Making a Hybrid Animated Cartoon

Bill Murray tells of target="_blank" his experience.

Someone asked "will there be a Garfield 3?"

I don't think so. I had a hilarious experience with Garfield. I only read a few pages of it, and I kind of wanted to do a cartoon movie, because I had looked at the screenplay and it said "Joel Cohen" on it.
And I wasn't thinking clearly, but it was spelled Cohen, not Coen.

I love the Coen brothers movies. I think that Joel Coen is a wonderful comedic mind.

So I didn't really bother to finish the script, I thought "he's great, I'll do it." So then it was months before i got around to actually doing it, and I remember i had to go to a screening room in somewhere, and watch the movie and start working. And because they had had trouble contacting me, they asked my friend Bobby to help corral the whole situation together. So Bobby was there, and you know when you're looping a movie you're rerecording to a picture?
So this was an odd movie because the live footage had been shot, but the cat was still this gray blob onscreen. So I start working with this script and I'm supposed to start re-recording and thinking "I can do a funnier line than that" so I would start changing the dialogue that was written for the cat. Which kind of works, it sort of generally works, but then you realize the cat's over here in a corner sitting on a counter, and I'm trying to think how I can make it make sense. So the other characters are already speaking these lines, and so I'm going "did he really say THAT?" and you're kind of in this endgame of "how do I chess piece myself out of this one?"

So I worked like that with this gray blob and these lines that were already written, trying to unpaint myself out of a corner. I think I worked 6 or 7 hours for one reel? No, 8 hours. And that was for 10 minutes. And we managed to change and affect a great deal. ...

Mr. Murray continues:

The next day I came into work and the producer gave me a set of golf clubs, and I thought "that was kind of extreme, especially since I can't go play." And the second reel was even HARDER because the complications of the first ten minutes were triangulated. It was really hard to write my way out of that one. And there were all these people on the other side of the recording studio, and at the end of the reel I was SOAKED In perspiration. I had drunk as much coffee as any columbian ever drank, and I said "you better just show me the rest of the movie." And they showed me the rest of the movie, and there was just this long, 2 minute silence.

And I probably cursed a little, and I said "I can fix this, but I can't fix this today. Or this week. Who wrote this stuff?"

And it appeared that one of the people behind the screen was the misspelled Joel Cohen. And I said "how could you have THAT scene take place before this scene? This can't possibly happen? Who edited this thing?"

And another person behind the glass was the editor of the film. He quit the film that week to go work on another job, so that began a long process of working on the film. I worked the rest of the week on it, and I said "Bobby it is still nowhere near done. But I can't fix it all, we have to try to do this again."

It was sort of like Fantastic Mr Fox without the joy or the fun. We did it twice in California, and once in Italy when I was working on The Life Aquatic, we were working on an INSANE place in Italy, with a woman who was a voice from above interrupting everything, I cursed again, and she left to take another job, and that was just the first once.

And we managed to fix it, sort of. It was a big financial success. And I said "just promise me, you'll never do that again." That you'll never shoot the footage without telling me.

And they proceeded to do it again. And the next time, they had been shooting for 5 weeks. And I cursed again. I said "I just asked for one little thing, letting me know." and that one was EVEN HARDER. The second one was beyond rescue, there were too many crazy people involved with it. And I thought I fixed the movie, but the insane director who had formerly done some Spongebob, he would leave me and say "I gotta go, I have a meeting" and he was going to the studio where someone was telling him what it should be, countermanding what I was doing.

They made a movie after that second miscarriage, that went directly to video. So they sort of shot themselves in the foot, the kidneys, the liver and the pancreas on the second one. If you had a finer mind working on them? The girl, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, she was sweet. In the second movie they dressed her like a homeless person. You knew it wasn't gonna go well. ...

What's charming about reading this is, Bill Murray describes precisely how the process unfolds (unravels?), and doesn't beat around the bush with political niceties.

And yeah, there are always ups and downs when making animated movies. Good things get put in and good things get taken out. And sometimes bad decisions get made, and there is nothing you can do about it.

The whole Reddit back-and-forth (linked high above) is worth reading. Particulalry if you're a Bill Murray fan. Click here to read entire post

Bye bye, Sprocket Holes

You could see this coming.

Paramount Pictures has become the first major studio to stop releasing movies on film in the United States.
Paramount recently notified theater owners that the Will Ferrell comedy “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,” which opened in December, would be the last movie that would it would release on 35-millimeter film.

The studio’s Oscar-nominated film “The Wolf of Wall Street” from director Martin Scorsese is the first major studio film that was released all digitally, according to theater industry executives...

Technological change (and the digital revolution) keeps upending various carts, and movie film is the latest.

Celluloid was the medium by which screened entertainment was born. From nickelodeons to picture palaces in the '20s to talkies to Technicolor to Cinerama/Cinemascope/Technirama 70, it was all movie film sliding past lenses and shutters at 16 or 18 or 24 frames per second.

There was a hundred and twenty years of film history and more than a dollop of romance, but now it's going away.

Because the only constant in the universe is change.

Click here to read entire post

The 2014 Holiday Party Slideshow

For a few years now, TAG member Enrique May has acted as the unofficial photographer of the Guild's holiday celebration event. He brings his camera and records fun and memorable moments as he walks through the crowd, then spends the better part of a few days color correcting and adjusting his images to share with us.

So, we want to share them with you. We extend our thanks to Enrique for his efforts and hope everyone had as good a time as it appears in his pictures.

Click here to read entire post

Sound Awards

Everybody was on pins and needles about this. because we can never have enough awards.

The Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) today announces nominees for the 61st MPSE Golden Reel Awards in feature film categories. Nominees represent the work of the world’s most talented film editors and their contributions to the best films of the past year. Nominations for television, animation and computer entertainment categories will be announced on Friday, January 17th.

Best Sound Editing in an Animated Feature (English or Foreign Language) (Includes ADR, Dialogue, Sound Effects and Foley)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

The Croods

Despicable Me 2

Epic

Ernest & Celestine

Frozen

Monsters University

Planes

Editing in general is seldom thought about in animation, but it takes a level skill to put reels and sound effects together. It's true that editors don't have to deal with lots of coverage and takes, but they work closely with directors and board artists to pull continuity together. And of course sound editing is similar no matter what the format. Click here to read entire post

San Antone

I've been in San Antonio for the past week, attending the IATSE's Winter Executive Board Meeting ...

The International (our mother union) has had a pretty good string of successes the past couple of years, organizing different corners of its jurisdiction: It's expanded its reach into trade shows and sports broadcasts, and gained new contracts with reality shows, low-budget features, and commercial work. (Currently, the IA has sopped up most of the trained workforce working in ever-expanding reality programming, making it hard for non-union producers to staff newer shows.)

That's a sampling of the good, on-the-ground, working person news. The political challenges in 2014 were laid out today in a long afternoon session conducted by two AFL-CIO political strategists who described the hurdles between now and election day:

1) A large segment of the voting population dislike the Affordable Care Act.

2) A large segment of the voting population distrust President Obama.

3) A huge segment of the voting public hates Congress (Democrats are slightly ahead of Republicans, but nobody is liked.)

4) Too many people are still un ... or under-employed.

But it's not all gloom and pouring rain. On labor's side, there are happier demographic realities: A growing number of Asians, Latinos, and blacks now Democratic, a trend that has been in place for three election cycles. Also, too, Asians, Latino and blacks are becoming a larger and larger percentage of the United States' population.

There might be billionaires' money arrayed against progressive politicians, but there is also the hard reality of this:



And this:

... After rising in the Roaring Twenties, the income share of the one per cent fell sharply in the postwar period. Since the late nineteen-seventies, it has been climbing again, albeit in a somewhat zig-zag fashion. The top earners’ share of overall pre-tax income peaked at about twenty-four per cent in 2007, fell back during the Great Recession, and then recovered strongly. In 2012, it was about twenty-three per cent. ...

How have the folks outside the one per cent been faring? ... Once again, the long-term trends are clear. Between the start of the Second World War and the first oil-price shock of 1973, families in the bottom ninety-nine per cent saw their incomes rise sharply. With the exception of the late nineteen-nineties, the past forty years have been marked by slow growth. ...

When voters' noses are pushed up against the fact that a small sliver of the population has a large chunk of the bucks, they become open to the idea that maybe some adjustments should be made. The AFL-CIO guys made the point that Republicans are onto the inequality thing, but thus far their stated solution is to give the top income brackets more money.

So, the trick eleven months hence will be to

A) Get union members to the polls (historically, unionists punch high above their demographic weight.)

B) Get the message of income inequality out, along with proposals for a higher minimum wage, unemployment insurance, etc., etc.

C) Get the troops on the ground to spread the message of B) prior to election day.

