Organic

"Story Basics," via President Emeritus Sito, from story artist Emma Coats:

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different. ...

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.

#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there. ...

I've always thought that stories were organic rather than mechanistic. Emma's right. You have to work your way through the tale, write it to the end, to see what you've got. And what works and doesn't work.

Laying stories out on paper changes them. You discover that things you thought were terrific at initial creation don't fit, and that you have to kill some sweet, lovable ideas because the road you ended up traveling didn't allow them to live.

Everybody gets the "beginning, middle, end" thing. Everybody understands "rising action" and "character arcs" and making lead characters active rather than passive. (As we say, "acting" instead of "acted upon.") But there are no rigid rules for good stories. They grow naturally, a little bit at a time. Kind of like life.
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Animated Foreign Box Office

Long-form cartoons appear to be pulling in dollars in lands beyond our shores.

Pirates! Band of Misfits, which opens Friday (April 27) in the U.S. and Canada, hoisted its foreign gross total to $55.9 million thanks to a $7.8 million weekend. ...

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax elevated its foreign gross total to $83.3 million after a $5.1 million weekend ...

Puss In Boots, $404.5 million ...

If we're toting up grosses on a global basis, our totals would be:

Puss in Boots -- $553,800,000

Dr. Seuss' The Lorax -- $290,255,000

Pirates: Band of Misfits -- ditto from above

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Shifting Tides

Fifteen-plus years ago, when cgi work began coming into the Animation Guild's wheelhouse, there were a lot of cg artists who were fiercely independent and not used to being members of a labor organization. I heard from many, "We don't need no union! We make our OWN deals!" But now, close to two decades later, hearts and minds are changing:

... I am fearful of the time when I am told "goodbye and thanks!", even when I know it's coming... and even when I have work lined up elsewhere.

Living with the fear of not having my family covered by insurance is perhaps the toughest thing affecting my life right now. It's not burn-out. I am a cg stud. I know the drill. If we had universal health care, my life would be sooo much different.

That's why I am no longer scoffing at the idea of a union. Storing insurance hours I am not nuts about, but at least I wouldn't have to face COBRA costs at layoff time, which for my family are upwards of $1,700 per month (to maintain PPO level insurance). Two months of COBRA almost kills any savings one has saved up with all the overtime taken in. ...

There are, it seems, only so many cow-flop sandwiches that people are willing to eat. When a management exec says "Long hours? No overtime? That's the way the industry is. It's standard practice," the song-and-dance begins to get old.

"Standard practice" isn't immutable. When editors, make-up artists, grips and other on-set employees had no unions, they came into work and moved sets and pushed cameras "until they fell down." (The words of an old-timer who was there to witness the unending hours and total exhaustion.)

Standard practice. Then film-workers got unionized and the conditions of employment got better. When somebody tells me that "This is just the way things are," I always smile and nod and think to myself: "Until they're not." Slavery used to be a constitutionally-protected right for slave owners. Women didn't have the right to vote. Booze was legal to drink, then it wasn't, then it was again. It's always useful to remember that most everything is arbitrary and everything is temporary. It not only helps keep you sane, but it motivates you to push for making things a bit more bearable in the here and now.

Because nothing is forever. So why not work to make the next thirty-six months an improvement over the last thirty-xis months?
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Home Team Ticked

Apparently the folks in the highlands are a wee bit agitated:

SCOTS film-maker Tessa Hartmann has slammed Alex Salmond’s Scottish Government, accusing them of ignoring her animated feature in favour of Disney Pixar movie Brave. Sir Billi, which has been in production for six years, premiered at the Sonoma International Film Festival in California last weekend.

But American-made Brave has been picked out as a highlight of the Edinburgh Film Festival later this year and is being promoted heavily by Visit Scotland. Tessa, who openly backs the Tories, said: “The Scottish Government have put £7million of above-the-line advertising and promotions into Brave. ...

