Mid May Box Office

With Add On!

Friday stats SHOW viz effx extravaganzas at the top of the heap.

Friday Numbers

1. Star Trek Into Darkness — $22.0 million
2. Iron Man 3 – $9.51 million
3. The Great Gatsby – $7.65 million
4. Pain and Gain – $876,000
5. 42 — $750,000

Meantime, The Croods, residing at #8 through Thursday, declined a mere 14% going into the weekend, and has now collected north of $174 million at the domestic box office.

Add On: To nobody's surprise, Captain Kirk and associates came out on top:

"Star Trek: Into Darkness" easily topped the domestic box-office charts this weekend, grossing $70.6 million this weekend in the U.S. and Canada, according to an estimate from distributor Paramount Pictures. ...

"Iron Man 3" dropped to second place on its third weekend in U.S. theaters, collecting $35.2 million. World-wide, the latest superhero film from Walt Disney Co.'s DIS +0.17% Marvel Studios has taken in a spectacular $1.073 billion.

"The Great Gatsby" dropped 53% from its solid opening, grossing $23.4 million and bringing its total domestic box office take to $90.2 million. ...

Kindly note that The Croods dropped less than any picture in the Top Ten, and has climbed back to #5:

Weekend Box Office (Domestic Total)

1) Star Trek Into Darkness -- $70,555,000

2) Iron Man 3 -- $35,182,000 ($337,073,000)

3) The Great Gatsby -- $23,415,000 ($90,159,000)

4) Pain and Gain -- $3,100,000 ($46,574,000)

5) The Croods -- $2,750,000 -- ($176,750,000)

With the exception of Rise of the Guardians, DWA animated features have been remarkably consistent raking in domestic grosses that are north of (or close to) $150 million:

Domestic Box Office

Madagascar 3 -- $216,391,482

Puss In Boots -- $149,260,504

Kung Fu Panda 2 -- $165,249,063

Megamind -- $148,415,853

Shrek Forever After -- $238,736,787

How to Train Your Dragon -- $217,581,231

Monsters Vs. Aliens -- $198,351,526

By and large, it's been a quite sterling box office record.
Click here to read entire post

Son of Awesomeness

Jeffrey K. and his troops are not letting the grass grow under their corporate feet.

AwesomenessTV, the YouTube multichannel network acquired by Dreamworks Animation last month, has bowed AwesomenessX, a new channel aimed at male teens and tweens.

New channel will be stocked with seven new original series, while five existing AwesomenessTV shows will migrate over. ...

(Maybe the goal here is to be a mini-conglomerate, yes?) ...

I spent a chunk of my morning wandering through DWA's Lakeside building. Happy Smekday! is well into work, (Release date November 2014) and Me and My Shadow, although "back in story," is still having some production work done.

How to Train Your Dragon II is going full tilt, which it should be, since it's ten months out from its release date.

There's a lot of empty cubicles around and about; a staffer told me:

"I don't know if management is going to go to a Disney/Visual effects model where they hire more staff at crunch time and lay them off afterwards. In the past, DreamWorks Animation spent a lot of time and effort recruiting people they needed for upcoming projects, and it was sometimes hard to get them. And they retained them.

"But now there's a lot bigger talent pool, and it's easier to recruit. Will the studio decide they can just hire crew on an "as needed" basis and not keep them after the production deadline? I don't know the answer to that, but I hope not." ...

Another employee said:

Management's working to get budgets down from $150 million per picture to $120 million per picture. This means that production heads have to say No to directors' wish lists. Some things will be possible to do, others not." ...

Artists are still being laid off as their assignments end, so more empty cubes. But morale is a bit better than a couple of months ago, though it's still way below attitudes of, say, a year back. (Big surprise.)

One ray of sunshine: DVD and Blu-Ray sales are up.

Mr. Katzenberg cited the surprisingly strong home video performance of "Rise of the Guardians," which was a box-office disappointment in theaters last November. The movie has sold 3.2 million copies on DVD and Blu-ray, well ahead of DreamWorks' prior expectations. ...

Click here to read entire post

Sequelmania

Since they're all the rage, there is this.

I have been thinking about [Incredibles 2]. People think that I have not been, but I have. Because I love those characters and love that world. I am stroking my chin and scratching my head. I have many, many elements that I think would work really well in another [Incredibles] film, and if I can get ‘em to click all together, I would probably wanna do that. I like the idea of moving a little more quickly in films. I’m looking for ways to accelerate the pace a little bit and figure out a way to keep creative control over these movies to a level where I’m comfortable with the end result but also speed them up a bit and make more of them. I have many different films I wanna make. It’s like a big airplane hangar and I have different projects on the floor; half-assembled in my brain. I’m interested in all of them. You kind of have to move on the ones people are willing to pay for and the ones you’re most excited about.

Of course, Brad Bird could move more quickly ...

Because animated features are produced in, what? Nine ... seven ... six months these days? The production schedules are almost like live-action, with lots of bodies thrown at this project or that to meet a release date. Story development, of course, is something else again. That part of the process can take freaking years, and often does.

But that makes it somewhat easier for Brad, I think. He could work on the story, go off and shoot a live-action feature, come back and work on the story some more, then make one more live-action movie, and then swing over to Pixar and helm the last frenetic six months of production work on the sequel. (And he could always have a co-director for the in-between times, couldn't he?)

There's ways of getting this done. Michael Curtiz and John Ford used to make three and sometimes four movies a year. No reason the directors of the 21st century can't do the same. Skype! Technology!
Click here to read entire post

The New DVD Tent Pole

Out with a new trailer.



As it happens, I was at DisneyToon Studios today doing a 401(k) enrollment meeting. It's a nice studio, with lots of amenities ...

The artists working there are working on the DTS franchises, one about planes and one about Tinker Bell and her many friends.

Tink has made Diz Co. plenty of money. I'm laying bets that Planes will make the Burbank conglomerate even more. Not only will it sell a lot of little silver disks, but it will do alright in its summer theatrical release. (If Planes' timing is good, it might do more than alright.)

And Planes is a dead-bang cinch to sell several metric tons of toys and various games. Robert Iger is about building brands and leveraging product with other product. Plenty of people object to the money-grubbing mercenary quality to some of Disney's pictures, but the profits are gushing and the stock price keeps going up ... up ... and up.

Synergy, interconnectivity and multiple media platforms is what it's about in IgerWorld. According to the wrap, that's a big part of the reason filmmaker J.J. Abrams will be coming to the Mouse House to oversee the next trilogy of Star Wars.

Abrams' ambitions to create a multi-platform film franchise will find a ... natural home at Disney, analysts and industry experts tell TheWrap. As successful as "Star Trek" has been, few franchises match the profitability and cultural prominence of George Lucas' space opera, which would be difficult for any director to pass up.

“Disney has always been oriented to multi-platform revenue stream situations,” Seth Willenson, a film library valuations expert, told TheWrap.

Multi-platform revenue streams. It's why Mr. Abrams wants to work at Disney. And it's why Planes is being made. The revenue stream from kid merchandise should be a veritable gusher.
Click here to read entire post

Ms. Jobs

Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs widow, is making use of the family money.

Steve Jobs’s Widow Debuts on Philanthropic Stage

Marlene Castro knew the tall blonde woman only as Laurene, her mentor. They met every few weeks in a rough Silicon Valley neighborhood the year that Ms. Castro was applying to college, and they e-mailed often, bonding over conversations about Ms. Castro’s difficult childhood. Without Laurene’s help, Ms. Castro said, she might not have become the first person in her family to graduate from college.

It was only later, when she was a freshman at University of California, Berkeley, that Ms. Castro read a news article and realized that Laurene was the wife of Apple’s co-founder, Steven P. Jobs. ...

Ms. Powell Jobs has tiptoed into the public sphere, pushing her agenda in education as well as global conservation, nutrition and immigration policy. ... [She] has a net worth estimated at $11.5 billion, according to Bloomberg, most of it in shares of the Walt Disney Company. ...

Ms. Powell Jobs has become a leader in pushing for decade-old legislation known as the Dream Act, a measure that would provide legal status for immigrants who arrived in the country as young children. Last December, she enlisted the Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim to make a documentary about immigration. The two had met through their work in education; Mr. Guggenheim’s most recent film, “Waiting for Superman,” examined the crisis in America’s public schools.

“Laurene asked me how much time I needed to make a movie, and I told her about a year and a half,” Mr. Guggenheim said. “But she said that she needed something done in three months because the legislation was coming up for a vote.”

So instead of a creating a big feature with a broad theatrical release, Ms. Powell Jobs commissioned a 30-minute film, “The Dream Is Now,” which is viewable online and being shown at college campuses across the country. Last month, Ms. Powell Jobs and Mr. Guggenheim traveled to Washington with several young immigrants and their families who were featured in the film; the purpose of the trip was to screen the documentary for a group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

I find it admirable that Laurene Powell Jobs is putting her riches to use helping people that need assistance. It would be so much easier to pass the time shopping or sleeping on a Maui beach; the fact that she's trying to improve lives says a lot about her values and character. Click here to read entire post

Changes in the TAG 401(k) Plan

We get questions:

[You say:] "[F]ees will go up a few basis points for people in Vanguard index funds -- which now pay zero fees."

