As Dave Rand says over at Soldier's Site:
I once was asked to bid some shots.
I replied that I don’t have a stash of funds to pay for the project when my bids were stomped on.
I proposed instead we do the work right in the middle of Hollywood. Twenty artists did a show on a cost plus basis as the director walked around amongst us like we were the set.
We rarely got passed version 3 or 4
We rarely worked long hours.
We all made 3k/week or over, trackers included.
We came in a 1/3 the lowest bid … and it was from subsidized Montreal –they were going to put 100 artists on it. That shop has since gone bankrupt twice.
We did three more projects the same way, then the director built his own facility and included the writers, editors, vfx, sound, and screening all under one roof with his office upstairs.
It’s highly profitable and all union.
Ever since then I have a hard time being a lead or any level of supervision as it all seems so foolish and frustrating. Removing the director from the real set and scattering the talent around the globe in an effort to lower costs actually raises them and lowers quality.
The emperor is not wearing any clothes.
I figured it out awhile ago: Efficient movie-making is not about "doing it at the lowest wage" or "doing it overseas." It's not about doing it non-union. All those things have some limited impact, but the BIG driver is ...
BLOATED and inefficient management.
First-hand example: When I started at Disney Feature in the seventies, the joint employed 150 artists and three production support people. There wasn't much in the way of a bureaucracy, the top kick was an animator turned director named Woolie Reitherman, and he and his staff did a feature every three or four years which cost $7 to $8 million.
Cross-dissolve to 1995. Disney Feature Animation now employed 1500 artists, 350 production support people, and 26 corporate Vice Presidents. Meetings were endless, administrative meddling was infinite, and for an artist to see his director, he had to schedule time a week in advance.
The pictures cost $60 million and were rapidly climbing to $100 million.
Historical example: Studio head Darryl Zanuck, year in and year out, oversaw a full production slate of features with four associate producers to assist him. (The '30s and '40s might have been "simpler times," but the making of movies was labor intensive even then. And Zanuck was engaged with every phase of production, from script to final edit.)
It's always been as Mr. Rand describes it: The killer isn't higher wages or health and pension benefits or civilized schedules. What drives up costs and lowers quality is disorganization, bloated bureaucracies and administrators who gum up the work with chronic second-guessing and unproductive meetings that feature flow charts for hierarchies that shouldn't exist in the first place.
Empire building didn't end with ancient Rome. It thrives in the modern age at most Hollywood studios.
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7 comments:
This is so true.
"Cross-dissolve to 1995. Disney Feature Animation now employed 1500 artists, 350 production support people, and 26 corporate Vice Presidents. Meetings were endless, administrative meddling was infinite, and for an artist to see his director, he had to schedule time a week in advance."
What's really sad is that for most of the people now working at Disney Animation or other studios in town this is "normal" , just the way things are done. They may not like it, it frustrates them, but it never occurs to them that it could be any other way , they've been so cowed and beaten down. There are only a few people still working there who can remember the former times before the takeover of our industry by a bloated , inefficient management bureaucracy (which exists only to perpetuate itself, not to make good movies) . There is a better way to live and work.
Cross-dissolve to 1995. Disney Feature Animation now employed 1500 artists, 350 production support people, and 26 corporate Vice Presidents. Meetings were endless, administrative meddling was infinite, and for an artist to see his director, he had to schedule time a week in advance.
(Sounds exactly like DreamWorks today!)
(Sounds exactly like DreamWorks today!)
Or any studio, really.
This is one of the most important topics posted here recently, one that warrants an extended conversation. But people in our industry have become sheeple , they have no idea that the way things are now should not be considered normative, so this topic will probably pass by with maybe 5 or 6 comments at most.
I want you to get up, go to your windows , stick your head out and shout "I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!"
I'm about to celebrate(?) 25 years working in the business. I've seen the good and bad (more bad than good unfortunately).
Sadly, the younger guys/gals have probably only seen it one way and they think it is the norm. Of course I can't speak for everyone as old as me, but the drive to try to change things has been beaten out of me and I'm just going with the flow these days. I've turned into exactly what I've never wanted to turn into. Someone who just punches the clock. Sure, I enjoy animating still. But I do my business and go home.
I honestly don't think things will ever change. Sure, a studio will come along and do things efficiently. However, I think it is a losing battle to think it will spread very far. These producers and managers have to feel important some how or another.
Part of the problem (okay, the BIG problem) is that Disney had so many hits during the 90s with the high amount of execs involved that those in charge thinks that's part of the key to the success and it's the norm. They don't look at the failures and think that it's also part of the reasons why those films failed.
What studios like Illumination are doing is actually a good thing by proving they can have a success outside of the 50 execs on a film norm.
Dave Rand makes too much sense. And we can't have that in this bussiness....'
diablo
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