The problem with the Scottish locals' CG movie is ... well, the bits and pieces I have seen didn't knock me out. (And the critics have not been kind.)

The clips floating around the intertubes come off like Jimmy Neutron episodes. The art form has moved waaay past Jimmy. Click here to read entire post

Your Springtime Box Office

With cartoons absent from the Top Ten:

1. Think Like A Man (Screen Gems/Sony) NEW [2,015 Theaters] PG13
Friday $12.0M, Weekend $30.0M

2. The Lucky One (Warner Bros) NEW [3,155 Theaters] PG13
Friday $9.0M, Weekend $25M

3. The Hunger Games (Lionsgate) Week 5 [3,752 Theaters] PG13
Friday $3.8M, Weekend $13.1M, Cume $355.6M

4. Chimpanzee (DisneyNature) NEW [1,563 Theaters]
Friday $3.4M, Weekend $10.5M

5. The Three Stooges (Fox) Week 2 [3,482 Theater] PG
Friday $2.4M (-56%), Weekend $8.4M, Cume $28.5M

6. The Cabin In The Woods (Lionsgate) Week 2 [2,811 Theaters] R
Friday $2.3M (-56%), Weekend $7.4M, Cume $26.5M

7. American Reunion (Universal) Week 3 [3,033 Theaters] R
Friday $1.6M, Weekend $6.2M, Cume $48.2M

8. Titanic 3D (Paramount/Fox) Week 3 [2,515 Theaters] PG13
Friday $1.3M, Weekend $4.8M, Cume $52.6M

9. 21 Jump Street (Sony) Week 6 [2,427 Theaters] R
Friday $1.2M, Weekend $4.4M, Cume $126.8M

10. Mirror Mirror (Relativity) Week 4 [2,938 Theaters] PG
Friday $1.0M, Weekend $3.5M, Cume $54.0M ...

Lorax finally fell from the Golden Ten near the end of the week. Through Friday (or thereabouts) it had collected $205,253,265.

Add On: Final weekend box office over-performs.

... After ruling the domestic box office for four consecutive weekends -- the most since Avatar -- Lionsgate's Hunger Games fell to No. 3, grossing $14.5 million for a domestic total of $357 million. Overseas, the tentpole has now grossed $215.8 million for a whopping global total of $572.8 million. ...

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The Culver City Gathering

04/21: Add-On's at the bottom ..

Steve Kaplan and I spent a large part of the afternoon in Culver City with IA reps Peter Marley and Vanessa Holtgrewe, hosting an "informal" meeting of visual effects artists in the lobby of the Culver City Hotel ...

Driving down from the Valley, we made cryptic jokes about nobody showing up, that it might morph into a drab little lunch with the four of us staring at each other. And no takers.

We got to the Culver City Hotel a bit before noon. The lobby was empty. I grabbed some sandwiches from across the street, and when I got back there were twenty-five or thirty artists clustered around Peter, Vanessa and Mr. Kaplan, asking for rep cards, asking questions about health care, pension plans, and how this union thing would benefit them.

We explained that the goal was to get the visual effects community under a cloak of benefits so they could add to their pensions and keep their health coverage no matter what visual effects project they worked on in Southern Cal. The crowd was receptive, and we handed out a lot of representation cards (and got a bunch handed back, signed.)

By the end of the afternoon, seventy-five visual effects crew members came through the lobby. One veteran told me:

"There's got to be a better way to do these things. The studios putting their big visual effects pictures out for bid and the vfx houses cutting each others' throats underpricing each other doesn't work well for anybody. Directors need to be in the post-production phase, looking at the shots as they come together, looking at the artists working at terminals and watching what they're doing, same as on a live-action set. There's no need to do a shot over and over, especially if the director of the picture is there.

"Things have to change."

This meeting marks only the first few steps of a long hike, but we're going to do whatever it takes to reach out and get visual effects artists and technical directors under the big union tent.

