The Fruits of Free Money

It's no secret that Georgia is a magnet for the entertainment biz, not just in live-action but in animation and video game development. The Atlanta Journa reports:

Georgia has become a magnet for entertainment activity. Film and television productions created close to $5.1 billion in economic impact in fiscal year 14.

Yet film and TV are not the only entertainment sectors thriving here. Digital entertainment encompasses the creation and distribution of software, games, digital apps, music and even advanced concepts such as augmented reality, virtual reality and motion capture. ...

The ability to directly access creative, fresh talent from our universities and technical colleges is essential for digital entertainment companies and the industry’s future in Georgia. Nearly 20 colleges and universities offer interactive design career paths and thousands of students are engaged in interactive design classes or video game programs.

Last month, the Princeton Review ranked SCAD and the Georgia Institute of Technology in the top 25 for graduate and undergraduate programs in Game Design in 2015. ...

Georgia ranks in the top five U.S. states with the most software publishers. The technical talent and expertise in software development that Atlanta offers companies, coupled with the artistic creativity of its young population, is a competitive advantage. ...

Animation studios Cartoon Network and Bento Box have outposts in Atlanta; the incentives of lower wages and tax subsidies will no doubt continue to be a magnet for studios to build satellite facilities in the state.

Funny how right-to-work laws and free money work well for our fine entertainment companies, though less well for artists and technicians.

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It's Justice League

Today it's all about Spirit *, but hey. There are these other super heroes.

... "Experience a divergent reality where the Justice League protects the planet — but answers to no one but themselves. Employing methods of intimidation and fear, this Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman deal brute force in the name of justice. In this alternate universe, Superman was not raised by the Kents in Smallville, the Caped Crusader is not Bruce Wayne, and Wonder Woman is not an Amazon warrior of Themyscira. When a group of famed scientists experience untimely “accidents,” a government task force follows the trail of clues to the Justice League — but is there a more powerful player operating from the shadows?" ...

* I remember when Brad B. worked with unflagging energy to get "Spirit made. He chased the dream in L.A., in San Francisco, anyplace there were backers. It just never came together. And time and career went on. So instead we have "The Incredibles," and maybe a sequel, if Mr. Bird can make the picture his way.

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Animation Jobs Held By Women

A week ago, we posted the most recent employment percentages of women working in the cartoon business. The figures went like this:

Out of a total of 3190 artists, writers, and technicians employed under a TAG contract, 658 are female, while 2,532 are male. This breaks down to

20.63% -- female employment

79.37% -- male employment

Eight days later, the numbers haven't changed much (except that women are 20.72% of the total now, with two more women employed and a half dozen men laid off.)

But this post isn't about the constantly moving target of total employment. It's about where women are working on April 14th, 2015, and burrowing deeper into the data. You'll find raw numbers and percentages inside that 20.72% below. ...

If you're a math enthusiast, you might notice the percentages and numbers don't add up to the total 660 women working today in animation. That's not because we're lazy. It's because we dropped most of the smallest bits of data attached to different categories so you wouldn't have to scroll ... and scroll ... and scroll.

Job Categories -- Percentages -- (Numbers)

Animation Checker -- 3% -- (19)

Animation Timer -- 2% -- (15)

Art Director -- 1% -- (6)

Background -- 10% -- (64)

Color Key -- 4% -- (28)

Layout -- 3% -- (22)

Director -- 3% -- (20)

Model Designer -- 5% -- (31)

Storyboard -- 16% -- (108)

Storyboard Revisionist -- 6% -- (44)

Staff Animation Writer -- 5% -- (35)

CGI Animator/Modeler* (1-5) -- 6% -- (42)

Tech Director* (1-5) -- 17% -- (110)

Trainee -- 3% -- (21)

Visual Development -- 3% -- (18)

The above is a marked change from the olden times, when most women in Cartoonland worked as inkers, painters, or animation checkers. In 2015, women are working in a wide array of creative and technical positions. And high time.

If these trends continue (and with the numbers of women in art schools and universities pursuing animation majors, they likely will), it wouldn't be surprising if women make up 30% to 40% of animation jobs before too many years roll by.