Index funds are not managed, that's why they are cheap and historically they outperform managed funds.

People are catching on and moving more to these. Is the Union just trying to get more money to the admins?

Managed fund fees cannibalize a large amount of individual gains and usually for lower returns, sounds very fishy or the trustees are grossly uninformed... simple math.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/business-economy-financial-crisis/retirement-gamble/how-retirement-fees-cost-you/

Actually, the union is working to chop expenses. Here's why changes are happening. ...

The TAG 401(k) Plan has had expenses since its inception in 1995, all of them borne by Plan participants. (This is the same deal participants get in the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plan, in case you're wondering. Expenses of the billion-dollar MPI Pension Plan are paid by the people in it.)

PIMCO, T. Rowe Price, Neuberger Berman and other funds on the TAG 401(k) Plan platform charge fees, and a slice of those fees get remitted to the plan administrator (Mass Mutual) to pay for operating all the moving parts of our multi-employer plan. Vanguard Target Retirement Funds are the only funds that give no fees back to the plan administrator.

(Good deal for people in the Vanguard Funds, yes?)

Since last year, 401(k) plans nationwide have faced new regulations that require them to be more transparent. (What are the costs of the American Beacon Large Cap Value Fund? How much are participants paying for for T. Rowe Price Spectrum Growth? "Participants need to know," sayeth the government.)

There have also been lawsuits against 401(k) plans that don't use the lowest-cost share classes for the mutual funds inside the Plan. This being the case, the trustees have directed the plan administrator to reduce every mutual fund offered to the lowest possible expense ratio. (Most are already at the lowest ratio, but a few aren't.)

This will be a good thing for plan participants, but it could leave the Plan's operating budget under-funded because cash flow coming back to Mass Mutual from different funds will be lower. To make up any difference, plan participants will pay some of the costs on a pro rata basis out of their accounts, including individuals in the Vanguard funds.

Here are current costs of TAG 401(k) Plan's most popular funds:

Expense Ratios

PIMCO Total Return -- .67%
T. Rowe Price Spectrum Growth -- .8%
Vanguard Target Retirement Funds -- .17%-.19%
MM S & P 500 Index Fund -- .21%
Mid Cap Index -- .16%
Northern Small Cap Index -- .38%
International Equity Index -- .37%

(My opinion? Avoid the higher-priced, actively managed funds, dive into the index funds.) Click here to read entire post

Tease

The (now) Junior Animation Partner from News Corp. launches a new trailer.



Rio Number One was brought in for $90 million, and grossed $484,635,760 in 2011. By contrast, DreamWorks Animation (News Corp.'s new animation recruit) has pulled down $534,309,798 in its current run, while costing $135 million to make.

I've thought for a while that DWA's recent downsizing has as much to do with Fox whispering in Jeffrey's ear: "Steamliiine ..." as it does with Rise of the Guardians falling to earth last holiday season.

I think DreamWorks Animation has a longer-term game plan to merge with Fox-News Corp. And when that happens, a large chunk of money (and stock) will change hands, Mr. Katzenberg will remain at the helm, and feature production will go merrily on.

At budgets closer to Blue Sky Studio's $90 million than DWA's $140-$160 million*.

* I'm speculating, but I won't be surprised if these things come to pass.

Click here to read entire post

Biting the Three-Fingered, Gloved Hand

With "late to the party" Add On. And even newer Add On.

Diz Co. gets blow-back for its latest character merchandising:

Following the moderate success Brave, Disney as ever was efficient in marketing the characters and film ... Merida was earlier this week revealed as the ’11th princess’ of the popular marketing line, the first Pixar character to reach the status, though [there was a] ‘redesign’ to fit her in alongside the likes of ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Ariel’. The new concept art shows her as ‘older and slimmer’ ...

Angered by the alterations, a petition against Disney and chairman Bob Iger has been started on ‘Change.org‘ with over 187,000 supporters at the time of writing ...

Brave‘s former director Brenda Chapman added to the ‘controversy’: “I think it’s atrocious what they have done to Merida. When little girls say they like it because it’s more sparkly, that’s all fine and good but, subconsciously, they are soaking in the sexy ‘come hither’ look and the skinny aspect of the new version. It’s horrible! Merida was created to break that mould – to give young girls a better, stronger role model, a more attainable role model, something of substance, not just a pretty face that waits around for romance.” ...

I don't think Bob Iger will be making any tearful apologies for the liberties taken with Pixar's lead character. (Just a guess.)

When the Walt Disney Company shelled out $7.2 billion for the Emeryville money-making machine, it reserved the right to bastardize the artists' creations any damn way it wanted. It's called "maximizing shareholder value," and if you're not down with that, it's your problem.

Mr. Iger is running a multi-national conglomerate, not a Renaissance art studio. You want the Renaissance, move to Florence.

Add On: Ah. I see that Cartoon Brew covered this blizzard in a thimble a few days ago. I should read more blogs.

Add On Too: The shitstorm that came down on Diz Co.'s head seems to have created some ... ah ... movement.

Quiet as a mouse, Disney has pulled the girly version of Merida from its site and has replaced it [with] the original movie version. ...

Click here to read entire post

Re Those Unfashionable $500 Writers

The company says it's not Joan's fault.

E! president Suzanne Kolb on Wednesday sent a letter to eight striking “Fashion Police” writers, defending the show's host Joan Rivers and insisting on a sanctioned election before it would come to the negotiating table.

The writers have been on strike since April 17, after expressing a desire to organize and join the Writers Guild of America West. The writers want the network to recognize the WGA as their bargaining representative, while the network is insisting that a National Labor Relations Board election be held first.

"Why strike over an election if you believe the vote will be in favor of representation?" Kolb asks in the letter.

The writers maintain that demanding an election before negotiating is a stalling tactic, since they've made their desire to be in the guild clear. ...

Here at TAG, we're flexible about the National Labor Relations Board.

Sometimes we file a petition for a representation election with the National Labor Relations Board. (This is what E! wants and the WGAw -- apparently -- dislikes.)

Sometimes we do a card count. (That's a neutral third party counting representation cards to see if the union has enough to own a majority of the company's employees.)

And sometimes a company just comes to TAG and asks to sign a contract.

What appears to be happening in this case is that the company, knowing the WGAw doesn't want to get sucked into a NLRB hearing and vote, is trying to suck the WGAw into a NLRB hearing and vote. And the WGAw is resisting, having the writers strike and applying pressure that way.

The question is, who owns sufficient leverage to make their desires stick?

More on the $500 writers here.

Click here to read entire post

Diz Ramps Up

Spent a big part of my morning in Walt Disney Animation Studios hat building. I was there for a 401(k) meeting, but walked around after it. And I came across a lot of lighting technical directors in what had formerly been a first-floor conference room. A supervisor explained to me:

"We've got most of the available rooms filled. Management's trying to be creative with space. We've hired 80 new lighters, we're on a tight schedule, and there isn't a lot of places left to put everybody." ...

Another staffer upstairs said:

"We're doing more pictures now, more stuff is in development. Big Hero 6 is going to overlap with Frozen. Management wants to do one picture a year now. They're not going to be laying a lot of people off, because they're going to need them."

Sounds like DreamWorks Animation from a couple of years ago. ...

Moseying around the building, it was obvious there are differences at the Hat. Conference rooms are filled with tech directors. Animators work in newly-erected cubicles on outside decks and what used to be open-space common areas. Many of the newbies are over from (surprise!) DWA.

What a difference eight months makes.

Some of the newer recruits are, unsurprisingly, a wee bit dour and fatalistic. I got into a discussion with several about the long-term health of the business.

"There might be a lot of people working right now, but it's all short term. Jeffrey is sending more and more of it to India. He's building a new studio in China." ... "Artists in India are making five hundred dollars a week. How can anybody here compete with that?"

I countered that some of the work will go away, but much of it won't. I said that every studio that produces animated features is going to shorter and shorter schedules. Disney gives itself less than a year to create Frozen. Over the hill in Culver City, Cloudy With Meatballs will have maybe five months to produce Cloudy With Meatballs Two, hiring a hundred animators, and God knows how many lighters and other tech directors (in two countries) to get the project out. "Hard to job all your layout and animation out," I said, "when your deadlines are tight and you have to hit a release date."

The business, I told the group, is much as it's always been: Studios are happy to outsource, but then unhappy with the crappy results. I pointed out (like always) that nobody except Illumination Entertainment has made a high-grossing animated feature outside the United States, and I.E. doesn't outsource with low-rent subcontractors, but owns the MacGuff studio in Paris. The City of Light is where all the work is done. (And Paris, as we all know, is the Mumbai of Europe.)

There is one thing you learn after hanging out in the cartoon biz for decades: Don't try to predict the future, because you'll be wrong.

In 1979, I heard animators complain in front of the old animation building how the company putting the classic cartoon features on VHS cassette tapes was going to destroy Disney's re-issue market ... and hurt future production.

In 1985, I heard Diz Co. employees moan how the new regime was going to dissolve the feature animation department.

In 1995, I heard artists say how if they could only become a hand-drawn animator, they would be set for life ... because every studio* was making long-form cartoons and it was more secure than working for the government.

