Imagi Again

I motored back to Imagi in Sherman Oaks this a.m., checking up on how the studio's doing after its January shutdown. A lot of staff is back ... but a lot of staff isn't.

There's crew working on Astroboy, artists working on Tusker and Gatchaman. Nobody, however, is sure how long they'll be employed or how long the studio will stay open ...

"Imagi seems to have a game plan. Everybody's been paid the money they're owed. The company is finishing Astroboy for an October release, and it's getting the other two projects in shape for pitches to distributors. Both of properties are coming along pretty well ..."

Another employee said:

"Management here isn't saying how long the doors will stay open. But I don't think management here knows. As far as I can see, the intent is to keep everything going, but Hong Kong [the mother ship] isn't saying much about the money situation. Options on some personal service contracts aren't being picked up. I'm pretty sure the company wants to retain people, but I think it's keeping options open if the money flow stops again. They don't want to be in the position they were in back during January, where they couldn't meet payroll and had a lot of long-term personal service contracts they couldn't honor ..."

My take-away, after jawing with staff into the early afternoon, is that the company intends to stay in business if at all possible, but the global economic freeze-up isn't making it easy. As an artist who's been there a long time said:

"If we can get to October and a solid release for Astroboy, then things are on more solid ground. They'll have more money. But the question is: Can we get to that place? And if Imagi has to shut down again, will they get the same quality people back? Because employees won't wait around, they'll take other jobs."

We'll just have to wait and see how things turn out. (Like there's some other choice? In this economic environment?)