Starz!

For the first time since I've been going up to the big yellow building next to the fabled Bob Hope Airport, there are artists working on the middle floor, sprinkled among the execs ....

They're working on a new show for (I think) the new Family/ Kids' Network called The Hub. Looks like a fun production, but since I haven't seen its title announced on the intertubes and I'm not keen on hearing some executive yell: "We haven't announced the show yet, you oaf, so keep your yap shut!" I won't reveal the title of the opus here.

Most of the crew are recent refugees from Warner Bros. Animation. As one board artist remarked:

"Almost all the people working here got laid off of Looney Tunes months ago, when they shut down the series to retool. We've been up here a couple of days, and should be working at least until September. The show does well, it could be a lot longer. We hope."

Meanwhile, things are still relatively quiet up on The Simpsons floor, and construction on Hasbro/Discovery's other floor continues apace.

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A New Broom Sweeps Clean, #1 of 4

Click the thumbnails for a larger hi-res image.

Courtesy of the Megacollector, a change of pace from all-Disney-all-the-time. Storyboards for an unproduced late-1950s Terrytoons project, "A New Broom Sweeps Clean", from master cartoon artist Jim Tyer (1904-1976).

Cartoon Brew and the BBC website have more on Tyer.

Mega informs us that these large story panels were part of an elaborate pitch that, sadly, never became a special or series. Mr. Tyer, noted for his squash, stretch and not-quite-on-model animation, came to Terrytoons in 1946.

Working for a variety of tv animation houses in the 1960s, Mr. Tyer finished his career working on Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat, passing away in 1976. (More to come ...)

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Where To Put The Money

Now with monetized Add On!

Another investing/ 401(k) post.

The question before us is, where do you stash the extra cash? Basic rule of thumb: Fund the 401(k), fund the Roth IRA, then put money into investment accounts. And here's a simple-minded but necessary tutorial about the best places for each of these three categories:

1. Put your most tax-inefficient funds in 401(k)s, 403bs, traditional IRAs and similar retirement accounts. When these are full…

2. Put your next most tax-inefficient funds in your Roth(s). When your Roths are full…

3. Put what's left into your taxable account.

4. ...[K]eep only tax-efficient funds in taxable accounts..

This is pretty basic, straight-forward stuff, but lots of people don't pay much attention and so louse up their investment mix. They stick index funds (tax efficient) into 401(k)s and actively managed funds (high turnover, low tax efficiency) into investment accounts.

Last point: We've had a bunch of people say they missed today's and yesterday's meetings, so to insure future attendance, we offer these:

Upcoming 401(k) Enrollment Meetings

Wed., May 12th -- Starz/Film Roman -- 2:30 p.m. -- Rm. 2037

Tues., May 18th -- Disney TVA (Sonora) -- 2 p.m. -- Rm. 1173

Tues., May 18th -- Disney Toons (Sonora) -- 3 p.m. -- Rm 2025

Thurs., May 20th -- Walt Disney Animation Studios (Southside building) 10 a.m. -- Rm 1300.

Add On: CBS has a useful article about stupid things people do with their 401(k)s:

... 5. Misusing Target-Date Funds

About a third of 401(k) participants invest in target-date funds (at some companies, these funds are the default option), but many don’t know how to use them. These accounts allocate assets based on the year you plan to retire and are meant to provide one-stop investing. Vanguard’s Target Retirement 2030 Fund (VTHRX), for instance, divides contributions among domestic stocks and bonds and international stocks in a ratio designed for someone retiring in 21 years (now 67 percent U.S. stocks, 16 percent bonds, 17 percent international stocks). But some employees invest in multiple target-date funds with different dates, defeating the purpose.

“I wouldn’t say it’s disastrous, but it just doesn’t make any sense,” says Seattle financial planner David Lamp ...

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The Fifth Floor

Today was DreamWorks Animation 401(k) day, where I rolled on campus to perform one of my mesmerizing, rib-tickling 401(k) enrollment meetings. After the meeting (held on DreamWorks' patio since I got bumped out of my usual meeting room), I rambled over to the freshly expanded Lakeside Building (pictured above) ...

The building has a lot more footage and two new floors. I didn't know about the new floors until a story artist told me a week ago he was now working "on the fifth floor."

Fifth floor?

Turns out there is one, and The Croods development teams are up there working on the new DWA picture, with lots of board artists drawing on Cintiqs. I ran into a guy I last saw at a different company across town, who told me:

"I've worked at every studio in L.A., and DreamWorks has better morale than any of them. [Studio X], my last place, just seemed totally directionless. The artists kept wondering what we were doing, where we were going. We just seemed to go in circles and the managers were clueless*.

"But here? They have an actual plan."

* I'll keep the identity of the studio of which the artist speaks under wraps. For all our sakes.

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Political Animation

This animated attack ad had me doubled up laughing. (It doesn't take much at 8:30 in the morning ...)

Animation in politics is hardly new. One of the more famous is "Hell Bent For Election," produced in 1944 on behalf of President Franklin Roosevelt by various horrid Hollywood lefties.

It was directed by Chuck Jones and was the start of what became UPA (and then called Industrial Films). Steve Bosustow was the executive producer.

Animated Pelosis and Obamas, animated locomotives with FDR's face. We've kind of come full circle, haven't we? Click here to read entire post

Building Investment Assets

TAG 401(k) Enrollment Meeting* time has arrived, so I post about ever-popular "asset allocation" models (just the thing as the markets buck up and down, eh?) ...

One of my favorite investment gurus is Dr. William Bernstein of Portland, Oregon. Dr. Bernstein is a full-time neurosurgeon, also a full-time investment advisor. (A neat trick, but the man likes to work eighty-hour weeks. Go figure ...)

One of Dr. Bernstein's model portfolio's is a smart little item called the "Coward's Portfolio," detailed on the Bogleheads "Lazy Portfolios" wiki page as follows:

William Bernstein, the author of several books including "The Intelligent Asset Allocator" and "The Four Pillars of Investing," introduced the Coward's Portfolio in 1996. The "coward" refers not to the investor's risk tolerance but to the strategy of hedging one's bets and having slices of a number of asset classes. This portfolio is similar to the Coffeehouse Portfolio except that short term bonds are used, and the international portion is divided into equal slices of Europe, Pacific and EM.

The Coward's Portfolio

Total Stock Mkt -- 15%

Large Value -- 10%

Small Blend -- 5%

Small Value -- 10%

Europe -- 5%

Pacific -- 5%

Emerging Markets -- 5%

REIT --5%

Short Term Bond -- 40%

There are as many asset allocation models as there are financial wizards, and all will work fairly well, depending on market conditions. Your job is to pick a model that fits snugly into your comfort zone and stick with it for several decades until you become independently wealthy.

* TAG's first 401(k) meeting of the current season happens tomorrow at DreamWorks Animation, 2:00 p.m. in Dining Rooms B & C. Be there, if you can.

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Persuasion

TAG, like any good little labor organization, is interested in organizing new studios that haven't seen fit to sign our collective bargaining agreement. This isn't always easy, because studios working without benefit of contract often like to stay that way.

We are currently working to organize an animation facility that isn't keen to be part of our club. As we always do, we've phoned employees, written employees. Happily, it hasn't just been me sending the letters. One of our executive board members, K.C. Johnson, wrote an eloquent missive about what becoming part of the union has meant to her and what she hopes it will mean to others. We share a large part of it below:

... I’m writing today to ask you to vote “Yes” for The Animation Guild. No one’s asked me to write this letter. I am on the Guild’s Executive Board, and have thus heard about the current union drive. I’m writing because I know from my own experience that a unionized [cartoon studio] would greatly benefit you as a working artist and member of the wider animation community. ... I‘d like to share some information you may not know, and ask you to think about some serious questions.

Residuals

Although they don’t arrive in our mailboxes like the Writer’s Guild, we as artists do earn residuals. The studios pay them directly into our Health and Pension Plan, along with the residuals of all the other IATSE guilds (i.e. grips, art directors, etc.). Count how many times episodes of [your studio's shows] have aired in first run and reruns. You are paid for that … if you’re receiving Motion Picture benefits. If you’re not receiving these benefits, who gets the money? Not [your studio], and not you. You forfeit them completely.