---

Dave McNary of Variety writes of the meeting here.

Kaplan here ..

The turnout yesterday was truly inspiring. As Hulett mentioned, we estimated around 70-80 people from all over Southern Cal who took the time to wade through Friday traffic to show up at the Culver. Hat Tip to Dave Rand and Scott Squires for showing up and continuing to participate in this important discussion.

The energy was high and the questions flowed as all IATSE representatives had the opportunity to form their own groups and address the attendees in small groups. As Steve mentioned above, the questions weren't new or shocking, but I feel the impact of having reps available and "in the flesh" made a big difference.

Peter and Vanessa echoed those sentiments to me as we departed lovely Culver City. We agreed that it would be a huge mistake not to continue meetings like that .. not only for Imageworks employees, but for the Los Angeles visual effects community as a whole.

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What Took the Mouse So Long?

Now WHO would have thought?

Rich Ross was forced out as chairman of Walt Disney Studios on Friday, ending a two-and-a-half year tenure that was more notable for continued misses than hits.

His departure marks a rare misstep by Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive. After firing Disney’s previous movie chairman in September 2009, Mr. Iger stunned Hollywood by handing the job of a studio turnaround to Mr. Ross, whose career until then was spent entirely in TV. ...

So Richard R. writes his minions, "I no longer believe the chairman role is the right professional fit for me ..."

No shit, Sherlock. You can't louse up as operatically as you've managed to do, and continue to hold your exalted position. Doesn't happen in conglomerate land.

Bad results almost always have bad consequences, sooner or later.

(The Nikkster's take.)
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The "Informal" Imageworks Meeting

What was supposed to be an "informal meeting" with artists of Imageworks, has apparently been transformed into a newsworthy event.

Richard Verrier of the LA Times shared the story

Jonathan Handel of THR brought it to their readers

Dominic Patten picked it up for Deadline Hollywood
(with some slight errors, Peter Marley is an IATSE Representative not a TAG employee)

Also noteworthy is Mr. Verrier's piece that headed the LA Times Business section this morning on the on-going struggle of visual effects artists in Los Angeles.

VFX Soldier has called this the VFX Spring, relating this to the rebirth of awareness and the unionization effort. While its our belief the organization drive for visual effects was never withdrawn, we are certainly happy to see public awareness of the issues at hand, as well as the option of unionization, raised by the media.

We hope to meet all interested parties at the Culver Hotel today.


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TAG Negotiations

TAG's negotiation committee has been in talks with animation producers for the past three days for a new three-year deal ...

This morning we broke off the negotiations, as we are far apart with the producers and there didn't appear to be any simple way to bridge the yawning chasm.

Just so you know.
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Wage Kings

Wages for your favorite execs:

Rupert Murdoch ... made $33.3 million for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, up 46 percent from the year before. ... Leslie Moonves, who got $69.9 million, up 21 percent. ... Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman's $84.5 million in cash and stock made him the highest-paid CEO in America ...

It's still good to be the king. ...

All these fine folks are clearly worth every penny. Mel Brooks is right. Boy, is he right.

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Meeting with Imageworks artists

This time last week, we commented on Cartoon Brew's interview with artists at Sony Pictures Imageworks who have taken up the cause of forming a union at the studio. I commented at the bottom of the post how proud I was of these artists for proactively initiating the organization drive. It shows great courage and indicates how times and sentiments in visual effects have changed over the last few years.

We were approached after the artists started their campaign and have aided in any way we were able. That's included suggesting ways to reach out to their colleagues, provided content for their website as well as reached out to the NLRB regarding their concerns over signing Representation Cards.

This week we're going to start taking a more active role. We've agreed to hold meetings for the Imageworks artists starting this week. IATSE Representative Vanessa Holtgrewe and I will be available to meet with artists on Friday at the Culver Hotel between 12-3.

