Happy Birthday, Ray Harryhausen!

I’ve been a fan of Ray Harryhausen, who turned ninety-two today, ever since my Dad bought the 8mm Columbia Pictures Home Movie version of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. One day, returning home from second grade, I was met at the bus stop by my Dad who said he had a surprise for me. It was the first reel of Sinbad, the one with the Cyclops. Dad couldn’t afford to buy all five reels of the film at once, so we saw the film one reel a month.

It was an odd way to watch a film. Even the classic cliffhanger serials were shown one chapter a week. Furthermore, this was a digest version which included only about two thirds of the film; B&W instead of the original’s color; silent with titles instead of sound; and, since our projector only ran at 18 fps rather than 24 fps, everything appeared to move in slow motion.

None of this mattered! I was spellbound.

Years later I met Harryhausen at a signing at Laser Blazer in Los Angeles. When he saw the box for Sinbad he spoke of the problems with that version. I told him that none of that mattered to a seven year old. Despite the lack of sound, the lack of color, and the lack of proper projection speed, his magic came through.

Long live Harryhausen!

A clean version of the signature above

Sometime in the near future I hope to post the 8mm version of the scene above.

Animated Films: “Kick Me” by Robert Swarthe

“Kick Me,” by Robert Swarthe, is an animated film made by drawing directly on celluloid. Most such films, as exemplified by Norman McLaren, are usually mostly abstract works, but this is a comedy with a central character.

“Kick Me” was apparently Swarthe’s only animated film or personal work, after which he has credits on a few Hollywood type films including Close Encounters of the Third Kind. However, his IMDB credits end in 1983, with Coppola’s The Outsiders, although he makes an appearance in a 2001 released doc on the making of Close Encounters. What happened to him?

The Cartoon Collector’s Companion

My book, The Animated Film Collector’s Companion, was published in 1997. However, its followup, the completely revised, new and improved version which I wanted to call The Cartoon Collector’s Companion, although ready for publication in 1999, was never published.

Now you can view the complete book here. And it’s free!

You may be wondering: What the devil is The Cartoon Collector’s Companion? It’s a self help guide for the animation collector. It will help you find the cartoon you have spent years searching for because you did not know that it was included in an oddly named compilation. Most of the book’s listings are for companies based in the United States, but there are plenty of listings for cartoons released outside of the US. It’s obviously not up-to-date, but it’s still useful, especially for tracking down shorts that were released on VHS or LD, but never on DVD or Blu-Ray. (It’s unfortunate that there are so many films that fall into this category and will probably continue to fall into this category long after streaming has made DVD obsolete.) Also, don’t forget that even when a short can be easily found on YouTube,  you may want a better looking copy. This is the book that will help you find one.

Does the book include DVDs? Yes and no. While there are listings of  DVD titles from the earliest DVD years, you will find mostly information about VHS tapes and laserdiscs. There are also some additional features, but you will have to check the book out to find out what they are.

Prometheus

Terry Gilliam: Animations of Mortality

Before Terry Gilliam became the Terry Gilliam we all know and love, the director of Brazil, Time Bandits, etc., he did animation for the British TV show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  Below is a how-to video that he did while Monty Python was in production. Besides demonstrating his technique, this film  includes several examples of his animation for the show (including a few right at the start).

Gilliam also did a couple of animated shorts independent of Monty Python. Here’s one:

It’s great stuff. Doesn’t seeing this make you wish that Gilliam had not abandoned animation? Yes, it’s true he brought his animation sensibility to the live-action films, but his imagination never had as much freedom to roam in the live-action world as it did in the world of animation. Just think of the trouble he’s had with money men, and the many projects that have remained unproduced. Think of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote which is still unfinished. Think of the trouble he had just getting Brazil released to the public. Would he have had this much trouble had he stuck by animation?

In 1979, Gilliam published Animations of Mortality, a book about his animation technique. At least it’s supposedly about animation. Anyone who bought this book thinking that they would learn how to animate must have experienced extreme buyer’s remorse.

Before he worked with the Pythons, Gilliam worked for Harvey Kurtzman, the original editor of Mad Magazine. Am I wrong to detect Kurtzman’s influence in these pages?

