Same Judge, New Lawsuits

From Variety:

Doubtful that DreamWorks Animation, Disney, Sony Picture Imageworks, Lucasfilm and others would call it a case of the more the merrier but the potential class actions against them are now connected – or at least at the same bench. In a move that could see the actions move ahead faster, Judge Lucy Koh has agreed to preside over the second lawsuit against the studios over allegations of an illegal anti-poaching and wage suppression deal they had going for years.

It can’t make the animation studios happy that the judge who rejected Apple and other tech companies’ $325 million settlement attempt to end a similar case against them is now overseeing their fate in these two cases.

Last month, Koh agreed to the request from former DWA effects artist Robert Nitsch Jr. that the Northern District of California federal judge be reassigned his class action. Nitsch’s basic argument was that his September 8 filed antitrust class action complaint was “related” to the High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation case that Koh had been presiding over that for the past several years.

Obviously the Judge agreed. ...

There are a number of lawsuits percolating around animation studios' wage suppression program. We're aware of the law firms working on some of them, and when artists come to us with a complaint about being mistreated by this cartoon studios or that cartoon studio, we refer them to a law firm, the better to participate in any pending lawsuits.

We continue to monitor the unfolding situation. (Based on what we've learned, there was collusion between studios ... and a coordinated effort to keep wages artificially low. Free enterprise now and FOREVER!)

But right now, we're waiting to find out what the attorneys uncover.

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Robert Iger Speaks

The Disney CEO speaks to Bloomberg reporters.

On Shanghai: Iger maintains the company will avoid the mistakes it made with Euro Disney. Disney Shanghai won't start out off with the mound of debt that its Paris park took on just to turn the lights on.

On sports: The exec remains confident the enormous NBA rights contract signed recently by ESPN will provide enough value to customers to justify costs. ESPN's pro football ratings are said to have shown no ill effect from the player scandals in the league this year.

On Star Wars: Iger says the franchise will be a bright spot for Disney. Filming in the U.K. is progressing on schedule.

Robert Iger has probably changed Diz Co. more than Michael Eisner.

The company's valuations is way larger than it was when Eisner left nine years ago (can it actually be that long ago?), and the company is now more than ever the Berkshire-Hathaway of entertainment conglomerates.

Pixar runs pretty independently of the Big Mouse.

Likewise Lucasfilms.

Ditto for Marvel.

Like Warrern Buffett, Mr. Iger is buying brand companies and allowing them to continue to run themselves. This has turned out to be a pretty smart move. The company has never been richer. Or bigger.

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Expanding the Franchise

Sony (via press release) informs us it's building two animated features into a larger franchise.

DHX Media, a key player internationally in the creation of content for families and children, has signed a deal with Sony Pictures Animation to expand the blockbuster film franchise Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs into television with a brand-new adaptation.

The far-reaching deal will see DHX Media develop and produce twenty-six 22-minute, traditionally animated small-screen episodes of the acclaimed computer-generated animated feature films, and includes global television and non-US home entertainment exploitation rights to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: The Series (Sony will distribute home entertainment in the US). The deal also has DHX Media representing merchandising for the television series on a worldwide basis.

The 2009 mouth-watering animated comedy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and its 2013 sequel, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, were produced by Sony Pictures Animation, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Both films were critical and commercial successes which grossed a combined $510 million in theaters.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: The Series takes place before giant food came raining down on Swallow Falls. Flint Lockwood is a high school tween with big dreams. Swallow Falls is a blue-collar town where sardines are driving a booming economy. But Flint suffers from NFD: Non Fish-related Dreams. He wants to be a serious scientist and maybe one day not have his inventions blow up in his face. Along for the ride is Sam Sparks, who's the new girl in town and the school's newest wannabe ace reporter. These two outsiders come together for laughs and comedic adventures with all the great characters from the film: Flint's Dad Tim, Steve the Monkey, Manny the head of the school's audiovisual, school gym teacher Earl before he becomes a cop, Brent who still models baby wear, and Mayor Shelbourne, who wins every election on the pro-sardine platform.


Steven DeNure, President and COO of DHX Media, said: “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs has a tremendous legacy as beloved children’s books and a duo of highly popular feature films, showing how great ideas can succeed across media. We believe audiences both old and new are going to love this fiercely funny franchise reimagined for the small screen.”

Bob Osher, President of Sony Pictures Digital Productions, said: “I'm thrilled to see the adventures of our beloved characters from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs further expanded to television for audiences around the world to enjoy.”

Rick Mischel, executive producer at Sony Pictures Animation, added: “DHX’s track record in creating great kids’ television content makes them an ideal partner to capture the unique humor and tone of Flint Lockwood and his friends that made the theatrical franchise so successful.”

DHX Media is, naturally enough, a Canadian company.

Sony's going to Canada to get the show done. That's where the most free money is. (Time will tell whether any California artists are able to pick up some free-lance work.)

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Accepted Wisdom

Story director Mark Kennedy explains why the consensus views of "experts" is often wrong.

... I worked for many years on the film "Rapunzel" which eventually became "Tangled", and during all that time I had many discussions with people that thought Disney was crazy to make another fairy tale. Many people thought that the success of "Shrek" had proven that audiences were too sophisticated and too steeped in irony to really appreciate a sincere fairy tale anymore. People thought that in the post-Shrek world, there was no room for an old-school Disney fairy tale with princes and princesses that sing.