* The majority of women in these categories are classified as Tech Director 1 and CGI Modeler 1.

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Girl Protaganist! What a Concept!

In animation, it's now all the rage.

In tackling a big screen adaptation of the literary classic "The Little Prince," director Mark Osborne decided one thing early on — the hero of his animated film would be female. ...

"Right now there seems to be a changing of the tide but these things don't happen overnight. These movies take years to make, so back when I was first pushing to make the little girl the main character it was seen as quite revolutionary." ...

Female-led films at this year's TIFF Kids Animation Film Festival include Australia/Germany's "Maya the Bee Movie" (for ages 3 to 7), France's "Mune" (for ages 8 to 13) and Japan's "When Marnie Was There" (for ages 10 to 13). ...

Let's not kid ourselves. The conglomerates aren't cranking out animated features with female protagonists because they've all of a sudden become gender sensitive. It mostly has to do with

1) Boffo box office.

2) Lots of games.

3) And action figures.

4) Also glittery costumes.

If girl-centric cartoons weren't making healthy profits for a lot of corporate divisions, they wouldn't be made. It's as simple as that. When Disney (and others) made features with women that under-performed, they moved on to other things. Now that they sky appears to be the limit, they embrace female characters wholeheartedly.

Stupid, they are not.

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Speaking of Females ...

There is this ...

Nicole Perlman, who co-wrote Marvel Studios' Guardians of the Galaxy, and Meg LeFauve, who co-wrote Pixar's upcoming Inside Out, are in negotiations write Captain Marvel, one of Marvel’s key projects as it is serving as the company’s first female-driven movie. ...

Marvel also made an effort to find female screenwriters to tackle the heroine. (Fun fact: When Marvel first had her own book in the 1970s, titled Ms. Marvel, the comic's tagline was "This female fights back!") ...

The woman super hero thing seems to be catching on.

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BASIC AGREEMENT Negotiations

Tomorrow negotiations begin for the IATSE's Basic Agreement.

And what the hey is the "Basic Agreement?" One of the oldest and largest contracts held by the IA. One of the largest collective bargaining agreements in the motion picture and television industry. It covers 35,000 motion picture employees and 23 production locals here on the west coast. There is one big "bargaining unit" attached to this big contract, and it contains the Editors Guild, Cinematographers Guild, Costume Designers, Hair and Makeup, Grips, Electricians and numerous other IATSE unions and guilds.

But it doesn't include the guild representing animators, tech directors, writers, animation storyboard artists, assistants and everyone else working under a Local 839 agreement. TAG is not part of the unit, and hasn't been since 1982. This is because two back-to-back strikes thirty-six and thirty-three years ago got the guild thrown out of the group, and we've been on our own, negotiation-wise, ever since. ...

TAG now sits down to bargain its contract after every IA production local wraps their local talks and the International comes to an agreement on "the Basic." The same will be true this year. Even so, a Guild rep will be at the Monday-to-Friday negotiations because we're directly impacted by the bargaining that takes place over the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan. (The International negotiates Pension and Health, not TAG.)

Three years ago, the big issue in talks was funding the health plan. As the L.A. Times related:

... Under the proposed deal reached late last night, IATSE members would receive a 2% annual wage increase over three years — in line with raises negotiated by other entertainment unions. Employers agreed to a 20% increase in their hourly contribution to the union's health plan.

"Our goals going into these negotiations have been met," IATSE President Matt Loeb said in a statement. "We were successful in maintaining the pensions of our retirees." ...

This cycle, wages, new media and "quality of life" issues take precedence over pension and health contract points. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (the AMPTP) will bring its own list of proposals to the table, and five days are scheduled for the two sides to sit down and hash out what a new Basic Agreement looks like. (Hint: The agreement will most likely look a lot like the WGA, DGA, and SAG-AFTRA contracts that preceded it. The IA deal is the last collective bargaining agreement to be hashed out this cycle.)