Health Plan

Since most of you will soon be transitioning off of the Motion Picture health plan, I think you’re familiar with it. But my husband is a freelance comic book artist with no benefits. We had a baby in 2008 that cost us a total of $130 out of pocket -- for everything, including the delivery. Now, all three of us are covered for a premium of ... $0 a year. With $5 co-pays for doctor’s visits at the Motion Picture clinic.

Don’t forget about the portability. Will you be at [your current studio] forever? Imagine no loss of coverage through hiatus, between jobs, for even up to a year and a half! With that $0 annual premium. COBRA premiums can run from $400 to over $900 a month.

Pension

The Animation Guild has three pieces to its pension plan.

1. 401(k): Voluntary. Use it or don’t use it. It includes Vanguard funds, which are very good.

2. Pension: Requires ... zero effort on your part, and zero dollars out of your paycheck. Studios contribute for you for every hour you work. For me, as of December 2009, my 7 years at union shops have already guaranteed me over $450 a month when I retire. How does [your studio’s] pension compare? Additionally, when you reach the 15-year mark, you earn Motion Picture health plan benefits throughout retirement. I’ve been watching my 66-year-old (now retired) mom manage my 98-year-old grandmother’s care for quite some years. If you think having a good health plan now is important... just wait.

Here’s a very important detail: you are not vested until you’ve earned five years. If you stop working at union shops and have less than five years, you could lose the credit towards your vesting and have to start over. Do you know how many years you have vested now? [Call MPIPHP to find out the answer: (818) 769-0007, extension 627.] Having [your place of work] as a union studio would help to steer you towards vesting, not away from it.

3. Individual Account Plan (IAP): Requires ... zero effort on your part, and zero dollars out of your paycheck. It just accumulates, same as your pension. And unlike the pension, it vests after only one year! As of December 2009, with only 7 years, my IAP has over $27,000 in it. I get all of it when I retire, and it grows with every hour I work at a union shop. This is real money we’re talking about here (Twenty. Seven. Grand.), and it only costs the studios pennies per hour, per person. Like buying some cans of soda per artist per day. Is [your studio] helping you save for retirement, or are they just providing the soda? ...

Bento Box

I was at Film Roman when we went union (with some of you), and experienced the same fear and guilt you’re likely subject to now. Plenty of “We can’t afford it!” and “Why would you do that to us, we’re family!” and the like.

Our top brass at the time included John Hyde, Mike Wolf, and Scott Greenberg, all of whom fought hard against the guild. Now, two of them, John Hyde and Scott Greenberg, have started up a new production studio, which is now union. They came to us. If their experience with The Animation Guild was so awful, the purported enforced accountability and loss of control so terrible, why would they voluntarily knock on our door and say “sign us up”?

A Union is Only as Strong as Its Members

I’ve heard it said “We have the weakest effing union.” And it’s true that our union is a quiet one. You won’t see our dramas and arguments splashed across the front page of Variety. But we are only as strong as our members. And quite honestly, most animators don’t want to create trouble and they don’t want to strike. They’re content when they can come in, do their work, get the job done well, and go home. That’s what the Guild helps to facilitate.

Did you hear that [Studio X] last year seriously considered eliminating sick days? Our union sure helped to make that idea disappear fast. Our guild doesn't brag about its successes, and maybe that's a mistake. But, what you need to ask yourself is, will allowing [your studio] to remain non-union help to make your guild any stronger?

Your Peers Need You

This current drive to unionize [your studio] started from within. Your colleagues are behind this push. The Animation Guild cannot represent a studio unless the artists choose to let it.

And perhaps this is not a big deal for you. Maybe your spouse has good medical benefits and/or you already have ample retirement savings. Maybe you can stand to benefit, but it’s not a big deal.

…What about your colleague one or two cubicles down? This matters to them. It matters enough for them to fight hard for this. You may be on the fence, but for some of your peers these are major, major issues, and they need you to be on their side.

Vote “YES”

I hope you’re still with me, reading, this far. It’s just hard to convey how important it is that we have a union, and how much sweat and passion the artists before us put into creating it. You are in the unique position to help push the boundaries, and secure some really vital benefits and protections for yourself.

When Film Roman went union in something like season 16 of “The Simpsons”, I saw the faces of the longtime crew turn ashen when they realized, “If we had been union this whole time, we’d have 16 years in and have secured health benefits through retirement. We’d be there, and now, we have to start from scratch.”

Making [your studio] into a union shop is not a betrayal of your employment there. Nor is it a nail in the coffin. A unionized Film Roman is doing just fine. So is Nickelodeon… Cartoon Network… Warner Brothers… Disney… Adelaide… DreamWorks… Fox Animation… you get the idea. The animation business is ebb and flow. If a studio’s going to go under, it will be due to poor management, not unionized artists.

At the end of the day, if you remember anything, remember that [your studio] is a business. That fact motivates all of their actions. [They'll] look out for themselves ...

The Animation Guild’s sole purpose is to look out for you. No one else is doing that.

Please vote “YES” in the upcoming election. You don’t need to say anything at the studio, stick your head out, wave a union flag, nothing. Do your work, and when it comes time, vote “yes”.

If you’d like my help or assistance in any way, I’m there. My biggest motivation for being on the Executive Board is to help improve the Guild’s service to its members. I invite you to call me with any questions or concerns you‘d like to discuss.

Thanks for your time, and I hope you‘ll decide to let the Guild support you by representing your interests.

I'll add my two cents to what Ms. Johnson says above: Over the last seventy years entertainment companies -- and many of their employees -- have thrived under unionization. Motion pictures and television shows are one of the United States' more profitable exports, narrowing the trade gap and providing thousands of jobs. I've seen a number of animation studios fade out of existence in the course of my career; I've yet to see any disappear because they were unionized. Bad management was always the culprit.

Unions, as I've said before, are not the end-all and be-all. But they help spread a little of the money around to people who need it a bit more than the fifty-million-dollar-a-year chieftans who sit at the top of the Hollywood pyramid. And that, to my mind, is a good thing.

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Second Acts

I don't know how Mr. Sanders feels about it, but I would find it soul-satisfying to leave a movie that earned $310 million ....

... and end up directing an animated feature that earned north of $400 million.

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The Foreign Equestrian Race

The list of hits overseas has a remarkable similarity to the one here.

Marvel Studios' "Iron Man 2" ruled the foreign theatrical circuit over the weekend for the second straight stanza, taking the No. 1 spot with $57.2 million from 10,774 locations in 61 markets

... Finishing second on the weekend was Disney's "Alice in Wonderland," which collected $12.5 million from 5,946 situations in 54 markets. Overseas cume for director Tim Burton's 3D reworking of the Lewis Carroll classic stands at $629.5 million over 10 rounds ...

.. DreamWorks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon" garnered, via Paramount, $4.5 million on the weekend from 4,249 screens in 60 markets, boosting its overseas cume to $212 million ...

To date, Dragon has collected $413 million on the world markets, and Mr. Burton appears to have a future directing live-action films.

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Paths to Glory

One of the constants during my time as business representative is newbie artists knocking on the office door wanting to know the best way into the biz, then the best way to advance.

I meet and talk to everybody, because unlike when I was a snot-nosed know-it-all at Disney who actually knew little (but hadn't figured that out yet), now I'm happy to share my great wisdom* with all who ask ...

But the industry is constantly changing (duh), and the paths to glory keep multiplying.

... In recent months, shorts from filmmaking neophytes have seized the imagination of some of the town's biggest names, who see them not just a calling card for new talent, as they previously did, but the basis for hot, multiplex-worthy material.

... Top producers have expressed interest in turning "Alma" — a dark, impeccably executed short with Tim Burton overtones from an in-the-trenches Pixar employee named Rodrigo Blaas — into a big-budget animated feature. Patrick Jean's "Pixels," a playful ode to classic video games, is also attracting attention from industry players who want to turn it into a theatrical film. ...

