Your End-of-Week Links

DreamWorks Animation picks up a new talent and property:

Pajiba is reporting that Dreamworks Animation has picked Barry Sonnenfeld to develop Pig Scrolls [based on a novel by Paul Shipton] as a possible directing vehicle ...

Bob Hilgenberg and Rob Muir have written an animated feature over at Disney Toons. Since they are stand-up guys, members and there's a trailer of their handiwork available, we give it a gentle plug here.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DW Animation and truth teller:

"We've seen the highest end of (3-D) in Avatar and you have now witnessed the lowest end of it (in Titans). You cannot do anything that is of a lower grade and a lower quality than what has just been done on Clash of the Titans. It literally is 'OK, congratulations! You just snookered the movie audience.'"

(I'm sure Warners is thrilled with his remarks.)

The little Irish film might have missed winning the Academy Award, but it's doing okay elsewhere:

Irish animated feature film ‘The Secret of Kells’ was named best European Animated Feature at last night’s eight annual British Animation Awards. ...

And some of the other winners at the BAA?

Aardman, the Oscar-winning company behind Wallace and Gromit, has triumphed at the British Animation Awards (BAA), picking up two trophies. The studio won the children's choice award for A Matter of Loaf and Death and best children's series for the BBC's Shaun the Sheep.

But it was beaten by Lost and Found in the best animated special category.

The intro to the Beatles Rock Band game was named best commissioned animation at the event at the BFI in London.

The Mouse and one of its well-known subsidiaries do some viral advertising:

Flyers posted throughout St. Louis are advertising for a pizza delivery position at "Pizza Planet."

However, The Riverfront Times discovered that the url – BuzzCampusWUstl.com – does not link to a job posting at all. It's viral marketing from Pixar.

It's alleged that Mr. Bird will shortly direct Mr. Cruise:

Insiders tell Vulture that Pixar mainstay Brad Bird (Ratatouille, The Incredibles) has overtaken the competition to direct Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible IV, and is now in negotiations with Paramount Pictures to do the film. ...

Financial analysts continue to walk back their original gloomy estimates for How to Train Your Dragon:

[Carls & Co. analyst David Miller] said that while the domestic and global box office receipts of the movie are "underwhelming" on the surface, the movie could have legs especially as more 3-D screens free up. Theaters are moving "Alice in Wonderland" to regular screens and releasing 300 3-D screens, of which at least half could opt for "Dragon."

Last of all: some Friday wisdom from story wizard Mark Kennedy:

... [U]nappealing drawings can kill an otherwise good idea. I have seen this over and over: a really good idea gets storyboarded with unappealing drawings and the idea just dies. People can't put their finger on why it doesn't work but they know it's not quite clicking, and it's only because the drawings are not very appealing ...

... Vance Gerry once said that he felt Robert Crumb drew well but that his drawings were unappealing. I think that's a great observation. ...

Have a restful but fantabulous weekend.

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Steven Spielberg Back to TeeVee Animation?

It's reported that ...

Steven Spielberg is reuniting with DreamWorks Animation to develop an animated miniseries about the world of the future.

Dubbed "Future Ea[r]th," the potential project will use animation to speculate what life on Earth might be like over the next 25 to 100 [y]ears ...

Mr. Spielberg, of course, has had numerous successes with television toonage (Pinky and the Brain, andTiny Toons among others.)

He's also had some, ah, non-successes. There was the television series Family Dog, which had a troubled production history and did not go swimmingly. (Staffers told me episodes were under-length and voice actors did ad-libbing to add needed time.)

Then there was DreamWorks short-lived Television Animation unit, headquartered in Encino on Ventura Boulevard. The ill-starred production group was the victim of bad timing. It jumped into television work just as the sector was cratering; a possible production alliance with ABC never happened when Jeffrey Katzenberg's non-friend Michael Eisner purchased the network for Disney; lastly an ambitious animated mini-series entitled Invasion America did not take flight. (Staff said that Steven S. was not happy with the cheap look of the show, and there were rumors that a producer had a sweetheart deal with a less than stellar overseas production house. [Staff is always telling me stuff. Comes from lurking around animation studios so much.])

But now animation for the home screen appears to be back on the agenda. Mr. Spielberg has never lost his love for Cartoonland.

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Tom Ray, 1919-2010

Word reaches us that veteran animator/director, Executive Board member and Golden Award winner TOM RAY died yesterday, April 7, at the age of ninety.

Tom started at Warner Bros. in 1937 and worked for MGM after WWII in the Hanna-Barbera Tom & Jerry unit. After stints at Sutherland and UPA in the fifties, he went to Warners where he earned animator credits on a number of Bob McKimson and Chuck Jones cartoons.

Over the following years he worked at one time or another for almost every major studio in L. A., including stints at Hanna-Barbera and Warners, and also founded his own shop, Archer Productions. He served more than once on Local 839's Executive Board, most recently in the period leading up to his retirement in 1988. After retirement he moved to the East Coast where he taught animation and founded Tomstone Animation.

Tom's first wife, ink-and-painter Anna Lois Ray, who received the Golden Award in 1992, passed away in 1994. Tom is survived by his wife Brenda; his son Greg and daughters Donna Mouliot and Aloyce Levin (Greg and Donna have both worked in the industry), as well as five granddaughters, two great-grandsons and a great-grand-daughter.

His funeral is scheduled for tomorrow at 6 pm at Grahame Funeral Home, 1112 Kempsville Road, Chesapeake, Virginia 23320. Click the link to the funeral home website, where you can get further information and also leave online condolences.

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The IA-AMPTP Meeting

I've just returned from what has come to be known as "The IA-AMPTP Quarterly Cooperative Meetings," which an unnamed wit in the union caucus room described this way:

"The IA-AMPTP Quarterly Cooperative Meetings are neither quarterly nor cooperative ...."

Be that as it may, we had an extensive review of the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan, with a Power Point presentation showing cash flow projections and where the trust funds might be two or five years from now.

But here are some of the numbers that should interest you if you're a participant in the industry health and pension plan:

2009 Metrics -- Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan

* 241 Employees

* $27.3 million Operating Budget

* 2,505 Employer Contracts Reviewed

* 1.2 million Health Claims Processed

* $536 million Paid in Health Care Expenses

* .8% of Participants Incur 28% of All Health Costs

* 500,000 Participant and Provider Telephone Inquiries

* $5.2 billion in Assets under Management

* $264 million in Pension Plan/ IAP Payments

For factoid fans, the MPIPHP came into existence on October 26, 1953 and started paying out pensions on January 1, 1960.

There are approximately 53,000 active participants; with dependents included, the health plan covers 120,000 people.

Relatively speaking, the Motion Picture Health Plan is in the strongest position of any of the union and/or guild plans now extant in Hollywood.

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International Hand-Drawn Cartoons

Who says hand-drawn animation is over?

Sylvain Chomet's latest animated adventure, "The Illusionist" will open this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF). ... Chomet's film is a fairy-tale depiction of Scotland and is set against the backdrop of the Scottish capital, where Chomet currently lives and works ...

... The Illusionist is about an old-fashioned music hall entertainer struggling to survive in the fading days of vaudeville ... More than 70 animators worked on the film inside a studio complex created by Chomet – the creator of the hit movie Belleville Rendez-vous – in George Street. ...

See? There's still animation being produced that isn't built in a computer. You just have to sniff it out, since there's not much of it going on in California anymore. (Jim Brooks and Matt Groening are slow off the dime getting the next Simpsons feature going.)

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Visiting the SPA

Changes are going on at Sony Pictures Animation. Aardman staffers, over from the United Kingdom, occupy a part of the building, readying Arthur Christmas*, due for release in 2011.

"We'll be working on the picture sixteen months. We've done a second pass of the boards, and the story is there. First act, second act, third act. Of course we'll be tweaking it, happens with every picture, doesn't it?" ...

Down at the other end of the building, Hotel Transylvania is in a transformative stage. Ax an artist told me:

"Chris Jenkins has come on board as a director, and we're reworking the story. The last time through was kind of a transition from the old story to the newer one. We've now got the green light to make more changes, and we'll be making them."