These days, it may be hard to remember that people once felt that way, after the success of "Tangled" and the monster runaway success of "Frozen". But I had many conversations with people who would ask why were doing such and obviously dumb thing in making an animated fairy tale. A Disney princess musical hadn't been successful in years, and some people at Disney thought we were going to be embarrassed when it came out because we would look stale and uninspired compared to the offerings of Pixar, DreamWorks and Blue Sky, who were--at that time--dominating the animated market with everything other than princess fairy tale musicals.

For whatever reason, after "Princess and the Frog" came out, people seemed to take an even dimmer view of what we were doing. It sometimes felt like the studio would have cancelled "Tangled" if they could. Luckily for us, it was too late at that point, and it seemed like the studio was resigned to release it and get on with making other kinds of movies. On the web and in print media, all I ever read about "Tangled" is that it was an ill-conceived idea and was destined to be an embarrassing flop.

Then we had our first preview screenings, and the audiences really liked it. Things started changing after that, and the film starting building good momentum and good buzz. After it came out and did well, it seemed like nobody in the press or on the internet was that surprised…that it made sense, somehow, that Disney would make a CG fairy tale musical and of course make it feel both modern and traditional.

So to me, "Tangled" felt like a bit of a black swan. Yes, Disney is known for making animated fairy tales, so it wasn't a huge new risk in that way … but it was risky because accepted wisdom at that point was that audiences wanted something different and fresh. That the days of animated musical fairy tales was over.

Until it wasn't. ...

Hollywood's smart money doesn't have any lock on what properties will click with the movie-going public, and what properties will go south. And it's pretty much always been this way. Like for instance:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was considered a disaster in the making, especially by people who hadn't seen the story reels.

Civil War movies were considered box office poison. Then Gone With the Wind got released.

Westerns never make their production costs back. (Okay, there was Blazing Saddles and Dances with Wolves, but what about A Million Ways to Die in the West?)

Star Wars got turned down by various studios because each one knew that nobody ever went to space movies. But Fox finally took a flier on it, and now George Lucas is a billionaire.

The Sixth Sense was in production when Disney decided it had a turkey on its hands and sold off most of its ownership in the film. Then, of course, it turned into a smash hit.

Frozen languished in the development deep freeze until Tangled was a hit. Then they thawed the Hans Christian Anderson project out. This time, the Mouse had the good sense not to sell its equity position in its property.

Nobody is an unalloyed genius when it comes to the making and selling of movies. Even under the best of circumstances, clunkers get made and box office bombs result. And geniuses are particularly few and far between when it comes to predicting which movies are going to hit big.





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Feature Release

The newer animated feature from Studio Ghibli launches here on October 17.



The Brew noted that The Tale of Princess Kaguya had an okay but not gangbuster release in Japan. But now it's being rolled out in the U.S., Australia, and other places.

Geoffrey Wexler produces the English version, with Frank Marshall of Kennedy/Marshall exec producing.

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Pursuit of a Sale

BuzzFeed reviews what's been obvious.

... For the first time in his 40-year movie career, [Jeffrey] Katzenberg’s performance is being seriously questioned by both Wall Street analysts and Hollywood peers. As an independent studio not tethered to a larger organization in the cost-heavy field of animated movies, his studio [DreamWorks Animation] is overly dependent on the box office performance of individual films to meet its financial targets. Further, DreamWorks Animation’s business model of only producing two to three movies per year has suffered from the dual realities of increased competition in family films and an overall downward trend in attendance at the domestic box office. ...

As a movie studio executive who also requested anonymity said, “When you only make two movies a year, you better make sure one of them isn’t a flop otherwise you’re in trouble.” ...

According to a story in last week’s Hollywood Reporter, Katzenberg may have personally sabotaged the deal with Softbank by trying to leverage it into a richer offer from Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. ...

Jeffrey Katzenberg is a smart man. He wants to sell his company to the highest bidder and springboard to the next level, but he's hemmed in by some cold realities.

1) Most of the big entertainment conglomerates have fully functioning animation division, and aren't looking to add another one at a steep price.

2) Most CEOs in movie land aren't angling to buy another movie company, especially if it means they have to step aside at a future date for Mr. Katzenberg.

3) Most large corporations who want to own DWA, aren't in the mood to overpay for the privilege of owning it.

I don't think Jeffrey "sabotaged" the deal with Softbank, not purposely anyway. The deal might have soured because Mr. Katzenberg attempted to sweeten the it too much. Pressing hard for the last dollar sometimes causes merger talks to unravel.

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Tom Sito's Animation History

The former TAG Prez's take on significant events for October.

CARTOON HAPPENINGS

Oct. 1, 1945- Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin leaves the cartoon business to work full time at Paramount doing live action movies. (He wrote for the Marx Brothers and later directed the Dean Martin Jerry Lewis comedies.)


Oct. 1, 1992- Cartoon Network goes on the air.


Oct. 2, 2004- Dreamworks film Sharktale opens in theaters.


Oct. 2, 1950- Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip debuts.


Good ol' Charlie Brown was the name of a fellow post office worker all the guy's liked to play jokes on. Schulz's idea 'little folks' was initially rejected by all the major comic syndicates. Three months before the strip was accepted his girlfriend broke off their engagement. He had left his job at the post office and she was convinced he would never amount to anything. At the time of his death Charles Schulz had mountains on the moon named for his characters, and he was arguably the richest visual artist on earth.


