What I've Learned ...

about being in the 'toon business (and like to repeat from time to time).

No gig is forever. In the mid nineties, I heard Disney staffers say: The jobs here are as solid as working at the post office."

Uh, no. Employment might last a month, a year, maybe a decade. But certainly not until the end of time. The people who told me their jobs were permanent have been laid off. (And there isn't a studio in town that can't disappear. When TAG was invented in 1952, it repped a host of studios. Disney is the only one that was there at the beginning that is still there now. All the rest? Kaput.)

Everybody is fungible. No exceptions. I've seen lead directors tossed overboard, experienced board artists laid off, production supervisors dismissed. In the time I've been around, I've observed two Disney CEOs tossed under the bus, both by the same unhappy Disney stockholder with a potent last name. And a little less than three years ago there was this:

"Frankly, it's best if you two leave the studio now. We've just been a ball and chain around your ankles."

-- Former Disney Feature Animation topkick David Stainton to Ron Clements and John Musker, July 2005

(You'll note, with the passage of years, the various ironies now embedded in the above.)

Frank, Ollie, Woolie, Ward and the rest of the Disney Nine Old Men? Their forty-plus year careers at one company were anomalies. For ninety-five percent of the people who've worked in animation, a fifteen-year run at one place is a gift from heaven. As a ten-year veteran who's on the third month of a layoff told me last week:

"This business is tough, isn't it? I don't know how much longer I can hang in there. There's just so many variables you can't control ..."

Politics is always a part of the job. Over the years, studio artists have trooped into my office and proclaimed "I don't play politics." I always have the same reply:

"Sure you do. If you're breathing, you're playing. The only question is, are you playing good? Are you playing bad? Are you playing average?"

Every studio has politics. If you're a superstar, most of it bounces off you (as long as you stay a superstar). For everybody else, they need a modicum of competence (because if they're incompetent, no amount of apple polishing will save them) and the ability to Play Well With Others.

The other unhappy part of politics in the studios? The strike zone is always changing. What's perfectly okay under one management team is verboten under the next. Often you don't find this out until you're standing in line at the unemployment office muttering "What the f*ck?"

Those new breath-of-fresh-air topkicks who seem so open? So above board? The ones who have those "employee forums" where they welcome questions? Remember the words of Joe Heller:

"I want someone to tell me," Lieutenant Scheisskopf beseeched them all prayerfully. "If any of it is my fault, I want to be told."

"He wants someone to tell him," Clevinger said.

"He wants everyone to keep still, idiot," Yossarian answered.

"Didn't you hear him?" Clevinger argued.

"I heard him," Yossarian replied. "I heard him say very loudly and very distinctly that he wants every one of us to keep our mouths shut if we know what's good for us."

"I won't punish you," Lieutenant Scheisskopf swore.

"He says he won't punish me," said Clevinger.

"He'll castrate you," said Yossarian ...

-- Catch 22

Never stop developing your talent. In the decades I've been hanging around here, studios have come and gone, technologies have changed, and infighting has gotten more ferocious. The one thing that hasn't altered is the need for top-tier talent. If you've got that, you're probably going to be in good shape, career wise. Always continue to improve.

Don't take all the ego battles (or a lot of the other crap) too seriously. When I look back over the things I worried about ten, twenty, and thirty years ago, I roll my eyes and shake my head. Could I have been that stupid and short-sighted? Sure I could, because I was young, and lots of the fights I thought at the time were "really big deals" were actually ripples in a teacup.

So if possible, put the sewage that flows your way in persepctive. You'll be the healthier for it.