Journey to the SPA

Spent the morning at Sony Pictures Animation, where I had yet another 401(k) enrollment meeting ...

Setting up for the meet, I got a call from Sony corporate. They wanted to know if I was running around proselytizing for unionism. (Sony Imageworks, you see, is in the same building. And not blessed with a union contract.)

Apparently I got the call due to this:

Because of our odd multi-tiered benefit system ay Imageworks, we have a unique opportunity on Thursday 5/10.

Steve Hulett from the Animation Guild will be live in the North building at 10am in room 2000 to talk about the SPA 401k plan.

I told corporate:

"No, I'm just here to talk about union pension benefits and the Animation Guild's 401(k). I'm not responsible for what Imageworks employees put up on the internet. And no, I'm not proselytizing for unionism [not inside the Imageworks facility, anyway.] And I'm not handing out rep cards."

Happily, nobody threw me off the campus.

After the meeting, I talked to artists under IA jurisdiction. There's several projects in various stages of work. Hotel Transylvania is in the last couple of months of animation. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Deux is moving forward with story work. The Familiars,, a fantasy book series, is in early development. Popeye is moving forward.

And there is the the small, blue people franchise:

Sony Pictures hasn't even finalized a sequel to "The Smurfs", but it already plans a threequel to the 2011 hit animated film. Sources revealed to Variety that the studio has moved forward to develop "The Smurfs 3" and that the script is already in the works.

So SPA has a bit of work going on, even as the mother ship takes a financial hit.

Sony Pictures Entertainment May 10 reported fourth-quarter (ended march 31) operating income of $104 million, down nearly 76% from operating income of $432 million during the previous-year period. ... It said the results reflected in part the strong theatrical performance of The Smurfs and Bad Teacher, offset by the theatrical underperformance of Arthur Christmas.

Animation giveth, and animation taketh away. But we all soldier on, don't we?