Oct. 2, 1958- Hanna & Barbera’s The Huckleberry Hound Show premieres.


Oct. 3, 1855- American artist James McNeill Whistler arrives in Paris to study painting. He had tried to apply to West Point for a military career, but failed the entrance exam. Years later, he jokingly told friends "If I hadn't identified phosphorous as a gas I'd be a major general by now!'


Oct. 3, 1955- Good Morning, Captain. the Captain Kangaroo kiddy Show debuted on television. 


Oct. 3, 1955- The Mickey Mouse Club TV Show premieres. “Who’s the leader of the Band that’s Made for you and me…?”


Oct. 3, 1957- Walter Lantz's The Woody Woodpecker Show debuts.


Oct. 3, 1964- There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here! On NBC.


Oct. 4, 1931- Chester Gould's "Dick Tracy" comic strip debuts.


Oct. 4, 1950- The first "Peanuts" comic strip with Snoopy.


Oct. 4, 1984- Fist of the North Star began airing in Japan.


Oct. 5, 1969- Monty Python's Flying Circus debuts on British television BBC-1.


Oct. 6, 1932- THE BIRTHDAY OF WONDER WOMAN. William Moulton Marston was an educational consultant in 1940 for Detective Comics ( DC Comics). Marston saw that the DC line was filled with images of men such as Green Lantern, Batman, Superman. He was left wondering, "Why isn't there a female hero?"


Max Gaines, then head of DC Comics, was intrigued by the concept and told Marston that he could create a female comic book hero - a "Wonder Woman." Marston did that, using a pen name that combined his own middle name with the middle name of Gaines: Charles Moulton Marston's 'good and beautiful woman' made her debut in All Star Comics #8. 


Oct. 7, 1993- Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park with CGI dinosaurs earns $712 million dollars ... just in North American box office. Something not to be equaled until Titanic five years later.


Oct. 8, 1933- HOLLYWOOD ACTOR'S FIRST MASS PROTEST- When Franklin Roosevelt created the NRA to fix wages and prices to try and solve the Depression, he even went as far as to try to regulate Motion Picture rates and fees.


The catch was, the rates were drafted with the advice of friends of the studio heads in Washington. The actors went ballistic when they saw new rules such as a ceiling cap on actors salaries of $100,000 a year. (The producers had no such cap). There were restriction of actors independent agents, and terms of an old salary contract would stay in effect even after the contract expired until it was renegotiated.


This night at the El Capitan theater on Hollywood Blvd. hundreds of movie stars meet to draft a petition calling for rewriting of the codes. The activists included Paul Muni, Frederic March, Jeanette MacDonald, Groucho Marx and Boris Karloff. SAG president Frank Morgan (The Wizard of Oz) is considered politically too far left to face Roosevelt, so he steps down in favor of comedian Eddie Cantor, who had helped Vaudeville acts unionize.


(In previous meetings at the El Capitan, the earth tremors from the Great Long Beach Earthquake the previous March made actors reconvene in the Grauman's Chinese parking lot across the street.) Cantor goes to the president's retreat at Warm Springs Georgia with the petition and has the hated articles taken out of the code.


Oct. 9, 1986- The Fox Network's first program- The Joan River's Show, premieres. That show didn't last, but future hits like The Simpsons, Married With Children and The X-Files make Fox a major network.


Oct. 10, 1953- Winky Dink and You show by Harry Pritchett and David Wycoff. The birth of Interactive TV. Children were invited to place a piece of celluloid acetate on their TV screens from a kit and help Winky Dink through numerous adventures by drawing on their TV.


Oct. 10, 1957- RKO Studios, which produced King Kong, The John Ford Westerns and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, (not to mention the features and shorts from Walt Disney Productions) is sold to Desilu - the television production company of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez.


Oct. 10, 1985- Orson Welles and Yul Brynner die one hour apart. They were both 70. Welles had just finished taping yet another appearance on the Merv Griffin Show. Brynner had a furious smoking habit. When he knew he was dying of the stuff, he recorded several television spots to be aired after his death. He looked squarely at camera and said: " I smoked. -Don't."


Oct 11, 1960- The Bugs Bunny Show premieres on TV. “Overture, hit the lights! This is it, we’ll hit the heights, and oh what heights we’ll hit…..etc..”


Oct. 11, 1967-The NY Times prints an image of a female nude by Bell Lab artist-in-residence Ken Knowlton. The image done on a computer as a digital mosaic of thousands of numbers was a breakthrough for CGI.


Oct 12, 1937- Under pressure from parent Paramount Studio, Max Fleischer signs the first animation union contract and settles the Cartoonist strike begun May 8th. The following year, Fleischer tries to escape unions by moving his studio to Right-To-Work State Florida, but the additional expenses and poor box office ruins his studio.


Oct 12, 1994- Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg announce the partnership that would be named Dreamworks SKG.


Oct. 13, 1978- Mickey Mouse gets his star on Hollywood Blvd Walk of Fame.


Oct. 14, 1926- Happy Birthday Winnie the Pooh! A.A. Milne’s first book of Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Christopher Robin debuts this day.


(Milne was a prolific author. His book "The Red House Mystery" was a big best-seller -- and later critically taken apart by Raymond Chandler in the essay, "The Simple Art of Murder". Milne considered the Winnie the Pooh books lesser works, but they've stood the test of time. And made kajillions for the Disney Company. -- Steve Hulett)


Oct. 15, 1946 Walt Disney’s film Make Mine Music premieres.


