Suppression and Freedom

The wage suppression involving animation and visual effects artists has been in the news a lot, and Disney/Pixar Animation chief Ed Catmull has been at or near the center of the alleged collusion between various Hollywood and San Francisco cartoon studios keeping salaries of nine-to-fivers down.

The above is pretty well known at this point, an old story that's gone the rounds and come back again, nothing fresh to chew on. But earlier this week I was talking about the subject to a former Disney employee and a new wrinkle cropped up. It went like this ...

Former Employee: When Disney Animation had personal service contracts, back six or seven years ago, management had us come into meetings. And Ed Catmull explained how they were doing away with PSCs because they thought it would be better for all us Disney employees not to be tied down.

Hulett: I remember. People at Feature Animation asked me about it. I said it was just a way for the studio to save money. Employees wouldn't be locked into automatic raises in personal service contracts every year, wouldn't be focused on raises because they'd be "at will" and more concerned about keeping their jobs.

FE: There was something else. Ed told us without the PSCs, everybody was free to go work someplace else if they got a better gig. The company wouldn't stop people from moving on. But the companies out there were talking to each other and keeping wages down, so how could anybody go get a higher-paying job? And Ed knew about this when he was talking to employees. When he was pushing the "free to get a better deal" thing.

ME: Imagine that. ...

Management dissembling. Alert the media.


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The Next Pixar

With parallel command centers not meshing well.



Not a sequel. Not the usual animated feature subject matter and format. Is there a story here?

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New Cash Streams for Entertainment Conglomerates

It appears the worldwide web isn't always the enemy.

... In the first nine months of this year, consumer spending on digital purchases of theatrical new releases climbed 88% over the same period in 2013, according to DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group. That’s a growth rate more than five times faster than consumer spending on digital formats overall (including all electronic sell-through, streaming and video-on-demand).

Electronic Sell Through arguably moved into the mainstream last year, when consumer spending on digital purchases of movies and TV shows topped $1 billion for the first time. In 2014, EST spending crossed the $1 billion mark by the end of September, putting $1.5 billion within reach for the year, fueled by consumer demand. ...

Jason Spivak, exec, VP digital distribution, for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. He says family films “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2” and “Heaven Is for Real” have been digital standouts for the studio. ...

“Three of the five top-selling new release EST titles of all time are family (films), including ‘Despicable Me 2,’ which is Universal’s largest EST title by a wide margin — selling well over five times what the first ‘Despicable Me’ sold a few years ago,” says Michael Bonner, exec VP, digital distribution, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. ...

“The overall growth of digital this year is very exciting, and we have had some breakout successes, including ‘Frozen’ becoming the best-selling digital title of all-time” in the U.S., adds Janice Marinelli, prexy, Disney/ABC Home Entertainment and Television Distribution. ...

You will note that animated features and effects-heavy live-action movies take up an increasingly large part of digital downloads, as well as other formats.

Frozen isn't just breaking records with movie box office and internet delivery. It also frolics in the shrinking market of little silver disks:

"Frozen" Home Video Revenue

Domestic DVD Sales $148,645,885

Domestic Blu-ray Sales $143,320,697

Total Domestic Video Sales $291,966,582

Interesting thing about older technologies: They often become less robust when newer distribution pipelines come along, but they seldom vanish altogether.

After all, we still have plays on the Great White Way, even with digital downloads and home flat-screens.

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Diversifying

DreamWorks Animation morphs some more.

DreamWorks Animation is set to launch a TV channel featuring kids and family programming in 19 Asian countries sometime in the second half of 2015.

The channel will represent DWA’s first foray into operating its own TV network in any part of the world. ...

HBO Asia, based in Singapore, will manage affiliate sales and marketing, as well as technical services, for the channel, with larger markets expected to launch first.

Original content won’t be created specifically for the channel.

Instead, the network will consist of a combination of original shows produced for partners like Netflix, as well as pre-existing and new series based on Classic Media’s library of character that were developed for European markets and air in syndication. ...

DWA is positioning the branded network as having more original content than any other kids’ channel in the region. ...

The company has figured out it won't survive and prosper using the old format of "Produce a hit film ... produce another hit film ... produce another hit film" (etc.) Because the old format doesn't work too well anymore.

The Netflix deal enables DWA to create a lot of product without having to worry if it's going to be a hit or not. Now it has to figure out how it expands its global reach and its cash flow in new media ventures.

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Your Cartoon Cable Ratings

They explain why there's so much television animation work.