In 2000, I heard Tom Schumacher assure staff that the down-sizing at Disney Feature Animation was over and there weren't going to be any more layoffs.

In 2007, animators reported how Ed and John said Feature Animation layoffs would be "small." (They totaled 140.

In 2013, Southern california's visual effects industry was pronounced "mortally wounded" ...

Whatever you think the animation business will be like in 2019, you are off by a country mile.

* Disney, Dreamworks Animation, Turner Feature Animation, Warner Bros. Feature Animation. Etc.
Click here to read entire post

Crooks? In Toon Town?!

Well, at least the scammers had rights to the property.

The FBI in Los Angeles is conducting an investigation involving investments made with Gigapix Studios Inc and OZ3D LLC between 2002 and the present for a scam to remake The Wizard Of Oz as a computer-animated feature film. The feds are “seeking victims” of financial fraud in the private offerings and is trying to find the “large number of investors” who were fleeced.

The FBI in Los Angeles is conducting an investigation involving investments made with Gigapix Studios Inc and OZ3D LLC between 2002 and the present for a scam to remake The Wizard Of Oz as a computer-animated feature film. The feds are “seeking victims” of financial fraud in the private offerings and is trying to find the “large number of investors” who were fleeced. ...

The Wizard of Oz is in the public domain. ...

I wonder if Jeff Varab could be involved? (Naaaah. How would that even be possible?) Click here to read entire post

Annies

Time flies. It seemed like only, oh, a couple of months ago ...

The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood, announced today its ‘Key Dates’ for the upcoming awards season. The 41st Annual Annie Awards ceremony is set for Saturday, February 1, 2014. Location to be announced shortly. Call for Entries will begin on Monday, September 2, 2013, with complete Rules and Category information to be posted on the official Annies website – www.annieawards.org -- this summer.
“We are going to try a few new things this year, as far as the ceremony goes,” says Frank Gladstone, president of ASIFA-Hollywood. “Our goal is to make sure that the audience, either in the theatre or watching the streaming broadcast, has a more elegant, streamlined and fun experience.”

Entries submitted for consideration will be from productions that were released in the United States between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013. The deadline to join ASIFA-Hollywood or to renew membership in order to participate in the Annie Award voting is Monday, November 4, 2013. ...

You can NEVER have enough awards. Click here to read entire post

The Fox Cartoon Schedule

Rupert and his minions roll out most of their old animation stalwarts on Sunday evenings: The Simpsons, Bob's Burger, Family Guy, and American Dad..

You will note that the Cleveland Show has been quietly dropped over the side. I's not on the schedule, no board artists or writers or animators are working on it ... but Cleveland hasn't been canceled, either. However, we seriously doubt it will be coming back. The parade's moved on.

Ah, but there is one new cartoon recruit:

MURDER POLICE is a new animated comedy series that expands the boundaries of the cop show genre as only animation can. From David A. Goodman (FAMILY GUY) and rising writer/animator/performer Jason Ruiz, the series follows a dedicated, but inept detective and his colleagues – some perverted, some corrupt, some just plain lazy – in a twisted city precinct. ...

For those of you tracking News Corp.'s various cartoons in prime time, The Simpsons* has its visual pre-production done at Film Roman/Starz (Burbank), Bob's Burgers is done at Bento Box (also Burbank), while American Dad and Family Guy are created at Fox Animation on Wilshire Boulevard (over the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles.)

Bento Box is also doing the mid-season entry Murder Police at its newest studio location in North Hollywood. Wes Archer is one of the directors, with a lot of the crew from The Cleveland Show coming on board. (Guess they got tired of waiting for that pick-up.)

Board artists working on tell me that MP is a funny show, but we'll have to wait and see, since it's a mid-season replacement.

* "The Simpsons" is the last prime-time animated series that has a crew dedicated to drawing background layouts. Every other show is (as the saying goes) "board driven" - meaning that the layouts are part of the storyboards. Even though "The Simpsons" layout staff has been diminished, it still hangs on.

Click here to read entire post

Sold Off

Kind of inevitable; still sad.

Rhythm and Hues' 200,000-sq.-ft. office campus at 2100 E. Grand Ave. in El Segundo, Calif. has sold to a joint venture made up of Rockwood Capital and Marshall Property & Development for $25 million. The property was sold in an off-market transaction by 2100 Grand LLC, a related entity of the visual effects company Rhythm & Hues Studios.

... The company, which worked on the visual effects for the movie ‘Life of Pi,’ used the facility as its headquarters. At auction, Rhythm & Hues was purchased by an affiliate of Prana Studios.

“The deal was complex, time-sensitive and particularly challenging due to the bankruptcy,” said Lucent Capital Managing Director Steven Yazdani, in a statement. “Properties of this size and quality rarely trade without a national marketing campaign by a major brokerage firm. We were able to generate several, aggressive offers which met the seller’s expectations from all cash buyers.”

The buyer plans to invest up to $20 million in the redevelopment of the office campus, turning it into premier creative office space. Improvements will include interactive outdoor common areas, new tenant spaces an additional parking. ...

R & H was held up as a model company by lots of visual effects workers. As I've recounted, when DreamQuest Images was being merged with Disney Feature Animation in 2000, DQ employees stood up in meetings and pointed to Rhythm and Hues as the kind of company after which the Mouse should pattern its new visual effects division.

It didn't happen, and now R & H has faded into history and its place of business sold off. Nothing is forever. Click here to read entire post

Africa's Largest Cartoon Studio

... Which probably doesn't mean a great deal; still in all:

... In 1996 Triggerfish was a traditional stop frame animation studio. It did commercials for ad agencies and landed a contract to produce the South African version of kiddies show Sesame Street, Takalani Sesame, and did such a good job of it that it soon landed the US domestic version as well. It was in 2002 that Stuart Forrest joined the business as a junior animator. By 2005, he would be Managing Director and have taken over the business with a handful of business partners. ...

In 2007 he teamed up with US partners to at first direct, and then produce, the animated film Zambezia. After spending several years raising the money, it went into production in 2009, and was finally released in August last year. The film is still rolling out in certain markets ... Their next release, Khumba, will have a limited release in the US, which might grow depending on initial box office receipts.

Forrest hopes his studio will look a lot more like the Disney’s and Pixars of the world, and create classics with long life cycles. He is currently negotiating with international investors to make this dream a reality, and quickly.
In the meantime the studio has started development on its third feature film, a sea monster story done differently than those that have come before it, says Forrester, who describes it as something along the lines of “How to train your dragon meets E.T.” It’s still a couple of years before it will enter production, he notes, the studio is about half way through the script at the moment. ...

There seems to be a lot of niche players in CartoonWorld, most wanting to be the next Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks, and most failing.

But if the price-points for their features are right, and the puppies click in the markets in which they're released, smaller studios can make some coin. The U.S. and Canada, of course, are markets hard to crack due to steep marketing costs, but talent, innovation and the resulting commercial properties can be found anywhere.

Inspiration, contrary to rumor, isn't all hoarded in Emeryville, Glendale, and Burbank. Click here to read entire post

Overseas Derby

The tent poles arrive, and work their magic ways.

Foreign Box Office -- (Total Worldwide Cume)

1) Iron Man 3 -- $90,000,000 -- ($948,993,000)

2) The Great Gatsby -- 00 -- ($51,115,000 U.S.-Canada)

3) Star Trek Into Darkness -- $31,700,000 -- ($31,700,000)

4) The Croods, -- $20,900,000 -- ($536,415,477)

5) Oblivion -- $15,564,150 -- ($242,555,765) ...

Iron Man 3 will blast through the billion-dollar marker in a day or three. (Marvel-Disney is on a roll, so it's hardly a surprise that Walt Disney Animation Studios is partnering with Marvel for Big Hero Six.)

The Croods will likely level off at around $600 million. (It's now #7 domestically, after hanging in the Top Five since its initial release.)

Star Trek Into Darkness, already out in various foreign markets, unspools domestically later this week and will have a shot at the top spot. Click here to read entire post

Investing To Win

The Big Picture reminds us:

The Math of Active Management is Daunting:

1. Only 20% of active managers (1 in 5) can outperform their benchmarks in any given year;

2. Within that quintile, less than half (1 in 10) outperform in 2 out of the next 3 years;

3. Only 3% stayed in the top 20% over 5 years (1 in 33);

4. Once we include costs and fees, less than 1% (1 in 100) manage tooutperform (net).

5. What are the odds you can pick that 1 in 100 manager?

Source: Morningstar, Vanguard

The odds? Probably not good.

The TAG 401k) Plan has a wide array of index funds (also a number of actively managed funds, in case you want to hook your wagon to some out-performer's star. But remember ... today's hot financial adviser is tomorrow's loser.)

I remind people about index investing because I've gotten shafted investing with a smarter-than-thou financial adviser picking individual stocks. It's not that the adviser was super wrong, it's that the adviser charged Big Money to be only mildly right.

Months ago, TAG 401(k) Plan trustees were faced with having to replace an actively-managed Mid Cap fund that had been sucking bad over the previous year. Not only did it suck against other actively managed funds, but it didn't keep up with the index fund that it tracked. We tried to replace it with another actively managed fund, but they all were worse than the index.