I told them I had a full head of dark hair when Hotel Transylvania first went into work. (This tracks my Rapunzel joke.) Two artists said they could almost believe it.

Meanwhile, the latest Open Season III continues in work, animated by Reel FX in Texas, and the buzz is that there might be an Open Season IV.

And of course we must never forget that The Smurfs has started production. In our darker moments of despair, we must hold fast to that reality ... and rejoice in it.

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Life and Linkoramas

The last two days, your friendly biz rep's existence has been meetings and talking to people on the phone and trying to occasionally come up for air (and mostly failing). He squeezed in a visit to Disney TVA on the Disney lot (where Phineas and Ferb and Kick Buttowski are rolling smartly along). And heard this:

"Knowing you've got two years of work in front of you is a good feeling. I've got a buddy working across at the hat building and the guy doesn't know if he'll be there in three months. He says the place doesn't have anything going that seems permanent ..."

It always helps when you're working on a show that's making the conglomerate a comfortable amount of money.

“Phineas and Ferb” is TV’s No. 1 Animated Series in Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14 ...

Elsewhere in Animationland, various newsworthy things are happening, like for instance George Lucas dragging his Big Franchise in a new direction:

... Lucasfilm Animation is developing an animated series to look at the lighter side of Ewoks, Storm Troopers and Gungans and it has enlisted the aid of "Robot Chicken" creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, as well as "Daily Show" writer Brendan Hay ....

Sony's new tentpole has commenced principle photography in the Big Apple:

...Sony has started production on The Smurfs and they’ve announced two more actors hired to provide voices for the film’s smurfy, little blue characters. Star Trek’s Anton Yelchin is on board to play Clumsy Smurf and Fred Armisen is in to play Brainy Smurf ....

I can remember walking through Sony Pictures Animation and hearing animation artists complain that the live-action director was trying to make the Smurfs too photo realistic. But the picture will be a masterwork, just you wait and see.

Entertainment Weekly tells us which Three Dee movies are worth seeing:

... That list would include: Avatar, now the official granddaddy of in-your-face sensual spectacle; the touching and marvelously kinetic How to Train Your Dragon, with its flying sequences that outdo any Quidditch match by literally making you feel as if there’s open sky on every side of you; the punchy and buoyant and hurtling Beowulf; and about three spider-leggy minutes of Coraline. ...

(The best dimensional movies I've seen would have to be Avatar, Dragon, and Monsters v. Aliens. And Christmas Carol was pretty immersive.)

Ralph Bakshi talks about 1974's Hey Good Lookin':

... There was virtually no preparation on Lookin’, because the budget was incredibly low. Lookin’ cost $1.5 million. That would be the equivalent of about $3.6 million today. There was no money. First of all, I had this style where I didn’t care too much about preparation. Preproduction was one of the things we didn’t enjoy. We basically had a week for that with casting. I was very much into shooting what was in front of me. I was like, “If I thought it was right, it was right!” I didn’t question much, and I didn’t like slickness, because I was animating! If I was doing a Scorsese film, I might basically want to polish things up. [laughs] ...

(H/t to Steve W. at ASIFA archives.)

The legacy of former Disney chairman Ron Miller lives on:

... “Tron Legacy” isn’t due until December, but Disney already is putting a sequel on its monorail track. ... Insiders have suggested that writers/ executive producers Kitsis and Horowitz are working on a way to round the story into a trilogy ...

Lastly, a brief history of the Man of Steel (who has nothing to do with the RNC ...):

In the second part of an ongoing series that focuses on the History of Comic Books, producer Derek Crabbe views comics history through the lens of those comic book characters that are lucky enough to be adapted for both movies and television.

Have a glorious mid-week experience. And don't work too hard.

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Why Can't They Make Up Their Minds?

Last week, DreamWorks Animation stock took a beating when How to Train Your Dragon opened in an underwhelming way. But now?

While Wall Street punished DreamWorks Animation stock last week after the disappointing $44 million opening of "How To Train Your Dragon," one analyst said Monday that buyers might be tempted at current levels.

Wunderlich Securities analyst Matthew Harrigan predicted the film could approach $175 million at the North American box office on the basis of what he called "a very moderate" 34% drop during its second weekend. The 10-day haul stands at $92.1 million ...

Pessimism turns to muted optimism when movies hold up well over second weekends.

Even so, estimates for final numbers on Dragon are all over the landscape. Some experts say the domestic haul will be $150 million. But I believe the most accurate approach is to factor in the word-of-mouth ratings ("A"), then use a Koch Multiplier (pat. pending) of 4. This would carry Dragon to a $175 million domestic total. Simple, yes?

Maybe I'm filled with irrational exuberance, but I think the feature could approach Monsters v. Aliens' U.S. and Canadian numbers. ($195 million.)

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The scene at "Scapes"

Even though it was a holiday, a respectable crowd showed up on Friday for Alex Kube's "Scapes," the latest of our monthly First Friday opening shows at Gallery 839, the Guild's art gallery.

This is the third in our ongoing monthly series of shows highlighting the work our members do outside of their work environments.

Right, musicians (including Alex's son) serenaded the crowd.

Among the guests were Jean-Pierre and Julie, two of Alex's models for works included in the show.

The gallery is located at 1105 N. Hollywood Way in Burbank. Later this week we'll post some of Alex's art, or if you'd rather see it live, Gallery 839 is open Fridays from 11 am to 2 pm except on First Fridays when the new shows open.

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Internships

Many animation studios have interns running around. It's been this way since I started, but the NY Times details some of the growing problems with this subset of workers who aren't really workers.

... [T]he number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.

Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. ...

At Little Airplane, a Manhattan children’s film company, an N.Y.U. student who hoped to work in animation during her unpaid internship said she was instead assigned to the facilities department and ordered to wipe the door handles each day to minimize the spread of swine flu.

Tone Thyne, a senior producer at Little Airplane, said its internships were usually highly educational and often led to good jobs. ...

Yesss. Wiping door handles is marvelous training for good jobs later in life. Everybody knows that.

This isn't a new phenomenon, by the way. Sixteen years ago, a small animation shop under a TAG contract had an intern doing animation on commercials in the studio's small commercial department. (They were mostly doing half-hour episodics; the commercials were a small side-line.) I found out about it on one of my jaunts through the facility, and put an end to the practice.

But that was sixteen years ago. And workplace protections haven't gotten stronger as time has rolled by. Along with the rise of "independent contractors," the reality of ever more interns doing ever more work that displaces people who actually get salaries continues unabated.

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Industry Lessons I Have Learned

Time for another dose of ILIHL (1976 to now.) ...

There's a bunch of different routes into the animation biz, almost as many ways as there are people.

* You can come in as an intern/trainee ... and they'll pay you not much.

* You can come in as a big shot (or medium shot) from a related business ... and they'll pay you more.

* The entry door is bigger when the industry is roaring, but even when it's not, there's still a semi-open entrance ... and it will be bigger than a mouse hole if you have the right skill set.

It's important to play well with others.

* Artists come to me from time to time with the complaint: "My boss in unreasonable and wrong. What can I do?"

I tell them: "You've got a decision to make. Do you want to stick to your principles, tell them off and be right? Or do you want to be employed? Because from what you tell me, it's gonna be tough to be both."

* A wise old animation artist told me long ago: "Be nice to your co-workers on the way up, because at some point during your career they're going to be the person who's in a position to hire you ..."

* It's useful to start each workday like you're in a popularity contest ... because in one respect or another, you are. (You're always playing the political game ... whether you want to or not. The only question is: Are you playing the game well? Or badly?)

* When you're wrong, apologize. It won't kill you. (And the apologizee will appreciate it.)

* Build a network of allies and mentors. One or more of them will help you to your next job.

* Don't whine; don't argue. Otherwise you'll acquire a reputation of being a pain in the backside.

To the extent possible, do NOT live paycheck to paycheck.

* Put away 10% (or more) of what you earn. Always live below your means.

* Assume you're going to be unemployed at some point, because you will be.

* If and when you start pulling down the Big Bucks, don't make the mistake of thinking: "This is the way it was meant to be, and this is the way it will be forever." Because it won't.