... Last Monday's episode of TBS's American Dad! averaged 1.3 million viewers in Live + 3 delivery, with 949,000 adults in 18-49 and 550,000 adults 18-34. For the season-to-date, American Dad! is averaging a reach of 4 million viewers per episode for its premieres on TBS, encores on Adult Swim and multi-platform plays. ...

Cartoon Network dominated all television networks among targeted kids and boys on Thursday Night (6-8 p.m.), with its performance increasing delivery among all kids/boys 2-11, 6-11 & 9-14, ranging between 49% and 90%. The new episode premiere of original series Teen Titans Go! (6 p.m.) ranked #1 for the day among kids and boys 2-11/6-11, while original series Regular Show (7:30 p.m.) won the day among kids/boys 9-14. ...

there's been a steady expansion of television work over the last few years. Our fine entertainment conglomerates discover, to their delight, that there's a new wave of kids coming along, and fresh appetites for new series and newer characters. We've got more television production -- even with the competition of Canada and its subsidies -- than we've ever had.

How long will it continue? Only the Shadow knows, and he's not telling the rest of us.


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What Mark Kennedy Said

Straight from the Temple:

... Jon Stewart (host of "The Daily Show") ... talked about former Daily Show cast member Steve Carell's role in the film "Foxcatcher". Jon said something along the lines of "What makes Steve so good is that he finds the moments in scripts that no one else realized were there".

We've been talking a lot at Disney about what makes a good story artist, and it can be hard to define what makes a story artist so good at what they do.

Drawing is important, as is a sense of staging and acting, and all the other things that a good story artist needs to know … but there's also a hard-to-define "X factor" that some board artists seem to have. I think it's along the lines of what Jon Stewart is saying about Steve Carell.

A good board artist knows how to "plus" and elevate an idea. A good board artist can improve on any idea that they're given by finding little moments of entertainment and opportunities to exploit the character's personalities, without getting off track from moving the overall story forward. These are the things that directors at Disney seem to find the most valuable in board artists, and they are the hardest things to describe or to teach people. ...

I think it's the ability to find the essence of what a scene or sequence is about. A character's reaction to something. A comedy bit that reveals character.

Some board artists have it instinctively. Others acquire the talent through hard work, and trial and error. Still others never get the knack for plussing a scene at all.


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More About Hackery

The release of chunks of Sony corporate data keeps coming.

Fake names also used by Jessica Alba, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Tobey Maguire during film shoots to protect privacy are among list revealed. ...

The hack exposed personal information — including salaries and home addresses — of current employees and those who stopped working at Sony as far back as 2000 when the information was leaked to various news outlets and over BitTorrent ...

We continue to get inquiries about Sony's personal info leaks, but we're not the ones with much in the way of information. Maybe these folks:

... Experts point to several signs of North Korean involvement. They say there are similarities between the malware used in this attack and a different cyber blitz against South Korea. Both were written in Korean, an unusual language in the world of cyber crime. ...

Sony is now getting around to communication with its workers:

... Sony sought to calm its jittery employees, announcing in an internal memo that the F.B.I. would visit its Culver City, Calif., lot on Wednesday for security briefings.

In a companywide email sent on Monday afternoon, Michael Lynton, the studio’s chief executive, told staff members that the F.B.I. had dedicated “senior staff” to the global hacking investigation, which has been described by cybersecurity experts as “unprecedented and highly sophisticated.” Sony employees over the past week have seen their Social Security numbers, performance reviews, salaries, home addresses and passwords shared with the world. ...

This definitely a fuster of the loudest cluck.

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Dismissal

One less cartoon lawsuit:

The claims against the major toon studios of anti-poaching deals and secret wage-fixing agreements aren’t going away, but DreamWorks Animation, Disney, Sony Pictures Animation, Digital Domain, Imageworks, Pixar, Lucasfilm and others soon will have a little less of a legal battle to deal with. After filing a class action of his own on November 20, animator Van Phan today told his lawyers he wants his complaint dismissed as soon as possible.

“It was never my intent nor would I intentionally agree to be lead plaintiff in this new class action,” says the layout artist. “I thought I was opting in to a pre-existing suit. I didn’t do my due diligence and I made an incorrect assumption,” he told me today, referring to the previous three class actions and now consolidated class action of digital artists Robert Nitsch Jr. David Wentworth, and Georgia Cano. Not that Phan was in the dark about what was being done in his name by a team of lawyers from three different firms. “I did get a copy of the compliant a few weeks ago and I read it, but I just skimmed it,” Phan admitted. It was only when the Madagascar and Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs animator read my story of late last week on his complaint that he more clearly comprehended what he had gotten himself into.