When I dropped into Walt Disney Productions at the tail end of the "Nine Old Men" era, the animation hierarchy that had been there for decades was breathing its last, and a new generation was stepping up. But if you'd been a young animation or story artist getting hired at the Mouse House in, say, 1954, the best deck chairs would have been occupied and the premium dance cards filled out, with nobody interested in changing the status quo. (Frank Thomas and the rest of the gang were disinclined to give up their positions at the Top of the Heap, no matter how talented newcomers might have been. Nothing new or novel about that. It's the way most human beings operate.)

Studios have a way of constructing glass ceilings after their "start up" years, the employees in supervisory positions defending their territory doggedly, and then it takes a major management change ... or an act of Congress ... for employees further down the ladder to claw their way to the top.

Ruling cliques still sprout up at various animation houses, but (with exceptions) inner circles tend to shift and change a bit more often than they did in older, simpler times. Maybe it's the accelerating sweep of technology, or the instability of executives at the top of the pyramid. Maybe it's the conglomerates' paranoid thirst for fresh faces and ideas and the ability of YouTube to supply them.

Whatever the reason, I doubt that you'll see forty-year runs for animation staffs at a single studio much before the next millenium. Twenty years, maybe, but not forty.

* Hulett's wisdom is surpassed by any number of other folks, but I'm accessible by phone ...

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The May Derby

Now with ranch-flavored Add On.

Out of the gate, the ever-vigilant Nikkster has her first weekend report:

It's doubtful that Iron Man 2 will break any Hollywood records during what's estimated to be its 3-day $125M-$135M opening weekend. But sources tell me tonight that Paramount on Friday debuted the Marvel film in 4,380 North American theaters to probably $55M, including $7.5 million in Thursday midnight shows at just under 3,000 locations. ...

But how can it break records?! It's not in Three Deee!!

Add On: How to Train Your Dragon, embedded in the Top Five, will cross the $200 million wire this weekend.

1. Iron Man 2 (Marvel/Paramount) NEW [4,380 Runs] --Friday $52.4M, Estimated Weekend $130M, Estimated Cume $202M

2. Nightmare On Elm Street (Lionsgate) Week 2 [3,332 Runs] -- Friday $3.2M (-79%), Estimated Weekend $9.5M, Estimated Cume $49.0M

3. How To Train Your Dragon (DWA/Par) Week 7 [3,003 Runs] -- Friday $1.7M, Estimated Weekend $7.2M, Estimated Cume $201.5M

4. The Back Up Plan (CBS Films/Sony) Week 3 [3,003 Runs] -- Friday $1.7M, Estimated Weekend $6M, Estimated Cume $31M

5. Date Night (Fox) Week 5 [2,734 Runs] -- Friday $1.6M, Estimated Weekend $5.5M, Estimated Cume $81M

6. Furry Vengeance (Summit) Week 2 [3,002 Runs] -- Friday $950K (-46%), Estimated Weekend $3.9M, Estimated Cume $11M

7. Clash Of The Titans (Warner Bros) Week 6 [2,157] -- Friday $800K, Estimated Weekend $2.9M, Estimated Cume $158.3M

8. The Losers (Dark Castle/Warner Bros) Week 3 [2,450 Runs] -- Friday $600K, Estimated Weekend $1.9M, Estimated Cume $21.5M

9. Death At A Funeral (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 4 [1,706 Runs] -- Friday $575K, Estimated Weekend $1.9M, Estimated Cume $38.0M

10. Kick-Ass (Lionsgate) Week 4 [1,759 Runs] -- Friday $475K, Estimated Weekend $1.5M, Estimated Cume $45.3M

Add On Too: Robert Downey's film about EPCOT (as mentioned by a commenter below) and Men In Mechanized Suits scores an easy Number One.

Marvel Studios' summer-launching comics actioner "Iron Man 2" handily outpaced its franchise predecessor but without industry records, opening atop domestic rankings with an estimated $133.6 million in weekend boxoffice.

Meanwhile, Dragons takes the third slot and soars past the $200 million marker. If you're scoring at home, the animated feature has made five times it opening day gross.

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Ethics and Law

A little while ago I got an unhappy phone call from a board artist who's been with one of our fine animation studios for six years. He's concerned about getting laid off:

"I've been with my show longer than most of the other storyboarders. The directors are happy with my work, but management isn't too happy with me. I'm usually a couple of days behind schedule. I'm mouthy. And now I've got the feeling they're not going to hire me back next season. What I want to know is, don't they have any kind of obligation to keep me on next season? ..."

I told him, "No, they don't."

Here's the problem: Artists being artists, they confuse ethics with legalities. Many of them think that there is some code of good corporate behavior floating out in the ether and that Time-Warner or the Disney Company, Viacom or News Corp. are honor-bound to follow it.

I'm here to tell you that no, they're not. For a couple of reasons:

1) There is minimal honor among multi-national conglomerates (just pick up a paper).

2) Unless there is a law or contract rule in place, there is nothing to prevent a company's bad behavior when that company gets a notion to behave badly.

I explained to the board artist that the only rule I could think of that even marginally protected him was the seniority clause in the Animation Guild's contract, but that the paragraph about seniority rights had been gutted pretty thoroughly in the 1980s and was now a shadow of its former self. Where once it had been reasonably strong, now it contained a paragraph that was mostly toothless. This is how it reads:

"In hiring, layoffs and recalls, the prinicple of seniority shall apply as set forth below, except that, where the merit and ability of one individual is, in the sole discretion of the producer, superior to that of another individual, Producer's judgement shall prevail unless the Union can demonstrate that the Producer did not reach its decision fairly and equitably and without illegal discrimination of any kind ...

Slicing through the legal verbiage, the above says that the Producer pretty much gets to decide who it keeps and who it lays off. (I know this to be true because when we've filed grievances under this clause the arbitrator invariably says: "The way I read this, the company gets to let people go pretty much as it sees fit. Because that's what the language says. So you lose.")

Of course, there's the larger question about whether this kind of behavior is ethical. I would say, resoundingly, that it's not. But ethics aren't enforceable in a contract arbitration or court of law. Ethics are something that your Mom and Dad teach you, that you learn in your place of worship, that you follow (hopefully) in the quiet sanctity of your home.

Ethics are not, in my experience, something that corporations pay much attention to. Companies exist to make money. Period. You want morality and/or empathy, go spend a long weekend with Grandma.

Because multi-nationals are not your grandparents and will not give you those things, now or ever. (The board artist was not happy when I told him this.)

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Roy Disney Building

With pointy-hat Add On.

As I write, the Disney powers-that-be are unveiling a new name on the "Hat Building."

It's about to be (when they pull the cloth down) the "Roy O. E. Disney Building." And most of the Diz Co. hierarchy, along with Roy's family, are in attendance.

I know this because I ambled by the Disney Animation building this morning, where I found rows of wooden chairs being set up in front of a stand at the entrance.

Several staffers that the festivities would be taking place in late afternoon (now) and that it was going to be quite a to-do.

Elsewhere on the property, I had occasion to ask a Disney director if he was pitching new feature ideas of the hand-drawn variety to J. Lasseter. All he would say is:

"We're developing ..."

Add On: And here are pictures of the renaming event. (You'll note it has the "e" and not the "O". The Roy O. Disney building is on the other side of the lot ...)

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Mini Links

Since it's late, and I can't think of anything useful to impart, here's a few bits of animated-related news.

1906 is apparently on the shelf, but Empire Online says Brad Bird is slated to direct another live-action feature:

... Mission: Impossible IV is officially going to The Incredibles writer/director.

“I dig Edgar [Wright]. Very nice guy, very smart, very talented, I’d really like to do something with him,” said [MI star] Cruise, talking to Empire recently in Los Angeles. “I met Edgar on the set of Mission 3. Simon Pegg and those guys are hilarious. I love Shaun Of The Dead. It’s amazing. But we’re working with Brad right now. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it but everything’s signed... Brad is doing it.”

So we guess Brad is doing it ...

Gloo Studios (of Vancouver) wins themselves a Webby.