The Culver Hotel is located at 9400 Culver Blvd in Culver City. The artists of the SPIUnion collective have asked that all vfx artists interested in asking questions feel free to attend the meeting. We'll have some information about the health and pension plans as well as some representation cards and return, stamped envelopes. We hope any and all vfx artist interested in learning about unionization and the organization process are able to attend. You'll be able to recognize me by my tell-tale TAG hat:



Location of the hotel:

View Larger Map
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The Next From Portland

The stop-motion studio of the Northwest plans to stay in the animation game.

Laika, the Portland-based animation company behind 2009's Coraline, has optioned Goblins, an upcoming children's book by Philip Reeve, and has attached Mark Gustafson, the animation director of Fantastic Mr. Fox, to helm the adaptation.

Gustafson, as reports go, didn't have an easy time of it on Fantastic Mr. Fox with the first-time stop motion director:

"[Wes Anderson was] keeping his distance from the set and directing via e-mail, sending in his favorite DVDs to give an impression of what he'd like to see."

Directing by e-mail? Kind of a new way to goose performances. FF grossed something around $46 million, so I doubt the method will be used again.

My bet is that Mr. Gustafson won't be at his computer during Goblins, reading electronic messages. My bet is he's through with that, since Wes Anderson won't be involved with the production.

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The Russ Edmonds Interview -- Part II

Mr. Edmonds' first assignment at the Mouse House was animating on Oliver and Dodger, the leads in Oliver & Co. Management was so pleased with the work that he found himself working on more four-legged characters ...

TAG Interview with Russ Edmonds

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

Through most of the nineties, Russ was one of Disney's quadriped specialists. He supervised the sheepdog Max in The Little Mermaid, the lioness Sarabi in Lion King, the ape Kala in Tarzan, and an abundance of horses in Home on the Range.

Which isn't to say that Russ hasn't done a lot of two-legged characters (Phoebus in Hunchback of Notre Dame) and even no-legged characters (the Genie in the John-and-Ron picture). It's just that Russ likes and owns horses, and his outside hobby has run over into his professional work.

But it's good when all your interests conjoin, yes?

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Toady

While we were consumed with negotiations, this story broke:

... Disney has feature film plans for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, one of its longest-running theme park rides. The studio has set iconic commercials and video director Pete Candeland to develop a live-action/CGI mix feature that will bring to life a theme park ride that originated in Disneyland on its opening in 1955. The twisting, turning ride was also popular at Walt Disney World in Florida ... Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is based on Disney’s adaptation of The Wind In The Willows. ...

Disney's original '49 release, a half-hour featurette paired with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, was originally conceived as a feature. But that was before World War II, before the studio fell on tough times. Long-form animation was put on a back burner in favor of "package films" through much of the 1940s, and Mr. Toad found his way to the big screen paired with Ichabod Crane in the final months of the decade. The picture was entitled The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

Jack Kinney, usually a shorts director, was tasked with the job of remolding The Wind in the Willows feature material into a briskly-paced half-hour. This meant taking the footage that had already been done, whittling it down, and creating new bridges to telescope and complete the story.

Kinney's handiwork was successful enough to merit multiple re-issues, theme park rides, and now a big-budget hybrid feature that will likely cost a few dollars more than the original. Not bad for a picture that didn't seem good enough to make into a full-blown feature back during the Golden Age of animation.

(And the book on which all the above enterprises are based? One of the great kid novels of all time.)

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The Russ Edmonds Interview -- Part I

TAG Interview with Russ Edmonds

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

Russ Edmonds was working as an engineer at the Three-Mile Island nuclear plant when an urge to work at another job overcame him ...

A self-taught artist, he wrote Disney Feature Animation inquiring about work in Cartoonland. Disney suggested that he knock on California Institute of the Arts door, which he did. And a few, short years later, he was animating on Brad Bird's "Family Dog" and getting himself hired at Disney Feature ...

