John Hubley would record and edit a complete soundtrack before beginning production. Not just the voice track, the music as well. Once asked how he could tell if the audio would make for a good film, he replied, “If the soundtrack works and it’s good, the picture will be good.” Michael Sporn began his professional life in the Hubley Studio; he clearly absorbed the care for the voice track — a sensitivity to performance that can alone carry a film.

A motion picture, as is music, is a performance-based art. A cheap and wooden showing from an actor obscures the rest of the picture — beautiful photography goes unnoticed, sterling script lies butchered. An inspired performance transforms a lackluster film into an extraordinary experience. Ignore, for now, that “good acting” on film is often the result of “good editing,” it’s the results that are important. The human connection linking the spectator with the screen is made through the conduit of the actor.

The animator has two opportunities for mucking up a performance. A shoddy voice track will wreck an otherwise outstanding piece. Or a workable record can be devastated by awful acting in the animation.

After working with Hubley on short films, segments for The Electric Company and a feature length television special for CBS, Sporn headed the New York department of assistant animators on Richard Williams’ Raggedy Ann & Andy and was the producer/co-coordinator/assistant director on the PBS Christmas Special Simple Gifts. By 1980, Michael Sporn Animation was established. An Academy Award nomination followed shortly thereafter in 1984 for Doctor DeSoto, written by William Steig.

While the ‘80s may be remembered for Prince’s Purple Rain, Thierry Mugler’s geometric fashions, and corporate America’s fusion of advertising and animation on Saturday mornings, Sporn’s work moved toward the organic and the literate. He created a string of warm, textured, gentile films. Some — Abel’s Island, The Red Shoes, The Marzipan Pig — are overlooked gems. His production process was an extension the independent movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s, shouldering much of the work himself, then hiring fledgling artists to work with veterans to help stretch the finances. Despite his retiring nature he became a central figure in independent animation’s revitalization in the ‘90s through a regular output of quality children’s films and his cultivation of young talent.

Following a form set by Hubley in films like Dig and Everybody Rides the Carousel, Sporn’s films mix career actors with non-professional voice performances, often by children. The voice tracks have a directness and an honesty, while the music in his films may not soar to the heights of Quincy Jones’ music for Hubley’s Eggs, that’s a bit like complaining Mahler’s Eighth doesn’t stack up to Beethoven’s Ninth.

Sporn’s work has been released over the years in a handful of VHS editions by Family Home Entertainment, Scholastic and others. Some films are available with material from other animators in issues from his clients, most notably HBO’s Goodnight Moon (one of several specials for which he created short pieces) and WGBH’s Between the Lions. First Run Features’ release of The Films of Michael Sporn constitutes the debut of DVDs devoted exclusively to his work. Two separate disks each contain two films with commentary tracks, additional artwork, and a short live-action “Making of…” documentary.

Most of Sporn’s work has been on commission. He explains this on each disk’s “Making of…” documentary. Works on commission generally fall into two categories (with many happy exceptions): garbage and unworkable garbage. Oftentimes the foundation of a commissioned piece is so fabulously flawed, no manner of filmmaking genius can build a solid picture. Two of the four pictures released on First Run Feature’s DVD issues of The Films of Michael Sporn are works for hire, and they clearly suffer for it.

Whitewash was commissioned by HBO in 1994. Based on actual events concerning a young black girl painted white by a gang of thugs, the story is an easy platform for the type of simplistic moralizing favored by broadcasters. To his credit, Sporn avoids pandering to easy, feel good positions. Instead of pontificating on bigotry, Whitewash plays up personal reactions to the crime: the young heroine’s transformation from outgoing confidence to dejected isolation, her brother’s need to make the crime about him (“Yeah, like I ain’t hurt too.”) — a smart insight into human character, how many people in Peoria, for example, will obsess over their personal tragedy in the destruction of the World Trade Center; the brother’s uncomprehending bravado (“Did you see me, Nana, I was on TV?”); her classmates overreaction (“I think there need to be more security guards.”). These are real human reactions, not common educational tropes on togetherness and cooperation.