Oct. 16, 1923- Walt Disney Studios Born. 22 year old Walt and his older brother Roy sign a deal with M.J.Winkler for six "Alice in Cartoonland" short cartoons. Budgets - $1,500 each. ...

And the back half of the month:

Oct. 18, 1946- Walt Disney premieres The Story of Menstruation.


Oct. 18, 1950- In a heated and emotional showdown at the Directors Guild, all motions by C.B.DeMille and Frank Capra to extend the Hollywood anti-Communist blacklist to include expulsion from the Director's Guild are defeated. Billy Wilder, John Huston, John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy supported President Joe Mankiewicz who blocked the Blacklist Motions, and they also prevented a recall vote on Mankiewicz' s presidency.


Oct. 18, 1967- The Jungle Book, last cartoon feature done under Walt Disney's supervision, premieres. Disney had died the previous December.


Oct. 19, 1985- Take on Me by Aha hits number one on the pop charts. Part of its appeal was the hand-drawn comic strip MTV video, directed by Michael Patterson.


Oct. 20, 1955- J.R.R. Tolkein’s last book of the Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King is published.


Oct. 22, 1941- Walt Disney’s Dumbo premieres.


Oct. 24, 1947- Walt Disney testifies to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as a friendly witness. He accuses members of the Cartoonists Guild and the League of Women Voters –which he mistakenly called the League of Women Shoppers -- as being infiltrated by Communists "Seeking to subvert the Spirit of Mickey Mouse'.


Oct. 24, 1994 Walt Disney TVA show Gargoyles premieres.


Oct. 26, 1970- Doonesbury is born. Yale law graduate Gary Trudeau was convinced by Jim Andrews his classmate, now an editor at Universal Press syndicate, to recreate his funny comic that he did in the campus newspaper. It's original name was 'Bull Tales".


Oct. 27, 1954- Walt Disney breaks with other Hollywood movie studios and debuts his TV show Disneyland.


Oct. 27, 1966- Bill Melendez Peanuts TV special “ It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”, premiered.


Oct. 28, 1726- Johnathan Swift publishes "Gulliver's Travels"-"To Vex the World rather than Divert it."


Oct. 28, 1892- The first cartoon to be projected in France Pauvre Pierrot.


Oct. 29, 1969- THE BIRTH OF THE INTERNET- 

In the basement of UCLA’s Boelter Hall, Lick Licklider, Vincent Cerf, Robert Kahn, Lawrence Roberts and Bob Taylor set up the first call to Stanford. “We typed the 'L' and we asked on the phone 'Did you see the “L”?' 'Yes, we see the “L,”' was the response. Then we typed O and asked 'Did you see the O?' 'Yes, we see the "O”' was the response. Then we typed G, and then the system crashed!”

They called it ARPANET- Advanced Research Projects Agency-NE; a few years later, it was known as the Internet.


Oct. 30, 1973- The Carlin Case- radio station WBAI in New York broadcast hippy comedian George Carlin’s routine about the “Seven Deadly Words” the naughty words you can’t say on the air. The FCC slapped a heavy fine and WBAI sued for free speech and the case made it to the Supreme Court. Today the High Court found for the FCC and those 7 deadly words remain banned from airwaves today. Aw, Sh*t!


Oct. 30, 1994- Nickelodeon premieres Aaah! Real Monsters!


Oct. 31, 1993- Young movie star River Phoenix overdoses and dies on the street in front of the Viper Room nightclub in L.A after partying with Johnny Depp and Alicia Silverstone. The club is owned by movie star Depp and was once the Melody Room owned by old mobster Bugsy Siegel. Ironically, as Phoenix was thrashing spasmodically, people walked by unconcerned, because it’s a common occurrence on the Sunset Strip.

Birthdays: Julie Andrews, Zack Galifanakis, Satoshi Kon, Groucho Marx, Harvey Kurtzman, Bill Keane, Art Babbitt, Matt Damon, Guglielmo Del Toro, Pete Doctor, Jodie Benson, Rod Scribner, Hugh Jackman, Chuck Berry, Angela Lansbury, Mike Judge, Vip Partch, Jerry Siegel, Auguste Lumiere, Trey Parker, John Lithgow, Bela Lugosi, Snoop Dog, Jerry Ohrbach, Mary Blair, Weird Al Yankovic, Ang Lee, Preston Blair, Bob Kane, Picasso, Bill Tytla, Seth McFarlane, John Cleese, Berni Wrightson, Bill Gates, Ralph Bakshi, Bill Mauldin, Ollie Johnston, Peter Jackson, John Candy.

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Misogynistic Cartoons

The issue of racism in Tom and Jerry cartoons has re-reared its unattractive head over the past week, but Nikki Gloudeman in the Huffington Post focuses on its cousin:

... Amazon Prime recently add[ed] a racism disclaimer to a Tom and Jerry collection it's selling. While some commended the move, others have called it needless censorship.

More complicated still, some parse out the outcry even further insisting it's a bit ludicrous to cry "censorship!" over a simple disclaimer. ... There's another element this brouhaha has brought up, if only on the fringes of the conversation: sexism in classic old cartoons. And this "ism," while not as egregiously offensive as racism, is still worth scrutinizing. ...

Tom & Jerry, for its part, featured Toodles Galore, an eyelash-batting seductress who rarely spoke (because being mute is hot) and made Tom go ga-ga.