There were other bullet points, but those were the major ones. It was emphasized that the stakes (as always) are high, because the modern Republican Party is keen to gut what remains of the labor movement (12% of the work force) and use it as a throw rug.
Click here to read entire post

A Foreign View of Corporate Welfare

The Economist weighs in.

Best State In A Supporting Role

THE luminaries of the film world flocked to Los Angeles this week to celebrate the 71st Golden Globe awards and quiver before the unveiling of the Oscar nominations. But more often they travel the other way. Thanks to generous incentive schemes offered by other states and countries, America’s movie capital has lost its lustre: only two live-action movies with budgets over $100m were filmed in Los Angeles last year. Half as many feature films were produced in the city last year as in 1996, according to Film LA, a private non-profit organisation. Television drama is 39% below its 2008 peak.

In America the craze for this peculiar type of corporate welfare began in 2002, when New Mexico set up a juicy programme of tax credits and interest-free loans. By 2007 30 films were being shot in the Land of Enchantment and other states wanted in; by 2009 only a handful did not offer producers some kind of bribe. It was New Mexico’s tax credits, not its vast desert skies, that lured the TV hit “Breaking Bad” away from California. ...

My position on this kind of crap? I hate it. Just like I hate tax-payers underwriting sports stadiums and oil companies and other schemes that benefit a Chosen Few sitting atop the economic pyramid.

But let us face it: These schemes will go on, and some of the trickle down will help working stiffs, and only slowly, bit-by-bit, will voters wake up. But hey. We live in a corporatist state, so what the hell can we expect? Click here to read entire post

The Irish Trade Association

The Irish gird their loins in the international movie production marketplace.

The VFX association of Ireland has been formed with the objective of promoting Ireland nationally and internationally as a centre for excellence, talent and scale in the area of VFX.
The association was founded was Ireland’s four biggest VFX suppliers, namely Windmill Lane, Screen Scene, Egg Post Production and Piranha Bar.

VFXAI will play a key role in the exhibition and representation of the infrastructure and talent available in the Irish VFX industry. It will interface with training agencies and 3rd level institutions to maintain a consistent flow of industry ready talent. ...

Now all they need are some REALLY BIG government subsidies to attract all the poor, struggling international conglomerates, and they're all set.

Free enterpirse, fuck yeah! Click here to read entire post

The Nominees

Since I've been in meetings all day I'm late to the party, nevertheless:

The Oscar nominees for animated feature this year reflect shifts in an art form that has become an increasingly crucial part of the movie business.

There is the return of an industry giant, Walt Disney Animation Studios, which saw its blockbuster musical "Frozen" collect nominations both for animated feature and original song; the validation of a younger studio player, Los Angeles and Paris-based Illumination Entertainment, which secured its first Oscar nominations for "Despicable Me 2" and that movie's original song, "Happy"; the omission of a category stalwart, Pixar Animation, which was passed over for its prequel "Monsters University"; and the end of an august career, that of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, who was nominated for what he has said will be his final film, "The Wind Rises."

"The Croods," the DreamWorks Animation caveman comedy, and "Ernest & Celestine," the hand-drawn French-Belgian adaptation from independent distributor GKIDS, rounded out the category. ...

Since I've got no clue which of the above will win, I'll limit myself to one prediction: Frozen will pick up at least one Oscar, either for song or best animated feature.

As for the rest, may the best .... or most politically connected .... feature win. I'm so old I remember when nobody cared whether an animated feature got ANY nominations. Animation was a sleepy, irrelevant backwater that Hollywood ignored.

Oh yeah. Here's a list of all the nominees.
Click here to read entire post

And the Viz Effx Goes To ...

This award is basically a foregone conclusion this year, yes?

The Visual Effects Oscar longlist announced in December has been whittled down to a shortlist of four nominations – not that this list matters as we all know Gravity has got the gong sewn up. Alongside Alfonso Cuaron’s space masterpiece are Iron Man 3, Star Trek: Into Darkness (perhaps surprisingly), The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug and The Lone Ranger.

Elysium, Oblivion, Pacific Rim, and Thor: The Dark World are the films that didn’t make the cut. ...

The first time I was even aware that there was a visual effects Oscar was the year The Guns of Navarone won it.

The Guns of Freaking Navarone.

The clip from the film that got the picture a Little Gold Man was a clay-model mountain blowing up, then a couple of toy cannons falling out of the mountain into water. That's what it took to win the award in 1962. That obviously wouldn't cut it today, but fifty-two years ago? Gang-busters. Plus TGON was a blockbuster World War II picture, which didn't hurt.

The only thing that surprises me about Gravity is that it wasn't a nominee in the Animated Feature category. But I guess you have to be 100% pure.

Or something. Click here to read entire post

The Return of Ralph

Not Kramden, but Bakshi. Who appears to be back in the game.

... There hasn’t been much recent news from [Ralph] Bakshi, ... but with “Last Days of Coney Island” he’s making a return to filmmaking, and to subjects that have marked his career since the beginning: crime, corruption, and the grime-ridden streets of New York. ...

The decline of Coney Island was a local tragedy, but it wasn’t just the beach that was in trouble. As Bakshi tells it, the fate of the neighborhood was a metaphor for everything happening in America, including the assassinations of Kennedy and King. “Coney Island was a place where poor people could go and not feel poor,” he said. “You wouldn’t run into any Rolls Royces, and you didn’t feel that there was anything that you could not afford to do. But it ended up trashed, and I felt that America was headed the same way.

Bakshi describes “Last Days” as a period piece, but he’s not shy about making contemporary analogies. Coney Island is looking a lot better now, even after Hurricane Sandy, but gentrification may be as foreign to its spirit as mob rule. “If they build it into some sort of big, fancy place, then it’s not Coney Island,” he said. “They could call it Coney Island, and I guess that’s fine for the rich people, but that’s not the Coney Island that was so important to millions of people who were struggling to give their families a good time.” ...

The last time I laid eyes on Ralph Bakshi, he was not in a good mood. The Animation Guild had filed a grievance against Paramount because a young production assistant on Cool World had dumped twenty ounces of paint over the head of the supervisor for color models. The paint dumping had motivated the supervisor to file a police charge against the assistant, which made Ralph unhappy because he was fond of the production assistant. (The kid had supplied music scratch tracks for CW, and Ralph liked them a lot.)

The kid was let go, but the supervisor was also fired. The Guild, suspecting a revenge motive, grieved the production to get the supe her job back. Ultimately we lost the grievance because we could not prove that she'd been let go due to payback for the complaint to the Burbank P.D.

You win some, you lose some.

But all those unpleasant things happened twenty years ago. Ralph now lives in New Mexico, painting and living the good life, and I'm at the same old taco stand, still filing the occasional grievance. (For some people, time stands still.)

Happily, Mr. Bakshi has made a return to Cartoonland. Here's hoping The Last Days of Coney Island makes a splash. Click here to read entire post

Projects and Release Dates

Universal/Illumination Entertainment reveals them.

About UNTITLED ILLUMINATION ENTERTAINMENT 2016 PROJECT 2
This original animated comedy event about courage, competition and carrying a tune will be written and directed by Garth Jennings (Son of Rambow, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). The film will be produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy.

About DESPICABLE ME 3
The team who brought you DESPICABLE ME and the biggest animated hit of 2013, DESPICABLE ME 2, returns to continue the adventures of Gru, Lucy, their adorable daughters—Margo, Edith and Agnes—and the Minions. Get happy on June 30, 2017.

About DR. SEUSS’ HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS
A newly imagined version of the enduring holiday classic will be directed by Pete Candeland and adapted from Dr. Seuss’ book by Michael LeSieur. The film will be produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy and executive produced by Audrey Geisel.

So IE is going for a nice mix here.

The expected sequel (with close to a billion dollars in box office receipts, there's no way another Despicable wouldn't get made ... by whatever company produced it.) ...

The reimagined chestnut from Theodore Geisel (It's already been done as an animated featurette (Jones) and a live-action feature (Ron Howard/Carrey.) ...

And something new and potentially different. (A zazzy musical from a live-action director. And Frozen has certainly shown that animated musicals can be blockbusters ... once again.) Click here to read entire post

No Change

And really not much of a surprise.

The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University has released its annual “Celluloid Ceiling” report on employment numbers for the top-grossing 250 films, and the numbers aren’t great. Women made up 16 percent of the nearly 3,000 employees surveyed, which is down 2 percent from last year—and what's more, down 1 percent from the numbers in 1998. Essentially, it means there's been no discernable progress in increasing the numbers of women working in film over the past 16 years.

The findings line up with recent data from the Director’s Guild about the number of female television directors, and also include tracking for below-the-line and visual effects jobs. According to the report, the largest represented groups of women working in film are producers (25 percent), editors (17 percent), and production designers (23 percent), but they make up only 6 percent of directors, 4 percent of sound designers, and 3 percent of cinematographers. ...