Here’s some pre-Brazil duct work

Gilliam reveals the source of the famous Monty Python giant foot

The old man at the top also appears in the How To video above

This is just one of several pages of Gilliam sketches in the book

BONUS. Gilliam’s spot on in this video clip in which he explains why Kubrick is a great filmmaker, but Spielberg (and by implication, most Hollywood filmmakers) are not. He only needs a few seconds to do it.

Short Films: Charade: Which player do you identify with?

(Note: a Youtube video should appear above.)

Charade (1984), made by John Minnis, won an Academy Award in 1985. Apparently it’s the only short film Minnis has made.

Which of the two players do you identify with?

Animated Contradictions

In 1999 I wrote a revised edition of my book, The Animated Film Collector’s Guide. (Read more about it here.) One of the new features added to that revised edition were short observations about some animated features. Here are a few of those observations in revised form:

1. Toy Story. The toys go into “just a toy” mode whenever a human enters the room. But Buzz thinks he is real, not a toy, so why does he act like the other toys? Why does Buzz pretend to be inanimate when a human enters the room if he does not think he is a toy? Shouldn’t the other toys have to restrain him?

2. Antz. This is based on the 1925 German film Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang. In that film, the higher ups plot to replace the workers with robots, the idea being that robots will be more docile than humans. To do this they use a robot who attempts to foment a rebellion which would provide an excuse to wipe out the workers. In Antz, the plot is simply to wipe out the workers. Who is going to do the work when the workers are gone? Did I miss something? Or did whoever thought this up completely misunderstand Lang’s film? (According to Wikipedia, in the US Metropolis had entered the public domain in 1953, but was restored to copyright in 1998, the year Antz was released, where it will remain until January 1, 2023, unless, of course, they change the copyright law again.)

3. A Bug’s Life. This film is based on The Magnificent Seven (which, of course, was based on Seven Samurai). Are we supposed to recognize the similarity to that film? Is it a parody like Rango, or simply a ripoff in the vein of a Tarantino film? This question applies to many Pixar films. Are we supposed to recognize Finding Nemo as Pinocchio told from the point of view of Geppetto? Is Cars a parody of Doc Hollywood? Is The Incredibles a Fantastic Four parody? Is this sequence from Monsters Inc. an homage to or a ripoff of Feed the Kitty?:

Sulley, in Monsters Inc., is afraid to look because he thinks the little girl is in the trash compactor

Marc Anthony, in Feed the Kitty, is afraid to look because he thinks his kitty is being turned into a cookie

Jack Skellington, as Santa, is shot from the sky and lands on a cemetery sculpture

Of course, Pixar is not the only one. For example, is Disney’s The Lion King a ripoff of or homage to Osamu Tezuka’s Kimba, the White Lion? (With Hamlet and Henry IV Part 1 added to the mix.) Is Dreamwork’s The Road to El Dorado a ripoff or homage to the Hope/Crosby Road to… series, and its plot a ripoff/homage of The Man Who Would be King?

4. The Nightmare Before Christmas. The plot has Jack Skellington attempting to be Santa Claus and failing miserably. Moral? Be yourself. But doesn’t this contradict the spirit of Halloween? Isn’t Halloween about putting on a costume and pretending that you are someone else? Isn’t Halloween Town all about Halloween? Of course. But what kind of Halloween Town is it that puts the kibosh on cosplay?

Star Man Poster #5

UPDATE: contact me if you want to see the complete story.

Note: these collage posters are concept doodles and are not meant to represent final concepts.

Harryhausen

I’ve been a fan of Ray Harryhausen, who turned ninety on June 29, 2010, ever since my Dad bought the 8mm Columbia Pictures Home Movie version of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. One day, returning home from second grade, I was met at the bus stop by my Dad who said he had a surprise for me. It was the first reel of Sinbad, the one with the Cyclops. Dad couldn’t afford to buy all five reels of the film at once, so we saw the film one reel a month.

It was an odd way to watch a film. Even the classic cliffhanger serials were shown one chapter a week. Furthermore, this was a digest version which included only about two thirds of the film; B&W instead of the original’s color; silent with titles instead of sound; and, since our projector only ran at 18 fps rather than 24 fps, everything appeared to move in slow motion.

None of this mattered! I was spellbound.

Years later I met Harryhausen at a signing at Laser Blazer in Los Angeles. When he saw the box for Sinbad he spoke of the problems with that version. I told him that none of that mattered to a seven year old. Despite the lack of sound, the lack of color, and the lack of proper projection speed, his magic came through.