So we deep-sixed the active fund and went with the index. Forbes magazine points out that indexes dominate over time.

An actively-managed five-fund portfolio held for 20 years has only a two percent chance of outperforming a comparable index fund portfolio.

Said another way, if you hold five index funds in different fund categories for 20 years, your portfolio has a 98 percent chance of outperforming a portfolio holding five comparable, actively-managed funds. ...

Even actively managed bond funds, often thought to wallop indexes, aren't so spiffy:

"On average, about 70 percent of all actively-managed bond funds underperformed their benchmarks over the five-year period ending in 2012. ..."

Factoids to think about when you're putting money into retirement investments.

401(k) Enrollment Meeting Dates (May-June)

Disney

Disney Feature - Southside Bldg.
Tue. May 14th, 10 am Rm. 1300

DisneyToon
Thur. May 16th, 2 pm,
Conf. Rm. 101

Disney TVA - Sonora Bldg.
Wed. May 22nd, 10 am, Rm. 1172

Disney TVA - Empire Cntr..
Wed. May 22nd, 2 pm, Rm. 5223

Cartoon Network
Wed. May 15th, 1 pm,
Main Conf. Rm.

Dreamworks Animation
Thur. May 30th, 2 pm,
Dining Rm. B&C

Dreamworks - Dragons
Thur. May 23rd, 2 pm,
Main Conf. Rm.

Fox TV Animation
Wed. June 5th, 2 pm,
Main Conf. Rm.

Marvel Animation
Thur. June 13th, 10 am,
Marvel Anim. Conf. Rm.

Nickelodeon
Wed. May 29th, 2 pm,
Main Conf. Rm.

Robin Red Breast
Tue. May 21st, 2 pm,
Large Conf. Rm.
Santa Monica Bldg.

Starz/Film Roman
Tue. May 28th, 2 pm,
“Glass” Conf. Rm.

Sony Pictures Animation
Tue. June 4th, 2 pm,
North - Rm 2050

A panel discussion onf "Investing for Retirement" will be happening at the Animation Guild General Membership meeting on Tuesday, May 28. (Meeting at 7:00 p.m.; panel immediately thereafter.

Click here to read entire post

Adult Swim Pickups

The late night division at Cartoon Network greenlights new animation.

Adult Swim has scheduled eight new original series and specials for the season to come, alongside bringing back 16 shows.

New for the network are Rick and Morty, from Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland. The animated half-hour comedy is about a genius inventor grandfather and his less-than-genius grandson. Mr Pickles, also animated, is about a loveable border collie who has a secret satanic streak. The comedy Mike Tyson Mysteries features an animated Mike Tyson solving mysteries with his sidekick talking pigeon. The series incorporates live-action appearances by Tyson himself. The show comes from Warner Bros. Animation.

King Star King features a punk rock, modern-day he-man who falls from the realm of the gods to land as a fry cook in a slummy waffle house. ... The network also recently acquired the rights to air Bob's Burgers

Adult Swim isn't, sadly, wall-to-wall animation, but it orders up its share. The more cartoons that get made, the better we like it. Click here to read entire post

Springtime Box Office

De Caprio's new picture has traction.

While Disney/Marvel’s Iron Man 3 is heading for its second weekend atop the box office charts in North America, Warner Bros./Village Roadshow’s The Great Gatsby had a jazzy opening day, pulling in an estimated $19.4 million, including the $3.25 million it collected at Thursday night screenings. ...

And The Croods pass $170 million.

FRIDAY BOX OFFICE (TOTALS)

1) IRON MAN 3 -- $19,757,000 ($232,178,000)

2) THE GREAT GATSBY -- $19,400,000

3) PAIN AND GAIN -- $1,324,000 ($37,932,000)

4) TYLER PERRY PRESENTS PEEPLES -- $1,185,000

5) 42 -- $1,110,000 ($81,192,000)

6) OBLIVION -- $1,000,000 ($78,792,000)

7) THE CROODS -- $700,000 ($170,315,000)

8) MUD -- $637,000 ($6,657,000)

9) THE BIG WEDDING -- $568,000 ($16,356,000)

Add On: Rolling Stone analyzes the weekend:

WINNER OF THE WEEK: The Great Gatsby. Nothing succeeds like excess. That's the lesson behind the estimated $51.1 million debut of Baz Luhrmann's lavish, garish 3D version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic the-party's-over novel. ...

LOSER OF THE WEEK: Peeples. Not everything Tyler Perry touches turns to gold. His movies typically open near $20 million, but he didn't write or direct this meet-the-parents comedy, just produce it and put his "Tyler Perry Presents" banner on top. Despite Perry's name and the presence in the lead roles of TV stars Craig Robinson (The Office) and Kerry Washington (Scandal), Peeples opened in fourth place with an estimated $4.9 million. ...

Click here to read entire post

Creating an Animated Documentary?

David Rich is an actor, comedian and filmmaker.

TAG Interview with David Rich

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

In 2010, Mr Rich began filming a non-fiction movie entitled Actor?, which explores the acting craft through the eyes of Ed Asner, Dee Wallace and numerous others.

From the start, David Rich intended large sections of the non-fiction movie to have a complementary animated story weaving around the live-action ...

Actor? is filled with entertaining interviews, but the animated sections make it considerably different from your garden-variety documentary.

I asked Mr. Rich how the animated sequences were put together, and he informed me that a Michigan studio (where entertainment tax subsidies occur in abundance) performed the work. There were twenty animators, designers and technicians on the film from start to finish, and production took approximately a year.

There's not a lot of long-form indie animated product out there, but Actor is one of them. Click here to read entire post

Information Miss

In a lengthy Disney piece, the L.A. Times tells us:

Traditionally, [Disney] hadn't employed formal writers but let the story instead be shaped by animators — but contemporary movies have more complex storylines, with multiple plotlines and characters. "When you're writing in live action, you have more ownership," Lee said at the studio as she and Buck were in the final weeks of making story changes to "Frozen" last month. "In animation, you have to let the best idea win. You're constantly killing your darlings." ...

Not exactly.

Joe Grant co-wrote Dumbo. Bill Peet wrote and drew any number of Disney features, children's books, and perhaps most famously 101 Dalmations (with a strong assist from the book by Dodie Smith.)

Former Bing Crosby writer (and Disney assistant animator) Larry Clemmons penned a string of Disney features in the sixties and seventies. Ron Clements and John Musker co-wrote "Little Mermaid," "Aladdin" and others.

So, uh, no.

Writers have been invested in Disney features for decades. I have no idea how anyone qualifies to be a "formal writer." What, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio (who also wrote minor items like Pirates of the Caribbean, Pirates of the Caribbean II, etc.) don't qualify as "formal writers?" What do you have to do to get a membership card?

Who are we trying to kid, here? Click here to read entire post

The TV Show We've Been Waiting For

But maybe it was inevitable, now that Hangover III is in the can.

In the new animated comedy series Mike Tyson Mysteries, Mike Tyson is taking the fight from the boxing ring to the streets… by solving mysteries! Armed with a magical tattoo on his face and a trusty associate by his side — a talking pigeon — if you have a problem that needs solving, Iron Mike is in your corner. The series incorporates live-action appearances featuring Mighty Mike himself, and the gloves come off as the former heavyweight champ and his fowl-mouthed partner gear up for weekly adventures as they put unsolved mysteries — like how to defeat a super computer at chess or why a famous author/werewolf can’t finish his novel — down for the count. Animated quarter-hour from Warner Bros Animation. ...

Bad guys, protect your ears! Click here to read entire post

TAG 401(k) Plan Changes

Regarding America's favorite retirement plans, the Wall Street Journal tells us:

... Participants in 401(k) plans ended 2012 with less than half of their assets invested in stocks, down from 59% at the end of 2006, Chicago-based Spectrem Group reported on Tuesday. That's despite the fact that the S&P 500 stock index rose 6.4% over that period and has more than doubled since it hit bottom in March 2009.

"The population of participants has really remained a little more conservative and really hasn't benefited as much ... (as non-retirement investors) ... from the economic and stock market rallies of the last couple of years," said George H. Walper, Jr., president of Spectrem Group, a market research firm. ...

I spent Thursday afternoon barricaded in a Disney conference room with other trustees of the Animation Guild 401(k) Plan where we mapped out some new alterations to the Plan ...

1) The trustees of the Guild's plan have hired a new 401(k) advisor whose mission will be to get as many new cost efficiencies into the Plan as possible.

2) Trustees have voted to move to the lowest-cost share classes of the mutual funds on the TAG 401(k) Plan platform. (Actively managed stock funds, index stock funds, and SAGIC's bond fund.)

3) Plan administrative costs will become more equitable across the board. Instead of some participants paying large administrative fees and others paying none, starting July 1st costs will be shared by everyone on a pro rata basis.

(What does this mean in the real world? That fees will go up a few basis points for people in Vanguard index funds -- which now pay zero fees. For other funds, costs will go down ... or remain the same.)

More detailed information as it develops.
Click here to read entire post

Inside the Middle Kingdom

China Daily tells a tale of struggle.