Well, there are a lot more women who are producers, anyway. Also more women working as production designers.

But TAG's stats are pretty much in line with much of the biz: 17 percent of unionized animation work is female. And it's pretty much the same year in and year out. Click here to read entire post

The Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan

If you're a participant in the MPIPHP, I found out some reassuring information today ...

There was a report on the Plan delivered by labor trustees at the IATSE Winter Executive Board Meeting in San Antonio. The news:

* There is $7.5 billion in the Pension and Health Plans, and assets match liabilities so that the MPIPHP is in the "Green Zone" and not running a large deficit.

* Cash inflows have been above 2012's estimates.

* Hourly contributions have remained steady over the last several years, running at 75-78 million hours per year.

* The Active Health Plan has an 18-month cash reserve; the Retiree Health Plan has a 9-month reserve. ...

What all this means is that the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan, started in the 1950s, remains viable and robust in its seventh decade. I get asked from time to time if I think the Plan will still be around forty or fifty years hence, and I always say "The benefits will be there."

That's because A) the Plan is well-managed, B) there are federal backstops for non-government pensions, and I'm not a big believer in everything going to hell in a handcart. The big change in recent years is that, though the contribution hours haven't declined, more of those hours come from low-budget features, reality shows and commercials (also cartoons).

... The overall production picture in the Los Angeles area remains grim — despite double-digit percentage increases in both movie and TV drama shoots in 2013, a study released Tuesday by Film L.A. reveals.

On-location feature film shoots rose 19 percent from 2012 but are still 50 percent below their 1996 peak. And scripted TV drama shoots, next to movies the most economically beneficial for the region, were 39 percent below their 2008 peak despite rising by 16 percent over 2012. ...

But there's one more bit of good news regarding the MPIPHP: The Plan now has, after a year's search, a new CEO in place.

Click here to read entire post

Award Season: VFX Nominations

The Visual Effects Society doles out its award candidates.

“Gravity” led all films in nominations for the 12th annual VES Awards, according to a Tuesday morning announcement by the Visual Effects Society that should surprise no one.

Alfonso Cuaron’s groundbreaking space thriller picked up eight nominations for its visual effects in eight live-action feature-film categories. “Pacific Rim” received six, while “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” and Iron Man 3” received five each.

“Frozen,” “The Croods” and “Epic” led all animated features with four nominations each, while HBO’s “Game of Thrones” topped the TV nominations with four. ...

VES members in eight cities voted for Ryan, the “Gravity” character played by Sandra Bullock (apparently with the help of four VFX artists) [as the Outstanding Animated Character in a Live-Action Film.]

The above is why I keep referring to Gravity as an animated feature. Sure, you've got a smidge of Clooney and Bullock in it, but what the picture mostly is, is an animated movie. Click here to read entire post

Corporatism Now, Corporatism FOREVER

The D.C. Court has spoken.

Any semblance of net neutrality in the United States is as good as dead.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s 2010 order that imposed network neutrality regulations on wireline broadband services. The ruling is a major victory for telecom and cable companies who have fought all net neutrality restrictions vociferously for years.

The original FCC order said that wireline ISPs ”shall not block lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management” while also mandating that ISPs “shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful traffic over a consumer’s broadband Internet access service.”

In its ruling against the FCC’s rules, the court said that such restrictions are not needed in part because consumers have a choice in which ISP they use. ...

Sure. Abso-freaking-lutely. You can choose any provider you want as long as it's owned by Comcast.

As I enter my Seasoned Citizen years, I no longer stand with mouth agape as large corporations turn the country back into 1890s America. The mantra of "The government is evil! Private enterprise is good!" rings in our ears, and so what if "private enterprise" in the 21st century means that a few monster conglomerates control everything, including the Feds and state governments? (You might remember 2008, when some large banks, which market forces were on the verge of downsizing/liquidating, had the evil government come to their rescue.)

So now we have some big utilities ready to cash in, the appeals court has gotten the pesky FCC out of the way. And if "the market" starts to dismantle their big competitive edge? No worries. They'll find a way to have the evil government make sure they stay on top.
Click here to read entire post

Jill Petrilak Opening at Gallery 839

Friday night was the opening of the January art show at Gallery 839. By all accounts, it was one of the most successful openings of record. Estimates of over one-hundred people showed to the opening and quite a few pieces were sold.

Executive Board member Bronwen "Bronnie" Barry was one of the attendees and captured the images above and in the slideshow after the break. We hope the rest of the year sees as much success for the artists showing at the Gallery.

Click here to read entire post

The Media (Sometimes) Drives Me Nuts

From today's Wall Street Journal:

[Frozen's performance highlights the emergence of family animation as one of Hollywood’s hottest performing niches: eight such films were released by major studios in 2013 and all but two grossed more than $100 million, the story notes. “Frozen” also took home a Golden Globe award. ...

This is supposed to be a big Flash!??

Close to two years ago, the Animation Guild's negotiating committee pointed out to the AMPTP that animation was the movie sector with the highest profit margins, beating all other segments of movie-making. And the big profits were going on years before that.

But when a newspaper of fact and opinion needs a storyline, it's always great to drag out the "Hey look! Crtoons are making money!" plotline. Why in God's nightgown is animation always emerging? It "emerged" twenty-plus years ago. By now it should be wrinkling in the sun.

Add On: And this high profit thingie is a worldwide phenomenon, as the Reporter points out:

Japan Box Office 2013: Animation Reigns Supreme, Hollywood Falters

Seven of the top ten hits of the year are animated, while Hollywood fare struggles to make an impact in a market it dominated a decade ago.

TOKYO – The Japanese box office was dominated by animation in 2013, with cartoons accounting for seven of the ten top-earning films. And even the third-biggest hit of the year Ted, the best performing live-action film, featured a CGI teddy bear.

A lack of the big local and Hollywood live-action franchises that have won over audiences in recent years, such as Umizaru, Bayside Shakedown, Harry Potter or Resident Evil, let the cartoons reign supreme in 2013, and left Hollywood struggling for market share. ...

Click here to read entire post

... And Sometimes Just Irritates Me

Fortune gets the broad brush strokes right ...

... Then came Frozen, based loosely on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, an idea that had kicked around Disney since the 1940s. Lasseter, whose first job was at Disney Animation, remembered a series of paintings of a frozen world and dug them out of storage when he came back. "I never forgot those paintings," he says. "They were so incredibly beautiful." Lasseter showed them to Chris Buck, the director of Tarzan, who had left Disney in the dark years, and helped convince him to come back. ...

And then the picture was developed as a follow-up princess movie to The Princess and the Frog, and then it got shelved by the main lot when TPATF under-performed (and hand-drawn features became toxic). Then it got revived, and now it's breaking records. (And selling lots of toys.)

The thing I know about history is, we mainly get the winners' version of how everything happened. That becomes the embossed and validated recitation of events. Except many times, it's not completely accurate. Frozen wasn't this unbroken march from development to release. John Lasseter always liked it, but Chris Buck had barely got the story up on reels when the Top Dogs across Riverside Drive put the project in a closet and locked it away.
Click here to read entire post

First Trophy of the Season

Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee's Frozen won a shiny statue for Best Animated Film at the 71st edition of the Golden Globe Awards held in Beverly Hills tonight. ...

Personally, I don't get the Globes at all. Stringers for foreign press associations hold wide sway over the festivities, and back in the old days the awards were considered as jokes. In fact, back in the real old days, it was a bore:

... The statues were given out exclusively by journalists (zzzzzzzzzzzzz) until 1958. Then, in a moment of drunken history, the core of the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr.) stormed the stage and hijacked the show to the delight of the (let's be fair, equally soused) audience. The trio was invited back the next year and got this whole swingin' shindig started, man. Ain't that a kick in the head?

And since the uplifting of the show by Saint Frank and his disciples, the Globes are more zesty and relevant(?) Now all the A-listers show up, people love the dazzle and the razzle, and everybody's thrilled to win a small, gold-plated planet earth. And the things have become predictors of bigger awards down the pike.

So congratulations to Mr. Buck, Ms. Lee, Mr. Lasseter, and Diz Co. Click here to read entire post

Animation's World Grosses

Rentrak lays out how cartoons (and their cousins) are performing.

Foreign Weekend Box Office -- (World Gross)

Frozen -- $27,800,000 -- ($712,261,000)

Hobbit 2 -- $22,200,000 -- ($808,219,435)

Despicable Me 2 -- $13,500,000 -- ($935,144,155)

Walking With Dinosaurs -- $6,300,000 -- ($98,209,027)

Tarzan 3D -- $4,100,000 -- ($9,600,000)

Frozen has crossed the $700 million mark globally with $394.6 million generated in the international arena and is now the 4th highest grossing non-sequel animated film of all time. II doubt Diz Co. will be carving the Hat Building into condos. Despite the stunning views of the 134 reeway and Forest Lawn.)