... [T]heir animation work for "Pixar Intro Parody", a College Humor comedy short, has won the Webby Award for Best Animation as well as the People's Voice Award.

"Pixar Intro Parody", an animated short in which the Pixar mascot Luxo Jr. accidentally kills the letter "I", consistently held more than 75% of the People's Voice votes through the 16 days of online voting. Trophies for both of the awards will be handed out on June 14th ....

The L.A. Times reviews the book that tells the story of the movie studio created by Spielberg, Geffen and Katzenberg:

'The Men Who Would Be King' by Nicole LaPorte

Nicole LaPorte's exhaustively reported book about DreamWorks SKG, the first new major Hollywood studio in more than half a century ... is the definitive history of the studio, an achievement of dispassionate reporting in the genre of corporate decline-and-fall ...

For readers interested in the power players, inside dealings and tick-tock accounts of Hollywood filmmaking, "The Men Who Would Be King" provides all the necessary fixtures and referents. ... Want to know the background on how "American Beauty" was made? There's a chapter on it. The nasty Oscar war for best picture between Miramax's "Shakespeare in Love" and DreamWorks' "Saving Private Ryan"? One on that, too. How the animated films "Prince of Egypt" became a huge disappointment at the beginning and "Sinbad" nearly sank the studio at the end? Ditto and ditto. ...

I'm a week late, but here is Mark Kennedy's head-kicker Part V:

I think most people don't draw as expressively as they can. They don't push their poses and expressions to the point that they could and ambiguous drawing is the result. We all know that one of the hardest parts about drawing is crafting an image where anyone that looks at it can tell exactly what the characters are thinking and feeling. It's not easy, and like all the other posts in this series, that's why I'm bringing it up. ...

Have yourself a rolicking Friday.

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Savior

Here's a series to keep your eye on:

... Comedy Central is developing "JC," a half-hour animated comedy in which Jesus Christ wants to get away from his videogame-obsessed dad and live in New York like a regular Joe. Expect religious and social satire. ...

Then there's the upcoming Cartoon Network series The Buddha, Surfer Dude

A fresh world of entertainment is coming our way.

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May Studio Rounds

Recently, I've gotten inquiries along the lines of "Hey, Why don't you give us more studio reports? What's happened to those?"

Good question.

And here's the answer. There's not much that goes on that's very different from week to week. (I can't really keep typing: "Went through Disney/DreamWorks/Warner Bros. Animation today. Again. Lots of people in cubicles and offices, working at desks." That would get kind of boring, yes?)

So let me be semi-boring ...

Tuesday I was at the Walt Disney Animation Studio, and the two productions going full bore (Tangled, Winnie the Pooh) are still going along. (You're shocked, I know, but they do have release dates to meet.) As to future projects, one of the animators said:

"Ron and John have pitched John Lasseter one feature idea, and they've got another pitch coming up. I don't know if it's a completely different idea or the first idea with changes. There's some overtime going on with Tangled, but I don't think there's tons of people working Saturdays and Sundays yet ..."

Today at Starz Media, a lot of Simpsons cubicles and offices were empty due to the hiatuses (hiati?) of a lot of timers, designers and layout artists. One designer still there informed me, "I was off for three weeks, but a lot of other artists have four, five and eight weeks off."

I can't remember seeing so many Yellow Family work spaces so empty, but other parts of the studio are filling up, with the Marvel/Disney animated shows humming, a new show on the second floor ramping up and a couple of new productions soon to come onto the third floor.

Meanwhile, remodeling of the Hasbro part of the building goes on. How close are they to finishing? I've no idea. Some smart monkey said to me a couple months ago that the company was moving personnel in at the start of April, and we know how that worked out. Here we are in May already, and not a soul in sight.

When it finally happens, I'll let you know. (Like I said, a semi-boring report. What you going to do?)

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AIA Hearts TAG

The San Fernando Valley chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has presented the Animation Guild with its Citation Award in recognition of Design Excellence for our headquarters building at 1105 N. Hollywood Way in Burbank. (We thought you'd want to know.)

Below the fold, the object of their admiration ...

Congratulations to architects Jeffrey M. Kalban and Associates and general contractor Illig Construction Company ...

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CAPS presents a night with Floyd Norman

FLOYD NORMAN
From Katy Keene to Disney Legend

CAPS (The Comic Art Professional Society) will host a special evening with Floyd Norman, distinguished cartoonist and animation artist, member of CAPS and the Animation Guild (as well as a regular on the TAG Blog). Floyd will present an extensive overview of his career in comics, animation, publishing and life as a Disney Legend.

Thursday, May 13, 2010, 8 PM
The Animation Guild
1105 N. Hollywood Way
Burbank, CA 91502

ENTRANCE FEE: $5.00

Seating is limited. RSVP to Bob Foster by May 12.

There will be refreshments.

Further details at this link: http://www.capscentral.org

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Board Tests (again) -- How Long is Too Long?

Here's a spanking new dialogue between a veteran production board revisionist and a director on a high-profile, half-hour show at one of our fine conglomerates. (We've made both anonymous in the spirit of our comments section.)

Along with information about the practices on his show, the director offers some solid career advice ...

Artist: One studio recently issued a test with 2 1/2 pages of pretty active script; which a pal told me took him over a week to do and came to over 30 (3-panel) pages.

I think people should refuse tests of this length.. If everyone refused to take them, things would change pretty quickly IMHO. I also completely respect those who refuse to take ANY type of test... If only we could all be in the position to exercise that option ...

Director: I think tests are very important tool for hiring.

I first look at a portfolio to narrow the candidates down to a select few. But the tests are helpful in not just determining if the artist is proficient in storyboarding, but whether the artist can adapt to the specific needs of the show.

Does the artist get the humor of the show? The shooting style? Are the expressions pushed enough? Is there appropriate use of dynamic and flat staging? All these things come through in a test very quickly and obviously. A sample in a portfolio, chosen by the artist, doesn't always provide these specifics.

That said ...don't do more than 1 page of script. Anything more than that is unnecessary for you to do, and, honestly, for the employer, it's too much to go over. I would wager that most employers will not look over more than 10 to 20 pages of boards (which roughly translates to 1 page of script.)

Artist: You bring up some very valid points. The (blessedly short) revisions test I took for [X] was a perfect example of how applicants might indeed need to demonstrate their understanding of a show's style, since that was a particularly tough show to "get."

I think the main issue here is the length of these tests; I am delighted to know your opinion on this. Why on earth would a studio even ISSUE a 2 1/2 script-pager? Is it some kind of endurance thing? Some outstanding artists I know haven't worked in over a year and are stressed out enough.

It would be great if directors such as yourself could in some way approve these tests before they are handed out ...

Director: Speaking only for our show ... we do approve the tests before they go out. In fact, we had to recently change our test, because the episode it was based off of aired, and we didn't want someone's test being affected by seeing the episode, intentionally or not.

I can attest to the number of people out of work by the inundation of responses each job offering gets. However, it is a fairly narrow margin of artists that have the necessary combination of talent and skills that would make them suitable for the job.

Sometimes, an artist shows great promise with inspired acting and can mine the humor from any situation, but has difficulty with good composition and nuts and bolts filmmaking (screen direction, shot flow, camera angle.) Other times, an artist doesn't break any filmmaking "rules," but the acting is not pushed far enough or it relies on cliched poses, not to mention missing opportunities for humor.

Experience will help the first type of artist, but as for the second--you can't teach "funny." It's a tough choice. The artist with the complete package is quite rare, even among "outstanding" artists.

For those artists that find themselves falling short of what productions want, my advice would be to not give up, and to continue to sharpen your skill set. Pick a scene from a script or a favorite book, and board it out. Get feedback from peers and mentors. Don't be defensive or argue why you made your choices! Listen; stew on it for a while. Consider why that person made those suggestions. Internalize those lessons so the experience you gain with each of these lessons ultimately builds into a job offer that can't help but find its way to you.

Just remember: experience takes time. But in order to gain experience, you must constantly keep moving forward. If no one will give you experience -- MAKE it yourself. I know it doesn't pay the bills right away, but it is essential for improving as an artist and a professional ...

