Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Studios ... Round and About

Nick nick nick-o-lodeon ...

Wandering through Starz Media/Film Roman a few days back, the place was two thirds deserted.

This was just before the writers of the WGA gathered at the Shrine Auditorium and declared victory ... and an end to the strike. But the few Simpsons artists who were still in the building were upbeat about full production coming back soon. (Some artists have been off since November and early December, and if the e-mail I received this morning is indicative, anxiety has increased:

"I need to get back to work soon!"

Over at Nickelodeon, I fell into a conversation with a studio higher up about whether they would be doing more scripted shows now that Brown Johnson was the new Nick top-kick. She told me:

"We're already doing a lot of scripted shows. I don't think there'll be big changes."

And that let to a question from me about more collaboration between writers and board artists, maybe gag crews to punch up stories and scripts. The exec said she'd tried to get that kind of stuff going, get more interaction, but there was some, ahm, resistance.

"Egos. Territoriality," I said.

"Ah. You know about that."

"I used to work in animation story departments. I'm old, but I remember."

3 comments:

Fred Seibert said...

Steve (and everyone), Here's what I can tell you about Brown Johnson, someone I've known and worked with for over 25 years: an amazing person, a great executive, a friend to talented people of all skills and backgrounds. Our industry is lucky she's coming to town.

Steve Hulett said...

May she greenlight lots of new shows and thereby create lots of new work.

Anonymous said...

...hopefully new cartoons by animation filmakers - not video games, toy-attachments, fox spill-overs and star-vehicles!

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