I would get my knuckles rapped and my fanny paddled if I gave away details of the talks before they're concluded, so don't expect any news leakage from Yours Truly on this blog any day next week. But when there is an announcement made, you'll be able to read about it here.

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Worldwide Box Office

The animation movies (and affiliates thereof) do well.

Foreign Weekend Box Office -- (World Totals)

Home -- $15,200,000 -- ($242,253,497)

Cinderella -- $12,600,000 -- ($436,773,726)

Spongebob Squarepants -- $3,200,000 -- ($303,605,040)

Of course, the biggest story of the box office weekend was how fast Furious 7 was closing in on a billion dollars worth of ticket sales.

Furious 7 [is] far and away the leader of the pack, adding $195M this frame at 22,000 theaters in 66 territories. That’s a slight 20.4% drop from its opening and brings the offshore cume to $548M through Sunday. The 11 days it took to pass $500M internationally is a record-setter for Universal. The worldwide cume is now $800.5M after 12 days. ...

DreamWorks Animation’s Home zoomed past the $100M international box office mark this frame, cuming $112.7M thus far. The Fox release added $15.2M from 8,363 screens in 67 markets. Among the key highlights, Brazil opened to $2.25M from 675 screens for a No. 2 slot behind F7. The UK has amassed $27.7M after four frames, adding $2.2M this weekend for a 38% drop. ...

Disney’s Cinderella swept up another $12.6M at the international box office this frame, taking the offshore total to $256M in 54 markets. Holds were strong with Australia notably dropping only 10% for a 2nd place finish behind Furious 7. China is still tops for the Kenneth Branagh-directed live action fairy tale, ending the run there at $69.8M. The UK ($22.2M), Italy ($15.9M), Mexico ($15.1M) and Australia ($11.8M) round out the Top 5. There is still Japan to come on April 25. ...

Pixar's Inside Out debuts June 15, while Illumination Entertainment's Minions hits international theater chains on July 10. DreamWorks Animation and Walt Disney Animation Studios will release no more animated features this year. Blue Sky Studios, owned by Fox, releases The Peanuts Movie November 6, while Pixar rolls out The Good Dinosaur, its second movie of the year, on November 25.

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High Flying Wages

The creative community might take pay cuts, but not the oligarchs who rule them.

... Entertainment executives continue to reap some of the biggest rewards when it comes to compensation.

The biggest pay day so far went to Discovery Communications Chief Executive David Zaslav, who received a $156.1-million compensation package in 2014 even though he manages one of the smaller media companies. That's a stratospheric level even by Wall Street standards. Consider that JPMorgan Chase & Co., the nation's largest bank, reported in January that CEO Jamie Dimon raked in a pay package of $20 million. ...

Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, said that sky-high executive compensation packages for media executives is just a symptom of a larger problem. Many of the companies have two classes of stock — voting and nonvoting shares — which reduces ordinary shareholders to bystanders with no influence.

"Investors in media companies really don't have a voice like they do in other companies," Elson said Friday. "That's why you see all of these high salaries in media. The whole thing is a toxic cocktail for investors." ...

Executive compensation experts long have attributed the outsized compensation in media to the "Judge Judy" effect. The TV judge, whose syndicated daytime show is distributed by CBS, is paid about $45 million a year. Company CEOs do not want to see their compensation dip below hers. ...

Judge Judy. Jeebus.

What's always hit me as a semi-interested bystander to CEO compensation inside Entertainmentland is how the generous wages persevere through good times and bad.

A company's stock goes up, the chief exec gets rewarded with a big bonus and/or stock option payout. The company stock goes down, the chief exec gets rewarded with a larger salary and/or more generous bonus. Years ago, when Disney's stock was declining, Michael Eisner and his lieutenant Robert Iger went to the Disney board asking for sizable bonuses ... and got them. (I know this because a Disney exec complained to me about it at the time.)

The "compensation tied to performance" thingie sounds good in theory, but in practice often doesn't mean very much. As the Times points out above.

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Your American Box Office

Home hangs in.