These particular stereotypes however, are to be expected in programs hailing from decades ago, when sexism was both rampant and sanctioned. But what do we make of the sexism that continues to reign in children's cartoons?

In 2012, when writing about a previous disclaimer regarding Tom and Jerry racism, Margot Magowan said in the SF Gate:

"Unfortunately, the reason that there's no disclaimer and no introduction [about sexism] is because sexist stereotypes in kids' cartoons are just as accepted in 2012 as they were sixty years ago. Sexist jokes in animation are, apparently, still hilarious."

But of course Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes and selected Mickey Mouse shorts have racist/sexist images. T and J and all those other cartoons of the thirties, forties and fifties are eight minutes of Technicolored popular entertainment that (hold on to your iPads) reflect the mores and standards of the times in which they were made. One simple solution to putting them on display in 2014?

... When Whoopi Goldberg introduces a 2005 Looney Tunes Golden Collection, she addresses its politically incorrect themes, stressing that “they are presented here to accurately reflect a part of our history that cannot and should not be ignored” and that “removing these inexcusable images and jokes from this collection would be the same as saying [these prejudices] never existed.” ...

I'm not big on censorship. There are novels, movies and cartoons circulating through the zeitgeist that many people would consider over the line. But I'm not sure what, in the fourteenth year of the new millennium, that line actually is, given what Family Guy and South Park do for thirty minutes of any particular weekend.

Disney shies away from distributing Song of the South in the U.S. of A., but has no problem selling the title everywhere else on the globe, so tell me again what we're getting our undergarments in a knot about? And Time-Warner is now in the process of celebrating Gone With The Wind's 75th anniversary, even though the picture -- Scarlett and Rhett's steamy clinches notwithstanding -- is several clicks more racist than Uncle Walt's depiction of the Old South.

As for the sexism of cartoons, it's hard to see that changing anytime soon because gender mores change slowly, and the creative end of the animation industry continues to be a male preserve. (And yeah, there are lots of women executives in the business, and Cal Arts is now 50% female, but women still make up only 17% of unionized animation employees And the men-folk don't think there are any major problems with gender presentation in American cartoons).

Whoopi Goldberg, I think, has it right. Call out racist or sexist cartoons for what they are, even as you point out that, like them or not, they're part of America's ever-changing culture. But please don't sweep shorts and features with unsavory characters and sequences under the rug, pretending they never existed. Denial is the last thing we need.


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401(k) Retirement Investing

TAG's 401(k) Plan has been transitioned from Mass Mutual for sixty-five days now, and there's been some changes.

A majority of participants were invested in bond funds and actively-managed stock funds prior to the move; now 93.5% of participants are in Vanguard Target Date Funds. All the Target Date funds (and we have twelve) have broad diversification with the following funds:

Vanguard Total Stock Fund
Vanguard Total International Fund
Vanguard Total Bond Fund
Vanguard Total International Bond Fund

(The shorter term target date funds add Vanguard's Short-Term TIPS Fund.) ...

It seems counter-intuitive, but the simplicity of a Vanguard Target date fund is the central pillar of its strength. Participants are broadly diversified, and they can "set and forget" their investment and know their asset allocation is doing better than 85% of all investors in the known universe.

Here's another reason to set and forget:

... Fidelity [Mutual Funds] had studied which customer investing accounts performed the best: They were the ones held by people who had forgotten they even had Fidelity accounts, and so did no buying or selling from them. ...

Need more motivation about keeping investing simple? How about this:

... [Warren] Buffett describes advice he has left in his will as to how the trustee should invest money Buffett is leaving for his wife. Here’s Buffett’s advice:

“My advice to the trustee could not be more simple: Put 10 percent of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90 percent in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard’s.)” ...

I've made almost every mistake known to human-kind while saving for retirement, and after endless blunderinging around, my rules of thumb are (by now) pretty cut and dried:

1) Invest in Index Funds; avoid individual stocks (unless someone is gifting them to you.)
2) KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. Balanced Funds or a three-fund portfolio (Total Stock Market, Total International, Total Bond) are good things because they out-perform almost any other style of investing. So wallow in "the majesty of simplicity", you'll be richer for it.
3) Stick with your saving/investing program. Don't freak during dips (plunges?) in the market. Don't bail out at the bottom of a market and get in at the top. You'll have way less money.

Lastly. I am holding enrollment meetings for TAG members at different studios over the next several weeks. Here are the nearest dates:

Animation Guild 401(k) Plan Enrollment Meetings

Wednesday, October 8th -- Disney Feature Animation (Hat Building) -- Conference Room 1300 -- 3-4 p.m.

Monday, October 13th -- 6 point 2 Animation (Glendale) -- 6th floor -- 3-4 p.m.

Wednesday, October 15th -- Fox Animation -- Main Conference Room -- 2-3 p.m.

Thursday, November 6th -- DreamWorks Animation -- Dining Rooms B & C -- 2-3 p.m.

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Your Worldwide Box Office

Where animated product continues to be a performer.

Overseas Weekend Box Office -- (World Totals)

The Boxtrolls -- $6,000,000 -- ($58,539,208 )

Guardians of the Galaxy -- $2,400,000 -- ($653,760,000)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- $3,500,000 -- ($349,113,151)

But the most interesting thing this weekend is ... a film from China topped the big list.