Tarzan 3d, which is a motion-capture feature (and we all know how underwhelming pure Mo Cap has been in the world marketplace), doesn't look to crush at the box office, but we'll see.
Click here to read entire post

Domestic Box Office

The Saturday Stats:

1) Lone Survivor, (UNI) 2,876 theaters (+2,873) / $14.4M Friday / Estimated 3-day Cume: $37.4M to $37.7M / Wk 3

2) Frozen, (DIS) 3,329 theaters (-79) / $3.14M Fri./ Cume: $15M to $17M (-20%) / Wk 8

3) The Wolf of Wall Street, (PAR) 2,521 theaters (-36) / $2.7M Friday / Cume: $9M (-32%) / Wk 3

4/5/6) American Hustle, (SONY) 2,629 theaters (+111) / $2.5M Friday / Cume: $8.4M (-33%) / Wk 5

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, (WB) 3,075 theaters (-655) / $2M Friday / Cume: $7.9M (50%) / Wk 5

The Legend of Hercules, (LGF/SUMMIT) 2,104 theaters / $3M Friday / Cume: $8M / Wk 1

7) August: Osage County, (TWC) 905 theaters (+900) / $2.2M Friday / Cume: $7.5M / Wk 3

8) Saving Mr. Banks, (DIS) 2,671 theaters (+561) / $1.9M Friday / Cume: $6.2M (-28%) / Wk 5

9) Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, (PAR) 2,883 theaters (+16) / $2.1M Friday / Cume: $6M to $6.5M (-67%)/ Wk 2

10) Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, (PAR) 3,012 theaters (-395) / $1.8M Friday / Cume: $5.8M (-44%) / Wk 4

Frozen, though dropping back to #2, has the lowest percentage drop of any feature in the top Ten. To date it's accumulated a domestic gross of $305,702,000.

Add On: The totals from Monday ...

1). Lone Survivor, (UNI) 2,876 theaters (+2,873) / 3-day Cume: $37.8M/ Per screen average: $13,165 / Total Cume: $38.2M / Wk 3

2) Frozen, (DIS) 3,329 theaters (-79) / 3-day Cume: $14.7M (-25%) / Per screen: $4, 547 / Total Cume: $317.3M / Wk 8

3). The Legend Of Hercules, (LGF/SUMMIT) 2,104 theaters / 3-day Cume: $8.86M / Per screen: $4,215 / Wk 1

4). The Wolf Of Wall Street, (PAR) 2,521 theaters (-36) / 3-day Cume: $8.83 (-33%) / Per screen: $3,506 / Total Cume: $78.4M / Wk 3

5). American Hustle, (SONY) 2,629 theaters (+111) / 3-day Cume: $8.3M / Per screen: $3,158 / Total Cume: $101.2M / Wk 5

6). The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, (WB) 3,075 theaters (-655) / $3-day Cume: $8M (-49%) / Per screen: $2,609 / Total Cume: $242.2M / Wk 5

7). August: Osage County, (TWC) 905 theaters (+900) / 3-day Cume: $7.1M / Per screen: $7,910 / Total Cume: $7.7M / Wk 3

8). Saving Mr. Banks, (DIS) 2,671 theaters (+561) / 3-day Cume: $6.5M (-25%) / Per screen: $2,455 / Total Cume: 68.9M / Wk 5

9). Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, (PAR) 2,883 theaters (+16) / 3-day Cume: $6.3M (-65%)/ Per screen: $2,180 / Total Cume: $28.4 (-66%) / Wk 2

10). Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, (PAR) 3,012 theaters (-395) / 3-day Cume: $5.8M (-45%) / Per screen: $2,102 / Total Cume: 118.2M / Wk 4

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Internet TV, the Future Of

You might have noticed that content is getting distributed in a lot of different ways on a lot of different platforms. Some of our fine, entertainment conglomerates aren't pleased with some of the pipelines.

... Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon and devices like Apple TV, Roku, and Google Chromecast all make it easy to watch Internet TV. Many of the major Over The Air networks — ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS — however don't make it easy to watch all their shows on the Internet. Many people want to cut the cable or satellite cord, but find it hard to watch the major broadcast networks even with an OTA antenna. Aereo makes it easy for users to watch their local OTA TV over the internet. ...

TV networks hate this idea. Rather than allow their shows to be streamed to users, Major broadcasters and media companies such as News Corp., Walt Disney, Comcast, CBS, NBC and Univision have all sued Aereo. Fox even threatened to take its stations off the air entirely and turn the "Fox broadcast network to a pay channel." These companies are afraid they'll lose all control of how their content is distributed and that in turn will ruin their local TV stations and destroy the value of their cable and satellite TV deals." ...

SCOTUS has taken up the issue of "Whether a company 'publicly performs' a copyrighted television program when it retransmits a broadcast of that program to thousands of paid subscribers over the Internet." This is "a major dispute on the right of the television industry to stop the Internet streaming of its copyrighted programs by a firm that does so without permission and without paying anything." ...

I haven't the foggiest idea how this shakes out. I find it amusing that Aereo is a Barry Diller company, and that Barry pretty much invented the Fox Television network , so we have the spectacle of Old Barry Company suing New Barry Company.

If I were good at gambling (I happen to suck at it), I would place bets on the conglomerates prevailing here, because the Supremes are heavily tilted to business ... and BIG business in particular.

But let's not bullshit ourselves. Whatever the SCOTUS decides, there are going to be ripples and then waves with distribution methods and profit margins, and it will (ultimately) smack content creators on their soft seating areas. It always does. Click here to read entire post

Life in the Cartoon Yet

The animated feature might be long in the tooth, release-wise, but it still rolls up the grosses.

Universal’s animated family film opens No. 1 with $4M first day and is looking at $13.8M for the weekend

Universal’s “Despicable Me 2” opened at No. 1 in China Friday, with a strong $4 million.

The 3D animated kids film played in roughly 3,000 locations, including all of the nation’s 141 Imax screens, and dominated. It’s on pace for a $13.8 million first weekend, the studio reported.

The result is particularly impressive, because this opening is seven months after its global theatrical release and the original film, “Despicable Me,” was never released in China. ...

Chris Meledandri has pretty convincingly demonstrated that you don't have to spend $150 or $200 million to get yourself a blockbuster.

You just have to own a pretty focused idea of what film you want to make, then make it. And keep your costs in check.

Add On: DM2 no doubt prospered in the Middle Kingdom because of this:

Despicable How did Universal pull off [a big release] in a country that’s notorious for piracy? Universal Pictures President, International, David Kosse tells me the studio was “thrilled to have the movie go in, but we had to acknowledge that over six months, people had seen it.” So, a means to entice folks to theaters needed to be devised. Figuring that since the many who may have had access to a pirated version would have seen one that was subtitled or done with a sub-par dub, the studio did a “proper, great Mandarin dub with local voices that (Chinese audiences) know,” Kosse says. ...

It's worth pointing out that Mr. Meledandri, when he was running Blue Sky Animation, also used high-end local talent to dub Fox animated features. The strategy has paid off like a rigged slot machine with the Ice Age series. And it seems to be working with Despicable Me.
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Comic-RipOff

San Diego Comic-Con takes full advantage of its leverage.

New for 2014! Only single day badges will be sold. The Preview Night badge option may only be purchased if you buy a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday badge. Preview Night is not a stand alone badge option. ...

And prices have gone up! Such a deal! Click here to read entire post

Mojo's Predictions

Here are the Mojo's prognostications for the next two days of turnstile action:

Box Office Forecast (Jan. 10-12)

1. Lone Survivor - $23.1 million
2. Frozen - $15.3 million (-22%)
3. Wolf of Wall Street - $10.6 million (-20%)
4. The Hobbit - $9.2 million (-41%)
5. American Hustle - $8.7 million (-30%)
6. Her - $8.1 million
7. Hercules - $8 million
-. August - $5.1 million
-. Llewyn Davis - $3.3 million

You will note that Frozen continues to hold well. To date it's taken in $302,590,988 at the domestic box office, which has prompted reporters to call and ask:

How could this happen?

A: Audiences like the story and characters.

Does this cause any angst at Pixar?

A: I have no idea. I'm guessing John Lasseter and Ed Catmull are happy either way. I DO know that morale has risen inside the Hat Building.

Will Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios be merging?

A: No. Diz Co. is THRILLED with two high-grossing cartoon nameplates. Why would they want to erase one of them?

(Why a scribe thinks I have the inside dope of Diz Co.'s next corporate move is a mystery. And why somebody would think two thriving animation subsidiaries would meld into one, after each division had hits, is a riddle wrapped in fog bank of "Whaaa?"