TAG has often registered complaints to studios about test lengths across the bargaining table (and elsewhere). The response (mostly) is "Yeah, sure, you're absolutely right. We'll cut the tests down."

And the long tests stop. For awhile. But then they start again because show runners do what they please and nobody higher up is paying close attention. But I've never gotten the point of long tests, unless it's to create an obstacle course through which an artist demonstrates his powers of endurance.

Beyond that, the damn things are counterproductive. Long tests are an agonizing chore for artists to do, and a chore for the employer to plow through. (Kind of a "lose-lose" situation all around, wouldn't you say?)

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The Croods Move Along

The Hollywood Reporter tells us that more voices have been cast for the new Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco picture about cave people from the olden times:

Catherine Keener and Emma Stone are going to be hanging around with some real Neanderthals.

The actresses are joining the voice cast of DreamWorks Animation’s caveman-era comedy “The Croods.” Nicolas Cage already has been cast as Grug, the patriarch of a family pushed out of its home by an earthquake ...

I've chit-chatted with a few artists on the picture, they tell me that Mr. Sanders has been running himself ragged working on The Croods while still doing publicity work for Dragon. "He's off to Japan for a new opening," a staffer told me, "In between all the premieres he's writing on the script. We had some sessions blocking things out, but he's been pretty stretched ..."

By and by, the globe-trotting will end, and Mr. Sanders will get to focus on the new epic.

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Wage Survey -- 2010

TAG will shortly be mailing out our annual wage survey, the better to help members and other workers in the Southern California animation industry know what salaries are happening in the business in 2010.

The survey questions (in case you don't get your very own paper copy of same in the mail):

1) What animated/CGI production were you most recently working on? (Theatrical feature; made-for-TV feature; direct-to-video feature; network TV series; syndicated series; cable series; commercials; interactive/ web; games; motion capture; other ...)

2) In what job category were you most recently employed?

3) What is (or was) your regular gross weekly pay (before taxes, 401(k), withholding, bonuses, etc. and not counting unguaranteed OT?)

4) What is (or was) your regular work week as required by your employer?

(Are you "on call" and/or on a "weekly guarantee" If so, how many hours per week do you work before OT is supposed to kick in? If you are paid overtime after 40 hours, check "40 hours.") -- 40 hours; 50 hours; 56 hours; other --

5) For which animation/CGI studio (union of non-union) have you most recently been employed?

We also asked: "If you worked as a freelancer (i.e. paid by a unit rate) within the last year, will you please quote the most recent prices you were paid or offered for production boards, scripts, outlines or synopses?"

We'll be putting up the formatted version of the survey on TAG's website in short order. (You'll find a pdf of last year's survey here.)

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Sin City High

This Friday, May 7, from 6 pm to 9 pm, Phil Cummings' show featuring illustrations from his new novel, "Sin City High" will open at Gallery 839.

Fighting to survive and graduate high school in 1960’s Las Vegas under the shadow of Vietnam, anti-hero Paul must learn to cope with brutal cops, conniving snitches, lubricious tarts, pill freaks, junkies, hookers, speed freaks, gurus, whacked-out inverts, thuggish bikers, brutal cops, insane parents, psychotic dwarfs, malignant demons, and greedy pimps as he seeks peace,love and satori in the grimy back alleys of Sin City, Nevada. With over six hundred hard-edged graphic drawings which are geared to addle the brains of the most jaded sophisticate or the dullest illiterate, Paul’s picaresque journey is stunningly illuminated so that every every mind can grok the fullness of this voyage from Sin City to Edge City. So load up your bhong and journey back to a time when love was free, dope was cheap and a country was driven to screaming madness by its own fatal pride. This book will grab your ass like an angry Rottweiler and not let go until you finish the last page and scream for MORE! Click here to read entire post

Genius

(From motivatedphotos.com )

Disney hit a 52-week high today ...

That Richard Ross, he's a genius. And worth every penny they pay him ....

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Genius Too

CBS hit a 52-week high today ...

That Leslie Moonves, he's a genius. And worth every penny they pay him.

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And For Sure Always a Genius

Warren B. tells us why:

... Many of you have expressed your concern over the business practices at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS 149.50, +4.30, +2.96%) and I want to assure you that I do not see anything unusual with the way Goldman sells mortgage securities to its investing clients and then shorts the pants off them before they are even out the door. ...

To be honest, I don't know what Goldman does with all of their derivatives and whiz-bang trading gizmos, but I do know that Lloyd Blankfein is the best person to lead Goldman until he is indicted, at which point I will have a senior moment and forget we ever had this conversation. And if you don't believe me, you can ask Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, whoever he is. ...

That Lloyd Blankfein, he's a total f*cking genius. And worth every penny they pay him.

Etcetera.

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Closing In On a Foreign Levies Settlement

This A.M. I attended a court hearing where Judge Carl West listened to arguments about a proposed lawsuit settlement over the distribution of foreign levies money by the WGAw. It went on for a couple of hours, and I added to my sum of knowledge about the case (which wasn't wide and deep to begin with, but that's another blog post) ...

Over the last few weeks and months, I've talked to a number of lawyers and litigants in the case (TAG is a late-comer), and read a portion of the filings. Amazingly enough, there seem to be writers who are hot under the collar. Among the issues presented at the hearing:

* The Australian Writers Guild objects to Australian writers being "swept into" the settlement, and worries that foreign writers might be foreclosed from separate claims against the WGAw in the future. (There is also the conundrum of foreign writers on foreign productions getting 100 cents of each foreign levy dollar, while U.S. scribes get 50 cents.)

* That "undeliverable funds" (foreign levy money for which a recipient can't be found) will stay with the WGAw in perpetuity.

* That a settlement might block future litigation that wasn't part of the original lawsuit.

Judge West said, after hearing the objections, that he was leaning toward approval of a settlement. His words, slightly paraphrased:

"I'm not inclined to throw a settlement out because there is a real benefit coming to writers covered in the class."

The judge said the scope of the settlement and release from claims should be consistent with the pleadings in the case, and that the settlement should go to the issues regarding collected funds, not funds that the Writers Guild didn't collect. And he had critical words regarding a letter that went out mischaracterizing what he'd ruled on in the case. (Attorneys to whom I talked afterward said Judge West was criticizing a letter sent out by David Young, the executive director of the WGA west.)

It looks as though a court-approved settlement for this long-bubbling lawsuit could be close at hand (the judge set up a conference between the parties for later in the month, so he seems to want this horse to keep galloping along.) The writers in the courtroom, all participants in the suit, seemed pleased with the direction the settlement is going, and if they're happy, we're happy.

(Go here for more on foreign levies ...)

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Cheaper, Faster

The mainstream media picks up on the fact that Mr. Meladandri's company Illumination is trying to change the usual business model for theatrical animation:

Neither Universal nor Meledandri is interested in parroting the business of Pixar and DreamWorks, which spend more than $150 million on their productions and huge sums on screenplay development. "We needed to create a model of efficiency," Meledandri says. "We can't afford to have a lot of trial and error." ...

The idea: Develop only a handful of scripts and look for unusual (meaning cheaper) places to make them ... If money is saved by not perfectly animating every single blade of grass, Meledandri says he won't skimp on storytelling ...

As far as I know, Illumination freelances out scripts, boards and design, then finds an overseas animation company to do the production work. They've got an ambitious slate of films beyond Despicable Me, with different production facilities on different continents involved with various films. No big, fixed facility with a permanent crew, no meddlesome I.A. fringe benefits, just sub-contractors as far as the eye can see.

(Sort of an upscale version of what the Weinsteins did with Hoodwinked. In ten weeks or so we'll see how it works.)

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Foreign Horse Races in May

Iron Man Deux knocks them dead in foreign venues.

Marvel Studios' "Iron Man 2," this year's opening summer tentpole, lit up the foreign theatrical circuit with a five-day overseas launch bagging $100.2 million from 6,764 sites in 53 markets for a sparkling per-screen average of $14,814.

Distributor Paramount Pictures International says the sequel to 2008's Marvel original starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow finished No. 1 in 52 of the opening territories, beating "Iron Man's" opening overall numbers by 26% in local currencies ...