Long live Harryhausen!

A clean version of the signature above

Sometime in the near future I hope to post the 8mm version of the scene above.

The Masque of the Red Death

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The Masque of the Red Death was the third film of five that I made my first semester in film school in 1990. Of all the films I’ve made, it received the strongest and most negative reaction. I took this criticism to heart so when I transferred some of my Super 8 films to video in the nineties, Masque was not one of them. I almost immediately regretted this and have come to view Masque as being, in some ways, my best film.

Where did the idea come from? I’m not really sure. I do know that, unlike my previous film which had been completely improvised on the spot when an actor did not show up, and my next film, Rocketman, for which I shot a lot of footage without knowing what I would do with it, when I went off to the comic book convention to do the primary filming for Masque I knew exactly what I was going to do. Each time I was asked (and I was asked many times) what I was filming I answered, “A film that compares a comic book convention to Edgar Allan Poe’s story, ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’” The reaction? Always a blank stare. (Remarkably, I was never asked that question by a security person. In fact, I don’t remember seeing a single security person at that convention. I had more trouble getting a shot of a construction site before being chased away by an angry foreman.)

I think the idea for the film began when I knew I was going to the comic book convention to see Stan Lee. (I had the choice of going Saturday, when Lee was there, or Sunday, when Jack Kirby attended. I never got to see Kirby and have regretted this decision ever since.) But I do not recall how Poe’s story entered the mix.

From my notebook, written before going to the Con:

Comics: two worlds: relationships between inside and outside

- ironic parallels

- the idea should have something to do with the way comic fans are generally ignorant of world news – it is really a total escape – but the question is: so what? Does it matter? – are they all suffering from The Peter Pan Complex?

- B/W = wasteland

- Cocteau: “Film shows Death at work.”

- Interviews: “What do you think of death?” Blunt, to the point – see if anything happens – if not, try another approach.

I didn’t do any interviews for the film, although I did record Stan Lee talk. (One of the things he said was that James Cameron had agreed to direct Spider-Man.)

- Death finally reaches the Con – enters unseen – people start fading away – again, unnoticed

- The comics remain, and in color – but the con is empty

- Escape from death – comic book con = womb

The notes suggest that I intended to make a film that’s a critique of comic fans. This was not my intent and I don’t think that’s the point of the finished film. This is why it does not end at the convention, but outside it with everything colored red. (If I were to make a film about comic book culture today I would emphasize the positive utopianism of its alternative reality imaginings.)

Here’s the “script:”

Before the class screening I showed a rough cut to two friends who were also in the class. One of them, Elliott, said, more or less, “You do realize that you are going to be raked over the coals for this?” He was more right than he knew.

You can read the comments by the class and teachers on the finished film here. The comments from the main teacher, Russ,  come near the end of the file and the other teacher’s comments, unsigned, come just before that one. (The best way to read the file at the link  is to click on the full screen icon at the bottom right of the screen.)

Technical note: I transferred the film to digital format by taping a Super 8 projected image with a digital movie camera, except for the cartoon section which comes from a tape produced by a professional transfer house. (I had separated the cartoon section from the rest of the film.)

The Tears of a Clown

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View this document on Scribd

The Tears of a Clown is a feature length script that I wrote about ten years ago. (Read it here or here.) I had liked Burton’s Batman, but felt it lacked something, mainly thematic ideas. So as part of my second semester writing class in Film School, I began a re-write or re-visioning of that film’s story, using my own characters. It was also partly based on my own experience around the age of 12 trying to be popular by memorizing and telling jokes.

Here’s the initial proposal as written in that class:

A couple of semesters later, in November of 1991, I attempted to do a scene based on the characters. Unsurprisingly, the production was rushed and the result was not entirely satisfactory largely because there was no real script. We had developed a routine during the rehearsal, but one or two weeks later when we shot it, no one remembered what the routine was. The “actress” who played Stoneface was not an actress, but one of my housemates who I somehow convinced to play the part. She usually wore a cape and I had hoped she would wear it in the role, but she refused, saying that it was part of her true identity or something like that. She arrived dead tired because she had had a test that day for which she had done an all-nighter. (She had not told me about the test until it was too late to reschedule.) She was so tired that she was sleeping on the hard floor of the hallway outside the classroom where we were shooting. I was lucky that she kept her commitment, but she did not speak to me again.