In the summer of 2008, Hollywood's animation studios kicked their Chinese counterparts out of the ring in technique and power. To add insult to injury, they did it in true Chinese style.

That was Kung Fu Panda, which took $26 million to become the highest-grossing animation film released in China.
In true plucky underdog style, the humbled, undervalued but newly inspired Chinese animators fought back, and in the summer of 2011 released five features, including the first to use 3D - The Legend of a Rabbit.

Sadly, although they all showed marked improvement in quality of animation and special effects, like the hero bunny's ears, they flopped. The Legend of the Rabbit grossed only 20 million yuan ($3.2 million; 2.47 million euros) in China. It had cost around 150 million yuan to make.

Of course, it didn't help that the superior sequel Kung Fu Panda 2 was released a couple of months before, going on to take a record-breaking $93 million for an animation film in China. ...

It is not enough to do an animated movie cheaply. You must also do it well. Or nobody will come to see your movie ... and you won't be able to stop them.

There will come a time when China produces credible animated features that movie-goers will want to see. I'm just not convinced that the time is near at hand.

But you have to give China credit. It's building infrastructure and training technicians. THe barrier, as always, is creativity. Can the middle kingdom build a culture inside its spanking new facilities that will nurture experimentation and independent thinking. You can't make an animated feature by rote.

But let's give the Chinese credit for perseverance. They're not giving up.

... Dong Fachang is producing The Legend of a Rabbit 2, due for release next year. Perhaps this one will stand up to the might of Kung Fu Panda.

Click here to read entire post

Jesse Santos, 1928-2013

Comic artist and animation designer Jesse Santos died on April 27. A prolific comic-book artist in his native Philippines, he worked for Western Publishing on Dagar the Invincible and The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor. From 1980 until 1999 he worked for DePatie-Freleng, Filmation, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros.

Mark Evanier eulogizes him on his blog.


Click here to read entire post

Commerce!

A big reason that animation is being produced in great abundance just now? It's coveted by many distributors.

Netflix has reached an agreement with the Disney/ABC Television group to become the only subscription streaming service to offer the popular children's shows "Jake and the Never Land Pirates" and the animated "Tron: Uprising."

The multiyear licensing deal also brings "Handy Manny," "Special Agent Oso" and "JoJo's Circus" to the movie and television service on a non-exclusive basis. ...

Netflix has been courting families, especially younger viewers, for whom streaming video services come as second nature. It created a "Just for Kids" interface that relies heavily on images, to remove any barriers to finding shows. In February, it partnered with DreamWorks Animation to create an original animated series for the service based on the forthcoming summer family film, "Turbo." ...

Decades ago, employment for t.v. cartoons revolved around seasonal pickups by the Big Three broadcast networks. Most television animation employment was six months on, six months off. You learned to live small and shave your expenses, because you were going to be unemployed at "the end of the broadcast season" for a long stretch of time.

Today, a lot of that has gone away. "Seasons" are what prime-time cartoons go through. Everything else is tied to "orders." As in, "6 episode order," "13 episode order," "24 episode order." The old "Saturday morning cartoon" model is long over. Now it's time-shifting, cable, hand-held devices, and all the rest. And Turbo is being done for Netflix, the well-loved subscription service.

Happily, the speed snail is providing jobs on DWA's t.v. side even as its theatrical side is down-sizing. Click here to read entire post

Starz' Profits Sag

The owner of animation studio Film Roman hits a rough patch.

Starz reported lower earnings as its Netflix deal ended and new affiliation agreements call for smaller subscriber fees.

First quarter net income fell to $57.9 million, or 47 cents per share, from $77.8 million, or 65 cents per share a year ago.

Revenue fell 1% to $399 million primarily because the company's affiliation agreement with Netflix was not renewed. Affiliation agreement with two other distributors renewed in the fourth quarter called for less favorable financial terms. ...

Starz purchased Film Roman several years ago in a stock deal with IDT Entertainment. The company has since decided to spin its cartoon unit off as a separate company. (FR has done The Simpsons for decades now, and also produces Marvel's Spider Man series.) Click here to read entire post

News Corp.'s Little Helper

Rupert and his minions had a good year.

... For the quarter ended March 31, News Corp. earned $2.85 billion, or $1.22 a share, compared with $937 million, or 38 cents a share, in the year earlier period.

Revenue for the quarter increased 14% to $9.54 billion, beating Wall Street estimates. ...

Filmed entertainment, the company's second-largest unit, generated 17% higher revenue, rising to $2 billion. The division posted $289 million in operating income, an increase of 6.3%. The company benefited from the home entertainment releases of "Life of Pi," "Taken 2" and "Ice Age: Continental Drift." ...

Fox is beefing up animation. They're doing more prime time half-hours, and they now distribute DreamWorks Animation's output, the first feature of which is climbing past $500 million.

Company knows how to make money. Click here to read entire post

Royalties?

Good luck.

Harvey Weinstein's hopes of getting Congress to enact a royalty-based compensation system for movie clips played on the web so far appears to be a long shot.

None of the movie industry trade associations are rushing to champion Weinstein's idea.

"While Harvey's ideas are characteristically interesting and provocative, the topic isn't something that we're able to comment on at this time," said Chris Green, supervisor of communications for the Producers Guild of America.

... Weinstein attacked Silicon Valley for profiting from the work of the movie industry without payment to the creative that created the work.

"Look at 'Chicago.' If you go to YouTube, you can download nine songs. There are 13 songs in the entire movie, pretty much 70 or 80 minutes of it. Nobody is getting paid for that. Neither Rob Marshall who directed, me, nor the studio. Nothing," ...

And there are Disney shorts that play on YouTube. And Disney clips. Also a host of other copyrighted material. But nobody seems to ask why companies should collect a big chunk of the money they are currently losing out on. Why not the people who actually created it?

There's an easy answer, of course. Most of the product comes about via "work for hire," and companies own the copyrights. In the U.S. of A., companies hold the power and they line their wallets. The pockets of authors, artists and the rest remain relatively empty.

But now we're in the age of the internet, and everything is free, free, FREEE! All the looting and pillaging must piss off our fine, entertainment conglomerates something fierce. It certainly pisses off entertainment unions since they have a symbiotic relationship with movie companies: they get paid when the Big Boys get paid.

But let's not kid ourselves. If Disney, Viacom, News Corp. and the rest could figure out a way to keep ALL the cash for themselves, they would do it. In the 21st century, however, the big Hollywood players bump up against the technology giants, which (face it) don't share Old Media's interest in paying for what they now distribute (and profit from) for free. Click here to read entire post

Studio Rounds at WBA and WDAS

Now with Add On!

Today was a double studio day, starting at Walt Disney Animation Studios where I had a long talk with a staffer.

We've ramped up to doing one film a year, and the movies are overlapping now. Big Hero Six is taking a story pause, but it'll probably be in production by August or September. Artists are pitching their ideas to to John [Lasseter], and people who are starting to develop something now will have to get at the back of a long line, because there's lots of pictures in development. ... John likes to have environments and worlds and character ideas pitched to him, not honed down plots. ...

It's a good thing that there's so many different projects happening. Not too many years ago there was a lot less movies in work. Another employee told me that Big Hero Six has a couple of Marvel reps who sit in some of the story meetings and kick in suggestions (although Disney artists are doing the boarding and scripting.)

In the afternoon I was at Warner Bros. Animation for a 401(k) enrollment meeting and my usual walk around. WBA's cartoon studion the Warner Ranch is pretty quiet. Most of its current shows have wrapped, and although a couple of new shows are close to greenlight, no crews have been hired. Said one artist:

I keep reading on the internet how Bruce Timm is leaving. But he's not going anywhere. He just stepped down from his executive producer position. He's still here. Still working on his projects. ...

Speaking of projects ...

... [I]t’s no secret that the studio worked for years on a new iteration of the character before both Man of Steel and Bryan Singer’s 2006 film Superman Returns came to fruition. A number of screenwriters and directors tried to crack Superman, and one of the better-known versions that never made it to the screen is the J.J. Abrams-scripted Superman: Flyby. Abrams’ take was an origin story that saw Krypton besieged by a civil war that spills over onto Earth, but it was eventually passed over in favor of Singer’s Returns story.

Steve recently landed an exclusive interview with DC Comics Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, and during the course of their conversation Steve asked Johns if DC would ever consider turning one of the many Warner Bros.-owned unproduced screenplays for a superhero movie into a direct-to-video animated feature. Johns revealed that, in fact, that notion has come up before. ...

I think the odds of the above happening is nil. But it's pretty to think that it might. (There are, at present, video features centered around a Great Dane. But then, there are always video features going on that are centered around a Great Dane. Their production will be continuing until the sun reaches its red star phase.

Add On: Disney officially announces Big Hero 6:

Walt Disney Animation Studios is announcing its first movie inspired by a Marvel comic Thursday, an adaptation of a lesser known crime fighter series called “Big Hero 6.”

Directed by Don Hall (“Winnie the Pooh”) and due in 2014, the CG-animated movie will center on a robotics prodigy named Hiro Hamada and his robot companion BayMax, who join a team of superheroes in a high-tech city called San Fransokyo.

(For a closer look at the city of San Fransokyo, see the video above).

