The Monday Studio Tour

Popped in and out of the Nick and Cartoon Network studios on Monday. At Nick, the new series "El Tigre" is in full boarding mode, with the crew creating boards digitally rather than pencil to paper. (I've watched the digital age come to story board at the studios over the past 24 months. By now it's pretty ubiquitous everywhere.) "El Tigre" is a flash animation show, and being animated in a Dublin, Ireland. (Hey, not everything goes to Korea)...

At Nick, a couple of people asked me about residuals for scripts and/or boards (and by residuals, they meant the kind that arrive in their mailbox via check, rather than IATSE-style residuals that flow into the health and pension plan). I gave them the history of TAG's negotiating for more residuals, how we spent the better part of a year talking to producers about it during the 2000 negotiations, etc.

I also told them about the WGA, SAG and DGA negotiating for residuals over the years, and how the WGA had a percentage of gross profits in the early sixties, and traded that for a bigger, front-loaded residual structure in '64 or '65.

Up at Cartoon Network, the pilot for Reanimated hits the airwaves on December 8. I'm informed that Cartoon Network hasn't made a final decision about turning el pilot into a series, but that the powers-that be are leaning that way. If it does, it will be the first series I can remember that's a combination live-action/animation television show with animation in-frame with live actors throughout.