If Pixar and Disney Features were ever going to merge, it would have been some years ago, when Disney Feature Animation was flat on its back. But now? Don't THINK so.)
Click here to read entire post

Blockbusters: Never a Sure Thing

The Big Hits sometimes have bumpy rides to their bigness.

The first screening, in summer 2012, was an unmitigated disaster.

Alfonso Cuaron had just shown his movie, a space-set survival tale titled Gravity, to its first test audience and was reading the comment cards. "Why aren't there any aliens in this?" read one, while another said, "I wish there was a monster in this."

Card after card it went, with Cuaron shaking his head. The audience didn't get it. ...

The first free fall: Universal chairman Marc Shmuger and co-chairman David Linde were ousted in 2009. Cuaron recalls Universal co-chair Donna Langley saying she didn't know where Gravity would fit into the new slate. ...

Then Jolie dropped out. ... Downey departed to shoot the Sherlock Holmes sequel and The Avengers. ... When the test screenings started, the movie wasn't done. ... Most of the scenes that would stun moviegoers in the finished, fully rendered film were crude, blocky animatics. ...

It was as late as July's San Diego Comic-Con International that things began to turn around. When the film's bravura opening debris-strike sequence was shown during the movie's panel, the 6,500 people in attendance were silent in rapt attention. And then they went wild. ...

Often big fat blockbusters are thought to be disasters for months ... YEARS before they're finally released. Snow White was going to sink Disney.

Star Wars got put into turn-around. (Ditto for Lord of the Rings.) Toy Story had a near-death experience before characters and storyline were straightened out. And the new blockbusters Frozen was developed, then shelved, then dusted off multiple times before finding its way to the screen.

Box office verdicts are in, so now the awards season.

The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) announced the winners of their third AACTA Intl. Awards Jan. 10 at a ceremony in Los Angeles. ...

“Gravity” won best picture, with director Alfonos Cuaron taking the director trophy, while “American Hustle” won for Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell’s screenplay, and Jennifer Lawrence’ssupporting actress role. ...

You just never know. With a different twist of fate, the picture wouldn't have been made.

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The Third Pillar of Animation

There's Katzenberg, there's Lasseter, and there's ...

... It is lunchtime and Mr Meledandri is sitting in a restaurant in Santa Monica, a short distance from his office – a warehouse-like building populated with cut-outs of Minions and characters from his other movies, such as The Lorax, an adaptation of the Dr Seuss story.

There is no sign outside the office to reveal the identity of the company within and visitors may encounter Harpo, a friendly beagle, who belongs to one of the employees and who runs about at his own leisure. “He is the self-appointed office dog,” Mr Meledandri says.

It is a low-key workspace, which fits Mr Meledandri’s own temperament. A quiet man who weighs each word carefully when answering a question, he does not fit the typical Hollywood mogul mould. Yet he has become one of the industry’s rising stars thanks to hits such as the Despicable Me films and a record that includes launching the blockbuster Ice Age series while heading the animation business at 20th Century Fox. ...

Twenty-some years ago, Jeffrey Katzenberg said to me that he was the only guy in Hollywood who knew how to do animated features.

It seems in the last two decades, a couple more people have learned how to do it. Click here to read entire post

Miyazaki

So maybe the master isn't retiring after all, but still ...



A tribute's a tribute. Click here to read entire post

Deeper Into Televisionland

As, sixty years ago, Walter D. partnered with the broadcast network ABC to help grow his animation company, so Jeffrey K. partners with the newer media of the 21st century to grow his animation company.

YouTube and DreamWorks Animation will co-produce a series of daily shows called “YouTube Nation” for the world’s largest video site, according to two individuals with knowledge of the plans.

The shows will recap the most popular daily clips on YouTube, a common format for shows both on YouTube (Ray William Johnson’s “=3”, Phil DeFranco’s “SourceFed”) and off (Comedy Central’s “Tosh.0”). Yet YouTube is financing and co-producing this one itself, and will feature the show on its home page.

DreamWorks Animation already established a foothold in booming online video world when it acquired AwesomenessTV last April. AwesomnessTV is one of the fastest growing networks of YouTube channels in the world, and CEO Brian Robbins quickly became a confidant of DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. ...

DreamWorks Animation desires to expand beyond its core business. This is one more step of its growth cycle. The future it would like?

To build itself into a conglomerate along the path blazed by Walt, or ...

To be purchased by a conglomerate. Click here to read entire post

Women In The Arts, Gallery 839 January Show

The January Gallery 839 show, Women In The Arts - Oil Paintings by Jill Petrilak opens tomorrow. Reception from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. Gallery 839 is located in the Animation Guild at 1105 N Hollywood Way in Burbank.

Click here to read entire post

Renewals (and Startups)

The trades tell us:

Disney Junior said Wednesday that it has ordered new seasons of its animated series Sofia the First, Doc McStuffins and Jake and the Never Land Pirates. ...

The network, which targets kids ages 2-7, has picked up Sofia and Doc for their third season and Jake for a fourth.

All three series ranked among the top 10 cable TV series in 2013 for kids ages 2-7 as well as among the top 10 preschooler cable TV series in total viewers and women 18-49. They air daily on both Disney Channel and Disney Junior, as well as around the world, and have spawned their own product lines. ...

Sofia and Jake are produced by Disney TV Animation next to the fabled Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. (Both shows are housed in the Yahoo building.)

Doc McStuffins is produced by Brown Bag Productions, an outside supplier.

Meantime, on the eastern edge of the San Fernando Valley, DreamWorks Animation will be, per DreamWorkers who claim to know, eight series for Netflix, most of them based on DreamWorks Animation properties. (Don't ask me to name them all; I don't remember, and in any event have no desire to get out ahead of DWA's press releases.)

I'm informed that a lot of production work will be done by Bardel Entertainment, up in Vancouver. Click here to read entire post

Ratification

Not ours, but the Directors Guild of America.

Directors Guild Members Ratify New Contract With TV, Film Producers

The deal will run through 2017 and includes a 3 percent annual wage increase and a breakthrough in high-budget new media

Directors Guild of America members have approved a new three-year deal with TV and film producers, the guild said Wednesday.

The DGA said its membership has voted by an overwhelming margin — though the guild didn’t release specific figures– to ratify the new collective bargaining agreements between the DGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

The new contract’s three-year term will take effect on July 1, 2014 and will run through June 30, 2017.

Gains include an annual three percent wage increase; increased residuals bases; improvements in basic cable; the establishment, for the first time, of minimum terms and conditions for high-budget new media made for subscription video on demand; the establishment of a formal diversity program at the TV studios. ...

The Directors Guild seldom strikes. In fact, in recent years it has never struck except for 15-minute job action a couple of decades ago. But the DGA has leverage and savvy, with experienced negotiators who generally achieve a satisfactory deal.

The significance of this deal is that we have, at long last, broken out of the 2% bump-ups of the last few years and returned to the broad, sunlight uplands of 3% increases, which will (likely) become the new normal in the Land of Pattern Bargaining. There is also the prospect of establishing wage minimums for some higher-end internet production. As an IA rep said to me last week:

The studios and conglomerates are making more money, and the DGA was able to get some of the increasing wealth. ...

Anyway, that's what it looks like to me. There's been a rising tide, and the boats of labor are enjoying a bit of lift. Click here to read entire post

Meryl Disses Walt

Now with bloggy Add On.

Oh. My. GOD.

Meryl Streep Blasts Walt Disney at National Board of Review Dinner

This year’s ceremony will forever be remembered for its nine-minute tour-de-force speech from Meryl Streep.

Streep, for once, wasn’t invited to accept an award. Instead, she was there to honor Emma Thompson for her portrait as “Mary Poppins” creator P.L. Travers in Disney’s “Saving Mr. Banks.”

There was plenty of effusive Thompson praising in the speech — with phrases like “she’s practically a saint” and “she’s a beautiful artist” — and it ended with a poem that Streep had written for her friend titled “An Ode to Emma, Or What Emma is Owed.” But Streep also made a point of blasting Walt Disney for his sexist and anti-Semitic stances.

The edgy riff offered a different perspective on Disney from the sugarcoated hero played by Tom Hanks in “Saving Mr. Banks.” Streep was once rumored to be in the running for the role of P.L. Travers, although her remarks suggest why she might not have pursued the project.

“Some of his associates reported that Walt Disney didn’t really like women,” Streep said, quoting esteemed animator Ward Kimball on his old boss: “He didn’t trust women or cats.”

Streep talked about how Disney “supported an anti-Semitic industry lobbying group” and called him a “gender bigot.” She read a letter that his company wrote in 1938 to an aspiring female animator. It included the line, “Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that task is performed entirely by young men.”

Attacking Saint WALT? Can you imagine?

We've pointed out on various occasions that Mr. Disney could be prejudiced, vindictive, and not above violating federal labor laws when it suited his purpose. He also was a major cultural force in the world and had superior creative and story instincts.