And another Paramount release ran over the $200 milion trip-wire.

Fourth was DreamWorks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon," generating $6.7 million from 5,687 situations in 60 markets. Distributor Paramount says the overseas gross total has surpassed $200 million ($203 million). ...

Since Dragon will likely accumulate $200 million in the U.S. and Canada in the next few days, (it's at $192.4 million now) I think we can judge the feature a success, can we not?

Meanwhile, Tim Burton's reworking of the Lewis Carroll story (Alice in Big Bucks Land) closes in on a billion worldwide dollars. Tim has traveled a looong way from the first-floor of the Disney Animation Building ...

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History Gets Written By the Winners (and Sometimes Others)

Nicole LaPorte, once of Daily Variety and now of Daily Beast, dishes behind-the-scenes tidbits about DreamWorks and its founders:

... Then came Shrek, a fractious production that ran through multiple writers and directors until first-time Kiwi director Andrew Adamson, a PDI special-effects director, finally took over.

From the start, Adamson refused to be intimidated by Katzenberg, and battled with him over such outrageous ideas as sexual jokes and adding Guns ‘n Roses to the soundtrack. Adamson was able to persuade Katzenberg to move in a more irreverent direction.

It also helped that the movie was in production in the Bay Area, at PDI. Katzenberg supervised, but was not all over the animators 24/7. Shrek finally grossed $484-million worldwide and launched a series of hugely lucrative sequels, enabling DreamWorks Animation to eventually go public. ...

This makes a delicious story, and fragments of it may even be true.

But the problems I have ... at least with the paragraph above ... is that

1) Adamson's co-director Vicky Jenson is left out of the equation (along with the directors that came before both of them)

2) Staffers told me at the time that "Jeffrey was putting jokes in and pulling jokes out, right up to release ..." and

3) How do you explain all those hit movies that came after Shrek, lots of them without Adamson's participation, but certainly with Jeffrey K. involved in the process up to his elbows?

And of course there were all those Disney cartoon hits that came before, small features like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Lion King. Andy wasn't on the premises for any of those, as far as I can remember.

I happened to have lunch last week with a story artist who's worked with Katzenberg off and on for decades. He said:

"Jeffrey always gives good notes. Lion King was a mess for a long time when it was in production. I've always thought that Jeffrey was the one most responsible for pulling it together ..."

I don't have any particular inclination to be Katzenberg's apologist. But I do have a strong impulse to get a more complete story out there. I've observed J.K. in action for a loong time, and there are too many people I respect who think he has real creative chops for me to believe that the success of DreamWorks, or Disney Animation before it, was a lucky fluke.

It's nice to have the ball bounce the right way, but for long-term success, you also have to know how to dribble.

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Maytime Derby

Now with Diet Add On.

The Nikkster has early numbers ...

1. Nightmare on Elm Street (NL/WB) NEW [3,332 Runs] -- Friday $15M, Estimated Weekend $35M

2. How To Train Your Dragon (DWA/Par) Week 6 [3,426 Runs] -- Friday $2.5M, Estimated Weekend $10M, Estimated Cume $191.6M

3. Date Night (Fox) Week 4 [3,093 Runs] -- Friday $2.4M, Estimated Weekend $7.5M, Estimated Cume $73.5M

4. The Back-Up Plan (CBS Films/Sony) Week 2 [3,280 Runs] --Friday $2.4M (-43%), Estimated Weekend $7.0M, Estimated Cume $22.7M

5. The Losers (Dark Castle/WB) Week 2 [2,936 Runs] -- Friday $1.9M (-41%), Estimated Weekend $5.5M, Estimated Cume $17.6M

6. Furry Vengeance (Summit) NEW [2,997 Runs] -- Friday $1.7M, Estimated Weekend $6M

By next week-end, the Dragon will have flapped its way across the $200 million marker. Then a couple of weeks later (May 21) Shrek bolts from the starting gate ...

B.O. Mojo collects the semi-final weekend grosses.

1) Nightmare on Elm Street -- $32.2 million

2) How to Train Your Box Office Numbers -- $10.8 million

3) Date Night -- $7.6 million

4) The Back-Up Plan -- $7.2 million

5) Furry Vengeance -- $6.5 million.

Both Dragon and Date Night held well. Both had declines in the twenty percentiles.

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Family Guy Producer Talks

Forbes rolls out a lengthy Q & A with Kara Vallow, the topkick at Fox Animation, the studio housing the McFarlane franchises. Some of the takeaways:

[Family Guy] is different than the other shows of its ilk because it is so much a product of one man's vision and voice. Seth [MacFarlane] created the show and he voices it and he's involved in every little part of it. He's constantly pushing himself and the show to not be stale. He's always focused on it being bigger and better and better-looking. This coming season the episodes are going to be way more expansive and more complicated than they have been in the past. ...

[FG] ... costs an incredible amount of money and it takes over a year to churn out an episode, so it's a big leap of faith for these studios on a medium they don't historically understand. But ... if it works, animation is more profitable than any other kind of show. People don't buy Two and a Half Men T-shirts and bobble heads the way they buy things for our shows. With our weird little adult animation niche, the sky is the limit with tchotchkes and action figures and ringtones. ...

Which is one of the reasons -- of several -- that studios make animation. (There's also things like shelf-life, saleability overseas, DVD profitability, etc.)

But animated shows aren't always expensive. Fox prime-time animated half-hours have different production costs than, say, lower rent cartoons shown at all hours of the night or day on basic cable. Simpsons episodes run in the millions, with high writing and voice-talent costs. Willy the Wacky Wombat, pre-produced by a small, non-union Valley studio, animated in Shanghai and shown on basic cable (if it's shown at all), comes in at a few hundred thousand bucks.

(Interesting wrinkle: The salary of the individual artist working on Willy, and the artist drawing Bart? Not that hugely different.)

However, the big reason animation keeps being made is it provides long-term cash flows for your friendly, neighborhood conglomerates. There are hundreds of live-action television shows that were produced in the fifties and sixties; today those shows might earn a trickle of license fees on TV Land. Beyond that they are, as the Germans say, kaput. But t.v. cartoons? Like the Flintstones? Like Yogi Bear? Like Scooby Doo? Those fifty-year-old limited animation epics trigger the sale of rubber toys, and games, and t-shirts. They sell lots of little silver disks. They beget sequels and spin-offs.

In short, Fred and Wilma go on forever.

And that's why, friends and neighbors, there are so many cartoons produced, even to this very day.

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New Cartoon Creators

Another visual effects house goes into the animated feature biz:

Vancouver-based vfx and animation studio Rainmaker has unveiled its first-ever slate of original animated feature projects and is pitching them to distributors. ...

... Rainmaker hopes to get its first feature out in two to three years and release a feature every 12 to 18 months. ...

Good luck with that.

As we've mentioned here maybe sixteen times, there is little money in doing visual effects for live-action feature films. The job shops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, the Pacific Northwest and other points of the globe slice each others' throats by low-ball bidding work, to the point where profit margins are next to nada.

The solution? Start making animated cartooons! Start owning content! Become the next Pixar!

Which of course sounds enticing, but is often difficult to do. (Just ask Sony Imageworks.) It is not enough to have an experienced production crew in place, it is also necessary to have a story team that knows how to maximize entertainment value with whatever property that's being done.

It's also useful to choose the right property in the first place.

All this sounds simple, straightforward and easy, but so many production houses have loused the process up over the years, that it's reasonably clear to the reasonably intelligent that, based on history, maybe it's not.

But good luck to Rainmaker anyway. The more successful animation projects that are out there, the more artists there are gaining production experience. And that's a good thing for the long-term health of animation.

The link above will take you to Variety's subscription wall, just so you know.

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Pres Romanillos and the Pres-Aid Charity Art Auction

Fellow animator and former TAG executive board member Pres Romanillos needs our help. A few years ago, while producing and directing his own film in Spain, Pres was diagnosed with leukemia. He returned to the US and underwent chemotherapy and a successful bone marrow transplant. He had less-than-optimal medical insurance at the time, and so his treatment (which is very expensive), and his long recovery during which he was unable to work, wiped out most of he and his wife Jeannine's savings. Eventually Pres returned to work, and animated on The Princess and the Frog at Disney and then on Shrek 4 at DreamWorks.

