows: Lou Zukor and L. Walwoth raised to $100 a week, retroactive to Oct. 20th and Nov. 6th respectively.  Violet Szigeti $30.00, Jacqueline Bissett, Doris Zvirin, Beaulah Kitschner, Doris Melamed $28.00.  All raises retroactive  to October 30th.  Inkers: Jean Ortelli, Rose Mary Bracco, Tilly Lippman, Rhoda Grapek, Norma Spaulding, Nona Turner and Rose Haskell $33.00.  All raises retroactive to October 30.  Ruth Platt $37.00 retroactive to the same date. At the writing the WLB has asked for information the company's lawyer didn't believe necessary.

Doris Zvirin was appointed steward in the Coloring Dept at Famous to replace Judy Weiner who was promoted to another department.  In order to facilitate collections each girl should know to whom she should pay her dues and bring the money to the collector's desk.

The General Membership approved the establishment of a welfare fund with the money collected from initiation fee.

The recommendation of the Executive Board was also accepted, to set rates for free lance or after working hours animation, and to establish the Guild as a clearing house for such work.  No one may accept work on an animated cartoon without first contracting the Union nor may anyone (active members or Withdrawal Card holders) do this work for less than the approved rates.

The following members were elected to the Contract Committee at Famous Studios.  (The contract there expires March 13, 1945) Head Animators: O. Calpini.  Animators: M. Reden. Asst.: J. Deneroff.  Inbetw.: S. Knoring. Paint: S. Palansky. Ink: Rhoda Grapek. Timing: Rose Schenberg. Planning: R. Gorman.  Lab: Carrie Richarson.  Background: R. Connavale. Camera: L. McCormack.  Film Cutting: J. Weiner. Story: J. Stultz.

Anyone with specific ideas pertaining the new contract should communicate these ideas to the person representing their department on the committee.

Local 21, UFWA (United Federal Workers of America, CIO) is organizing the employees at the Signal Corps.  The question of our own members there is a matter for discussion by the Executive Board of both unions and the members themselves.  The CIO, like the Screen Cartoonists, favors organizing the entire place.  If the holders of Withdrawal Cards from our Union don not desire to join both unions, they could become active members, and be represented by this union.  The decision, of course, depends upon the workers themselves.

New Delegates from Fletcher Smith Studio to the Executive Board: Katherine Chaille and Gene Sogioca.

EDITORIAL

EMERGENCY PLEA

Good news from the military fronts has resulted in a marked shortage in the number of blood donations at the very moment when a flood of new donations is desperately needed owing to the costly offensives which have made possible the favorable news.

The Brooklyn Red Cross Donor Service reported that it was 800 donations below its quota of 4000.  Donors should go to the Brooklyn Red Cross Blood Donor Center, 57 Willoughby St. or telephone TRiangle5-8040 today to make appointments for late in the week.

FOR SERVICE MEN

The US Senate has confirmed a three man Surplus Property Board in the Office of War Mobilization which will prescribe regulations governing disposition of an estimated $100,000,000,000 worth of Government-owed material, tools, plants land and facilities.  Congress has directed the Board to draw its regulations so as to give any lawful preference to veterans in the disposal of any property useful in the establishment of maintenance of small business enterprises.

"Come-on" advertisement and misleading publicity about the loan provisions of the GI Bill of Rights were hit in a recent speech by Edward S. Rooney before the NY State Veterans Service Agency.  Said Mr. Rooney: "I feel that the advertising that is put forth by the banks generally and the misinformation that has unfortunately been disseminated to the veterans has created a very serious situation.  The veteran feels that he is coming home to

to his bank and all he has to do is walk in and there is $2000 waiting for him in a tiny little envelope with his name on it.  The fact is that this is entirely untrue and the banks, in my opinion, instead of using "Come On" advertising, as they have been doing, should engage in an education campaign and explain to the veteran that if he borrows money he most certainly has to pay it back."  Misleading publicity, he added, has made some legitimate benefits of the Bill appear as careless gestures of charity rather than soberly considered assistance for self-respecting men.