“I got the phone call from the lawyers, there was money on the table,” the animator says of how he got involved in any legal action in the first place. “I now see I misunderstood.” ...

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Worldwide Movie Grosses

Penguins of Madagascar, despite its under-performance across the fruited plain, lands at #2 the global list.

Weekend Foreign Box Office -- (World Totals)

Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- $31,600,000 -- ($560,526,831)

Penguins of Madagascar -- $23,500,000 -- ($144,090,536)

Interstellar -- $22,800,000 -- ($434,400,000)

Exodus: Gods and Kings -- $23,000,000 -- ($23,000,000)

Paddington -- $13,000,000 -- ($15,000,000)

Big Hero 6 -- $4,000,000 -- ($240,348,239)

Big Hero 6 hasn't rolled out in a lot of foreign markets yet, but Penguins is (are?) making a splash in various part of the globe:

Penguins of Madagascar marched to $23.5 million from 50 markets for an international total of $94.5 million and worldwide cume of $144.1 million. ... Overseas, the spinoff opened in another eight territories over the weekend, including the U.K. ($2.4 million). It stayed No. 1 in Russia and Italy, as well as enjoying strong holds in Germany and Spain. ...

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The Leakage

There's been a lot of commentary about Sony's hacked data. It's crappy that personal information and Social Security Numbers of thousands of employees got released; on the other hand it's enlightening for showing how studios/conglomerates really operate.

... Contained in the same [hacked] document were details of [Bob] Osher’s recent restructure of Imageworks, Imageworks Interactive, Colorworks and Post Production -- a move that reduced staff by 230. Osher's move to outsource much of the company’s special-effects work was controversial in VFX world.

“Because of Bob’s extraordinary focus on cost management, Imageworks is expected to generate $7M in EBIT (before restructuring) in FY15 despite a 30% reduction in revenue,” the letter states. ...

This pretty much confirms (if confirmation was needed) that studios do what they need to do increase profits, and the soothing company memos to employees saying "There will be no further layoffs" or "We're paying competitive rates" are pretty much flapdoodle.

But then, they always have been. My longtime joke that "Employees should start looking for other work when managers come downstairs to assure everyone that 'their jobs are safe'" is as true as it's ever been. The hacked information from Sony simply underscores the trueness.

One more point: The Guild has gotten concerned e-mails and phone calls from ex-Sony employees about leaked data. The Guild received screen shots of lists of former ImageWorks employees with a "MPIPHP" designation beside their names. (This is the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan, jointly run by unions and industry companies).

One caller said, "This can't be right, we weren't in the Plan because we were non-union. Was somebody skimming?"

I had no answer other than to tell them to check with Sony and the Plans, because they shouldn't have had contributions made, so I have no idea what the acronym next to their name even means.

Further, I don't know where the list that was sent to us comes from. It might be a screen shot of hacked Sony files, it might be something else. (And I'm not going to be downloading anything to check. First because I'm a Luddite and second because I don't want to get messed up in this fustercluck.)

Lastly: The IA communicated to TAG and other production locals that Sony informed them the company is still investigating the extent of the corporate hacks and so hasn't sent communications about the digital thefts to many employees (even though employees, present and past, are clamoring for information about what info was taken.)

The IATSE's communication happened before the last round of released information from the hacker(s), so what Sony does next week or next month is anyone's guess.

Right now Sony ain't saying.


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Your American Box Office

Early reports for the animated feature occupying the Top Ten List:

... Disney sees $1.8M for Big Hero 6 and Fox sees $2.38M for D’Works Animation’s Penguins, but matinees should push the latter to No. 2 for the weekend. ...

Through Friday, Penguins of Madagascar has collected $40,871,000 while Big Hero 6's earnings total $171,229,000.

PoM's foreign take is $29,000,000 more than domestic totals. Big Hero 6 now owns a worldwide gross of $228,129,000.