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Hat Building Hallway

I keep forgetting to mention the hall display near the entrance inside Disney's Hat Building ....

They've got thirty or forty feet of Wreck-It Ralph artwork and videos, also character designs from the movie. As evidenced from the poster above, the feature has some witty graphics. You know, "Donkey Kong" kind of stuff, all those low-rez, eight-bit visuals that dominated mall arcades and pizza joints in the 1970s and early 1980s, embedded in glowing cathode ray tubes.

Which the poster above emphasizes. (But it's a lot more than that.)

Disney's been hiring more crew to work on the feature, what with its compressed schedule and all, and the buzz around the shop is good. Everyone (at least, everyone I talk to) think it's a winner.

Best part for me is, the place has a lot of shows in development, lots of directors assigned to stuff, and projects are getting go-aheads for further work. At last. This is in contrast to a couple of years ago when development was a lot thinner.

It's going to be interesting to see whether it's Wreck-It Ralph or Brave that gets the loudest critical hossanahs (and biggest box-office) when they're released in summer and fall.

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TAG Negotiations

As usual, the Animation Guild is the last IA local into contract negotiations. (Having been exiled from the bargaining unit in 1982, it's kind of inevitable.)

I've gotten questions about the health and pension deal just negotiated by the IA and will end up, if past is harbinger for the future, part of our deal. Here's some of the bullet points: ...

The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan will charge

* No premiums premiums for members without dependents ...

* $25 a month for one dependent ...

* $50 a month for members with two or more dependents.

The health coverage (aside from the new premiums) will remain the same over the next three years.

The IATSE agreed to a 2% bump in wages in each of the next three years. The 2% has been the "pattern" for wage increases with the IA, SAG, the WGA and everybody else over the past three years.

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Television Cartoons

The Fox block rebounds:

... After three weeks of repeats, The Simpsons returned with a 2.2 adults 18-49 rating, down 8% vs. a 2.4 rating in its last new episode. After one repeat week, Bob's Burgers drew a 1.8 adults 18-49 rating, up 6% vs. a 1.7 rating two weeks ago. And moving to 9:30, The Cleveland Show had a 2.0 adults 18-49 rating, up 67% vs. a 1.3 rating at 7:30 two weeks ago. ...

Overall, the night was a second place finish for the animated brigade. ABC's Titanic mini-series pretty much sank without a trace shortly after launch.

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Foreign B.O. in April

The Lorax and Pirates add to their lucre.

... Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax elevated its foreign gross total to $74.3 million ... after a $8.6 million weekend at 3,753 situations in 51 territories.

... The Pirates! Band of Misfits opened in Venezuela and held nicely in the U.K. (No. 4 with $2.5 million drawn from 8990 sites for a market cume of $20.7 million). Weekend overall delivered $8.4 million from 4,200 venues in 34 markets. Overseas cume stands at $44.4 million. ...

Lorax is now up to $278.8 million in worldwide grosses, with 26.7% of the total coming from foreign movie palaces.

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The Big Boat

... in genuine fake 3-D beats the 3-D lion.

Titanic 3D's global cume of $190.9 million eclipses the $178.2 milllion earned worldwide by Disney's 3D release of The Lion King last year. ...

So 3-d will be with us for awhile longer, yes?

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Directors Come ...

... and sometimes directors go, as Pixar producer Katherine Sarafian tells us:

At Pixar, every decision that is made is about what the film needs and I think Mark [Andrews] and I have both been surprised at how much has been made of it [Brenda Chapman's departure], because really it happens to much in the industry and particularly in animation. Director changes happen all of the time, it’s kind of part of the creative process much like the loss of… It’s definitely a higher stakes issue, but I can’t quite compare it to the loss of snow or loss of a story sequence, but the idea that we are constantly changing the process and evolving it, but these changes do happen and creative differences do arise and it was no different here.

When company management wants to go west, and the director wants to go east, management finds a different employee who's willing to go west.