Here is the scene:

( I was intrigued to learn that there’s a scene based on a similar setup in the 1995 made-for-TV version of Bye, Bye Birdie which can be viewed here. In a way, Tears is a feature-length version of this scene.)

A few years later, there was a script. I had a devil of a time getting agents to read it. I even went so far as to stand in line for three to four hours to meet Tim Burton, who, after me, I figured would be likely to like it.

I asked him if he would be interested in a script about a land of clowns and, while he fiddled with his pen, I handed him this:

With the help of a friend, I even made a T-Shirt (you can buy one here):

Click here to buy a T-Shirt and other cool stuff

Here’s what he signed (or scribbled on). Henry Selick and two other crew members added their signatures a few years later:

Of course, Burton told me to contact his agent. (A few years later my wife and I tried this longshot tactic again at another signing. When she asked Burton if he would be interested in a script about clowns, he said, “wa-wa-wa wow!!!” Nothing came of that, either.)

Probably the best shot for the script came thanks to the help of Barry Purves. I had been impressed by his films, especially Achilles, and had contacted him in the hope that he would be interested in making the film. (Tim Burton was apparently also similarly impressed. The Martians in Mars Attacks! were originally meant to be created using stop-motion and Barry was doing just that until a decision was made to go with CGI. Read more here.) I was pleasantly surprised when Barry liked the script and his recommendation led to someone at Fox taking a look.

Someone else who was very helpful was Larry Stuckey who had been in the class at Film School in which I had made Shadows on the Wall. He liked that film a lot. He was kind enough to provide detailed comments on Tears, some of which can be read here.

It’s not the fact that some of my ideas may have been borrowed that bugged me the most. What bugged me the most was that ideas that I came up with ended up, one way or the other, in a Pixar film, yet I couldn’t even get an agent to look at the script.

My script features several supporting characters played by classic comedians such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Arnold Burovs, a Latvian filmmaker, made several short films with these “characters.” Although too dark for ClownWorld, the image below may be the closest we’ll get to what Tears could have been.

"Buster Keaton" and "Charlie Chaplin" in The Dream (1984) by Arnold Burovs

You can view the script for Tears here.

So what does it mean? What do all these clowns running around add up to? Or, as my friend Andrew would say, “Explain it in a nutshell.” Directors tend to be coy when asked that question. I heard a woman ask Wim Wenders to explain The American Friend. He said something like, “If I could explain it, I wouldn’t have made the film.” He has a point. If a film can be reduced to a few words, or a “meaning,” why make it in the first place? But at this point in time I do not have the luxury of being coy.

So what is Tears about?

Let’s call these signposts pointing the general way, rather than a detailed map.

1. It’s about a bunch of clowns running around.
2. It’s about ClownWorld, a world of clowns that’s more exciting than our own.
3. It’s about a Utopian world.
4. It’s not about a land of clowns, it’s about our own world.
5. It’s about us when we act like clowns.
6. It’s about being a misfit.
7. It’s about feeling you are alone because while everyone around you acts happy, you feel sad and think, “What’s wrong with me?”
8. It’s about finding a community to belong to.
9. It’s about politicians because politicians act like clowns. (Yes, I had in mind one politician in particular. Hint: he was an actor.)
10. It’s about being upstaged.
11. It’s about losing your job.
12. It’s about acting older than your years.
13. It’s about acting younger than your years.
14. It’s about how The Joker with his happy face and Batman with his solemn, serious face, are really the same person.
15. It’s Jekyll and Hyde played by a whole society.
16. It’s about how I wanted to be a clown.

Postscript:

Who would be the best actor to play The Clown? Krusty the Clown, of course. I actually sent a fax to The Simpsons production office saying that I had a script for Krusty in which he would be the President of a land of clowns. A few years later they made “Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington.” Coincidence?

Update: 11/19/11

Someone over at Flickr has been kind enough to take the time to put clownfaces on a large group of contemporary American politicians, calling the set a Clown College. Despite being unfortunately limited to politicians from just one side of the aisle in Washington, this group would fit right in among the clowns of ClownWorld.

Clown College

If you are interested in a script based (partly) on the notion that politicians are clowns, The Tears of a Clown is waiting for you.