And the list:

1). The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (LGF), 4,054 theaters (-97) /$6.65M Fri. (-73%)/ 3-day cume: $22.8M (-60%)/ Total cume: $258M/Wk 3

2). The Penguins Of Madagascar (FOX), 3,775 theaters (11)/ $2.36M Fri. (-77%) / 3-day cume: $10.6M (-58%)/ Total cume: $49.1M / Wk 2

3). Horrible Bosses 2 (WB), 3,400 theaters (+25) / $2.5M Fri. (-60%)/ 3-day cume: $8.6M (-44%)/ Total cume: $36M / Wk 2

4). Big Hero 6 (DIS), 3,168 theaters (-197) / $1.7M Fri.(-78%) / 3-day cume: $7.6M (-60%)/ Total cume: $177.1M /Wk 5

5). Interstellar (PAR), 3,028 theaters (-38) / $2M Fri. (-70%)/ 3-day cume: $7.1M (-55%) / Total cume: $158M / Wk 5

6). Dumb and Dumber To (UNI), 3,086 theaters (-44) / $1.1M Fri. (-67%)/3-day cume: $3.7M (-57%)/ Total cume: $77.4M /Wk 4

7). The Theory Of Everything (FOC), 826 theaters (+24) / $754K Fri.(-61%) / 3-day cume: $2.6M (-48%)/ Total cume: $13.6M / Wk 5

8). Gone Girl (FOX), 1,205 theaters (+31) / $410K Fri. (-59%)/ 3-day cume: $1.4M (-43%)/ Total cume: $162.8M / Wk 10

9/10). Birdman (FSL), 738 theaters (+28) / $297K Fri. (-60%)/3-day cume: $1.1M (-41%)/ Total cume: $18.9M /Wk 8

Having animated features at the 2nd and 4th positions isn't too shabby. Then there are the live-action features that are heavily laced with animated effects.

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VFX Contestants

For the Little Gold Man.

Academy Award Short List -- Visual Effects

Captain America

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Godzilla

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies

Interstellar

Maleficent

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

Transformers: Extinction

X-Men: Days of Future Past

And I haven't the foggiest which title above might win.

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Self-Aggrandizement

When Walt Disney died, the studio went into a creative lockdown. The mantra "What Would Walt Do" comforted the old-timers, but it shackled the up-and-comers who wanted to take big risks on new approaches to animation.

Into this sleepy studio walked Steve Hulett, whose father Ralph had been an artist at the studio for nearly four decades. Hulett was hired as a storyman during a transitional time in the company's history, when Walt's spirit was receding and Hollywood kingpins Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg were taking over.

Hulett takes you into the sometimes dark Disney heart of power, politics, and the cult of personality. ...

So what the hell is this?

It's the book and kindle version of the memory exercise I wrote twenty-odd months ago, part of which has unspooled chapter by chapter on Cartoon Brew. Some people have wanted it in book form, and now here it is.

I commenced scribbling chunks of Mouse when I was on a cut-rate cruise in the Fall of 2012. (You can only walk windy decks for so long). I wrote on yellow note pads because I didn't have a computer, and I kept at it until I had a bunch of pads filled. I had no idea what I was going to do with the mass of words I had put down, but it was a satisfying way to revisit my youth.

When I had most of the piece written, I started putting the results up on TAG blog. By and by I got asked by Cartoon Brew if it could run them (I said yes), and then I received a message from Theme Park Press wondering if they could publish the whole thing as a book. (Again I said yes).

As chapters materialized on-line, director John Musker sent me e-mails filled with witty commentary and some badly-needed corrections. I asked him if he would write a foreword to the book, and to my amazement he said "Sure". He also provided caricatures of Pete Young and Yours Truly. I'm both grateful and indebted to him for everything he's done.

Lastly. Along with tales of the Disney Feature department during the eras of Ron Miller and Eisner/Katzenberg, the book contains interviews with a half-dozen Disney old-timers (Ward Kimball and Ken Anderson among them), and biographical sketches of Disney staffers who labored in the animation vineyards in the 1970s.

We now return to the usual TAG blog posts.

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Wage Coordination

But not necessarily in a good way:

... The latest amended suit filed by attorneys from the law firm Cohen Milstein adds Blue Sky Animation — maker of the hit films Rio and Ice Age — to a list of defendants which includes Dreamworks Animation, Disney, Image Works, Sony Animation and several other studios. Blue Sky, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, is a subsidiary of Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox.

Blue Sky reportedly contacted Pixar to discuss “our sensitive issue of employee retention,” after which Pixar’s head of Human Resources contacted her counterpart at Blue Sky, Linda Zazza, “to assure her that we are not making calls to their people or trying to poach them in any way.”

It’s remarkable that, five years after the DOJ began its investigation into wage fixing in the technology industry, we’re only now learning about how deep the cartel reached across the Hollywood animation studios. ...

We continue to get calls about from animation employees studios that (allegedly) suppress wages. Where appropriate, we refer them to lawyers in various large cities.