APRIL 10-12 BOX OFFICE

1).Furious 7 (UNI), 4,022 theaters (+18)/ $19.2M Fri. (-71%) / 3-day cume: $62.7M (-57%)/ Total Cume: $254.69M/ Wk 2

2). Home (FOX/DW), 3,703 theaters (-98) / $5.5M Fri. (-51%)/ 3-day cume: $19.7M (-27%) / Total cume: $130M / Wk 3

3). The Longest Ride (FOX), 3,366 theaters / $5.5M Fri. / 3-day cume: $13.8M / Wk 1

4). Get Hard (WB), 3,132 theaters (-80) / $2.4M Fri. (-50%)/ 3-day cume: $8.2M (-37%) / Total cume: $70.8M / Wk 3

5). Cinderella (DIS), 3,025 theaters (-379) / $2.2M Fri. (-44%) / 3-day cume: $7.9M (-22%) / Total cume: $181.4M / Wk 5

6). Insurgent (LG), 3,118 theaters (-324) / $2M Fri. (-48%) / 3-day cume: $6.8M (-32%) / Total cume: $114.4M / Wk 4

7). Woman in Gold (TWC), 1,504 theaters (+1,246) / $1.7M Fri. (+183%) / 3-day cume: $5.7M (+176%)/ Total cume: $9.1M/ Wk 2

8). It Follows (RAD), 1,633 theaters (-22) / $601K Fri. (-35%) / 3-day cume: $1.8M (-27%)/ Total cume: $11.6M / Wk 5

9). Danny Collins (BST), 739 theaters (+656) / $423K Fri. (+300%) / 3-day cume: $1.3M (+293%)/ Total cume: $2.2M / Wk 4

10). Kingsman: The Secret Service (FOX), 1,013 theaters (-314) / $358K Fri. (-44%) / 3-day cume: $1.2M (-31%) / Total cume: $124.4M / Wk 9

The DreamWorks feature is projected to have a mild 27% drop weekend to weekend, far better than the picture on top of the Big List:

It’s an odd thing to be discussing a 72.2% Friday-to-Friday drop as “good,” but such is the case with Furious 7. The smash sequel earned $18.8 million on its second Friday, down 71% from its whopping $67.4m Friday debut, which included $15.8m in Thursday previews. The film’s Friday-to-Friday drop was slightly higher than the 69% second Friday drop for Fast Five but slightly ahead of the 72.3% Friday drop for Fast & Furious 6 back in 2013. ...

The live-action Cinderella also has a mild drop (-22%) as it closes in on a $200 million domestic box office.

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Bob Walker Celebration

From Thomas Baker via Facebook:

... A memorial service [for Disney director Bob Walker] will be held on Monday, April 13th at Gordon Biersch, 145 S San Fernando Blvd., Burbank from 6:30-9:00 p.m. All are welcome to attend. ...

Cartoon Brew had a nice write-up for Mr. Walker a few days ago.

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Not Fluffy Bunny Rabbits

Animation isn't all about the cute.

They're Trying To Make The Goriest Video Game Ever

It all started with one completely anatomically accurate virtual person. And then they slashed the person to ribbons. ...

In the beginning, there was man, and then man got his skull caved in by a sledgehammer shotgun. That's kind of how things went for chaotic co-op monster-slaying FPS Killing Floor 2's gore and dismemberment system, though. Creative director William Munk told me that his studio spent a year of development time on making sure blood spurted just right, sinews snapped like meaty rubber bands, and fat didn't burst so much as it parted itself. ...

They wanted to make the most detailed, horror-movie-like gore system in video game history. They appear to have succeeded. But what drives people to try to make a game this spectacularly bloody? ...

"For the head, each Zed has its own head, and inside that is a skull mesh," explained character artist Andrew Quintiliani. "If you blow away the left half of the head, it'll take out the skull. You can see that the Zed is missing a solid half of its head. And then if you look at it, you'll see that there's an accurate sinus system, brain cavity, and brain matter. Then you can see part of the throat, and if you blow off the jaw you can see back into the esophagus."