Which is the way it's always been, to a greater or lesser degree. What I've found a wee bit annoying is the older Disney/Pixar meme: "We support the director's vision."

It might be pretty to think so, except it's never been the full reality. (Happily, the company is moving away from that mantra, as evidenced above.) But Brenda's exit wasn't a huge surprise. Joe Ranft was the driving force in getting Ms. Chapman up to Pixar in the first place, and when Joe died she lost a major ally and champion. As Brenda related at a TAG forum five-plus years ago:

Pixar is something of a "boy's club", and little thought seems to have been given to female characters, even when it would have fit naturally. For example, why couldn't the Slinky or the T-Rex in Toy Story have been women?...

Brenda's business card at the time read: "Token female Pixar story person".

You want women animation directors, try DreamWorks Animation. Everywhere else? Not so much.

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Mid April Derby

The Lorax continues to cling to a rung of the Top Ten:

1. The Hunger Games (Lionsgate) Week 4 [3,916 Theaters] PG-13 Friday $6.5M, Weekend $20.0M, Cume $335.6M

2. The Three Stooges (Fox) NEW [3,477 Theaters] PG Friday $5.6M, Weekend $17.5M

3. The Cabin In The Woods (Lionsgate) NEW [2,811 Theaters] R Friday $5.5M, Weekend $13M

4. American Reunion (Universal) Week 2 [3,203 Theaters] R Friday $3.4M (-64%), Weekend $10M, Cume $39.0M

5. Titanic 3D (Paramount/Fox) Week 2 [2,697 Theaters] PG-13 Friday $3.3M (-54%), Weekend $10.5M, Cume $43.3M

6. Lockout (FilmDistrict) NEW [2,308 Theaters] PG-13 Friday $2.2M, Weekend $6.5M

7. Mirror Mirror (Relativity) Week 3 [3,206 Theaters] PG Friday $2.0M, Weekend $6.2M, Cume $49.0M

8. 21 Jump Street (Sony) Week 5 [2,735 Theaters] R Friday $2.0M, Weekend $6.3M, Cume $120.0M

9. Wrath Of The Titans 3D (Warner Bros) Week 3 [3,102 Theaters] PG-13 Friday $1.9M, Weekend $6.0M, Cume $70.0M

10. Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax 3D (Universal) Week 7 [2,112 Theaters] PG Friday $880K, Weekend $3.5M, Cume $204.8M

Lorax has made $59 million abroad. This is a little over 22% of its total gross, but ... since Dr. Seuss's titles don't usually clean up overseas ... the usual 60% of the take coming from foreign venues might not apply to the latest Illumination Entertainment title.

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Stone Age Delay

This production was on the brink of getting itself staffed with artists:

Fox has put its planned reboot of The Flintstones on hold.

The animated project will be delayed, with no word on when production will resume ...

With new Mid-Wilshire offices for Fox's animation unit, where the production is in the midst of staffing up and hiring writers and producers, the project has been put on hold to accommodate multhyphenate MacFarlane's busy schedule. ...

A bit more than a week ago, staffers receiving pink slips from American Dad (since the show hasn't yet moved forward with new episodes) found solace in the thought that they could hop over to The Flintsones if the worst happened.

Oh well. ...

(I should have gotten to this yesterday. But sitting in the caucus rooms of negotiations gets distracting.)

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Finally ... a Solution

Sheila Bair, the former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has come up with a way out of all our woes.

Are you concerned about growing income inequality in America? Are you resentful of all that wealth concentrated in the 1 percent? I’ve got the perfect solution, a modest proposal that involves just a small adjustment in the Federal Reserve’s easy monetary policy. Best of all, it will mean that none of us have to work for a living anymore.

For several years now, the Fed has been making money available to the financial sector at near-zero interest rates. Big banks and hedge funds, among others, have taken this cheap money and invested it in securities with high yields. This type of profit-making, called the “carry trade,” has been enormously profitable for them.