And I've been asked by members if I think that studios coordinate with each other, if they manipulate the salaries they pay. I always respond "Yeah, sure. I don't think it happened very much in the 1990s, but it happens a lot now."

Can I prove this? Can I hold up a smoking gun? Before the depositions of some animation executives were made available to the general public, the answer was "No." Today, of course, the answer is different. Now the answer isn't "Does this kind of stuff go on?" but "How widespread is this stuff?"

Month by month, we get clearer answers.

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Box Office Prediction

The Times tells us ...

... Second place will be a battle between 20 Century Fox’s animated film “Penguins of Madagascar,” the spinoff of DreamWorks Animation’s "Madagascar" franchise, and Disney’s “Big Hero 6.”

Tracking suggests "Penguins of Madagascar" could pull in up to $13 million in its second weekend. ...

Penguins has just under $38 million now, so a $13 million weekend will run it up over $50 million.

Meanwhile, Big Hero 6 is closing on $170 million in the U.S. and Canada.

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Only One Solution

More Shrek.

... [DreamWorks Animation] got into the computer-animation game early and captivated audiences with a series of four "Shrek" films between 2001 and 2010. All of those films were blockbusters, delivering more than $200 million in domestic box office sales each—sufficient to earn profits even with monster-sized budgets.

Unfortunately, even the best film franchises don't last forever and DreamWorks hasn't been able to find a replacement. Not one of the studio's films has topped the domestic box office gross of $239 million attained by "Shrek Forever After" in 2010, according to industry research firm Rentrak. ...

So why does the franchise have to end? I'm being serious here. Pixar is doing Toy Story 4 after announcing that #3 "completed the tale" and was, really and truly, The End. Completion. Finito.

Yeah, hm hm.

When a feature pulls down over a billion dollars, whether it's The End or not, a way will be found to keep the ball rolling down the magic highway lined with gold. And some flapdoodle will be released about how "Hey now! We just found a new and really compelling story that just has to be told! So we're doing another one!"

Of course they're doing another one. There's one point two billion reasons (with George Washington on them) that one more movie should be produced (and why, as an aside, I confidently predict that there's a Frozen II in everyone's future). So my advice to Jeffrey K.? Get a couple of development crews humping on new ideas for another Shrek feature. Let four or five of your best board artists and directors gin up a half-dozen fresh plots. Let them draw up some beat boards.

Then choose the storyline that grabs you, and call up Mike Meyers, Carmen Diaz and Eddie Murphy. Let them know the old team is back in business. This isn't art we're talking about here, but commerce. DreamWorks needs a hit, a big hit. And if Diz Co. can reignite a forty-year-old chestnut like Star Wars, can pump new life into Toy Story twenty years further on, then Shrek can be brought back to life.

I mean, you want to hike DWA's stock price up thirty percent, or don't you? What are you waiting for?

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Disney Frolic

The Mouse touts its cable winners.

'Star Wars Rebels' and 'Gravity Falls' Power Disney XD to Its Biggest Month in Primetime in Its Over 15-Year History in Boys 6-11 and Its #3 Month Ever in Boys 6-14 and Boys 2-11

Fueled by original animated series “Gravity Falls” and “Star Wars Rebels” – the network’s Top 2 series of the month across-the-board – Disney XD recorded its #1 month in Primetime in the channel’s history in Boys 6-11 (136,000/1.1 rating) and its #3 month of all time in Boys 6-14 (174,000/1.0 rating) and Boys 2-11 (164,000/0.8 rating).

Disney XD out-performed Nicktoons by double-to-triple digits across the board: Total Viewers (+23% – 417,000 vs. 339,000), Kids 2-11 (+23% – 230,000 vs. 187,000), Boys 2-11 (+22% – 164,000 vs. 134,000), Kids 6-14 (+49% – 238,000 vs. 160,000), Boys 6-14 (+49% – 174,000 vs. 117,000), Kids 6-11 (+43% – 183,000 vs. 128,000) and Boys 6-11 (+43% – 136,000 vs. 95,000). ...

On a related note, I visited Disney's Hat Building this week and found most everybody boxing up personal and work items for the move to Disney Toon Studios in Glendale and another structure west of the Bob Hope Airport in Los Angeles ... because interior demo of the Hat Building will commence soon. One Hat Building resident related:

The DTS [DisneyToon Studio] building is nice, but the other place? By Bob Hope Airport? It's pretty much a warehouse. It used to be occupied by Walt Disney Imagineering and the Disney Company owns it. People aren't going to have a lot of room over there. And the heating and air-conditioning will be a challenge. ...