... Chinese road-trip comedy Breakup Buddies shot to the top of the international box office chart with a weekend take of $38 million in China, pushing the film's nine-day total to a staggering $93 million. ...

The U.S. had to make do with the "place" position.

David Fincher's Gone Girl placed No. 2 internationally, opening to $24.6 million from its first 39 markets for a global launch of $62.6 million. Overseas, the U.K. led with $6.9 million, followed by Australia with $4.6 million, both record openings for Fincher. ...

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Sixty-Nine Year Ago ...

From President Emeritus Tom Sito:.

Oct. 5, 1945- The BATTLE OF BURBANK (sometimes called the Battle of Warner Bros) - Three thousand striking union filmworkers (and a few animators) battled the Burbank police in front of Gate 2 of the Warner Bros. Studio lot. chains, bricks, tear gas, firehoses, burning cars.

Jack Warner placed sharpshooters behind those large movie billboards on Barham and Pass. The head of Warner Bros security was the brother-in-law of the chief of the Burbank police, so many strikebreakers had legal gun permits.

Contract screenwriter Ayn Rand talked most of the producers' secretaries into crossing the picket line. One of the strikeleaders arrested was a background painter for Tex Avery cartoons. Herb Sorrel, the union leader, was pulled into a car and beaten up by gangsters, then later arrested for incitement to riot.

It's hard to even imagine this sort of riot happening today. Happens in the Ukraine, happens in the middle east, happens in Thailand. But here? In good old Burbank?

I guess if things get dire enough, anything is possible. French aristocrats in 1789 and the czar's circle of chums in 1917 thought workers rising up was beyond the pale. But when people and social/political forces whirl together in a certain way, it happens with explosive force, and then carves out its own swath.

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The Weekend Derby

The numbers, Friday to Sunday:

1). Gone Girl (FOX), 3014 theaters / $13.2MFri. / 3-day est. cume: 37M+/ Wk 1
2). Annabelle (WB), 3185 theaters / $15.45MFri. / 3-day est. cume: $32M+/ Wk 1

3). The Equalizer (SONY), 3236 theaters (0)/ $5.6M Fri. / $3-day est. cume: $18M (-44%) / Wk 2

4). The Maze Runner (FOX), 3605 theaters (-33) / $3.4M Fri. /3-day est. cume: $11.6M / Wk 3

5). The Boxtrolls (FOC), 3464 theaters (0)/ $2.7M Fri. / 3-day est. cume: $10.4M (-38%) / Wk 2

6). Left Behind (Freestyle), 1825 theaters / $2.3M Fri. / $ 3-day est. cume: $7.5M / Wk 1

7). This is Where I Leave You (WB), 2735 theaters (-133) / $1.2M Fri. / 3-day est. cume: $4M / Wk 3

8). Dolphin Tale 2 (WB), 2790 theaters (-586) / $798K Fri. / 3-day est. cume: $3.04M/ Wk 4

9). Guardians of the Galaxy (DIS), 1894 theaters (-557) / $794K Fri. / 3-day est. cume: $2.9-3M/ Wk 10

10). No Good Deed (SONY), 1580 theaters (-550)/ $741K Fri. / 3-day est. cume: $2.4M/ Wk 4

Forbes analyzes the top of the list:=. d

... Warner Bros.’ Annabelle, a spin-off from The Conjuring, scored the top spot at the box office on Friday night, earning a robust and impressive $15.5 million. The $6.5m New Line Cinema production, which centered on an evil doll, is an unquestionable horror smash in a year relatively bereft of them. Spin-off or not, Annabelle played like a proverbial sequel to The Conjuring, earning just 8% less than the $16.95m earned by The Conjuring on its first Friday. ...

The knockout debut for Gone Girl is frankly something I had secretly half-expected but dared-not-utter out of fear of poisoning the well. A $20 million weekend debut would have been just fine for the sure-to-be-leggy thriller, but it smelled like the kind of film that basically every available adult moviegoer rushes out to see. As such, the film’s $13.2 million Friday debut not only establishes the film as a genuine hit but also firmly establishes the film as a major Oscar player. ...

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Cartoon Partnership

A new feature consortium:

The British Film Institute is partnering with Aardman Animations are launching a new scheme backed by £1 million of lottery funding to help support the development and production of new animated feature films and the creative talent aardman animationsmaking them.

The BFI will provide funding for up to two years to three filmmakers or filmmaker teams to develop their projects with dedicated development support through the BFI Aardman Animation Development Lab. The process for developing animated feature films is lengthy and expensive limiting the opportunities for British filmmakers. Wallace & Gromit producer Aardman will work with the filmmakers – animators, writers, directors, producers – to shape their ideas with the aim of emerging with a set of greenlight-ready materials for their films, ready to advance to production. The closing date for applications is November 28. ...

Development of animated features doesn't have to be expensive. It can be as simple as two story artists in a room, cobbling a visual storyline together, then putting it up on story reels* to see what works and what doesn't.

Once you know there's something tangible and workable, you can call in the designers, the modelers, and the art directors. And then it's off to the races. (You know that some of the projects you have in work aren't going to get the hoped-for green light; that's why you have a bunch of projects in work at any one time. Some will be still-born.)

What sometimes happens is the production side swings into action before a story is nailed down, then everything grinds to a halt while acts II and III get wrestled with up in the story department. (One of the extreme examples of this was Warner Bros. Feature Animation in the 1990s. There were a couple hundred production people sitting around twiddling their funds at two grand a week while the head of production made up his mind what animated feature he wanted to move forward with. The dawdling got expensive, and the division ultimately got shuttered.)