So why not let everyone participate?

Under my plan, each American household could borrow $10 million from the Fed at zero interest ...

I like Sheila's plan.

A lot.

See, for a long time, I was resentful that only big banks, Goldman Sachs, and a few hedge fund managers could get free money. It just didn't seem ... I donno ... fair*.

But with this new plan, all my resentment washes away. I'll get my $10 million loan, put it in a conservative mix of stocks and bonds, and retire from the union repping business. (There won't be labor unions much longer under Sheila's plan, anyway. Just like the Wall Streeters, all of us wage slaves will have our very own supply of cash, and no need to worry about icky things like salary minimums and health coverage any more. I'll be a little sad, but I'll get over it.)

I'll be circulating a petition soon to bring Sheila's brain-wave to reality. Be sure and sign when I circulate it.

* As many of you know, I don't believe in fair. But for purposes of this post, I believe. I BELIEVE!

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IA Basic Negotiations Concluded

From the Prez:

... Our goals going into these negotiations have been met. We were successful in maintaining the pensions of our retirees. We achieved wage increases in each year of the agreement of 2%. The health and pension benefits that we have worked so hard for over the years have been protected and will not be reduced. As you are aware, our benefit plans faced a staggering shortfall that threatened the stability of our pension and health plans. We have closed that shortfall with an impact on the participants that is as minimal as possible. The MPIPHP will continue to provide the best health benefits in the industry with no premium for you, the member. For participants with one dependent the premium will be $25 per month and for those participants with 2 or more dependents in the MPIPHP the premium will be $50 per month, payable quarterly. The employers have agreed to a $1 per hour increase to the Health Plan contribution which is a 20% increase over the current hourly contribution rate of $5 per hour.

In exchange for closing the deficit of over $400 million and annual wage increases of 2% in each year, we agreed to an expansion of the Studio Zone consistent with other industry unions and guilds. Productions made for home video will be budget based and we agreed to confirm our long standing practice of promoting basic cable TV production in Los Angeles. We also agreed to re-allocate thirty and one-half cents per hour from the Individual Account Plan to the Active Health Plan in order to help stabilize that plan during this national health care crisis. Moneys have been moved from health to IAP in the past and it was necessary to do this to rebalance contributions since the health plan is now suffering.

These negotiations lasted over three weeks and broke off once, due to disagreement on the premium structure. The second round of negotiations has resulted in a fair deal that will provide employment stability, protect our health and pension plans and provide for wage increases in a fragile economy. The Bargaining Committee consisted of the committees of each of the West Coast Studio Local Unions, Officers and Representatives of the IA, attorneys, and pension and healthcare experts. The committee was unanimous in its support for this tentative agreement. I would like to thank each of them for their commitment to act on your behalf in participating in these negotiations.

More specific details of the agreement will be forthcoming and as soon as specific contract language is drafted this agreement will be sent to the members for ratification. ...

What I took away from these negotiations is the number of BIG changes the employers wanted from the local unions in the bargaining unit*. The talks over health and pension didn't get rolling until the end of the week they were supposed to have happened.

There were a number of late-night sessions, and the talks weren't easy. But then, they never are. As always, the issue at the bottom (and middle, and top) of the proposals was money.

I talked to a studio rep today who said "work would be going away" on the live-action side because the unions didn't give the employers more "flexibility." I guess we'll have to wait a year or three to see if work actually does vanish, and the Motion Picture Industry Health and Pension Plan takes in fewer hourly contributions. Could happen, but I've heard the "work will leave!" complaint for decades, so put me in the "trust but check it out" column.

* TAG is an observer at these talks, not a participant. We were tossed out of the bargaining unit thirty years ago ... for being uppity.

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The Times In Which We Live

The California Supreme Court speaketh:

In a case that affects thousands of businesses and millions of workers, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that employers are under no obligation to ensure that workers take legally mandated lunch breaks.