FLIPPINGS

Dave Hilberman  and Jack Schwartz responsible for the magnificent film Hell Bent for Election have been called for induction.  Pat Matthews, too, has been called.  Nat Friedland writes from India that Lt. Paul Fanning popped in at their office on his way to China.
Tillie Lippman taking a short vacation to Florida.
Theresa Petrizzi ill.
Margaret Coy, new addition to the Anacostia Unit.
Edith Percefull taking a withdrawal card.
Lou Guarnier in Hollywood  on furlough.
Violette Romaniello back at the Anacostia Unit after a furlough in Hollywood.
Gloria Feriola new stewart in charge of Top Cel for New Rochelle.
Capt. Bill McIntyre taking  Jim Carmichael for a jeep ride over the scene of some of his fighting.
Joe Rinaldi back in New York after a nice furlough with his family in Hollywood.
Joe Oriolo and Sam Buckwald elected as full members of American Television Society.
Auri Battaglia in Hollywood doing a job for the Navy.
Al Pross to Story Dept. at Famous.
Terry Bernstein, formerly in Famous Opaquing Dept. just gave birth to a 7 lb. 4 oz. baby.
Birthday regards to Winnie Zhapiro and Violet Feurman.
New girls at Famous, Shirley Ali, Kathleen Bahar, Eleanor Bloom, Lila Goldring, Madeline Hegy, Vivian Levy, Marie Lowry, Gloria Mitman and Carmen Morejon.

Bouquets to Paul Terry who granted his entire plant a holiday on Washington's Birthday.  Mr. Terry also was the only Producer in the East who gave Christmas bonuses.

TRADE NEWS

Walter Lantz made arrangements for use of 65 piece Santa Ana Air Corps band for recording score of his feature Enemy Bacteria produced for the US Navy.

Plans for more cooperative labor relations between film industry management and unions and guilds in Hollywood will be discussed between representatives of two groups at the first of a series of monthly meetings to be held at the Screen Cartoonists Guild headquarters.  Meetings will be  along educational lines, to show that the producers "don't wear horns".

Morey and Sutherland have organized a company called "Teletoons" which will be devoted to making a series of Television shorts as soon as extra film is available.  "Teletoons" will be made for the commercial advertising market, with the first of the United Artists Daffy Dittys, The Cross-Eyed Bull now being booked by leading major and independent circuits.  UA general manager has announced the titles of the next four Morey and Sutherland subjects in this cartoon series: The Flying Jeep, The Lady Says No, Pepito's Serenade and Choo Choo Amigo.

After a week and a half of strenuous exercise at Pendleton, the Marine Animation Unit was sent on detached duty to Disney's to complete three Marine pictures.  those we know include Don Lusk, Nick George, Glenn Couch, Carl Fallberg, Walter Smith, Walther Rogers, Pete Alvarado, C. O. McElmurry, Ed Levitt and Ted Berman.

Net income of Walt Disney Production for fiscal year ending Sept 12/44 totaled $486,287.82, an increase of $$54,751.01 over preceding year.  This figure was reached after provision for income taxes of $221,000 and provision for additional losses on inventories of $307,735.74, as compared with no provision required for income taxes for preceding year.  Last year provision of $250,000 was made for possible inventory losses.  Receipts from 1944 reissue of Snow White released originally in 1937, accounted for substantial portion of year's net income, and that is anticipated during 1945 fiscal year company will gross significant amount of additional income from picture.  Bank loans were reduced during year by $914,805, balance at Sept 30, 1944 standing at $527, 847.