* Focus on building a retirement next egg -- 401(k), SEP IRA, Roth IRA, etc. -- at the earliest opportunity. The sooner you start, the sooner you'll be financially independent.

The more arrows (skills) you have in your quiver, the more employable you will be over time.

* Grab every opportunity to acquire more training. (Classes, grad school, after-work training.)

* Ask somebody with more chops than you to give you pointers.

* Offer to help newbies. (Most of them will remember and think kindly of you when they're in charge of your department.)

What I wished I'd done at the start of my checkered career:

* Been less of an argumentative a-hole.

* Practiced the Golden Rule more (Not "He who has the gold, makes the rules," but the "Do unto others ..." version.)

* Said "Sure, I'll be happy to do that," more often.*

(* Note: In some ways this job of biz rep has been perfect for me, because you have to be an argumentative a-hole from time to time to do it semi-effectively. On the other hand, being endlessly unpleasant never carries you all that far ...)

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The Three Dee Derby Beyond the Seas

Foreign box office continues to rattle right along, much of that rattle coming from Three Dimensions:

... "[Clash of the] Titans" took over Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" in 3D, which spent a month as the No. 1 foreign title after 20th Century Fox's "Avatar" dominated for the year's first eight rounds.

"Alice" drew $34.2 million from 8,443 spots in 51 markets, and ranks No. 3 on the weekend. "Avatar" finished out of the top five with $4.6 million generated from 2,300 screens in 37 markets for a foreign gross total of $1.959 billion.

Easter weekend action for "Titans," which stars Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes, claimed the No. 1 spot in each market played ...

... The weekend's No. 2 film, DreamWorks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon," opened in 19 territories, and garnered an animated $38.5 million overall from 7,658 locations in 54 markets.

Nearly 70% of the tally derived from some 3,477 3D venues. "Dragon's" best openers were in the U.K ($7.8 million from 716 sites, with 76% of revenues coming from 3D locations) and France, where it grabbed $4.7 million from 743 spots. ...

Like it or not, the congloms will be making more and more features in Glorious Three Dee, and likely converting 2-D movies in the pipeline to dimensional features (the equivalent of fake stereo).

These folks can't ignore the big money to be made when audiences look at their product through polarized goggles. And they won't.

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Pirates of the Middle Kingdom

The issue that scares the excrement out of American entertainment conglomerates and American entertainment unions is the piracy thing. And just now it's driving the Japanese animation industry bonkers:

Japan’s cartoons plundered by pirates

Japan’s cartoon industry, a mainstay of the country’s bid to revive the economy through “soft” exports, is losing $2.4 billion a year to Chinese piracy.

The number represents more than twice what the Japanese animation industry made from total global exports of cartoons and cartoon-related goods during its best year. ...

... Chinese cartoon addicts spend, on average, about $70 (£46) a year feeding their hunger for Japanese cartoons, with most of that sum spent on pirate DVDs. ...

As Japan goes, so (perhaps) goes the rest of the globe. And if there is one thing that unites SAG, WGA, DGA and IATSE with Fox, Disney, Time-Warner et al., it's this issue.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, is hard against the theft of intellectual property. For as revenue streams dry up, the whole intricate structure of the entertainment industry will come crashing down, at which point it will be rebuilt in ways that will probably damage the folks who create the work. (SAG, WGA, DGA, IATSE ... and their pension and health plans.)

We've had multiple meetings on this subject. What sends chills down everyone's spines is not pirated DVDs, although those are bad, but theft over broadband internet. And nobody seems to know what preventive measures will work to stop it from happening.

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MSM Catches On To Freelancers

The L.A. Times gets around to looking at the expansion of freelance work:

Freelancing beats the alternative for many

Many formerly full-time workers must now move from contract job to contract job, without benefits. But at least it's a paycheck.

... In 2005, the federal government estimated there were more than 10 million independent contract workers, or 7.4% of the workforce. That number has almost certainly risen during the economic downturn, experts say, as companies shifted some work from employees to contractors to cut benefits costs and make it easier to jettison staff when business slowed.

... Labor advocates are concerned that the trend, if unchecked, will lead to a widespread retreat in the benefits American workers have come to expect, including paid vacations, employer-paid health insurance and money for retirement. ...

In Animationland, this trend has gone on for decades, starting in the late sixties and early seventies with outsourcing work to Korea, Japan, and other lower-cost parts of the globe.

In more recent times, the sub-contracting has happened on two fronts. There is still the overseas outsourcing, but added to the mix is sub-contracting work that occurs locally, and often inside the studio. (One favorite trick is to offer the "sub-contractor" the use of a company desk, a real "win-win" all the way around: the sub-contractor gets to use the company's equipment and pay all the Social Security and Medicare taxes, and the employer can look over sub's shoulder and give helpful instructions, just as though the sub was an actual employee! What could be finer?)

As the Times points out, the Feds are starting to come down on some of these practices, but companies like MBO have offered employers a way to side-step employment requirements. My take on the freelancer issue is, sub-contract work won't be going away. Conglomerates are keen on cutting costs in the lower ranks, and outsourcing to the lowest bidder is a fine way to do it. (Less cash for the work force means more for the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, don't you know.)

There will be sub-contractors who do fine with this set-up, but many others who get shafted. Sadly, in the brave new world through which we now travel, the shaftings won't be ending anytime soon.

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The Easter Derby

Now with week-end Add On.

And the question, how high will Titans fly? How will Dragon perform in its sophomore stint? The prognosticators spout their opinions:

Some are predicting [How to Train Your Dragon] will fall just 30% this weekend, which would give it just over $30 million over the next three days. That seems a little too optimistic for me, but even a 35% drop off to $28 million would be a great sophomore stint and would keep the film on pace to reach more than $150 million at the box office.

Which is a smidge higher than the Nikkister predicts Dragon will do:

... 3D holdover How To Train Your Dragon -- which still needs to make up last weekend's disappointing debut -- should finish Easter weekend with cumes in the $20M-$25M range.

Through Thursday, HTTYD had gathered in $63,125,872, bumping up 15.6% to first place (after giving it up to Miley on Wednesday) ...

Add On: The Nikkster ups the estimate to Dragon:

... DreamWorks Animation's How To Train Your Dragon ... made $11.2M Friday from 4,060 locations -- down just -36% from a week ago -- and could reach $28M this weekend ...

(The Mojo has Dragon's Friday take as slightly lower ...).

Add On Too: At the wire, Dragon declines -33.2%, the smallest drop of any feature in the Top Ten. It collects $29.2 million with a domestic total of $92.3 million. (Cinemascore didn't lie; audiences like it ... and apparently the Viking have legs.)

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At the Network of Cartoons

Yesterday was Cartoon Network/ Bento Box day.

At the CN, there is actually quite a bit of product happening ...

The Regular Show has been picked up for more episodes past its original order (the original order being 6) ... Ben Ten has received a big extension, as it's a cartoon production that's prospering internationally. As a staffer reported:

"What's happening now is the network orders six episodes of a new show, then they decide if they want to do more later. But they're figuring out that they lose the crews pretty fast after just six, so they're starting to make earlier decisions about extra episodes ...

For instance, Symbiotic Titans is doing 20 episodes with possibly more on the way; the second season of Generator Rex is happening (even as it waits for its April debut), and there are four new shows in development that could go to initial orders of six half-hours. A CG video feature of Firebreather is in pre-production in the main studio building. An old CN hand mentioned that he thought there were six series in various stages of work. (Fishhooks Flapjack looks to be wrapping up.) There are four or five different projects being developed, but how many make their way to being full-blown series is anyone's guess.

I also bopped by Bento Box studios on Magnolia Boulevard. They've set up a really nice facility in an airy, one-story building near Buena Vista that at this point has a lot of work space waiting for crew. The first series to go into the new studio will be Bob's Burgers, with development of various pilots happening at the same time ...

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Fools' Links

On an April evening, the linkage is Springtime fresh.

We get two animated titles high in the DVD sales charts:

Coming in at No. 3 on the DVD sales chart for the week ending March 28 is ... "The Princess and the Frog" ... followed by "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" at No. 7 ...