My old man, who worked for Mr. Disney for 28 years, once told me, "You know, Walt isn't just the guy on the t.v. Walt can also be a shit."

Sure he could be. Just like every other human who walks the planet. Walt Disney wasn't a plaster saint. Wasn't a corporate symbol. He was a man.

Add On: Floyd N. has his own take here.

(I agree with Floyd about taking people out of the context of their times. By today's standards, Abraham Lincoln would be a deep-dyed bigot. And many Hollywood liberals from the 1930s would be considered horrid today because of the racial stereotyping in their movies. Gone With The Wind is more racist, by today's standards, than Song of the South, yet South is the picture that's been deep-sixed by the Disney Company.)

Click here to read entire post

Evolving Content, Evolving Distribution Systems

Anybody not living in a deep burrow knows that animation ain't the same animal it was fifty years ago. Or twenty years ago. Or even five years ago. Theatrical hand-drawn animation has (with a few exceptions) vanished. And hand-drawn t.v. animation, although still robust, isn't made with paper anymore. Storyboards are now digitial, along with most everything else. Show me a work space without a computer under the desk and a Cintiq on top of it and I'll show you a crack in the space-time continuum.

But it isn't just animation studios that are changing. It's the whole damn pipeline that delivers whole damn entertainment packages ...

There is little doubt that [Disney's entertainment] segment will do well over the next two years if box office expectations are anything to go by. The company had six movies out in 2013 and is expected to launch twelve in 2014 and nine in 2015. More importantly, slate quality is very strong in 2014 and even stronger in 2015 when such heavies as the Avengers, the Pirates and Star Wars will be hitting the big screen.

The longer-term outlook is less promising. Credit Suisse featured an article in the Financialist publication of October 28, 2013 which said that:

"The movie business has a serious problem. Even though 2013's U.S. box office revenues are on par so far with 2012 - about $8.66 billion so far this year compared to about $8.65 billion at this time last year - the long-term outlook is gloomy. Whether it's video-over-the-Internet that's headed for the television or simply the world available on a tablet, the decades-old tradition of "going to the movies" is under fire from all fronts. And it's showing: Movie theatre attendance peaked at 1.6 billion in 2002 and only reached 1.36 billion last year, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. So what's Hollywood going to do? Can it script itself a happy ending? Truth be told, it's even worse than that. The hero of the last installment of this story - DVDs - is now a victim. People are also buying fewer physical copies of movies these days, putting additional pressure on studio earnings. An industry organization called the Digital Entertainment Group went so far as to stop keeping track of DVD sales as a discrete category in 2010, when they fell to $14 billion from a high of $20.2 billion in 2006. Even when lumped together with Blu-Ray, it's still getting uglier by the year. Sales of the two combined dropped to about $8.5 billion in 2012, 5.4 percent lower than in 2011."

Like a great many industries, the movie business is undergoing fundamental technological changes and these will not be limited to the U.S. alone. Undoubtedly, Disney is aware of this but there is nothing they can do to stem this particular tide over the longer-term. ...

On the brighter side, revenues from internet streaming are up, even as DVD sales decline:

Online purchases of movies rose 47% to $1.12B in 2013 in the U.S., according to Digital Entertainment Group. The striking growth rate has calmed fears that consumers would opt to wait for rental windows to open up before buying movies.

Streaming subscription rentals rose 32% to $3.16B during the period.

Kiosk DVD sales slipped 1%, but the aging business still commanded $1.9B in sales. Brick-and-mortar rentals were off 14.3% to $1.042B.

If there was a surprise, it might be the relatively slow pace of VOD movie sales, up only 4.8% to $2.11B. ...

The point to be made here? The business of entertainment is changing in major ways, and if our fine conglomerates aren't nimble, the undertow of technology will swallow them up and spit them out. Disney, News Corp., Time-Warner, Viacom and the others will have to adapt to changing realities, or they won't be around in anything like the forms we know and love them today.
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Cartoon Ratings on the Sabbath

The NFL festivities provided a nice tailwind for the Family Yellow.

Network / Show -- Ratings -- Total Viewers

FOX (8:00) -- The Simpsons -- 4.6/11 -- 12.04m
ABC -- The Bachelor -- 1.8/4 -- 6.32m
CBS -- Elementary -R -- 1.0/2 -- 6.75m

FOX (8:30) -- Bob's Burgers -- 2.9/7 -- 6.35m

FOX (9:00) -- Family Guy -- 3.1/7 -- 5.76m

FOX (9:30) -- American Dad -- 2.5/6 -- 5.03m

Week after week, year after year, Fox Broadcasting prime time cartoons are wonderfully consistent in pulling in competitive numbers. Click here to read entire post

Larry Mann, RIP

Sad to report Mr. Mann's death, but he lived to a ripe old age.

The man whose 100-plus film and TV credits include voicing Yukon Cornelius in the holiday TV classic Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and playing the train conductor in Best Picture Oscar winner The Sting died Monday in Los Angeles. Larry D. Mann was 91. ...

Mr. Mann was a prolific television actor whose dozens of credits included Gunsmoke, Bewitched, Hogan's Heroes, Green Acres and Hill Street Blues.
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The Battle of Superheroes

Motley Fool analyzes the competition between spandex armies, and this snippet caught my eye:

Superhero Movies Are Big Business, But TV Might Be the Next Big Thing ...

Animation domination

Just because Marvel Studios has had fewer flops on the big screen doesn't mean that it's dominating every venue. Its feature-length animation releases have been lackluster, especially compared to Warner Bros.' animated DC Comics Blu-ray and DVD offerings. The DC animated features typically have better writing, more well-known voice actors, and draw directly from popular comic miniseries for inspiration.

Perhaps in recognition of this, Marvel has cut back on its feature-length animated offerings and is instead pushing out child-focused animated series on Disney XD. In addition to "Ultimate Spider-Man," "Avengers Assemble," and "Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.," rumor has it that a "Guardians of the Galaxy" series will be added to the network to help capitalize on the upcoming Marvel Studios film. ...

There's a reason Warner Bros. Animation has been dominant in the animated realm of superheroes: Until recently, its lineup of writers, directors, designers, and board artists were stronger than Marvel's.

The Warner renaissance began a long time ago, back when Bill Clinton was President and the world was young. As Tim Burton reinvented the Caped Crusader in live-action, so did Bruce Timm, Alan Burnett, Eric Radomski, Stan Berkowitz and other talented personnel brought new oomph to Batman, Superman and other corners of the D.C. universe.

The newer Marvel Animation studios has stocked up on a lot of ex-Warnerites and is running hard to catch up. Marvel now dominates in live-action features, but in the animated sector of entertainment, it has a ways to go before it overtakes what Mr. Timm and associates have accomplished over the past twenty-plus years. Click here to read entire post

Soundtrack Synergy

It's not just the movie that's doing well.

Disney's Frozen soundtrack is aiming for No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Industry sources suggest the animated feature's companion album could sell over 140,000 copies by the end of the tracking week on Sunday, Jan. 5.

That could be enough to bump the current No. 1 champ, Beyonce's self-titled album, down to No. 2.
In the most recent week (ending Dec. 29), the album jumped from No. 8 to No. 4 on the Billboard 200, selling 106,000 (up 31 percent) according to Nielsen SoundScan. ...

When you have a successful musical that people are flocking to see, you get dandy side benefits: Music sales that are separate and apart from the movie, and open up a separate revenue stream.

If that isn't synergy, I don't know what is. Look for the Broadway stage version to soon roll down the pike. Can more song-filled cartoons be far behind?

Add On: And the movie continues to zoom right along:

... This past weekend -- its sixth in nationwide release -- the Disney Animation Studios' Thanksgiving entry took in $19.6 million to place No. 1. That's the most earned by any film in its sixth weekend of release, outside of Avatar ($34.9) and Titanic ($25.2 million), not accounting for inflation.

Click here to read entire post

Gypsies

A visual effects career requires mobility.

Three years ago, VFX Soldier Daniel Lay noticed that his friends and colleagues constantly had to uproot their lives in Los Angeles to move to New Zealand or Vancouver, sometimes both in the same year, as they followed production lured away from Hollywood by tax credits in far away locations. ...

Daniel believes that government subsidies for visual effects studios have been bad for the industry, and I agree. Because when studios open or close based on government largesse, the probability is good that jobs in one locality or another won't be around a long time. (This has happened in New Mexico; I've also seen it happen in different provinces in Canada.)

What we've got now are entertainment conglomerates (and their subsidiaries) that chase the best government deals out there. Too bad that deals come and go, depending on the mood of the electorate. This means that, depending on the month and the location, jobs come and go. Which makes it tough for CG artists to carve out a career, marry and start a family, and actually have a semi-stable life without dragging spouse and children halfway around the world.