"I tried to put a lot of detail into it. That's what makes it look really disgusting. A lot of games just have generic meat chunks. That's fine, we have a few of those too. But that's on top of accurate muscle and sinew and bone explosions." ...

What I know about gory video games is minimal. The resident video game expert in the house said:

This stuff looks pretty tame to me. You want REAL blood and gore, a nice super high body count, look at Mortal Kombat X" ...

What do I know? Killing Floor 2 looked wonderfully nauseating to me. Mortal Kombat X is, apparently, for the most discerning fans of violent death.

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ReDo News

One more Beauty and the Beast addition.

After portraying a wizard and a mutant in two lucrative franchises, Ian McKellen’s next role will be a piece of furniture. The British thesp is set to play Cogsworth in Disney’s live-action retelling of “Beauty and the Beast,” starring Emma Watson. ...

It's nice that actors are now getting work from the sweat equity of Disney Feature Animation. And I hope the Disney staff that have now departed the House of Mouse, hung on to at least some of their Disney stock.


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Foreigners in an Animated World

These days, everybody is jumping into cartoons. Like for instance this:

French pay TV giant Canal Plus is joining forces with American filmmaker James Gray to foray into “Hard Apple,” an adult-skewing animated series. ...

Inspired by New York-born author Jerome Charyn’s “Isaac Sidel” novels, the series opens in the 1970s and charts the rise of New York City’s premier law enforcer, detective Isaac Sidel, as he covers three decades of crime and political corruption. ...

Or this:

Technicolor is looking to grow its position in the feature animation world with the acquisition of VFX and animation production company Mikros Image. The company has entered into an agreement with Mediacontech, Mikros’ parent company, to acquire Mikros in a deal that's expected to close during this quarter. ...

“The acquisition of Mikros Image aligns with our strategic objective to grow in animation and advertising,” said Technicolor CEO Frederic Rose. “Their proven expertise in feature animation film and advertising will strengthen our offering.” ...

When I got into cartoons back during the Ulysses S. Grant administration, nobody was trying to "grow in animation." It was a dying art form, with Disney doing its one animated movie every four years, and other companies doing cheap tv show or theatrical features.

What a difference forty years make. Now you have to slice your way through anmated properties with a machete, there are so many of them. All it took was a string of animated hits on screens big and little, and everybody and his Aunt Betty started racing to produce animated features and sitcoms. Who would have thought?

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Richard vs. Goliath

Funny thing. I've known artists in similar situations.

Over 20 years after the comedy [What About Bob] came out, [Richard Dreyfuss] wants his accountants to take a look at the studio’s books to see what he could be owed – and he’s taking the House of Mouse to court over their refusal.

... Dreyfuss today sued Walt Disney Pictures for breach of contract and other claims over the defendants not letting the firm of Robinson & Company do an audit for him and the widow of Turner & Hooch producer Raymond Wagner, who also wants a look at Disney’s ledgers. ...

“Because Disney will not allow Richard Dreyfuss’ chosen auditor to audit, because of the delay caused, and because of Disney’s overall hostility towards audits, an accounting under Court supervision is warranted,” the 7-claim filing says. ...

“Motion picture and television companies detest having to pay net and gross profit participants and have consistently and historically withheld significant amounts of profits from participants,” bluntly notes the filing. “This is why profit participation auditors in the motion picture and television industries exist; these auditors oftentimes find monies due to profit participants.” ...

I knew an animation artist some years ago who pitched a live-action movie to a big, fat conglomerate. After long development, the conglomerate made the movie and reaped millions. It owed the artist a promised $100,000 "if the picture was produced," but then bacedk out of the commitment.

The artist, who was royally ticked off, took the studio to court. The studio stoutly resisted ... until the week before the trial date. It then paid the $100,000.

Greed is an ugly thing.

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Limited "Simpsons"

Regarding the Yellow Family, apparently the era of each season of their series getting its own boxed set of little silver disks is at an end.

The Simpsons showrunner Al Jean has revealed that seasons of the animated sitcom will no longer be released on DVD.