Unfortunately, Pres relapsed in March. He's back at City of Hope, getting chemotherapy and gearing up for another bone marrow transplant. At this point, the burden of medical copayments and the associated costs of his illness have Pres and Jeannine at a financial tipping point. Pres and his wife Jeannine, along with their brood of dogs and cats, are in a difficult spot, and they need our help.

We've planned a charity art auction in June to benefit Pres. On the evening of June 4, the monthly 'First Friday' event at Gallery 839 (and in the upstairs meeting space) will feature the artwork we've collected for the auction. At that reception, we'll have a silent auction for some selected pieces, and we'll have information on how to become a bone marrow donor.

Then on Sunday, June 13, we'll conduct a live auction at the TAG building in Burbank. Howard Lowery has volunteered to help run this auction, and as most of you know, Howard is the expert in these kinds of things. Also, during the first couple of weeks in June, we're planning to have selected pieces sold on eBay. Our goal is to collect about 100 pieces of art for the auction, and we're about half way there now.

I've created a website for the event (Pres-Aid.com) as well as a Facebook group, where you can get more information. I'm regularly posting artwork to the website that will be sold in the auction, and both those sites have additional information about Pres, his illness, and the auction.

We've contacted many friends and coworkers of Pres's to donate artwork, but we haven't been able to reach everyone we'd like to. If you're interested in helping, contact me at kevinwkoch(a)gmail.com.

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End-of-Week Linkorium

Dreamworks story top-kick Walt Dohrn explains his voice characterization of Shrek villain Rumplestiltskin:

... [H]is vocal inspirations was the child murderess in the 1956 film "The Bad Seed" because "there was this fake innocence about her but any minute she could turn. We also liked Bette Davis in ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane' ..."

Actor Russell Crowe opines on screen Robin Hoods that predate his new effort:

. Of Errol Flynn, Crowe joked, “The practicality of going through an English forest, with all its coarse bushes and bramble and all that, in green tights? Not very practical now, is it?” ...

When the interviewer showed Crowe scenes from Disney’s 1973 animated film, the A-list actor dubbed it, “The best Robin Hood so far.” ...

Not my favorite version of the Sherwood bandit, but who am I to argue with an Academy Award winner?

The L.A. Times questions whether DreamWorks Animation producing a Dragon sequel is a smart move:

... There's a reason the last eight Oscar winners for best animated film have been stand-alone movies, and there's a reason Pixar is so selective about what it keeps going and what it lays to rest.

Yes, it keeps playing with a broader, merchandisey property such as "Toy Story," but wisely stays away from over-milking its elegant character films such as "Wall-E," "Ratatouille" and "Up." A lesser company would make a sequel out of the latter, call it "Down" and have the two main characters explore the ocean floor in a submarine. Pixar, to its great credit, does not.

I'm not as sure of Pixar's motivations as Steven Zeitchik seems to be, but it's good to know there are good pictures to sequelize and bad pictures to sequelize. Makes me tingle.

While we're on the subject of Emeryville, here's USA Today's favorite Pixar shorts:

Pixar is well known for their features (of which The Incredibles is my personal favorite), but their work in shorts can be just as entertaining. These are some of my favorites of the latter group ...

Story artist Ed Gombert puts up some fine Vance Gerry story sketches for a never-produced Disney animated feature. (Anybody guess what the title of the project was?)

Anyone who worked at Disney Feature Animation over the past forty years knew who Vance Gerry was. Very few actually got to see his work before it was shipped off to the archives. ...

The Middle Kingdom knows award-calibre animation:

... Pixar's computer-animated film "Up" bagged another honor Thursday, picking up the best foreign feature category at the Monkey King Awards, China's top animation award event.

"Up" defeated "Madagascar: Escape to Africa" and productions from nine other countries to earn the award at the event in Hangzhou City, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province ....

Have a productive Friday and restful weekend, in that order.

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Calloused Behavior

The last couple of weeks, I've gotten more complaints than usual from artists about non-communication from studios regarding jobs.

Here's the back story about those gripes:

1) Signator Studios have a need for an artist or technician, and ask TAG for a list of available personnel in the category. TAG supplies list.

2) Studios (usually non-signator studios) ask us to e-mail an "Artist wanted" ad to our members. TAG complies. (We are not, strictly speaking, a hiring hall, but we strive to help.)

2) Studios get flooded with inquiries.

3) Studios look at portfolios and hand out tests to artists so they can "audition" for the job. (Tests are often days long.)

4) Artists jump through the hoops, do the tests, sit by the phone and wait.

5) Artists hear nothing.

6) Artists call TAG to complain about hearing nothing. ...

Rinse and repeat.

I understand that studios get inundated by inquiries, and that response times are sometimes slow as a result of the indundation. What I don't understand is why studios' human resource departments (or whichever departments are handling applicants) can't get back to people with a "Yes," "No" or "Maybe" before those people get gray hair and retire from the cartoon business. A few comments from the disgruntled:

"[Studio B] called me and asked to see my portfolio. I had worked there before, and brought it in. I didn't hear a word for six weeks. Finally I called. They said they had no openings, they'd all been filled. So I asked for my portfolio back. They had lost it ..."

"You drive to the studio to pick up a test, see that it's going to take a week to do, and spend five days making it as good as you can. Then you turn it in and never hear anything." ...

"I was up for a couple of jobs. Interviewed for them. They said they'd call back in ten days or less. Five weeks later they called to say they were going in another direction, but they might have an opening in two months, would I be interested? I said yes. They said they'd call back in a week. It's already been a week and a half. I'm not holding my breath. ..."

And so on.

Just to let you know, TAG objects to week-long tests. We have no problem with half-day tests, for we know that studios have to check somebody's drawing style against the work in that somebody's portfolio, since people have been known to represent others' drawings as their own.

But we have a strong philosophical aversion to artists doing week-long storyboard tests for free. Yet despite most studios' promises in contract adjustment meetings to cut tests down to more reasonable lengths, long tests continue to happen.

We also have a philosophical problem with studios who don't inform job applicants whether they've gotten the gig or not. Yes, we understand the thing about bottlenecks and the short-handed staffs, but the behavior of many studios is ... what's the right word here? ... piggish. They treat job applicants the way rock stars treat groupies. They use them, abuse them, then toss them away.

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A Word About Comments

For those here who put up some sparkling observation or valuable factoid in "comments", you should know that if you join the thread after it's been up a few days, your sentences don't pop up instantaneously but go into a "publish" or "reject" folder to be scrutinized by a "blog administrator." ...

We eventually publish the comments that seem relevant. But if you're a spamster, you won't see the your sales pitch for ladies' handbags or a male enhancement product pop up at all.

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Commercial Animation?

There are those constant questions: "So which animated features connect with the movie-going public, and which not?"

And more to the point (as far as Hollywood is concerned: "What's going to make the turnstiles whirl and the grosses pile up?"

Because ultimately a feature's box office totals are what cause more of animation to get made. ...

I'm not certain Metropia (seen above) is what America's been looking for, but hey. I've been wrong before ...

"What we wanted to do [with "Metropia"] was create something almost like a moving painting," says Tarik Saleh, the director ... "We had very experienced animators come in, but they had never worked with this technique, because we developed it. So it took a month of training before they could even animate a frame."

From conception to release, "Metropia" took about six years to make. The movie's creators say the software they used is a common animation tool that any movie maker has access to. What they did differently was use a very old, almost outdated software plug-in, and then manipulate and update that plug-in to suit their needs. ...

The look of the piece is kind of intriguing, tinged with photo-realism but definitely not mo-cap. Metropia is probably going to be an attention grabber, but will the thing attract sizable audiences?