But good luck to Aardman and the BFI. There seems to be room in the pool for more animation production, so come on in!

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End of Days

Specifically, the end of Day #6.

This past Saturday, the CW became the last broadcast television network to cut Saturday morning cartoons. The CW is replacing its Saturday cartoon programming, called “The Vortexx,” with “One Magnificent Morning,” a five-hour bloc of non-animated TV geared towards teens and their families.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, Saturday morning time slots were synonymous with cartoons. Broadcast networks and advertisers battled for underage viewers. But that started to change in the 1990s.

In 1992, NBC was the first broadcast network to swap Saturday morning cartoons for teen comedies such as “Saved by the Bell” and a weekend edition of the “Today” show. Soon, CBS and ABC followed suit. In 2008, Fox finally replaced Saturday morning cartoons with infomercials.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a Saturday morning cartoon viewership could grab more than 20 million viewers. In 2003, some top performers got a mere 2 million, according to Animation World Network.

What happened? Cable, technology and the FCC. ...

When I broke into the animation business, Saturday morning cartoons were what fueled the majority of animation employment. Hanna-Barbera, Filmation and the other TV animation studios relied on network orders to keep the doors open. What got picked up? What didn't? There were months of nail-biting, each and every year.

John Kimball related:

Most of us in animation in the sixties and seventies worked in t.v. You got used to a rhythm: Six to eight months of employment, then four to six months off while the networks made up their minds which shows they'd pick up. You would maybe pick up some freelance work, do some commercials. And save your money until the new season started. ...

For decades, that was the way things worked, but nothing is forever. Filmation broke out of the Saturday morning strait jacket by doing big orders of syndicated cartoons, much of it tied to toys. He Man and She Ra were designed to boost the toy market, and did. Then Disney stormed into t.v. animation and initiated a syndicated block of shows called "The Disney Afternoon."

After that, cable animation took off, and now here we are ... in the Netflix era. Nothing stays constant for very long.

So it was probably inevitable that Saturday morning cartoons were, at some point, going to vanish. Maybe the amazement is that they lasted as long as they did.


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Show us the MONEEE

The Hollywood Reporter unspools a long article (and fairly detailed breakdown) of who gets paid what in Hollywood, top to bottom:

... How bad is the decline in actor salaries over the past decade? Despite the huge sums still being raked in by such superstars as Robert Downey Jr. (his $75 million comes from his 7 percent, first-dollar slice of Iron Man 3, as well as his $12 million HTC endorsement deal) and Sandra Bullock (a 15 percent, first-dollar deal on Gravity and about $10 million more for her summer hit The Heat), most actors are feeling a definite squeeze, especially those in the middle.

"If you're [a big star], you're getting well paid," says one top agent, "but the middle level has been cut out." Sometimes with a hacksaw. ...

Top directors of photography, of which there are probably about 10 to 15 in the industry, can command $25,000 to $30,000 a week on movies that shoot up to 12 weeks ... On a low-budget indie fare, DPs often take home $2,000 to $5,000 a week. On TV productions, the range is $5,000 to $8,000 a week. ...

Your average studio chief — think Alan Horn, Brad Grey and Amy Pascal — earns a base salary of about $5 million. But bonuses and other sweeteners (structured on box office and production output, among other factors) usually amount to two to three times that payday. Plus, the job comes with the best perks in Hollywood, from private jet rides to 24-hour assistants. ...

Here in Cartoonland, the Animation Guild has its own X-ray machine regarding industry wages, and like our live-action counterparts, we have the "good news", "bad news" thing going on. As Deadline observed:

... Salaries for animators are holding fairly steady this year compared with last year. But the reported median weekly pay for some jobs — most notably staff TV writers, feature storyboard artists, and staff story editors — is down from salaries reported five years ago. The median weekly pay reported by feature animation directors is up compared with 2013 and 24% higher than in 2010. Meanwhile, overall employment at the guild, IATSE Local 839, is at an all-time high. About a third of the guild’s 3,200 members took part in this year’s survey, up from 26% last year. ...

Our takeaway from the various wage analyses? People are working, but people are also getting squeezed. Although TAG members are doing better than their below-the-line, live action counterparts, many are essentially holding their own compared to four, five and six years ago.

Studios have grown accustomed to playing hardball, and they have no compunctions about throwing hard pitches that are fast and inside.

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FOR SALE: Disney Animation Furniture

Seller eager to part with Disney Animation furniture from the 80s. Furniture needs to be picked up from North Hollywood.

All interested parties should contact Ron Dickson by email at jrdickson@earthlink.net

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At the Diz Co.

No guard tailing me at the hat building. I just flash my card, sign the register and stroll the halls....

There's been waves of layoffs as Big Hero 6 moved steadily through the various production departments. Lighting finished a few days ago, and the temporary production hires are now departing, while core staff members clean up odds and ends and sit down to figure out -- as a crew member told me -- how they can do the next movie better.

Everybody on the first floor is now more relaxed because the long work days have ended. But there are newer features being made elsewhere on the premisses. I saw some footage on an upcoming movie Diz Co. has in development, and it looked impressive.

Staff is going to be moving in November as renovations on the hat building start in earnest. the different feature units will be staying together, but there won't be room for everybody at Riverside Drive, so some employees will be moving to another building.