Daniel makes the case that eliminating tax credits and subsidies for visual effects would level the playing field and allow the industry a measure of stability. It's tough to argue with his logic. Click here to read entire post

The Foreign Steeple Chase

Animated features (and live-action movies with lots of animated effects) stomp large footprints across global box office.

Weekends Foreign Box Office -- (Global Totals)

The Hobbit 2 -- $58,000,000 -- ($756,634,422)

Frozen -- $52,500,000 -- (639,938,000)

Walking With Dinosaurs -- $11,300,000 -- ($83,983,593)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 -- $4,000,000 -- ($247,948,709)

The way Frozen is rolling up grosses around the world, it will likely be bumping up against Despicable Me 2 - sized totals before much longer. The crowded field of animated features does't appear to have cramped the fairy tale's muscular box office. And the trades remind us:

There were a handful of milestones at the international box office this weekend amongst studio pics, although total overseas grosses were down around 21% on the comparable year-ago frame when Life Of Pi was the top film.

This year, Warner Bros‘ The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug crossed the $500M mark internationally, adding $58M in 62 markets, on par with the first Hobbit in terms of weekend take. Smaug has been the top movie overseas since release and has an estimated overseas cume of $527M with continued No. 1s in Germany, Australia and the UK. Its domestic take is $230M for a total of about $767M worldwide. Two big markets to come for the film are China on February 21st and Japan on February 28th, although the latter is showing weaker returns for Hollywood fare overall.

Disney‘s Frozen surpassed $600M globally this weekend to make it the highest-grossing Disney Animation release of all time behind The Lion King. ...

Click here to read entire post

The 2014 Guild Holiday Party

TAG party throngs the Autry.

The first Animation Guild holiday parties (then called "Christmas parties" because they were held prior to Christmas) took place at the Guild's smallish offices on Ventura Boulevard. President Emeritus Tom Sito recalls: ...

[I] attended my first Union party in N.Y. in 1976. I got so wasted, I think John Celestri carried me home (I was MUCH thinner then!) My first union party in L.A. in 1978 at the old union hall in Studio City next to the drag bar, a few Mexican animators from H & B got drunk and started beating each other up. I heard later the fight broke out because one was insulting the Mexican state of another. "All you Jalisco guys are donkey-dung!" or something to that effect.

Ben Washam (union prez in 1949) once told me, "Any union party that doesn't end in a fistfight in the parking lot wasn't any good." ...

This year's party didn't end in any fistfights, but I think most participants had a good time. The weather was good, the food was plentiful, and we had (as you can tell from the photographs) a reasonably good turnout.

TAG officers were busy most of the night, handing out 2014 TAG artist calendars, also flyers about upcoming craft meetings. If you didn't make the party, well, there is always NEXT year.



The crowd downstairs.



Calendars at the front table. Animator/Director Dave Block on left, board member and Disney story editor Nicole Dubuc on right. TAG Vice-President Jack Thomas (with glasses) in background.

Click here to read entire post

Unretired

The animation master is, apparently, not hanging it up after all.

Ghibli giant Hayao Miyazaki has – to the surprise of nobody it seems – retracted his latest promise to retire, making it the 7th time he has vowed to quit only to think better of it.

The withdrawal, made in a radio broadcast on New Year’s Eve, marks the 7th such recantation (although by some counts he has done it as many as 10 times). ...

Many aren't surprised at this. I'm very not surprised.

The one constant of animation is that a lot of artists in the biz keep working until they're into the eighth and ninth decades. Joe Grant was still working at 97, when he died with a pencil in his hand. Chuck Jones was in his eighties when gravity finally took its toll. My old boss Woolie Reitherman stopped working in his seventies because he was shown the door by Disney management. Left to his own devices, he would have kept at the job until his pulse stopped.

Larry Clemmons, who mentored me when I got to Disney, kept working until his (retired) wife pressured him into hanging up the the nine-to-five routine and joining her in Friday Harbor, Washington. He wasn't thrilled about it, but he wanted to avoid spousal wrath so packed up and left town.

When I became business representative of TAG (around the time that the cartoon business began surging with new vitality), I got a load of phone calls from veterans eager to come out of retirement and get back into harness. Bob Bemiller, a cartoon professional since the days of Crusader Rabbit, used to ask: "Where's the work? Tell them I'm available, but don't tell them how old I am!"

So Miyazaki unretiring? Why the hell not? He's just like all the seventy-something animation artists I know about here in L.A. Once cartoons are in your blood, they're in your blood. And sitting at home catching up on your foot-dangling when there are storyboards to be drawn is the last thing you want to do. Click here to read entire post

Twenty Year Old Animation Script

... finally sees the light of day.

Judd Apatow: After the first season of The Simpsons, I sat down and tried to write a spec episode of The Simpsons to use as a sample to get work. ... I always wished that they would make my Simpsons episode so last year I was doing an interview with Elvis Mitchell and the subject of my Simpsons spec came up and I told the audience the story I had written, and Al Jean read about it and he called me and he said they’d like to do it. ...

The writers of The Simpsons are rewriting it and trying to bring it up to the standards of the show. [Laughs] I wrote it in what I thought was the style of The Simpsons after only six episodes had aired. I received an email from Al Jean where he detailed the changes they would make to it but they were so hilarious and brilliant, it kind of blew my mind. They are so funny and strong over there. We never should take The Simpsons for granted. It really sets the bar for everybody. ...

Seldom do twenty-year-old spec scripts get picked up and produced for wide public consumption. But seldom are spec scripts written by people who later become power-house movie makers, and Apatow is certainly that.

But I guess it gives hope to writers who are still struggling to break into the Big Time. Keep those old scripts in a water-tight trunk ... or tucked away on a digital cloud. Someday, when your creative ship comes in, you can dust off some of that early, brilliant work and cash in.

If Apatow can do it twenty-two years later ... if Mark Twain can do it with new volumes of autobiography a century after he's dead, there's hope for the rest of us.
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Top of the Charts

... is what the Disney cartoon is.

WEEKEND DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE

1). Frozen (DIS), $6.8M Friday/ 3,318 locations (-17) / $23.7M 3-day /$7,155 per screen (based on 3-day estimate) / Cume: $300.9M, Wk 7

2). Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (PAR), $8.7M Friday3, 2,867 locations / $18.8M 3-day /$6,562 per / Cume: $18.8M, Wk 1

3). The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (WB), $5.1M Friday/ 3,730 locations (-198) / $18M 3-day /$4,830 per / Cume: $231.4M, Wk 4

4). The Wolf Of Wall Street (PAR), $4.3M Friday/ 2,557 locations (+20) / $13.8M 3-day /$5,456 per screen / Cume: $63.9M, Wk 2

5). American Hustle (SONY), $4.16M Friday/ 2,518 locations (+11) / $13M 3-day /$5,741 per / Cume: $90M, Wk 4

6). Anchorman 2 (PAR), $3.87M Friday/ 3,407 locations (-100) / $12.8M 3-day /$3,776 per / Cume: $110.9M, Wk 3

7). Saving Mr. Banks (DISNEY) $2.9M Friday/ 2,110 locations (0) / $10.2M 3-day /$4,849 per / Cume: $60.5M, Wk 4

8). The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (Fox), $2.8M Friday/ 2,922 locations (+13) / $9.8M 3-day /$3,364 per / Cume: $47.3M, Wk 2

9). The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (LGF) $2.48M Friday/ 2,143 locations (-172) / $8M 3-day /$3,740 per / Cume: $408M, Wk 7

10). Grudge Match (WB) $1.8M Friday/ 2,856 locations (+18) / $5.8M 3-day /$2,0541 per / Cume: $25.3M, Wk 2 ...

Also, too, as Deadline points out, the other Disney flick would be in third place instead of 7th if its per-screen average is what counted.

Add On: The Sunday numbers for the Weekend Grosses:

1. Frozen - Disney - $20.7M

2. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones - Paramount - $18.2M

3. Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, The - Warner Bros. - $16.2M

4. Wolf Of Wall Street, The - Paramount - $13.4M

5. American Hustle - Sony - $13.2M

6. Anchorman 2 - Paramount - $11.1M

7. Saving Mr. Banks - Disney - $9.1M

8. Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, The - 20th Century Fox - $8.2M

9. Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The - Lionsgate - $7.4M

10. Grudge Match - Warner Bros. - $5.4M

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Moolah

Even in the good old days, when we like to think it was about the art, it maybe wasn't.

Were you always mindful that P. L. Travers was on the ropes financially when she finally relinquished the rights to “Mary Poppins”?

Thompson: I think that’s a vital part of the story. She was alone.

Hanks: Know what? No one knows what they [P.L. Travers and Walt Disney] said to each other when push came to shove, but I’m almost willing to bet that it was all about money. “Hey, look, doll. You’re going to be an old bat and die here all by yourself. Don’t you want to have a bunch of money in your pocket? Well then, let me make the movie.” I’ll bet you anything that’s what went down. ...