Even die-hard comic book fans may have trouble recalling the Marvel series, which was created by Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau in 1998 and is something of a whimsical love letter to Japanese culture. Characters in the original comic include a samurai, an agent who invented a nanotechnology-based Power Purse and a monster born from a child’s drawings. ...

Disney says that "Marvel Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada has been participating in brainstorming sessions about the project." (Which is what one of the artists on the third floor of the hat building told me yesterday.)
Click here to read entire post

"Above Expectations"

The Mouse frolics.

Disney reported earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street expectations for the latest quarter on strength in its parks and recreation and studio businesses. The stock shot higher in extended hours trading.

The media giant posted fiscal second-quarter net income of $1.51 billion, a 32 percent increase from the $1.14 billion earned a year earlier. Earnings excluding items were 79 cents a share, up 36 percent from 58 cents a share in the year-earlier period. ...

Robert Iger has done a good job cranking up cash flow and profits for the House of Mouse. Disney has become kind of an entertainment Berkshire-Hathaway (the Warren Buffet conglomerate) that has a lot of different businesses and a lot of moving parts.

Disney today is a lot like Time-Warner. TW still has "Warner" in its corporate title, but it has only a bit less to do with Jack L. Warner and his big brothers than "The Walt Disney Company" has to do with Walt.

Time marches on. Click here to read entire post

Sometimes Rainy, Sometimes Sunny

Visual effects is in melt-down mode in Southern California. But not for everyone.

Shade VFX is the rare California-based visual-effects company today that says it is expanding.

The boutique firm relocated to a new facility in Santa Monica this week that doubles the company's space and includes areas that can accommodate greenscreen shoots.

What makes the move notable is that Shade says its business is thriving at a time when other visual-effects companies are teetering on the brink of financial ruin. ...

It's a funny thing about animation, visual effects, and say, the game industry. Much of it has melded together in the computer age, and as one part is going down the chutes, another is climbing up.

Take the Animation Guild as an example: DreamWorks Animation has gone through major downsizing in the past few months. You'd expect that our membership ranks -- since DWA is a large TAG employer -- would have withered. But such is not the case, because as DreamWorks Animation has become smaller, other animation studios under Guild contract have become larger.

* Walt Disney Animation Studios has two features in production.

* TV animation studios are ramping up work.

* Animation sub-contractors are working on their own projects plus productions from Disney, DreamWorks, Marvel, and others.

Animation has been a boom-and-bust business since the 1930s, with expansion and frenzied hiring followed by lay-offs and bankrupt animation studios. As I've said multiple times before, Disney is the only studio that has been continuously under an IA contract over the last sixty-one years. Even Warner Bros. Animation, which was among the first Hollywood cartoon studios to be unionized, disappeared for a stretch of years.

There is no doubt that the animation/visual effects industry in California is getting tough competition from states and countries offering lower wages and/or government subsidies. But there remains a huge number of designers, animators and programmers working in Los Angeles County, to wit:

TAG Employment -- First Quarter

2010 -- 2,586

2011 -- 2,533

2012 -- 2,669

2013 -- 2,750

Why the upward trendline? Because animation has grown by leaps and bounds for twenty years, and though Southern California has lost market share, the overall market for animated product is immensely bigger. In fact, cartoons are the most dynamic profit center of movie-making, which explains why the employment/production pie has gotten steadily larger.


Click here to read entire post

Ray Harryhuasen, RIP

There's few on the planet who haven't seen his work ... or the work of his direct descendants.

ay Harryhausen, the stop-motion animation legend whose work on "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms," "Jason and the Argonauts" and other science fiction and fantasy film classics made him a cult figure who inspired later generations of filmmakers and special-effects artists, has died. He was 92.

Harryhausen died Tuesday in London, where he had lived for decades. His death was confirmed by Kenneth Kleinberg, his longtime legal representative in the United States.

In the pre-computer-generated-imagery era in which he worked, Harryhausen used the painstaking process of making slight adjustments to the position of his three-dimensional, ball-and-socket-jointed scale models and then shooting them frame-by-frame to create the illusion of movement. Footage of his exotic beasts and creatures was later often combined with live action. ...

In my long-ago youth, Mr. Harryhausen was THE man. You were an adolescent male, you dug the belligerent skeletons, the cyclops, the flying monsters and all the rest. You didn't know exactly how it was done but you sure as shit knew it grabbed you by the neck hairs.

"Anyone in the world of animation, SFX, or fantasy owes everything to Ray Harryhausen," Andrew Stanton, director of "John Carter," said on Twitter. "A true legend. RIP Sir." ...

Harryhausen was "a source of inspiration, the master of stop motion, and even a voice actor in Elf. His work still holds up." -- John Favreau

Click here to read entire post

Disney Profits

They get reported tomorrow, but the news hounds prognosticate today.

Heading into its fiscal second quarter earnings announcement on Tuesday, Disney shares are trading around an all-time high, up about 50 percent over the past 12 months. With analysts growing increasingly optimistic this quarter, and the majority of analysts rating the company a "buy," the big question is whether the media giant will beat expectations. ...

This quarter the studio, bolstered by "Oz: The Great and Powerful," faces easy comparisons to the year-ago quarter when big budget "John Carter" bombed. Perhaps even more important than this past quarter's films, are the current quarter's, including "Iron Man 3," which opened last weekend with the second biggest U.S. box office debut ever—$175 million. ...

Analysts are projecting Disney's fiscal second quarter revenue to grow 9 percent to $10.49 billion, while earnings per share are projected to grow 32 percent to 76 cents. ...

Say what you will about Robert Iger, he has presided over steady growth during his time at the helm of Diz Co.

So I get the logic of cutting wages and personnel from various divisions. He wants to keep expenses down when the Mouse shells out heavy coin for the Lucas companies, the Marvel Company, etc. I'm just not sure I agree with all the thinking in that direction.

But what do I know? I'm a Marxist-Socialist labor thug. Click here to read entire post

Five Hundred Bucks A Week

... and no benefits.

Eliza Skinner has spent the past year writing jokes for the E! television show Fashion Police. Skinner pens about 200 jokes per episode (almost a full work week’s as far as ‘hours worked’), pitching them at a weekly meeting with the host, Joan Rivers, and the show’s producers. For this, she is paid roughly $500 a week.

What is unique about this arrangement, in comparison with Hollywood norms, is the intensity of the work (the 30-40 hours of work are usually compressed into 3 days), and the meagerness of the compensation. Fashion Police writers’ paychecks say: “Hours worked: 8” every week, regardless of the actual time spent on crafting their contributions to the show. This exploitation is especially galling because the tempo of TV production often requires marathon stretches on the writer’s part: as long as 17 hours in a row, in the case of awards specials. “8 hours. $500,” Skinner marvels. “To write a hit TV show–– one of the top rated shows on the network.”

So on April 13, Skinner and her fellow writers at Fashion Police went on strike.

Some time ago (1988, to be precise) I was a teacher at Stoneridge Prep, a private school in Tarzana, that paid the princely sum of $350 per week. I was an English teacher handling five classes at three different grade levels, and usually put in a fifty-hour week.

Like Ms. Skinner, I had no benefits. And though I didn't write jokes for Joan Rivers, I did get to grade Drew Barrymore's English papers.

So I can identify.

You never know how shitty "white collar" jobs can be until you've worked some of the shittier ones. I hope Ms. Skinner is on the winning side of the strike; she more than deserves union benefits and more respect. (In 1988, I didn't have the balls to do what she is doing. I simply quit the teaching gig at the end of the school year and got a writing job at Filmation -- which was A) union, and B) paid a lot more money WITH benefits.) Click here to read entire post

Catch Up Retirement

Since I seem to meet people in the Boomer category who haven't thought much about saving for retirement ... or simply think they can't, here's some ideas.

Don't worry about the contribution not being enough and just start small. Have loose change in your pocket? Save it. Get a raise? Save that too. The most important step to take is the first one. ...

Utilize tax deferral options fully. Most people in their 50s who don't have enough saved for retirement should focus their attention on contributing to a 401(k) and traditional IRAs. ...

Consider whether you can downsize expenses. I don't like to use the phrase "downsizing your lifestyle" because not every reduction in spending is really a sacrifice. I recently cut my cable bill and joined Netflix via their free trial offer. ...

Don't be too aggressive with your investments. It’s tempting to increase the risk level of your investments to try to reach your financial goals faster, but that would be a huge mistake. ...

Lots of artists are visually oriented and can't work up a lot of enthusiasm for investing, for poring over stock prospectuses or trying to figure out how much they should allocated to bonds and how much to equities (stocks). Bo-ring.

But anybody can make it simple, and relatively effective. When you're in your twenties, thirties or early forties, divvy up the money into three index funds: 33.3% into Total U.S. Stock Market, 33.3% into Total International Stock Market, and 34% into Total Bond Market.

When you hit 45-60, split the money 50%/50% between stocks and bonds, and when you enter geezerhood, slide the bond portfolio up to 60%-66% of your portfolio. (None of this hs to be complicated, the major trick is: not bailing when one fund or another goes south. (Some people "stay the course" better than other people.)

Lastly, I've got 401(k) enrollment coming up over the next few weeks. Find times and locations below.