The look and execution of the piece is always important, but the characters and story are usually the ultimate deal-makers. Sadly, Scott Ross of NBC isn't super-encouraging:

The sepia-toned rendering of the world Roger and friends live is attention-grabbing, but as the film wears on, its magic wears off. ... [T]he faces that are embedded into the animation are beautifully expressive and lifelike, [but] the characters' movements prove to be limited, looking as much as anything like the Supermarionation that brought "Thunderbirds" to life more than 40 years ago.

"Metropia" is reasonably smart, thoughtful and well-intentioned, but it lacks warmth, humor or anything truly new to say about the nightmare we're all hurtling towards. ..

I believe it's a good thing when animation's envelope is pushed out into new territory, but I want the enlarged container to be successful, and become sulky when it's not. I'm funny that way.

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DreamWorks Animation at the Noon Hour

Today was DWA day. A lot of departments have moved into the newly expanded Lakeside Building, and I tromped around the second and third floors, seeing who had settled where.

I find the additions to Lakeside quite nice, fancy even. There are wood floors and area carpets and lots of couches and soft lights. I'm surprised I never find people sprawled in one of them taking a nap; apparently everyone is focused and energetic.

Animators are hard at work on MegaMind ("The schedule is tight ..."), and a television special that I don't think has been announced yet so I will keep my yap shut about it. Kung Fu Deux launches shortly ...

An artist and I fell into conversation about How to Train Your Dragon's soft opening, about how it's held up with good word of mouth. He was as perplexed as I was that it didn't open better, saying it's one of the best features they've done. (The only thing I can attribute it to is early, unsteady marketing and that vikings are not ... ahm ... guaranteed audience grabbers.)

As mentioned below in comments, Jeffrey K. conferenced with the business press about the company's latest numbers:

DreamWorks Animation SKG reported a 65% drop in profit in the first quarter, a swing that was the result of not having a major holiday release to power sales at the beginning of the year. ... The Glendale animation studio reported net income of $21.7 million, or 24 cents per share, on revenue of $162.1 million for the three months ended March 31 ...

DreamWorks Animation Chief Jeffrey Katzenberg said, "2010 is off to a strong start, thanks in large part to the performance of ‘How to Train Your Dragon.' "

He called the studio's latest film the company's "next franchise" and announced plans to release a sequel in 2013 ...

DreamWorks Animation, I think, is well-positioned to make a nice chunk of money this fiscal year. HTTYD will top out somewhere between $400 and $500 million in worldwide grosses. And the last installment of Shrek will come in at $700 million-plus. (I won't venture a guess how well MegaMind ultimately performs.)

All in all, the crew should be enjoying free lunches well into 2011.

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Happy Mickey

Neither we nor the Megacollector have figured out for which cartoon Fred Moore drew this Mickey Mouse cycle, but given the style it was obviously late-1940s to early 1950s, probably not too long before Moore's unfortunate demise in 1952.

It should not surprise you to learn that these are © Disney.

Click the thumbnails for a high-res version of the image.

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Smoldering Right Along

The L.A. Times describes a "slow burn" feature at the movie box office, and this season's prime candidate for the title.

There are many holy grails in Hollywood, but few as pursued as the slow-burn success -- that film that doesn't blow away audiences when it first comes out but hangs on long enough to become a breakout. Like the Holy Grail, the slow-burn is frequently sought ...

This year's candidate for the slow-burn, "How to Train Your Dragon," isn't likely to hang around for 12 months, or even until August. But there's something "Greek Wedding"-like about it just the same. When it opened last month, the movie debuted at No 1, but with a soft-ish $43 million. Then it fell from the top spot, vacillating between second and third place for the following three weeks. And this week it reclaimed it. ...

Frankly, I couldn't understand why Dragon didn't open bigger the weekend it premiered, but an old DWA hand explained it to me:

"Look, it was about dragons and Vikings. How commercial is that? It took word of mouth to keep it going, but it's now at four times its first weekend gross and still going. Chris and Dean [the directors] came up with separate sequel ideas that sort of tracked each other, and I think they'll have a chance to make one of them ..."

We debated how much Dragon will end up grossing domestically. He wasn't sure it would go over $200 million, I thought it would. (It doesn't have that much further to go.)

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The Monday Studios

Today I hopped over to Bento Box (mere blocks from the office) and chatted up the small but growing staff for Bob's Burgers. Directors are on board, and other staffers are beginning to come aboard. A production person mentioned:

"We've got to get focused on ramping up. It's not like we've got loads of time ..."

The TAG contract took effect April 1st, covering new series and Neighbors From Hell's second season. (We assume here it will get picked up for a second season, even though the first hasn't been launched yet. We're optimistic young things ...)

In the afternoon I covered three of four floors at the Disney hat building. Tangled now moves in higher gear, and the most interesting visuals I saw was the video Disney marketing has unspooling in the first floor lobby hall. They go farther than this:.

There's some nifty footage of the fairy tale's settings, with light streaming down through towering trees, verdant landscapes, a huge castle. What's on display has the flavor of some of the older hand-drawn features, viewed through a CG prism. The brief scenes with Rapunzel and Flynn are beguiling.

Whether the splashy art direction and establishing shots add up to a feature that earns a big opening weekend and five or six weeks of staying power, I donno. That will probably depend on whether the story fires on all cylinders.

We'll find that out in November.

Meanwhile upstairs, animators and cleanup artists continue work on Winnie the Pooh, none of them knowing if there will be a hand-drawn feature beyond it.

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Animated Feature, Indian Style

Everybody in the biz understands that a lot of CG sub-contracting for American animation takes place on the sub-continent. But what about animated features made by and for the largest film market on the planet?

Under the strange headline, "Animated Films Are All the Rage in India," the Express Tribune allows as how no, they're really not:

Animated films in India have a tendency to bomb at the box office, but filmmakers continue to try and make headway into this profitable industry. Hollywood studio Warner Bros and Indian filmmaker Jyotin Goel have joined hands to make an animated feature called Bird Idol.

... Whenever Indian filmmakers have tried fully animated movies, they have flopped, such as 2008’s Roadside Romeo and Jumbo. ... [Yet] the Indian film industry is determined to be involved, and Rajesh Turakhia, the CEO of Maya Entertainment Ltd, sees potential. He said, “Animation is a universal language. But in India it is still a nascent industry. We cannot afford to be complacent and need to constantly upgrade our knowledge to international levels.”

Just a thought, but maybe Indian animated features crash and burn with Indian audiences (and everybody else) because they're ... uh ... not very good?

It's not enough to make a cartoon feature inexpensively. You must also make a feature that people want to see. Or am I missing something?

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Let the Whining Begin

Richard Ross has spoken, and Tony Lewis of Badger Herald starts the complaints:

... Pixar’s upcoming direction is moving away from [its] winning formula [of original movies]. Including “Monsters Inc. 2,” three of the next four scheduled Pixar features are sequels to past films — the other two being “Toy Story 3” which comes out this June, and a “Cars” sequel scheduled for June 2011. Additionally, “A Bug’s Life” sequel is slated for release in winter 2013. To put this in perspective, it’s been more than ten years since Pixar released its one and only sequel, yet the studio plans on releasing four within the next three years. If you ask me, Pixar is only setting itself up for failure. ...

What Tony doesn't seem to get is that large, American conglomerates aren't in the business of being Florentine art studios in the time of Michelangelo. Disney bought Pixar for reasons.

It wanted its expertise at manufacturing hits.

It wanted Lasseter, Catmull and their platinum track record.

And it wanted its catalogue of blockbusters. (Although, to be perfectly transparent here, it already had the right to sequels for those earlier features, since it was half owner.)

Thus far, the creative engine at Pixar has worked well up in Emeryville, but it's misfired at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Happily, there is still that glittering Pixar library to dip into.

Because for the multi-nationals, its about commerce, cash flow, and maximizing profits. Big entertainment companies strip-mine movie titles the way West Virginia mine operators saw through mountains to get coal. They know they're sitting atop valuable properties, and they're going to drill down to them and exploit them, come hell or Monsters, Inc. IV.

What the hell does Tony think American capitalism is, anyway? Well, I'll tell him. It's about getting big profits and bigger houses into the hands of the Owners by the fastest way possible. Because you can never be too rich.

It's the American Way.

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