On a related but different subject: An article out of Britain interviews WDAS producer Roy Conli, who says ...

... What John [Lasseter] really believes in: that the directors will drive the story and must own the story. ... [in the nineties] "We got into an executive-driven era and now we’re back.” ...

I think Roy is mostly right about the above. But what's always left out, and what I find a teensy bit aggravating, is that minimal acknowledgement is made by company spokespersons that when a director drives the movie to a place the creative head of the division [Mr. Lasseter] doesn't want to go, the director departs.

And there's nothing wrong with this. The top guy is hired to produce profitable features in the way he believes they should be made. When a director doesn't give him what -- by his lights -- is necessary, then hesto presto! New director!

It's been this way since the days of Sam Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, and David O. Selznick. So wouldn't it be good to admit the way things actually work?

Lastly, the trades are full of praise for Disney chief Robert Iger, who will remain at the helm an extra few years.

Iger was supposed to retire in July 2016, and those two aforementioned guys were the leading contenders to succeed him (respectively the head of theme parks and the CFO). Problem was, neither of them was nearly as compelling a candidate as the guy already in the chair. And more important: The 63-year-old Iger looked around and decided there was nothing he would rather do, according to individuals with knowledge of his thinking. ...

The Disney board of directors was thrilled with that conclusion, according to a company insider. Under Iger's leadership, Disney has expanded its global reach, and the stock has soared steadily from $20 a share in 2010 to about $86 a share now. In 2013 the company made $6 billion in earnings on $45 billion in revenue. The company statement on Thursday noted that shareholder return has increased 311 percent since Iger became CEO in 2005, with Disney's market capitalization rising to $150 billion from $48.4 billion. ...

Sitting in a lighter's first-floor office this morning, I was trying to explain the difference between the Disney of 2014 with the Disney of 1976. But it's hard to do, because the company of today has as much in common with the mid-seventies version as an aircraft carrier has with a rowboat.

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No Surprise

As Jeffrey K. wanting to sell DreamWorks Animation is not startling news, neither is this:

Bob Iger, previously set to retire in June 2016, will remain Disney's (DIS -1.1%) chairman/CEO for two years longer, under the terms of a contract extension. The extension "maintains the same annual compensation terms" as Iger's existing deal, but includes "the opportunity to earn a performance-based retention bonus if certain financial performance goals are met over a five-year period ending with fiscal year 2018." Details will be provided in an 8-K tomorrow.

As it is, there had been speculation Iger, 63, would stay on board beyond 2016. ...

When the Head Guy is presiding over record-high multiples and a record-high stock price, you don't get rid of the Head Guy.

This is business-econ 101.

If Michael Eisner had been riding atop similar earnings eleven years ago, Michael could have survived Roy Disney's corporate guerrilla campaign. Because a booming stock price and gushers of money trump everything else.

But at the time, Diz Co.'s profits were faltering, so it was "buh-bye, Mr. Eisner".

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Art of Blue Sky

... the studio, not the atmosphere above our aging earth.

Before 2002, the Connecticut-based Blue Sky Studios was best known for its commercials and visual effects. Started by animator and Tron veteran Chris Wedge and a tiny group of co-founders in 1987, the studio created simple animated logos and everyday objects (such as a time-release pill for a pharmaceutical ad) before creating more complex, character-based work for clients such as M&Ms and Nickelodeon.

The Art Of Blue Sky Studios covers the company’s output to date, with writer Jake S Friedman leading us, film by film, through such films as Robots, Horton Hears A Who, Rio and Epic, as well as the Ice Age series, with contributions from the artists involved in bringing them to the screen. ...

This Art Of focuses almost exclusively on the concept art and character sketches created by such artists as Kyle Macnaughton, Greg Couch and Peter de Seve - much of it produced either with traditional pencils, pens and paints or with a graphics tablet. What this means is that, as you turn each page, you’re confronted by wildly different textures and techniques, from early, abandoned character designs for Ice Age, quickly etched out with bold pencil strokes, to bold and often quite beautiful landscapes picked out in fresh, shimmering colors. ...

A veteran of the first Ice Age tells me that the studio's pivot away from the "boutique studio" mind-set of commercials and short films was not painless. Staffers were used to working by themselves on individual pieces: separate lighting, separate designs, separate shots.

But this method of working wasn't feasible for a long-form feature, and Blue Sky artists had to become more collaborative, work as a team. Clearly they succeeded, but there was a bit of angst before the new methods took hold.

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At Nick

Took a turn through Nickelodeon Animation Studios this morning, where they have a guard (a very nice guy) following me around because management is afraid (I guess) that I'll walk off with one of the big statues out on the corporate lawn ... or some of the wall decorations.

Nick is the only studio that has me march around with a uniformed officer (kind of a modified "perp walk"). But then, they're the only studio with big statues out front. And you can never be too careful. ...

Nick's ramping up a number of new shows and previously empty cubicles are starting to get occupied. Artists are staffing up to work on The Loud House, and preparations are being made to activate other hand-drawn productions (both old and new titles).

In the meantime, the studio has so many shows in the process of becoming that one of the CG shows will be moving to a new building. And the studio's long-term plans include constructing a new animation facility next door to the current studio on Olive Avenue in Burbank, where productions will (ultimately) be consolidated. But that consolidation is a ways off, most likely 2016 or 2017.

I'll have worked my way through a half-dozen more guards by then.

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