Charles Solomon reflects on The Secret of the Kells:

Using the scrollwork designs and microscopic detailing of the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels likely dating to the early 8th century, "The Secret of Kells" ... evokes the feel of Celtic tradition and a culture long past ....

Wall Street no likee the under-strength opening of Dragon:

... Shares of DreamWorks Animation sunk 8% on Tuesday to $39.34 after "Dragon" posted a $43.7 million overall domestic boxoffice opening and some analysts fired off negative reports to their clients. ...

Scotland's first animated feature is going into its final laps:

... Glasgow-based Billi Productions Ltd and independent studio Glasgow Animation have started post-production including final colorization, lighting and rendering on the new animated family film "Sir Billi" ... Sean Connery has been heavily involved in the making of the film since its inception ...

Mr. Selick returns to the studios of his beginnings:

Henry Selick has signed a deal which will see him back at Disney according to Variety. He got his first start at Disney in the 1970s sharing offices with such luminaries as John Lassetter and Brad Bird ...

I remember ol' Henry as being in an office with Bill Kroyer, but perhaps I forget some of the details.

The worldwide gross of How to Train Your Dragon is now up past $104 million, with the majority of the take coming from the U.S. and Canada. But it's not doing badly in foreign venues:

... How To Train Your Dragon climbed into second place with $30.48 million on 5445 screens in 35 markets for a still early international total of $42.74 million. The film opened in first place in a number of major markets, but its results were less than inspiring. For instance, in Germany it opened with $2.79 million on 664 screens, but that was not that much more than Alice in Wonderland made during its fourth weekend of release in that market. The same can be said of the film's $2.42 million opening on 367 screens in Australia. It only made $2.38 million on 577 screens in its debut in Spain. On the other hand, it did relatively well in Mexico with $2.63 million on 855 screens and in Brazil with $2.45 million on 244 screens. Meanwhile, it was only down 10% in Russia ...

It continues to be a mystery to me why Dragon isn't soaring higher. Enjoy the extended Easter weekend.

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Low Cost TAG 401(k) Funds

Per a commenter's request about the lowest cost TAG 401(k) Plan mutual funds, I post them here:

Vanguard Target Retirement 2010 Fund

Vanguard Target Retirement 2020 Fund

Vanguard Target Retirement 2030 Fund

Vanguard Target Retirement 2040 Fund

Vanguard Target Retirement 2050 Fund

Vanguard Target Retirement Income Fund

Northern Trust Select Indexed Equity Fund

The Vanguard funds have rock-bottom fees of .18%. They are also broadly diversified, giving exposure to domestic stocks, bonds, and foreign equities. They're ranked among the top retirement cycle funds in the industry.

If you're someone who doesn't want to spend a lot of time rebalancing accounts but just yearns to "set and forget," they might be a good match for you.

The Northern Trust fund (a large cap index which is a domestic stock fund only) has .22% in fees.

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Your April Statistic

A few days ago, one of our large signator studios asked for the following data:

2,952 members (active and applying)

2,449 male = 83%

503 female = 17%

We've rolled out similar statistics before. They haven't changed much in recent years.

When I joined this organization in 1977, there was a higher proportion of women in the ranks. Most worked in ink-and-paint and checking classifications.

Now, of course, there are almost no i & p slots in union studios, and few women work in other areas.

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Alex Kube show opens Friday night, April 2 at Gallery 839

Don't miss the opening of Alex Kube's show tomorrow night at Gallery 839. Here are the details.

Gallery 839 is located at the Animation Guild, 1105 N. Hollywood Way in Burbank. The reception runs from 6 pm to 9 pm. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

Below the fold, some pictures from the opening of the Film Roman "Beyond Yellow" show on March.

E-Board member KAREN CARNEGIE JOHNSON (above) did a great job curating the last show.

Below, more pictures from the opening.

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At the Sonora

Over at Disney Television Animation at the Sonora building, crews are working on Inspector Oso (the second season), and Jake and the Neverland Pirates (first season).

Staff on Oso said they should be working on the series until December "unless they pull the rug out from under us and decide to suddenly cancel it." (Visions of the abrupt decapitation of My Friends Tigger and Pooh's third season obviously dance in their heads.)

And a Neverland Pirates artist remarked to me:

"We've got fifty-two shorts to do on Pirates [That's 26 half-hours.] It'll take us until October to finish, which will be almost a year's worth of work ..."

I took a look at some of the board work for the show. Nice stuff. The Captain and Mr. Smee are in the mix, but I noticed something about Hook I hadn't noticed before.

I mentioned earlier that the good Captain is simplified for the show, and isn't close to being a ringer for the Frank Thomas version at all . (A colorized screen grab can be seen above.)

But funny thing. Monday I was traipsing around the hat building, and came across old model sheets of Hook up on a wall, both the 1953 final and an earlier 1940 model sheet.

And it hit me. The 1940 version -- with big cartoony nose and more boneless, rubbery limbs -- is a close cousin to the Neverland Pirates Hook: a simpler creation than the version that appears in the '53 film.

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The Health Plans Panel

Plan administrator Greg Mason, explaining the intricacies of the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan.

Last night at TAG's General Membership Meeting, Greg Mason of the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan held forth about the various moving parts of the Animation Guild's (and twenty-four other IATSE labor unions') health coverage. To wit:

* The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan covers 110,000 paticipants (42,00 active participants and their families; also 12,000 retirees.)

* A new Summary Plan Description book (to replace this SPD) will be out later in 2010.

* The Plan has three basic health coverage options:

1) Blue Shield/MPI Health Plan. (PPO)

2) Kaiser Permanente (HMO)

3) Health Net (HMO)

(Open Enrollment into HMOs: first month of eligibility and July of each calendar year. Participants can move from the HMOs to the Blue Shield Plan the first of any month.)

* The Health Plan (number one, above) has three tiers -- each tier costing more to participants.

Tier One -- Motion Picture and Television Fund Clinics. (7 Clinics throughout Southern California -- co-pays of $5 per visit. Referrals to specialists via clinics (total of 587 specialists in network) -- also $5.)

Tier Two -- Blue Shield Network. The network pays 90% of the contracted rate. Office visits for most Blue Shield doctors -- $30. Out of pocket costs for in-network hospital stays capped at $1000.

Tier Three -- Out of Network -- Plan pays 50% of usual and customary charges. Other 50% paid by participants/patients.

* It's important to be a good health care consumer; ask if a doctor and surgical center are in the Blue Shield Network; ask if a second surgeon is covered. Contact the Plan or doctor if you believe there has been a billing error.

* Emergency Rooms are covered 90%, but when a patient enters an out-of-network hospital, it's important to transfer to an in-network hospital after patient is stabilized.

Prescription Drugs/ Medco: Drug Plan pays for brand drugs when generics are available only up to the generic price. Maintenance medications (that is, long-term prescriptions) must be ordered through Medco after the first two 30-day prescriptions. (Drug costs are rising 18-23% annually.)

* New Federal Health Legislation: Some of this year: No co-pays for preventive health examination, no lifetime caps, child coverage continued to age 26 years) will be communicated to particpants when the government issues its regulations.

After Mr. Mason finished his presentation, representatives from Kaiser Permanente) and Health Net reviewed the bells and whistles from their plans:

Kaiser Permanente -- * $15 co-pays for doctor visits in KP hospitals and medical facilities. * Kaiser Permanente has a presence in 9 states. * If participants use Kaiser Pharmacies (they are also eligible for the Health Plans Prescription Drug benefit), they're entitled to $9 co-pays for many generic drugs.

Health Net -- * $15 co-pays for doctor visits. * Health Net contracts a broad array of physician groups and hospitals in Southern California. * St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank is a Health Net contractor.

Lots of questions got asked. Members wanted to know the impact of the recently-passed Health Care legislation and why prescription drugs get pricier every couple of years. All in all, it was a useful session.

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Bento Box Entertainment

BBE, formed in 2009 by former Film Roman execs, is producing Fox animated shows. Neighbors From Hell, created in conjunction with DreamWorks Animation, was the first. Bob's Burgers will be the second. The Animation Guild has signed a contract with them.

The agreement covers the second season of Neighbors From Hell and production work on other shows going forward. The company is headquartered in beautiful Burbank.