Responding to fan queries on Twitter, Jean explained that it was no longer viable to keep the DVDs going as the "market is dying", thanks, in part, to piracy. He did, however, explain that episode commentaries - for many, the primary reason to buy the boxsets in the first place - would still be recorded for FX.

In other Yellow Family news ...

The artistic staff at Film Roman (The Simpsons' studio) is on pins and needles.

We've been waiting for weeks and weeks to get a pick up. The voice actors still haven't reached a deal, and we're here wondering if there's going to be a long hiatus again. ...

There are a half dozen shows in the can for next season, but beyond that? Staffers are telling me that they're looking at twelve or sixteen weeks off. When I was up at the studio day before yesterday, there was a lot of anguish about it. Nobody knows when ... or if ... the voice actors who work on the show will come to an agreement with Fox.

The Simpson design and layout artists, the directors, storyboarders and production people have been through this before. A decade ago, the actors were hanging tough and most everyone with an artistic job went unemployed for weeks and weeks. Back then, many got jobs on Family Guy but were soon pushed overboard because Simpsons producer Richard Reynis wanted them available when Bart, Homer and the rest of the gang returned to production.

So now there's the threat of another long stoppage, and people are nervous. A designer said that Al Jean (longtime executive and consulting producer) is optimistic that new contracts with vocal talent will be finalized, but Matt Groening was reported to have said:

"If necessary, I'LL do the voices."

Even though the current standoff isn't in the news much, the crew is sweating a few bullets.

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Lights, Camera ... LIVE ACTION!

We're down to deep strip-mining now.

"Pinocchio"-inspired Live-Action Feature Being Developed at Disney

Yet another live-action version of a tried-and-true Disney fairy tale is wending its way to the big screen. Peter Hedges is penning a feature loosely based on the original Pinocchio story about a boy carved from wood who dreams of becoming a real child. The boy gets his wish but is prone to stretching the truth, and each time he does, his nose grows longer.

The story is really about the relationship between a father and son, the ramifications of lying and creating stories and living in a fantasy world. Pinocchio came from the mind of author Carlo Collodi, who wrote the 1883 novel The Adventures Of Pinocchio. ...

The underlying material is, of course, public domain. (Damn those pesky copyright laws!)

There have been live-action treatments to Collodi's novel developed over the years, some made and some not; many not taken beyond the script phase. (I did see a version twenty years back that starred Martin Landau as Geppetto. It didn't knock me out with its artistry, and ... if memory serves .. was not a box office champ.)

I'm waiting for Diz Co. to develop a live-action version of Bambi. That will be worth seeing, don't you think? I'm guessing that the studio will engage Animal Logic in Australia to do the CG deer.

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The Mouse

America's favorite rodent will soon star in another new teevee show. From a Diz press release via Deadline:

Now Mickey Mouse is set star in Mickey And The Roadster Racers, an animated/live-action series due to premiere on Disney Junior in 2017. Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Donald and Daisy will be joining him on the show, which will take the Sensational Six and their uniquely personalized vehicles on humorous high-spirited races around the globe plus hometown capers in Hot Dog Hills. ...

It is a good thing, keeping the corporate symbol fresh and vibrant.

On dark nights, when I'm given to thinking long, dark thoughts, I sometimes wonder what will happen when the Steamboat Willie Mickey becomes public domain. (It won't be too many years from now.)

And I wonder if Diz Co. and other fine, entertainment conglomerate will arm-twist Congress (yet again) to extend copyright protection. Yet again.

(Perhaps not, since the "corporate symbol" and "trademark" thingies have longer life spans. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.)

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Stan Freberg

Rest in peace.

Stan Freberg, who skewered pop culture and McCarthyism with satirical records and did cartoon voices for nearly six decades, died today of natural causes in Santa Monica. He was 88. His son Donavan confirmed the news to Deadline. ...

Born on August 7, 1926, in Pasadena, Freberg would amass dozens of movie and TV credits including Lady And The Tramp (1955) and It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). He also was a regular on the 1958 summer replacement series The Chevy Show and did an arc on Roseanne in 1996. Freberg also did voice work for such series as The Ren & Stimpy Show, Garfield & Friends, The Weird Al Show and narrated the 1985 series Wuzzles. In the early 1960s, he launched a successful career in advertising, winning more than 20 Clio Awards for his TV spots and earning the Los Angeles Area Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2006. ...

