Profile: Michael Sporn
MS cont'd: The first day I was there I had done some in-betweens and Tissa David came in and was flipping through the scene and said, "Who drew these horrible drawings?" She knew I was the only other person in the room. But what she did was offer to help me in her own time, giving me assignments.
So After the Hubleys, I worked for several different studios, like Phil Kimmelman’s studio PK&A. Then I found out that Dick Williams was doing Raggedy Ann and Andy in the city, and Tissa got me a job there, when I was about 30. I was able to spend a lot of time there with Tissa and Corny Cole. I was the head of assistants, and I managed about 150 people. It was a fun job for about the first 9 months, and then when they fired Dick, I left too, because my allegiance was to him.
Image courtesy of Michael Sporn
After Raggedy Ann, I ended up working for R. O. Blechman for about five years. Most of what I was doing was commercials, and I hated it. I was sort of running the studio; there weren’t many people there at the time, and I realized that I could do this for myself. So I left Blechman in 1980 to form my own company. I haven't looked back, though I enjoyed working with all the great animators over the years. I always felt like there are two types of animators. There are those who know every rule, and control it in enormous ways, like Art Babbitt and Dick Williams. And there are those who also know the rules of animation but draw from the hip and let the animation go emotional, like Grim Natwick and Tissa David.
JF: Are there any animation techniques you've learned that a person can't research in books?
MS: Learning anything in a real studio, books aren't going to be as helpful as you thought they were. Even punching holes in a piece of paper.JF: What kind of character traits does it take to create and run your own studio?
MS: Stubbornness. That’s the only character trait, because unless you’re clever and agile, money will be a major problem all the time. I would say 60 per cent of my job is worrying about finances. You also have to be able to get your work seen and shown off, and there are some people, like Pat Smith, who are good at doing commercials and at the same time doing their own films.JF: What do you look towards for inspiration?
MS: Lately it hasn’t been animation. Very, very few animated films do I find inspirational in any way whatsoever. I loved Toy Story, but at the same time Disney was doing Hercules and Tarzan, and whipping up the audience's speed level. I felt that that was the death of 2D animation. Good 2D animation is pretty quiet. And Flash animation seems to be the equivalent of doing animation in the 1910's. "Aesops’s Fables" stuff. With that, I feel like you’re spending more time with the tool than with the drawings. You're not thinking about the character's thought processes more than you are about getting from here to there. I haven't seen any Flash animation yet where there’s character development. I like artists Paul Klee and Egon Schiele. And different comic strips like "Krazy Kat," "Polly & Her Pals," and "The Gumps," which was a serial that read like a novel.JF: What exactly is your theory on quiet animation?