We thought you'd want to know.

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Like an Article About Which Sky Contains the Best Clouds

Seattlepi.com takes the prize for Stoopid Article of the Day:

Pixar vs. DreamWorks: Who makes better movies?

The real answer? Two cartoon companies, both with roots over at Walt's place, make animated features of varying quality and commerciality. Some people like one studio's product; others prefer the competitor's. But there is no "better," there is only the ones that writer Eric Snider likes more.

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Meritocracy

As I wander down the long hallway of life, I grow wiser, although it happens very slowly.

Long ago, I figured out that many of the folks who win and folks who lose don't do these things based strictly on merit. There is also animal cunning, basic smarts, and the ever-sharp claw of fate.

But maybe I've worked in the movie industry too long, and seen too much. Because I was reminded (again) of Tinsel Town realities as I perused an investment book this past weekend. It was a tome called The Five Rules of Stock Investing -- Morningstar's Guide for Building Wealth and Winning the Market, and pages 104 and 105 read as follows:

Analyzing a Company -- Management

Compensation is the easiest of the three areas to assess because the bulk of the information is contained in a ...proxy statement.

First and most important, how much does management pay itself? ... [S]ome executives think they have a license to print money just because they manage a huge company, no matter how poor a job they're doing.

Pay for Performance

...At many companies, so-called "performance targets" are set by a subcommittee of the board of directors, which can often rewrite the rules of the game if the CEO appears to be losing.

...In 2001, for example, Coca-Cola's board reduced CEO Douglas Paft's goal of 15 percent earnings growth over five years to 11 percent ...

At least Coke's shareholders knew what the target was, though. According to the 2001 proxy, Walt Disney's compensation gurus decided that bonuses:

"... may be based on one or more of the following business criteria, or on any combination thereof, on a consolidated basis: net income (or adjusted net income), return on equity (or adjusted return on equity), returns on assets (or adjusted return on assets), earnings per share (diluted) (or adjusted earnings per share [diluted].)

In other words, Disney's CEO was going to get paid no matter what. To add insult to injury, the gang at Disney wrote that "[we believe] that the specific target constitutes confidential business information the disclosure of which could adversely affect the Company."

More likely, it would have adversely affected Disney management because the board wouldn't have been able to move the goalposts in the middle of the game ..."

-- Pat Dorsey -- Director of Stock Analysis -- Morningstar.

2001, of course, was during the storied reign of Diz Co. Chief Michael Eisner, (around the time a disgruntled Disney lawyer grumbled to me: The Company took a beating last year. The stock lost money. But Michael still got the board to give him and Bob Iger eight million dollar bonuses ...")

Meritocracy is a wonderful thing. But please don't delude yourself that it is the only (or principle?) force that's in play. The game, sadly, is often rigged.

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Animation Quality

The L.A. Times has the answer to my tortured questions below.

... You can create really good animated films but, as a rule, you'll have more success if your films aren't that great. ...

But of course! Why the hell didn't I think of that?!

It explains why Space Chimps and Everyone's Hero are the two highest grossing animated features of all time ...

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Are Dragons Detrimental to Box Office? Or Is It Something Else?

USA Today, before How to Train Your Dragon was released, cautioned about the profitability of dragon movies:

Even the most dedicated fantasy-film fan would have to admit that movies with dragons all too often turn out to be a drag.

Cinematic serpents may date to the silent era, when filmmaker Fritz Lang had his hero slay a 60-foot-long mechanical puppet in 1924's Die Nibelungen: Siegfried. [And Doug Fairbanks gutted a dragon in The Thief of Baghdad -- also 1924.] But most recent big-screen outings, such as Eragon, Reign of Fire and Beowulf, that center on the slithery beasts have not exactly inflamed the box office or the audience's imagination ....

Another possibility is that Viking movies are the problem. Outside of Kirk Douglas's (and Richard Fleischer's) 1958 epic, how many blockbuster Norse movies have you seen?

I thought so.

Then again, a feature's box office performance might have to do with the setting, (though Cressida Cowell, author of the Dragon books, thinks the movie's depiction of her novel's far-north island is fabulous.) As Kevin Koch writes:

Pete Emslie made an interesting point in the comments section on a recent post:

“I particularly believe that films set in exotic locales like South America have a great deal of appeal . . .”

This is consistent with what most of us believe — Variety is the spice of life. We consciously crave variety — at least we think we do. Most of us long to visit exotic places when we’re daydreaming, but when vacation time comes, we’re usually happier to just chill out in our back yards, or travel an hour away to the beach or a favorite resort community. The relatively new field of Happiness Research bears this out. Research shows that more variety doesn’t make us happy, and that we’re actually happiest with what is familiar ...

Put another way, we want variety, but in a much narrower range than most people realize. Someone who loves hamburgers is always on the lookout for a great new hamburger joint; they might talk about investigating that dim sum place in Chinatown, but when their belly is growling, they’ll find themselves steering the car to Bob’s Big Boy.

I think the same thing happens with our taste in movies, especially animated movies. As much as good animated films appeal to the entire audience, if we lose the childrens’ market, we’re facing an uphill battle for success. And any parent knows that children are far less variety-seeking than adults. Ask a child if they want to sit home and watch Ice Age 3 for the 17th time, or go see a new animated movie that just arrived from Netflix, and you’re likely to be watching Ice Age 3 for the 18th time ...

Lastly, there is the biggest elephant in the room: story. If the story doesn't engage and enthrall, then box office bets are off. But I'll go out on a limb here. A weak story is the least of Dragon's problems. As a veteran Disney story artist said to me today:

"My kid and I loved this film. It cooks. He's telling his friends to go see it, and I'm telling people around here to take it in. I think, with the word-of-mouth and Spring vacation, it should do well straight through next week ..."

I have no idea how Dragon does next week, or next month. Frankly, I'm befuddled why it didn't perform more strongly in its debut weekend. (Setting? Characters? Story? Lack of zany, pratfall humor? Resistance of audiences to three dee ticket prices? What?)

You can choose you own questions. But the ones that play in my head on an endless loop are these:

Why did Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel open with $48.9 million?

Why did How to Train Your Dragon earn $43.7 million?

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"Scapes", Alex Kube show at Gallery 839, opens this Friday, April 2

Alexandra (Alex) Kube loves to paint.

With a history in animation, graphic design and illustration, and a degree in fine art, Alex has found her niche with painting in oils.

The colors in these landscapes sing a story of the aliveness in the serene natural environments. After many years of painting, she is honored to have a one-woman exhibit at Gallery 839.

Gallery 839's next show opens Friday, April 2, with a reception from 6 pm to 9 pm. Gallery 839 is located at the Animation Guild, 1105 N. Hollywood Way in Burbank. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

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China Dives Into Anime

The Middle Kingdom is interested in expanding its artistic horizons (as it is so many other things):

... With government subsidies, Chinese animation companies tripled their presence at this year's Tokyo anime fair even as the overall number of exhibitors declined. The four-day event through Sunday, one of the world's biggest anime-related trade shows and festivals, featured a "China-Japan Anime Summit" along with multiple China-themed lectures.

"China is a big market, and everybody is trying to get in," said Jimmy Tse, chief executive of Top Art Investment Ltd., which makes the panda Komazawa craved. "And the Chinese people, they are starting to think, 'How come I'm manufacturing for someone else?' Why are we not creating anything ourselves?'"

China's growing ambitions coincide with an ominous industrywide slump in Japan. ... Since 2006, ... a trend toward adult-oriented (and often sexually explicit) niche titles have turned off the general audience. Moreover, the industry is losing young talent due to persistently low pay and poor working conditions, forcing Japanese animation companies to outsource much of their work.

"The Japanese anime industry basically gave China, Korea and all these countries the keys to the candyshop"...

Low pay? Crappy working conditions? Who would have thought?

Happily, the United States doesn't have problems like that. We're far more enlightened.

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The Overseas Horse Race

While Dragon has hit #1 domestically, Alice In Wonderland retains the crown in foreign venues:

... "Alice" was challenged by ... "How To Train Your Dragon," which drew $31 million from 5,594 locations in 35 markets, of which 32 are new. (Last weekend's debuts were in Russia, the Ukraine and Romania.) Overseas cume for the 3D animation ... stands at $42 million. The worldwide tally is $85.3 million.