401(k) Enrollment Meeting Dates

Disney

Disney Feature - Southside Bldg.
Tue. May 14th, 10 am Rm. 1300

DisneyToon
Thur. May 16th, 2 pm,
Conf. Rm. 101

Disney TVA - Sonora Bldg.
Wed. May 22nd, 10 am, Rm. 1172

Disney TVA - Empire Cntr..
Wed. May 22nd, 2 pm, Rm. 5223

Cartoon Network
Wed. May 15th, 1 pm,
Main Conf. Rm.

Dreamworks Animation
Thur. May 30th, 2 pm,
Dining Rm. B&C

Dreamworks - Dragons
Thur. May 23rd, 2 pm,
Main Conf. Rm.

Fox TV Animation
Wed. June 5th, 2 pm,
Main Conf. Rm.

Marvel Animation
Thur. June 13th, 10 am,
Marvel Anim. Conf. Rm.

Nickelodeon
Wed. May 29th, 2 pm,
Main Conf. Rm.

Robin Red Breast
Tue. May 21st, 2 pm,
Large Conf. Rm.
Santa Monica Bldg.

Starz/Film Roman
Tue. May 28th, 2 pm,
“Glass” Conf. Rm.

Sony Pictures Animation
Tue. June 4th, 2 pm,
North - Rm 2050

Warner Bros. Animation
Wed. May 8th, 2 pm,
Bldg. 34R - Main Conf. Rm. 107

And a reminder to TAG members: Our "investing for retirement" panel/seminar happens on Tuesday, May 28 after the General Membership Meeting. Click here to read entire post

Wired Big Screens

DreamWorks Animation purchase of AwesomenessTV isn't a Out There as it might have been a couple of years ago. And that's because ...

Households with broadband Internet access are increasingly piping Internet video to their TV sets, through a variety of devices.

... [T]he speed at which television moves off of cable and onto the Internet will be determined largely by what people decide to do in their living rooms. ...

More than half of them -- 56% of all households with broadband Internet access -- now have at least one TV set connected to the Internet, according to a report from Diffusion Group, "Defining the In-Home CE and Network Ecosystem 2013." About two-thirds of the nation's homes have broadband. ...

Smart TVs are coming on strong, growing faster than dedicated Internet-to-TV devices like Roku or Apple TV. About 14% of broadband households own a dedicated device, while about 25% own a smart TV. Ownership of smart TVs has doubled over the past year, while ownership of dedicated devices grew by only two percentage points. ...

The big movie companies are still trying to figure out how to master all the new delivery pipelines and maximize their profits.

Cable systems, I think, will soon be Yesterday's Gatekeepers, losing power and market share the same way broadcast networks started losing it decades ago. The entertainment landscape keeps getting divided and subdivided, and distributors and content providers have to figure out a way to stay relevant and profitable in the age of YouTube.

Who looks at shows when they're piped into the house, after all? People know they can store them for later or pull them out of the Cloud. Makes things a wee bit tougher for our fine, entertainment conglomerates. but they'll figure something out.

They always do. Click here to read entire post

Fox's New Non-Signator Animation Studio

Rupert and his minions have always had Blue Sky back east in the tri-state area. But now they have a newer studio in Hollywood, a few miles from their unionized version on Wilshire Boulevard.

... Nick Weidenfeld [is] head of Fox Broadcasting's new ADHD Studios ...

ADHD stands for Animation Domination High-Def, an extension of the stalwart Sunday animation block Fox built on two decades of “The Simpsons” and newer hits like “Family Guy.” But in this incarnation, ADHD — a not-so-sly allusion to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — is aimed at an audience that expects the kind of content it can’t see on TV, and for which the Internet is the first screen. ...

The new 12,500-square-foot studio on Sunset Boulevard, down the street from the Cat & Fiddle pub, now houses more than 100 staffers. Fox owns the ADHD Studios facility, but the network licenses content from Weidenfeld’s Friends Night production company.

TAG has had ADHD on its radar for the last few months. Like many non-union studios, it offers artists lower wages and fewer benefits than the TAG variety (such a deal.)

But hey. If you can't pay your staff less money, what point is there in being non-union?

What I've always enjoyed about our fine conglomerates is, no matter how many of their studios you sign to a contract, there are always more low-rent facilities popping up.

They come in two varieties: The wholly-owned subsidiary, and the independently owned "sub-contractor" that is at least partially (and often wholly) dependent on the Big Five Entertainment conglom's largesse to keep its doors open.

Either way, TAG -- or any other guild/union -- has to find a way to get them under contract to keep wages up for everybody. Click here to read entire post

Your International B.O.

Iron Man 3 is a giant, ravenous squid sucking up various global currencies, but there are other movies in the marketplace doing rather well.

Foreign (Worldwide) Box Office

Iron Man 3 -- $175,900,000 ($680,100,000)

Oblivion -- $6,500,000 ($222,768,615)

The Croods -- $17,400,000 ($520,443,159)

GI Joe -- $1,200,000 ($355,857,316)

Olympus Fallen -- $2,500,000 ($132,364,879)

I assume that the Cave Family will surpass $600 million in global box office before it's all over. Click here to read entire post

The Analyst's Prediction

What's called "the smart money" tells us what will succeed during the summer season.

Doug Creutz of Cowen and Co. picked his “Dirty Dozen” list of movies that he figures will account for about 70 percent or more of this summer’s total domestic box office. ... Creutz estimates Iron Man 3 will top out at $350 million domestically. His pick for the second biggest film of the summer is Monsters University, which he figures will earn $275 million.

Next on his list is a tie at $250 million between Star Trek Into Darkness and Despicable Me 2.

The rest of his Dirty Dozen: The Hangover Part III ($225 million); Man of Steel ($220 million); Fast & Furious 6 ($220 million); The Wolverine ($190 million); Turbo ($171 million); a tie between The Great Gatsby and Pacific Rim, ($150 million); and Grown Ups 2 ($125 million).

The titles he thinks are most at risk of not performing as well as he has predicted: The Wolverine, Pacific Rim and Turbo.

Titles having only a “reasonable chance” of cracking the Top 12 this summer are Epic, The Heat and The Internship; and This is the End and Smurfs 2. ...

Kindly note that there are four animated titles (one of them a hybrid) which are candidates for The Magic Twelve.

Me, I would estimate that of the animated contingent, Epic has the highest likelihood of under-performing. The trailers are gorgeous, but movies from William Joyce books have a tendency to do less well at theatre turnstiles.

For the rest of the cartoon features, I think most will gross in the $400 million to $600 million range at the world box office.

Smurfs 2 is the sequel to the first blockbuster feature starring the tiny blue people. My assumption is the followup will repeat the box office hat trick, landing between $550-$650 million when all the folding money is counted.

And I've already made my glorious predictions about the other animated releases here.

Global Box Office

Monsters University -- $527 million

Turbo -- $445 million

Epic -- $345 million

Despicable Me 2 -- $501 million

I made the guesses directly above two weeks ago, but of course I could have my head far up my large intestine. It wouldn't surprise me if each of these titles did $50 million to $150 million more than I think they will.
Click here to read entire post

Weekend Grosses

Beginning with Friday's take.

1) IRON MAN 3 -- $68,312,000

2) PAIN AND GAIN -- $2,345,000 ($28,664,000)

3) 42 -- $1,790,000 ($73,916,000)

4) OBLIVION -- $1,700,000 ($71,872,000)

5) THE BIG WEDDING -- $1,200,000 ($11,535,000)

6) THE CROODS -- $945,000 ($165,463,000) ...

The Croods has been hanging in nicely and will move past $170 million (domestic) easily.

Meantime, the new Marvel/Disney picture looks to be sucking up a lot of box office oxygen. No big surprise there.

Box Office Weekend Numbers

1) Iron Man 3 -- $175.3 million

2) Pain and Gain -- $7.6 million ($78.3 million)

3) 42 -- $6.2 million ($78.3 million)

4) Oblivion -- $5.8 million ($76 million)

5) The Croods (7); $4.2 ($168.7 million) -37%

6) The Big Wedding $3.9 million ($14.2 million)

7) Mud -- $2.2 million ($5.2 million)

8) Oz Great and Powerful -- $1.8 million ($228.6 million)

9) Scary Movie 5 -- $1.4 million ($29.6 million)

10) G.I. Joe: Retaliation -- $1.3 million ($118.8 million)

So as the greenbacks roll in, Iron Man 3 sees the second biggest domestic gross ever, and The Croods has the second smallest drop in the Top Ten, remaining at #5. The summer box office season has begun.

Click here to read entire post

Looping Time

Due to a change of villains.

Benjamin Bratt has stepped in to voice the villain Eduardo in Despicable Me 2. He replaces Al Pacino, who exited the project over creative differences with Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment. He’s getting to work right away on a film that Universal is counting on for a major summer release that begins July 3 ...

So let's see. Benjamin will drop out of the sky and record his lines in a couple of days. And the animators will bend to their computers with a will, since DM2 has a release date sixty days hence.

What I'd like to know is, what kind of "creative differences" did Al Pacino have eight weeks in front of the movie's release? Click here to read entire post

More Tom-Tom Beating

Amidst another gathering of VFX Topkicks.