I don't think the motivations of human beings change very much from century to century. I'm willing to be that in Byzantine courts there were the same desires for fame, riches, security and sensual pleasure that people have now. Click here to read entire post

Movers and Shakers

You can go over to The Hollywood Reporter for the video.

Roundtable: 5 Top Animators on the Good and Bad of Celebrity Voices and Creative Input From Their Own Kids

CHRIS WEDGE: Can I tell you something? I don't know what movie Chris [Meledandri] and I were working on, but I said, "When are they going to give us a green light on this thing?" And he said: "You're working on the movie. A green light? You're making the movie."

CHRIS MELEDANDRI: We call that a rolling green light -- it just sort of evolves. On our first movie, Ice Age, Chris [Wedge] was focused on this notion of this mythical green light. So on one of my trips back to Blue Sky Studios, I said: "OK. Well, we're going to have a little meeting. We're going to have a little ceremony." So [Chris] had taken a lamp, and he had put some green cellophane around the bulb. And then we did the actual lighting of the greenlight ceremony, which I'll never forget.

WEDGE: People cheered. ...

Funny how the media (entertainment and otherwise) treats animation more seriously now. Like it doesn't have to sit at the kids' table anymore. Click here to read entire post

New Ventures, New Pipelines

It's always good to ferret out new revenue streams.

The DreamTab will feature educational activities and games based on DreamWorks Animation properties

DreamWorks Animation has partnered with Fuhu, Inc. to create the DreamTab, a new tablet designed just for kids that will feature educational activities and games based on DreamWorks Animation films, the companies said Friday. The tablet, which will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week, will go on sale in the United States in Spring 2014 and be released internationally later this year.

Fuhu, a California-based company with offices in the United States and across Eastern Asia, is one of the fastest growing private companies in America. It designed the nabi tablet, the technological foundation for the DreamTab. ...

As we've said before, DreamWorks Animation is trodding along a path similar to the one Walt Disney Productions hiked down during the early 1950s.

As WDP was the first movie studio to wade into television, so DWA gets into internet streaming before other cartoon makers. As Disney did amusement parks, so DreamWorks does amusement parks. And merchadising, and licensing, and other maximizings of intellectual properties.

The only thing that DreamWorks Animation hasn't (yet) gotten involved in is live-action. And we're a wee bit surprised that no animation/ live action hybrids have been part of DWA's universe, but the century is young. Click here to read entire post

2013: Animation Guild Lows and Highs

The year just behind us was something of a run-away train: The first quarter of '13 saw DreamWorks Animation layoff 300+ employees, then hiring 80 new staffers for their television toward the end of the year. ...

We saw a similar pattern at the Disney family of studios (Walt Disney Animation Studios; Disney Toon Studios; Disney Television Animation): Diz Co.'s feature division hired a lot of separated DreamWorks Animation employees in early Spring as the push to finish Frozen reached a crescendo (and then came layoffs in early Fall as the picture wrapped). Disney Toon laid off employees at the end of the year as the Tinkerbell series of features abruptly ended, while throughout the year Disney TVA launched new series and hired more staff.

Television animation in general was robust throughout the year. Fox Animation continued with its Macfarlane series American Dad and Family Guy; Over at Film Roman, The Simpsons was picked up for another year and Spider Man was an ongoing project, while Bento Box continued to be one of Fox's studios of choice, producing Bob's Burgers and Murder Police.

Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network continued to create new and continuing series, and mid-year The Animation Guild negotiated a CG contract with Nick to cover its CG employees. Negotiations were not easy or quick, but a large negotiating committee of focused Nick employees got the job done.

Warner Bros. Animation saw its series orders shrink even as it continued to produce a number of Direct-To-Video features. And smaller studios like Wild Canary, Robin Red Breast (Titmouse), and Starburns Industries became sub-contractors for cartoon shows the conglomerates chose not to create in their wholly-owned studios.

What often escapes notice is that overall guild employment as been strong for some time:

TAG EMPLOYMENT -- 2008-2013

4th quarter 2008 -- 2,376

4th quarter 2009 -- 2,545

4th quarter 2010 -- 2,698

4th quarter 2011 -- 2,622

4th quarter 2012 -- 2,741

4th quarter 2013 -- 2,924

So as of today, membership rolls stand at an all-time high for the guild. We have come a very long way from the late 1980s, when active members totaled 700. But then, animation is no longer the brackish backwater it was in 1987 and 1988, when the only companies making animated features were Disney and Don Bluth Productions, and television animation consisted of inexpensive syndicated series and Saturday morning cartoons on network television.

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Pushing Back

From the local paper:

Hollywood stakeholders are calling on California to bolster its film and TV tax credit to keep its homegrown industry from permanently leaving the state.

Film industry and union officials are mobilizing to back legislation this year that would substantially increase funding for the state's film incentive program and lift some restrictions to make the program more competitive with those offered by New York, Georgia and other states and countries.

"The bottom line is, these countries and these states realize what production means to them, and we have to show them [lawmakers] why we're missing the boat here," said Tom Sherak, Los Angeles' newly appointed film czar. "It's unbelievable they are doing this right under our noses." ...

We're not huge fans of tax credits/subsidies around here, but California has gotten its skull kicked in the last few years as Canada, New York, Georgia and other places have cranked up subsidies and sucked a lot of film work into their jurisdictions.

So for the west coast, there are really two options: Stand pat, let events to unfold, and run the risk of losing even more work, or beef up film subsidies.

The entertainment unions and guilds (or which we are one) have elected to mount a lobbying campaign to achieve a level of subsidies that will put California on a more even playing field. (Yes, long-term it might be a fools errand, but short-term lots of people suffer job losses So West Coast unions are pushing for subsidies equal to other states.) Click here to read entire post

Retro Games

Video games: becoming like colorized versions of 1930 cartoons.



The gamer in the family (not me) thinks this is a cross between "Metal Slug," a video game from the nineties, and a Lantz or Disney short from the bottom of the Depression. Click here to read entire post

Our Fine, Entertainment Conglomerates

... and their movie grosses.

... Warner Bros. ruled the movie world in 2013, with $4.95 billion globally ($3.1 billion from overseas and $1.85 billion Stateside). Sony fell the furthest — from last year’s global and Stateside leader to fourth place domestically, with $1.1 billion, and fifth worldwide ($3 billion-plus) in 2013.

... Fox International is expected to end 2013 with a total box office of $2.33 billion, down 14% from a year earlier. Its overseas haul was driven by seven live-action films and three animated family films. The top grosser for the studio internationally was The Croods (DreamWorks) which hammered in $333M, followed by The Wolverine, starring Hugh Jackman, which took in $284.4M and in third place was last year’s critically acclaimed Oscar nominated film Life of Pi ($262.M) ...

The award for the most consistent studio (except for a few glaring financial duds including “R.I.P.D.” and “47 Ronin”) goes to Universal, which released what’s likely the most profitable film of 2013 — “Despicable Me 2.”

The toon sequel from Illumination Entertainment has grossed a whopping $921 million worldwide so far, with a production budget of just $76 million. ...

And Diz Co. announced yesterday that it had earned $3 billion overseas in '13, with details announced tomorrow.

But we can guess what some of the Mouse's drivers were, yes? Monsters University collected $475,066,843 in foreign lands, 64% of its $743,559,607 global accumulation. Planes, under-performer though it might have been, still rolled up $129.5 million in foreign box office, 59% of its $219,788,712 world total.

And Frozen is zipping along nicely, with a worldwide cume of $506,591,000, half of that from overseas.

What's remarkable here is that animation plays such a large role in the profits of so many American entertainment conglomerates. As we have noted, as Jerry Beck has pointed out, cartoons and animated visual effects are no longer a sleepy side-show for the movie business, but the main event.

It might soon get to the point where live-action is the after-thought. And cartoons, once the province of only Disney, generate most of the profits. Click here to read entire post

James Avery, RIP

James A., actor and voice-over artist, dead at 68.

... [Mr. Avery,] who played the family patriarch on NBC’s long-running The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, died December 31 in Glendale, CA after complications from open heart surgery, his publicist said today. Avery was 68. The classically trained actor had just completed shooting what will be his final role: a part in Zach Braff’s Kickstarter-funded indie feature Wish I Was Here, which will premiere later this month at Sundance. Avery was born in Atlantic City in 1945 and eventually served in the Navy in Vietnam. ...

He also voiced numerous animated series including playing Shredder on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series in the mid-’80s and ’90s. But it was his role as Uncle Phil on Fresh Prince that put him on the map. The series ran from 1990-1996 and launched the acting career of Will Smith. ...

James Avery is survived by his wife of 26 years, Barbara Avery, also his mother, Florence Avery; and stepson, Kevin Waters. Click here to read entire post