I just came from a local screening of Dragon, and it is one terrific film.

And if I were to make a prediction about where it ends up in total, worldwide box office, I would say it's going to be somewhere around $500 million.

(This is giving it a domestic multiplier of 4.6 X $43.3 million = $199.2 million, then estimating the foreign cume as 60% of the U.S./Canada total. I make the projection based on CinemaScore -- an A -- and overall reaction to the film. Ultimate mileage might be considerably different.)

But we'll know more after Spring vacation is over and we see how the picture holds. Whatever How to Train Your Dragon finally does box office-wise, it's a solid piece of movie-making, one of DWA's best.

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Discuss the future of the holiday party at the next membership meeting

TAG's Executive Board has been discussing changes in the format of our holiday party, and we're inviting members to give their input at the next membership meeting on Tuesday, March 30.

Also on the agenda is a panel discussion about the options we have for health coverage. Present to answer our questions will be GREG MASON of the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan/Blue Shield, ANDREW HUSS of Healthnet and ALEX JAUREQUI of Kaiser Permanente. Come prepared to learn about taking advantage of the choices available to us. We will be electing delegates to the IATSE District Two convention to be held in Universal City in May.

The meeting is open to TAG members only; inactive members (on withdrawal or suspension) have voice but no vote. The meeting will be held at the Guild's headquarters at 1105 N. Hollywood Way in Burbank. Pizza and refreshments will be served starting at 6 pm; the meeting and panel start at 6:30 pm.

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Elimination of Lines

Per the co-director of How to Train Your Dragon, the barriers between different types of movies are coming down.

The modern Hollywood animator is accursed with a burden that never bedeviled Walt Disney, Chuck Jones or even the '80s Imagineers who framed each shot of Roger Rabbit. In the era of "Avatar," ... [n]othing is impossible.

... "There's nothing you can't do in terms of creating a performance," says Dean DeBlois, ... "It's only a matter of time, money and imagination." ... " 'Avatar' has bridged the gap so much between what live-action did and what animation traditionally did. ... "It exists in the middle. Those lines of animation and photo realism are so blurred." ...

Matter of fact, the lines are eliminated, aren't they? When an audience looks at characters that gestated from an animation artist's head, to her drawing tablet and finally her computer, yet accepts the resulting images as live-action, there ain't no differences anymore.

We've reached the era of full-on fusion. Bre'r Rabbit and Jessica Rabbits were cartoon figures invading a live-action world. The life-forms of Pandora are animated characters passing themselves off as live-action beings from start to finsish.

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Investing 101 -- Financial Advisors

Now with Boglesque Add On.

Because the monthly deadline for enrolling in the TAG 401(k) Plan is fast approaching (it's April 1st), I put up another post about tucking money away for later.

This one concerns the wonderful world of financial advisers. William J. Bernstein, one of the sages of investment strategies, writes this:

[In investing] I emphasize three main principles: first, to not be too greedy; second, to diversify as widely as possible; and third, to always be wary of the investment industry. People do not seek employment in investment banks, brokerage houses, and mutual fund companies with the same motivations as those who choose to work in fire departments or elementary schools. Whether investors know it or not, they are engaged in an ongoing zero sum, life and death struggle with pirhanas, and if rigorous precautions are not taken, the financial services industry will strip investors of their wealth faster than they can say “Bernie Madoff. ” ...

William J. Bernstein, "The Investors' Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between."

Or, as Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) has a financial advisor say:

"I recommend allocating 2% of [your money] to me, and 98% to things that sound good if you don't look at them too closely ..."

You know, things like funds with big commissions for the advisor, so he'll make even more money off you.

When I look at that Dilbert strip, I look at a quarter century of my life. Because I had, for over twenty-five years, a folksy, friendly stock broker who took me to lunch and invested my money and took 2% off the top, season after season.

And when I finally wised up and told him I was taking my money elsewhere, the friendliness faded a bit and he showed me with colorful bar graphs how much money he'd made me. (This was in the middle nineties, fifteen years into a bull market). And I asked him:

"Okay, this seems impressive. But after all the stock trading and strategizing, how much did you beat the benchmark by? You know, the S & P 500?"

We sat there and did the math. It turned out after all that time, after all the wheeling and dealing and jolly lunches, I had made 1% less than having the money in a freaking index fund. And I had paid him, for decades, 2% of my stash.

Neat. (And I haven't used a "financial advisor" since.)

This is what I say in 401(k) meetings, over and over:

* It's important to asset allocate between small company stocks, large company stocks, international stocks and bonds.

* It's important to keep doing this from your twenties to your sixties.

* If you're freaked out by the thought of losing money, then go conservative (more bonds than stocks), but invest.

The theory is simple. The execution is hard. Because people often jump into hot sectors around the time that sector is cooling off, and jump out of a sector just as it's bottoming.

The trick is to set up a good allocation plan and stick with it. And tune out all the noise from the Smart Money: ("American stocks are dooomed! The U.S. dollar will be worthless in two years! China's the place to put your money!" etc.)

The reality is, nobody can say with accuracy where various world markets will be in two years ... or ten ... or twenty. The dollar might be trading at five cents on the Swiss franc, but with the rest of the world in much the same shape as the U.S. of A., I would shrink from making that prediction. (When I was in my twenties, China was an economic basket case.)

So. Cover your ears. Put a chunk of every pay check into savings and retirement accounts, get it out of your head that you can time any market, and press forward. (It will seem like a bore now, but you'll be happy you did it when your hair is gray and you're swigging down Metamucil.)

Add On: John Bogle, who founded Vanguard Mutual Funds and knows as much about retirement investing as anyone, holds forth here. (Read his wisdom and act on it.)

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TIME's DWA/WB Analogy

... which some won't like:

"Each year I do one DreamWorks project," actor Jack Black told the crowd at the 2009 [Academy Awards] ceremony, "then I take all the money to the Oscars and bet it on Pixar."

That was also the case 60, 70 years ago, when Disney shorts had a monopoly on the Oscars, while the funnier, livelier cartoons from Warner Bros. — which today are treasured — were ignored. In that sense, Pixar's features are closer to the old, elevated Disney style, while DreamWorks' films are flat-out cartoons, proud to carry on the fast, cavorting Warner tradition.

I don't know if I would draw exactly the same parallels, though I could see how others would. To tell you the truth, chunks of the Ice Age franchise are as Looney Tunesque as anything out there in CG land.

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Topics of The Week

I was in the usual bundle of studios Monday to Friday. Among the bullet points from various visits:

#1 Topic today at Film Roman: How does the recently passed health care bills impact the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan?

I said the same things that are mentioned here, emphasizing that the excise tax on "Cadillac Plans" won't kick in until 2018. (General relief all around.)

Simpsons artists are wrapping up Season #21, embarking on Season #22.

Held meeting at another (unnamed) studio about overtime rules.

Artists asked if I could enforce o.t. infractions and keep individual employees' names anonymous. I said that was hard to do. If employees are working uncompensated overtime, management needs to know who they are so people can be paid the o.t.

Another question: "Why can't the union referee the length of production schedules, tell the company if its schedule needs to be six weeks instead of five weeks?" My answer: "That's what keeping track of hours is supposed to do. If employees falsify time cards to 'hit the schedule deadline,' the company has no clear idea of how long the work really takes." Everyone needs to follow the contract's work rules.

At the IM Digital facility in Marina Del Rey, employees have moved past the shock of closure and are getting on with Mars Needs Moms, the last film IMD will produce.

Disney manager told me that employees will be laid off in four waves as IMD's last movie rolls to completion: Spring, Summer, Fall, December. Different departments will complete their assignments at different times as each department finishes its work.*

* Kindly note: IA reps visit IMD studios, not me. But I did talk to a Disney manager re the above.

Enjoy your weekend.

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And .... They're Off!

Now with gilt-edged Add On.