... A group of visual effects companies -- representing businesses from around the world -- met on Thursday to discuss struggling business and the potential for a trade association.

Following the meeting, the companies said in a group statement: “Is a VFX industry trade association in our future? It's still too soon to say. But, an informal meeting to explore the possible formation of a trade association for VFX companies did take place. The assembled group discussed the current interest in, and potential benefits of, having such an association. We plan on continuing that dialog.”
...

Exploration is a fine thing. But at some point, town and cities need to be built, and crops planted. Everyone with functioning frontal lobes knows what the problems are:

A) Studios (mostly owned by fine, entertainment conglomerates) make big, flossy films that require lots of visual effects.

B) Studios put the effects out for bid among various VFX subcontractors.

C) VFX subcontractors, in the same way piranhas feed on floating cow carcasses, go into a frenzy of bidding.

D) Studios choose the best bids (which usually have tissue-thin profit margins).

E) Work commences. Skilled digital artists get squeezed ... and/or paid late.

F) Dazzling visual effects are created. And one more VFX company goes belly-up when its tiny profit turns into a loss.

This is the way it's been since I started paying attention in the mid 1990s, although there was a brief detour from this business model. (Late in the last millenium, most of the majors took a run at setting up their own studio visual effects shops in-house. They quickly discovered that doing effects this way cost an arm and two legs -- what with studio overhead and all -- so most quickly exited the business.)

From that time to this, sub-contracting visual effects work in the least expensive way possible has been the thought for the day, every day. It's been wonderfully cost-effective for movie companies, but shitty for everybody else (from VFX houses to the boys and girls slaving away in front of the computers). And now, of course, conglomerats cheerfuly chase tax subsidies and lower wages around the globe.

Everybody says it has to change, and that "something must be done!" But I'm damned if I know the best way to go about the changing. Maybe if some tent pole projects blow up and cost studios major money, corporate hearts and minds will be changed. Maybe if there are some riots in the streets. I always take solace in the wisdome of Rober Miller:

"Everything changes a little and it should.

Good ain't forever and bad ain't for good."



Click here to read entire post

British Austerity and Tax Breaks!

F*ck, YEAH!

... While TV and animation legislation is being implemented in the UK, the introduction of the games tax break was dealt a set-back two weeks ago when the European Commission said it would investigate whether developers in the UK really need one.

“There is no obvious market failure in this dynamic and growing sector,” said the EC at the time.

But Osborne brushed aside any concerns, calling the games element of the new subsidies package as simply an “unfinished story” that will go on to grow the overall creative sector’s £36bn value and vast 1.5m employment base. ...

Tax breaks form an important part of the current UK government’s overall economic policy.

While implementing a deep austerity strategy, the coalition is pursuing international investment as an answer to domestic debt problems, hence the allure in fighting to win back TV productions, animation deals and game studio jobs.

It's a fine, double-barreled approach to Britain's double dip recession. Subsidies for companies, benefit cuts for the poors. The U.K.'s GDP is growing, after all.

Britain’s economy avoided entering an unprecedented — and politically damaging — third recession in five years, according to official estimates released Thursday. ...

Although the economy has been broadly flat for the past 18 months, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, was able to argue on Thursday that there were reasons to be encouraged by the small uptick in the country’s gross domestic product.

The rise in G.D.P. was in comparison to the previous three-month period, when the economy contracted by the same amount, the Office for National Statistics said. Two consecutive quarters of contraction constitute a recession. ...

Make no mistake, the confidence fairies have returned and surging economic growth is finally on the way!

Subsidies forever!
Click here to read entire post

Synergy

As I write, Iron Man 3, starring a man whose career and life were in shambles not too many years ago, is gobbling up local currencies around the globe.

But gross receipts and profit margins will soon be getting even better.

... These are the movies Disney has in the pipeline for 2015: high-powered sequels directed by dudes with geeky street cred (J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon) in "Star Wars: Episode VII" and "The Avengers 2"; Pixar's animated follow-up "Finding Dory"; Johnny Depp's seafaring adventure "Pirates of the Caribbean V" (which still doesn't have a director, although there's a good chance Gore Verbinski will return following his work on the studio's "Lone Ranger"); "wildly ambitious" original Pixar movie "Inside Out," and new Marvel property "Ant-Man," which, like "Star Wars: Episode VII" and "The Avengers 2" will be helmed by a fan favorite (in this case, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" director Edgar Wright).

2015 represents a year when every facet of the Disney company is operating at once – all of the companies and properties that the studio has gobbled up over the years (Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm) are present and accounted for, humming with synergistic efficiency. It's no coincidence that Bob Iger, the Disney chief executive responsible for all of these pricy acquisitions, intends to step down in 2015, supposedly to run for political office in New York State on the Democratic ticket. Basically, it's the studio executive equivalent of dropping the microphone and walking off the stage.

The first part I buy. The second part, not so much.

I guess it's possible that Robert Iger lusts to hold public office, yearns to stand at factory gates at six in the morning, stamping his feet against the cold and shaking hands with men and women trudging in for the early shift.

But I wonder.

On the other hand, exiting one of our fine, entertainment conglomerates when subsidiaries are firing on all cylinders and the money is gushing in, that I get. Who wants to be thrown out by angry stockholders?
Click here to read entire post

Fourteen Days

... is what it took for DreamWorks Animation to buy a webwork.

DreamWorks Animation’s decision to buy YouTube teen and tween network AwesomenessTV sheds some light on what it means when a talent agency “incubates” a startup. ...

DreamWorks Animation’s decision to buy YouTube teen and tween network AwesomenessTV sheds some light on what it means when a talent agency “incubates” a startup. ...

DWA chief Jeffrey Katzenberg spent the past two weeks negotiating with Robbins after the two were introduced by Robert Kyncl, VP and global head of content for YouTube and Google, a month ago. ...

SO the question is, does this portend a brave new entertainment world, or is this the empty wheeling and dealing that we saw thirteen years ago, when the landscape was littered with dot-com startups that (for the most part) soon flickered out.

I really don't know the answer to that, since my crystal ball is cloudy. But I wish Jeffrey and Company the very best with their new endeavor. Click here to read entire post

Hand-Drawn to CGI

From the YouTube, director and animator Eric Goldberg shows off a bit of King Candy animation.



The piece isn't in Wreck-It Ralph; it's a hand-drawn test ...

For a considerable stretch of time, veteran Disney animators were doing hand-drawn tests of CG characters to demonstrate how those characters might act and move. (It was faster to do a traditional pencil test than rig and model a CG version of the character and THEN animate it.)

They're doing less of this kind of thing now. Half of the veteran Disney animators have been let go. Click here to read entire post

Big Surprise

Companies are people, and people love to take government handouts.

As the new "Star Wars" movie gets ready for production, visual effects giant Industrial Light & Magic is looking at opening a facility in the United Kingdom to take advantage of foreign tax subsidies, the company told TheWrap on Tuesday.

Miles Perkins, head of corporate communications for ILM's parent company Lucasfilm, said that the company had not yet decided whether to do the visual effects work in London but was considering it. "We're evaluating a number of different scenarios and doing our due diligence," he said. ...

If somebody is handing out free money, then Diz Co. wants some. Because free enterprise! Capitalism!

(Bob Iger likes the help Socialism provides in keeping those profit margins up.) Click here to read entire post

Winners and "Losers"

Since we've been on the subject of executive compensation ...

>> Walt Disney Co. Chairman Bob Iger's compensation package got a 20 percent bump to $40 million. ...

>> News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch's pay shrunk along with his company. ...

>> DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg got a 33 percent raise to $5.2 million. ...

>> Netflix CEO Reed Hastings gave up stock options and saw his compensation fall by 41 percent in order to make amends for the subscriber backlash. ...

>> Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman's compensation took a 22 percent hit to go alongside Nickelodeon's ratings slide. Still, his salary, bonuses and other niceties topped out at $33.5 million for the year.

A 22 percent pay cut but still $33.5 million for twelve months work. Puts you 2% raise in clearer perspective, donnit?

But remember, these are Top Dogs we are talking about, and they're worth every penny. Their boards of directors (who are absolutely independent actors,) say so. And that's good enough for me. Click here to read entire post

Kung Fu Judgment

Another Hollywood plagiarim lawsuit goes down in flames.

A California appeals court upheld a verdict in favor of DreamWorks Animation after a jury found that the studio didn't steal the idea to create its mega-successful Kung Fu Panda movies.

Terence Dunn, a self-described “writer-producer-teacher-philospher” who was CEO of a company called Zen-Bear Inc., sued in June 2010 for breach of an implied contract. At a trial in the summer of 2011, he told a jury that he made a four-to-five minute pitch to a Dreamworks executive in November 2001, and followed it up with a phone call over his "proposal for Zen-Bear, the Kung Fu Panda." ...

Only once in a long while do individuals with a hot idea succssfully sue a film studio or entertainment conglomerate over an (allegedly) stolen property. Art Buchwald successfully sued Paramount over Coming to America a bajillion years ago, but Art was one of a chosen few who managed to push all the way to victory.

Usually if a studio thinks it's going to lose, that studio strikes a last-minute settlement. That didn't happen in this case. Click here to read entire post