LETTER FROM THE SERVICE MEN

From PFC. Steve Muffatti, in Luxembourg: "Your Christmas issue of 'Top Cel'  caught up to me.  I really enjoyed every bit of it.  It was the first issue I had ever seen.  We don't get a hellva of a lot of dope on anything

out here and of course, I get little or none on how the old game is doing.  Was wondering if you boys could see your way clear to send on an issue or two now and then.  Keep up the good work, and we will be seeing you.  Regards to all."

From PFC. Francis Spalding in London: "You can't imagine how a paper like 'Top Cel' increases in importance when overseas.  It is like a breath of home to read about former fellow workers (and future ones, I hope), and their various activities!  I must confess that I did get a kick out of seeing my name appear in 'Top Cel", I think you are doing OK, Woody.  Good luck!  Too bad about Willard Bowsky and Art Meissner.  Life does become realistic at times.

As for me, I am getting along very well overseas and am quite happy in my present military capacity.  My outfit and my officers are truly grand, what more can a soldier ask for?  Very often, I knock out a few cartoons just to keep my hand in trim for that big day when the conflict will come to an end. (Hitler too)".

From S/Sgt. Earl H. Freeman in India: "For 10, these many, months, I've been receiving 'Top Cel' and enjoying it.  Now I think it behooves me to acknowledge your thoughtfulness in sending it to me.

I had nothing at all to do with the organization or development of the New York Local, but somehow, it all seems to have been done as a special favor to me, just because I had hoped that you people would be able to get together.  From here it looks as though you are doing a splendid job, and I am glad.  I am especially glad to see wholehearted support behind such a thing as a fine levied on nonattending members, for that is one of the healthiest indications of democracy in a union that I can think of.

Of course, there are probably those who think that it is anything but democratic to force people to do anything, but I know that the overwhelming majority realizes that the only way any organization can function as the majority wills, is for the majority to express that will.

Let your prerogative to run your organization from the bottom up slip through your fingers just once, and you've begun to lose your grasp.  No matter how wise and good your leaders are at the beginning, and they will be good for you've chosen them yourself, eventually unscrupulous hands will hold the reins, and your control is lost.

It's gratifying also to see that the recommendation for this move came from the Executive Board and didn't have to be crammed down it's collective throat."

LETTERS FROM CARTOONISTS

From Earl Klein: "Dear Woody, Congratulations on the fine job you are doing as Editor of your union paper Top Cel.  We, on the Pacific Coast, have been watching with interest the growth and steady improvement of your publication.

For a while we have permitted our "Animator" to lapse into a state of suspended animation but the example you've set has finally shamed our local into action and plans have been drawn up for the appearance soon of a bigger and better "Animator" which will be a four or eight page printed monthly.  this will give our members an opportunity to submit drawings and cartoons for reproduction.  I have accepted the job of chairman of the Editorial Board and I hope you will allow us the privilege of reprinting some of the fine material that appears in Top Cel, from time to time.  Of course, we extend you the same courtesy, should you find the paper anything which may be of interest to your members.

I'm sure that anything which tends to bring our two groups close together is of benefit to all our members and i hope that a friendly exchange between our papers will serve to that end.  My best wishes to you and all my acquaintances on the East Coast (s) Earl Klein, Screen Cartoonists, Local 852."

(Many thanks for your thoughts, Earl.  We certainly want you to use any material of ours that you find suitable, and we will likewise be pleased to borrow from you.

What is of greatest importance, is you desire to work toward a closer unity between our two Locals. this must be our constant thought.  In the unpredictable post-war world, when we expect more than ever to need the aid of our unions, it will be a source of comfort and strength to know that we are joined by very strong ties of common interest.

Anything that tends to bring our two Locals closer must receive the closest support in the editorial policies of "The Animator" and "Top Cel". ED.)

"WHITE COLOR" PROBLEM

Rep. Fred Hartley (R. NY) asked for a seven-man house committee to investigate the financial right of the nation's "white-color" workers, hard hit by raising prices and stabilized pay. [ROC: I'm guessing this is a twice type for "white collar", but it is 1945 so who knows?}