The Derby begins, and The Numbers guesstimates the numbers:

... How to Train Your Dragon is the latest 3D movie to hit theaters and so far 2010 has been dominated by such films. In fact, this will be the 13th weekend of 2010 and a 3D film has come out on top nine times. At some point 3D could flame out and crash, but I don't think that it will happen this weekend and How to Train Your Dragon could beat analysts expectations. Right now expectations range from around $35 million to close to $50 million ...

Frankly, with the critics rhapsodizing over Toothless and company, I don't know what the movie will pull in. But I speculate the epic will have staying power

However, one of the new wrinkles attached to Dragon's launch is this:

Theaters are also planning on raising the 3D ticket price by 8% to squeeze out more revenues from premium ticket sales ...

Nothing like a little gouging when you've got a hot, Three Dee commodity. A stupid thing to do, I think. Because a tipping point will come and audiences will start to opt out of paying extra money to see the Dimensional Version.

Add On: The LA Times has the same thought about rising ticket prices. The greed is taking over.

Killing the golden goose: Exhibitors raise 3-D ticket prices sky-high

Add On Too: The Nikkster's spies and stoolies project weekend box office receipts (subject, of course, to later revisions ...)

FRIDAY 10:45 PM UPDATE: My sources just gave me these updated Friday box office figures with weekend estimates. ...

1. How To Train Your Dragon 3D (Dreamworks Animation/Paramount) NEW -- Friday $13.5M, Estimated Weekend $47.5M

2. Alice In Wonderland 3D (Disney) Week 4 -- Friday $6.2M (-36% from a week ago), Estimated Weekend $22.5M, Estimated Cume $298M

3. Hot Tub Time Machine (MGM) Friday $4.5M, Estimated Weekend $13.5M

4. The Bounty Hunter (Relativity/Sony) Week 2 -- Friday $4.2M (-45%), Estimated Weekend $12.5M, Estimated Cume $39M

5. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid (Fox) Week 2 -- Friday $3.1M (-57%), Estimated Weekend $11.5M, Estimated Cume $37.3M

Add On Three: B.O. Mojo pegs Dragon's Friday numbers at $12.2 million.

Add On Four: Box Office Mojo calculates Dragon's weekend take as $43.3 million. As the Nikkster says:

Even rival studios readily acknowledge that DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg had one of his best films in years coming out this weekend. "It's exciting, adventurous, emotional," one competitor gushed. "But it's been tracking badly." That's because the pic lacked comedy, unlike DA's previous hits Kung Fu Panda and Monsters v Aliens. (Those often annoying wisecracks written into so many DA movies are real crowd pleasers.)

So Dragon finished its opening weekend with a $16M drop from Monsters v Aliens which debuted the same time last year. This, even though both pics commanded higher 3D ticket prices, and Paramount distributed Dragon to more 3D theaters. (Dragon's studios kept wanting to compare the pic not to its own MvA but to Sony's 3D Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, which opened with $30M in September also to great reviews. It's the box office game of managing expectations.) Still, with 97% positive reviews and an "A" Cinemascore, moviegoers liked the product, which heads into 2 weeks of school holidays and should play to good multiples ...

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The Dream of Work

I walked away part of the afternoon at the DreamWorks campus, admiring the olive trees and fountains and waterfalls, but mostly talking to dreamworkers. Many are excited about Dragon, but some are wary of the overall awareness level for the feature reflected in stories like this:

... DreamWorks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon," which is being distributed by Paramount Pictures, probably will sell between $40 million and $45 million worth of tickets in the U.S. and Canada, according to people who have seen pre-release polling.

That's significantly less than the $59.3 million that DreamWorks' last animated feature, "Monsters vs. Aliens," opened to on the same weekend last year ...

The reason for that, per the pundits, is that Alice is still out there, along with Diary of a Wimpy Kid. (My prediction, based on nothing more than a feverish imagination, is that the movie hits in the $50-$60 million range. But I have a sterling record for being wrong.)

One artist, fretting about how it will do, said: "The word-of-mouth will be strong because Dragon is a great picture. So if it gets okay numbers Saturday and Sunday, we'll be fine, because those people will get the word out ..."

Meanwhile, the story crew on Croods has been deprived of Mr. Sanders's presence because he's busy on last-minute duties on How to Train Your Dragon.

"We're going ahead and working on the next pass of the picture. We've talked changes through already. We'll get newer script pages later when Chris has time to work on them ..."

I'll be catching Dragon this weekend. After all the positive buzz, I don't want to lolly gaggle around and wait for everyone else to give me blow-by-blows.

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The March of Links

More linkage for a Spring day.

Green Froggy, per Home Media Magazine, came in #2 against Twilight: New Moon:

... Walt Disney Studios’ The Princess and the Frog, rode its $104.3 million box office gross to a No. 2 debut on both sales charts. Nielsen research shows that 17% of the weekend sales tally for New Moon came from the Blu-ray Disc, while Princess generated 22% of its first-week sales from Blu-ray. ...

Forbes magazine tells which voice actors are hot in feature animation (like we didn't know?):

... When a studio can combine a popular lead vocal actor with a rich box office, a sequel can't be far behind. ... Jack Black is preparing to bring the thunder once again with a sequel to DreamWorks Animation's 2008 film Kung Fu Panda. Black also starred in the less successful 2004 film Shark Tale, which also featured Will Smith. Black's films have earned an average $500 million at the worldwide box office and he was featured in an average 2,000 press clippings around his movies....

Market Watch expounds on DreamWorks Animation's marketing partnership:

... The dragon's share, or 95% of [How to Train Your Dragon's] merchandise, will be exclusive to Wal-Mart, not just the crimson cookies. And Katzenberg considers this type of pact essential as DreamWorks faces an increasingly competitive future in animated features.

"Having these kinds of retail partnerships is part of our future," the movie studio chief (DWA 44.00, +1.59, +3.75%) told MarketWatch. "You have to be innovative today. You have to find new ways to do business. To us this is a unique opportunity."...

Dean DeBlois (co-director of How to Train Your Dragon) is one of those "work from home" kind of animation employees.

"The Pacific Northwest is definitely my preferred place to work from," said DeBlois ... "We share the same time zone. I can hop on a plane and be there in two hours. It actually works out really well."

Cinema Blend compares DreamWorks Animation's output to Pixar's ... and comes down in favor or DWA:

... When you enter Pixar world, you enter a world of smoothness, of class, of originality that's been polished to a sheen. DreamWorks is a much shaggier operation, which explains why many of their films have been outright disasters, but also how they create some of the weirdest, and funniest, films out there. ...

The Daily Telegraph informs us that The Simpsons influence on the Mother Tongue has been profound:

Homer Simpson's catchphrase "D'oh!" has been voted the greatest contribution made by the famous yellow cartoon family to the English language.

It came top in a survey of international linguists marking 20 years of The Simpsons, the world’s longest-running sitcom.

"D'oh!" beat other much loved words and phrases from the programme including "eat my shorts", "don't have a cow" and “craptacular”.

The exclamation has already been officially recognised and was added to the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary ...

Newsweek questions the depth of humor of Adult Television cartoons:

The ‘South Park’ Death Knell? ...Why topical, weekly humor shows must adapt, or face the wrath of the channel-change button.

To deflate pomposity is the raison d'être of the modern nighttime cartoon. All the heavyweights—The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, not to mention the Adult Swim universe—revel in zealously ridiculing athletes, politicians, and pop icons, or anyone who can be treated like a piñata without inviting a lawsuit.

But there's often a disconnect between the large game and the satirical cartoon's ability to accurately target it ....

You're almost through the work week. Press on.

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PDFs for your portfolio

If you've been looking for work lately, you're doubtless aware that studios large and small are looking for ways to avoid having to deal with applicants bringing in physical portfolios as part of the application process.

Yesterday, one of our signator studios announced it will only accept portfolio submissions in PDF format. Like it or not, more and more studios are refusing to accept physical portfolios, and are requiring that submissions be in a common format such as PDF.

PDF is the document format supported by Adobe Acrobat. Chances are you have a copy of the free Adobe Reader program that reads and prints out PDF files (if not, click the link to upload it.) However, Adobe Reader only reads and prints out PDF files. To convert your graphics or resumes to PDF you will need to use an online converter, or a program such as Adobe Acrobat Professional.