Freberg also voiced the central character in the Ward-Kimball-directed-but-never-released It's a Dog's Life. His Capitol record albums are classics, and I used to wear out the record grooves playing a lot of them.

Writer Mark Evanier today noted:

... He was gifted with an amazing imagination and the performing gifts necessary to transfer that imagination into something that others could see and hear. He was a wonderful singer, a superb mimic and a terrific actor. And take note of this: Of all the actors who'd been doing voices for animation in recent years, Stan was the guy who'd been at it the longest. He recorded his first cartoon voice roles in 1945 for release in 1946. As far as I know, his last job was in an episode of The Garfield Show I voice-directed last year. It's currently scheduled to run on Cartoon Network this October, giving Stan a career span of 69 years. ...

An iconic talent has departed.

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Disney Animated Record-Breaker

Like they don't have enough of them.

Last week’s premiere of the original animated series “Star vs. the Forces of Evil” has become the most-watched animated series debut in Disney XD’s 15-year history.

Monday’s 8 p.m. premiere of “Star vs. the Forces of Evil” averaged 1.2 million viewers within the first three days of its premiere telecast, according to Nielsen Live+3 estimates. “Star vs. the Forces of Evil” joins October’s launch of “Star Wars Rebels” (1.1 million) as Disney XD’s top two animated series launches on record in total viewers.

Among all series on the network, it ranks second to date behind only the live-action original series “Lab Rats” in February 2012. It’s also Disney XD’s No. 2-rated animated series debut in kids 2-11 (582,000) and kids 6-11 (435,000) and the No. 3-rated animated series premiere in boys 6-11 (233,000).

Star Vis the Forces of Evil began life (and early development) as a script-driven show. However, in the process of becoming, it morphed into a board-driven series, which is it where it is today.

There have been personnel changes as Star has run along the track, but we congratulate all hands for the show's success.

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Progress

Slow, but steady.

And what the hell am I talking about? Why, the rising numbers of women now at work in the Los Angeles animation business. (At least, the unionized sections of same.)

Last week an L.A. Times reporter called me to ask how many women were today working in animation. I said that the best information I had was from 2012, when the overall percentage of females to males was 17%/83%. ...

(The seventeen percent figure comes from older TAG hiring records.)

She was a little impatient with the stale data, and wanted to know what the current figures were. I explained that I couldn't instantly come up with newer ones because

1) I was as technologically savvy as a greased pig on ice, and

2) The technologically skilled person capable of producing the data was out on vacation until Monday.

And there the conversation ended. But the reporter's questions got me digging around old blog posts on the subject, if only to see what the older data looked like. I soon found out that in 2007 the overall percentage of women-to-men was similar to 2012, with a more specific breakdown as follows:

Employment Percentages (2007)

Directors and producers: 13.9% women (median age 45)

Writers: 10.3% women (median age 42)

Storyboard: 14.1% women (median age 40)

Development Artists (pre-production): 17.0% women (median age 42)

2-D Artists: (animation and b.g.): 35% women (median age 42)

Tech Directors: 16% women (median age 37)

Checkers: 51.5% women* (median age 46)

The reporter told me that in 2015, 70% of the Cal Arts animation department trends female. (This was news to me; when I called Cal Arts on the subject in '12, the male to female ratio was 50%/50%.)

So. What is the level of employment for women in 2015?

Out of a total of 3190 artists, writers, and technicians employed under a TAG contract, 658 are female, while 2,532 are male. This breaks down to

20.63% -- female employment

79.37% -- male employment

Which means that more women are employed in the cartoon business than at any time since ink-and-paint departments (always predominantly female) packed up and went overseas. And with the numbers of women now training in animation departments at universities, colleges and art schools, this rising tide looks as though it will keep moving up for some time to come.


* Checking has historically been a female-dominated sector in animation.
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