I wouldn't know about these things, but the staffer has been through the building with other employees, so I guess he's up on his work space issues. As another artist said: "They tell us we'll be off-site fifteen months. People who end up over near the airport will probably be happy to come back to the Hat."

A veteran I talked to about the move said: "Whatever the Imagineering building is like, it can't be any worse than the buildings on Flower Street, when we left the lot in the eighties. Those places were dumps."

Having been in the Flower Street facilities back in the day, I can't disagree.


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World Corporatism

The Guardian shares with us some splendid news.

George Osborne makes announcement of credit, from April 2015, to help companies looking to make programmes in the UK

... George Osborne announced the tax break for live-action children’s programming in the government’s Autumn statement on Wednesday. ...

The help for production companies looking to make live-action children’s shows in the UK follows a similar and successful credit scheme for high-end dramas. “We will help one area of television production that has been in decline, with a new children’s television credit, alongside our new animation credit,” said the chancellor. “The government will introduce a new tax relief for children’s television programmes from April 2015.”

The government said the relief would be available at a rate of 25% on qualifying production expenditure. ... The incentives could lure more investment from US children’s TV powerhouses such as Disney and Viacom, which owns brands including the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, as well as new digital players such as Netflix and Amazon. ...

Ah, yes. British Conservatives are following along behind Georgia Republicans and California Democrats, shoveling Free Money into the hungry, open mouths of our fine, entertainment conglomerates.

You can rail against Free Money for the undeserving poor. And you can curse the idea of Food Stamps. But the dole is really going on everywhere across the planet, and the entities who get the lion's share of the handouts aren't the riffraff who work for tiny wages. The bulk of our national treasure goes for ...

Price supports for big corporate farms.

Free money for Big Banks.

And of course foreign and domestic subsidies for corporations making movies and TV shows.

Per Subsidy Tracker 2.0, the Walt Disney Company (just to pull a random name out of the hat) has been awarded $381.5 million in government subsidies in recent years. And that airplane company named Boeing, up at the top of the Subsidy Tracker list? It's gained a grand total of $13,174,075,797. (That's 13 billion, if you have trouble counting all the commas.)

I long ago stopped wringing my hands about government welfare. Politicians scream about welfare chiselers living in the inner city, but few Democrats or Republicans dwell on the S & P 500 CEOs being showered with greenbacks, so I really don't know what all the hoo ha is about. $59 billion is spent on garden-variety welfare programs, while $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies.

Where's the politicians' outrage about that?





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American in the Middle Kingdom

This doesn't happen often.

Edward E. Frumkes, former Warner Bros. president of international theatrical distribution and marketing, has joined China’s Shanghai Hippo Animation Corp. as president of its international division.

It is highly unusual for wholly owned Chinese companies to install a Westerner in a top management position rather than in a customary figurehead role. Therefore the Frumkes hire is potentially transformational for Hippo as the company grows its animation business and expands into technology services for the entertainment industry and beyond.

Frumkes, who has been living in China for approximately a year, says Hippo is looking to tap his experience and skillset as the company scales up its production capacity and seeks strategic and financial partners. ...

What's of interest here is that an American movie exec is moving from live-action to animation.

Usually it's the other way around.

There are, I think, two explanations. An animation gig is what Mr. Frumkes could get, or he sees animation as the hot sector of Movieland, and so went for a job where there is growth, high profits, and a future.

Or maybe Hippo just offered Ed Frumkes a bucket of money to sign on, and so he did.

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Going the Indie Route

Not the normal route for developing an animated feature.

... Four years ago, Scott Sava wrote a full-length screenplay for “Animal Crackers,” which is the story of a family who inherits a rundown circus and a magical box of animal crackers that changes characters into the animals they have eaten.

He was unsuccessful in shopping the story and often told he was “just a comic book guy,” so Sava secured the funding from a studio in Spain that he had worked with for 10 years, to make a short film. ...

Sava has since received offers from every major studio including Warner Bros., Disney, DreamWorks and Sony, who are all interested in distributing the film. He and his producing partners have yet to make a final decision.

“But we have the financing,” Sava said, “so we can make the movie." ... Sava will co-direct the film with animator/director Tony Brancroft ... while he’s co-written the most recent draft with Dean Lorey (”Arrested Development”). ...

The feature will be produced in Spain, and released in 2016. It's tough for independent animated features to get traction in the marketplace, but you never know. Sooner or later, an indie could turn into a hit. So it might as well be this one.

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