There are several websites that offer free or low-cost online PDF conversions; Adobe offers this service at createpdf.adobe.com for $9.99 per month. Other similar sites include www.freepdfconvert.com, www.primopdf.com and www.pdfonline.com. Most of these sites have restrictions as to the types of files they can handle or the size or number of files you can convert for free.

If you own other Adobe programs such as Photoshop or Illustrator, check to see if they include a free version of Acrobat Pro. Also, if you own a scanner it might have PDF conversion built into its software, so you can scan and convert in the same step, and you may not even need to buy a separate program.

It may also be the case that you have a PDF print driver on your computer, in which case you will see an option labeled PDF or Adobe PDF when you are prompted to choose a printer. Choosing this option will "print" a PDF copy of your document as a file on your computer.

If the free websites are inadequate and you don't have a PDF-compatible print or scanner driver, you may want to invest in Adobe Acrobat Professional software. Go to google.com/products and type in the phrase "Adobe Acrobat Professional" (and make sure you're buying actual software and not a license or guidebook.)

As is the case with anything in the computer world, shopping around will result in some good bargains. For example, you don't necessarily need the most up-to-date version of Acrobat Pro, but make sure the version you buy is compatible with your computer and operating system.

We have Adobe Acrobat Pro available in our computer lab if you'd like to come in and learn about it. Contact Ken Roskos at lab@animationguild.org for details.

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Learn about your health plan choices at the next membership meeting

In these days of rising health costs and uncertainty, as our Health Plan approaches its next open enrollment, it’s more important than ever to understand the available alternatives under TAG’s health insurance.

At the next membership meeting on Tuesday, March 30, we will be hearing about the options we have for health coverage. Present to answer our questions will be GREG MASON of the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan/Blue Shield, ANDREW HUSS of Healthnet and ALEX JAUREQUI of Kaiser Permanente. Come prepared to learn about taking advantage of the choices available to us.

Also on the agenda is a discussion of the Executive Board’s recommendations for the TAG holiday party, and the election of delegates to the IATSE District Two convention to be held in Universal City in May.

The meeting is open to TAG members only; inactive members (on withdrawal or suspension) have voice but no vote. The meeting will be held at the Guild's headquarters at 1105 N. Hollywood Way in Burbank. Pizza and refreshments will be served starting at 6:30 pm; the meeting and panel start at 7 pm.

Hulett adds his two cents:

I've gotten first and second-hand complaints about changes in the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan, and it's important for people to show up and ask questions of the Health Plan reps. Here's a few pieces of information to know.

* The Plan faced annual health service increases of 9-10% and had a $528 million deficit over three years to fill.

* The Plan filled the deficit with 50% additional monies from the companies and 50% cost-shifting. (In other words, participants have higher co-pays.)

* Despite the above, there are many ways to minimize out-of-pocket expenses. Here are three:

1) Use the Motion Picture and Television Fund Clinics.

2) Use hospitals in the Blue Shield network.

3) For extensive and expensive dental work (because your mouth is a mess) use DeltaCare USA, the pre-paid dental plan ....

By all means come to the meeting and get all your questions answered.

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Permanence of the Dees Times Three (Part XIV)

Mike Fleming at the Nikkster's site says:

Michael Bay and James Cameron Skeptical of 3D Conversions: "The Jury Is Out"

The chance to charge higher ticket prices has every Hollywood studio rushing to retrofit their 2D spectacles into 3D. Some directors are pushing back, concerned there's an imminent future of cheesy-looking 3D that will stunt the momentum created by Avatar ...

Well of course there's going to be "cheesy looking" 3D. This isn't about artistry or a director's "vision" or a better and stronger America. It's about raking in extra money at the box office. (If the rubes want to come to your dark, muddy-looking Three Dee spectacular, you can't stop them ....)

I have mixed feelings about dimensional cinema. Some of it, I think, works pretty well, and some of it gives me eyestrain and a headache.

But sorry, James and Michael. The jury has already returned with the verdict. The congloms we love and admire are convinced 3D is an exciting new path to riches, and they are going to be pushing the good, the bad and the ugly out the door just as fast as they can. Despite what movie directors may or may not want.

At some point the crap retrofit Three Dee (think of it as the visual equivalent of Capitol Records ancient "Duophonic" technology) will start to drag down the box office like a lead anchor, and there will be (perhaps) a course correction.

In the meantime, brace yourself for lots of big unsightly glasses at your local multiplex. Like it or not, you'll probably find yourself sitting in the dark with the big lenses perched on your nose, squinting at the various planes of objects and action out ahead of you.

So enjoy.

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Time With the Mouse

Flynn Rider, the doll edition ...

Short post: I rambled around the first floor of the hat building today, pausing at different doors to talk to staffers. The lighting crew for Tangled is now immersed in the picture. (They are turning and burning to get a trailer out in short order.)

I had a chance to look at different Tangled images up on different computer screens, and trust me here, the picture is going to be great looking ....

The challenge for the crew is that there's a lot of work compressed into a short amount of time. Everyone is working at maximum capacity. Some are fretting about hitting the deadlines. One person said to me:

"I wish the studio was releasing this farther away from Harry Potter ..."

... And Mr. Rider's grandfather ... with the padre of the Skipper ("Gilligan's Island") there on the left ...

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With the New Health Insurance Legislation ... What Happens to the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan?

I've gotten asked the above question multiple times the past few weeks. Here's what I know:

The New Health Insurance Reform legislation will impact:

Lifetime Maximum Benefit Payments -- currently the max is $2 million per participant or dependent. The new health bill eliminates these caps.

Dependents' Health Coverage -- right now MPI Health Insurance covers participants' children to age 19 (age 23 if they're a full-time student.) This will rise to age 26.

Tax on "Cadillac Plans" -- one of the contentious parts of the Senate version of the health care bill was this levy. Organized labor negotiated higher caps and a later kick-in date for the provision, so the tax now doesn't take effect until 2018, by which time, several labor contract cycles will have happened and unions and guilds will have hopefully made accommodations in the structure and costs of their respective plans ...

I'm anything but an expert, but I've followed the progress of the new legislation and read about many of its details; participants in the MPIPHP won't be seeing any sizable changes in the Plan because of the new Federal legislation. Certainly nothing anytime soon.

The bigger problem for all Union/Guild health plans in the entertainment industry (WGA, SAG, DGA, IATSE) has been escalating health costs. The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan's cost inflation has run below the national average by 1-2% year after year, yet still has annual increases of 8-10%.

These kinds of run-ups can't go on forever. Either more money has to be kicked into the Trust Fund, or the Health Plan has to be redesigned to lower costs. For the MPIPHP, it's been some of both: Employers have contributed more dollars, and Plan participants have endured higher out-of-pocket expenses. (One example: Emergency Room visits used to be free of charge, then they went to $50, now they are $100.)

There are ways for MPIHP participants to lower their health care costs inside the plan. In future posts, I'll go over various strategies. For now, know that the new health bill will not change the coverage that TAG members receive in any large way.

(Writer Craig Mazin comments on the health bill's impact on the Writers Guild's health plan here.)

Add On: List of immediate benefits of the bill here.

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The Fleischers Ride Again

Okay, not Max and Dave exactly. But you get the idea.

Sony is bringing an all-CGI "Popeye" to the bigscreen, with the iconic sailor man's muscles set to pop in 3D.

Avi Arad, who teamed with Sony to turn Spider-Man into a powerhouse franchise, is producing. Scribe Mike Jones is in negotiations to adapt ....

From comic strips to cartoon shorts and Technicolor featurettes to three-dimensional CGI. (And of course Robin Williams played him in an Altman film that was not ... uh ... rapturously received. A Disney publicity exec told me Williams did a funny bit at an early screening making fun of his own performance, Mr. Williams saying he could see his career flashing before his eyes.)

I expect we'll be seeing other animated icons make the move to dimensional CG as we trundle along. Especially if this one makes some money. (Just because Rocky and Bullwinkle don't make the cut isn't a deal breaker. We still have Daffy and Donald and Pepe Le Pew. And has anyone given thought to making Foghorn Leghorn the star of his own film franchise?)

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