The unanimous opinion came after workers' attorneys argued that abuses are routine and widespread when companies aren't required to issue direct orders to take the breaks. They claimed employers take advantage of workers who don't want to leave colleagues during busy times. ...

You can see where this goes. The same place that "overtime pay" disappears to.

How this plays out over time: subtle little hints about how now is not a good time to go eat, glares from supervisors when people get up from their desks, things like that. And suddenly, "workers don't want to leave colleagues during busy times."

In the go-go nineties, I argued with a Disney suit about how a "working lunch" around a conference table wasn't really lunch. I kept saying that the company was obligated to let people exit the premises to eat, and that a sandwich at a meeting didn't qualify.

Stupid me.

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An Appeal to the Membership

In last weeks post regarding the IA/AMPTP negotiations, a commenter noted the recent health struggles of TAG member Nicholas Hoppe. We've since been contacted by those close to Nicholas and his family who asked that we share the following message with the membership and readers of this blog:

Hello Fellow Animators and Artists,

Nicholas Hoppe is a TAG member and currently an employee at Dreamworks. He has been with DWA since 2007 and has contributed to many features there, including "Kung Fu Panda," "Kung Fu Panda 2," "How to Train your Dragon" and "Megamind." He has worked in visual effects for approximately 20 years, including stints at Disney, Digital Domain, House of Moves and Square, LA.

Approximately three weeks ago, Nicholas wasn't quite feeling himself and colleagues encouraged him to see DWA's on-site doctor, Dr. Kim, who sent him to the ER. He was checked into St. Joseph's after a CT scan uncovered a brain tumor. A biopsy performed a few days later found cancer--lesions, including a deadly Glioblastoma Grade 4. After receiving a bleak prognosis, Nicholas's family sought a second opinion. They decided to go out-of-network to the renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Keith L. Black at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Black performed a successful neurosurgery on Nicholas on March 30. Nicholas's prognosis is dramatically better, though he has suffered complications since then. Overall the family is happy with Dr. Black, however, the surgery itself was not covered by their insurance.

Nicholas's family has put together a website to request donations to help offset the cost of surgery. If you can donate and/or help us spread the word, all assistance is greatly appreciated! Together we hope to help Nicholas and his family overcome the financial strain of this life-saving surgery.

http://www.giveforward.com/nicholashoppebraincancerbattle

Thank you for all you do.
The Hoppe Family and Friends

While we understand the Hoppe family made the difficult decision to use an out-of-network physician for Nicholas' treatment, we are happy the decision resulted in a successful surgery and that he is now recuperating at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. We encourage everyone to visit the website the family has set up and keep Nicholas in your thoughts and prayers.
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VES on the DD Business Plan

The Visual Effects Society speaks.

As a professional honorary society, VES has become aware of some unsettling comments from Digital Domain's CEO regarding its employment practices. We were shocked to hear how DD hopes to utilize interns to accomplish professional visual effects work. If the reality matches the remarks of DD's CEO, then we believe DD is not only denigrating the value of artists who do incredible work under trying conditions, but are also unfairly taking advantage of a difficult job market and will ultimately harm the ability of visual effects artists to survive in the future if such an imprudent business model became the norm.

However, and equally important to note, if DD's internship program is merely the same as those that exist in many schools across the country, and they're only guilty of having their CEO use ill-advised, self-boasting rhetoric that happened to be caught on tape, then we hope the recent loud reaction and unified voice of visual effects artists around the globe has caused DD to be more sensitive and appreciative of the plight of those artists who struggle to endure in an industry that is constantly redefining itself yet always seeks to maximize the ways it uses their art and magic to produce record profits for the entire industry.

Our understanding is Mr. Textor has confessed to using "ill-advised, self-boasting rhetoric" when soft-soaping potential investors about what a really great plan it is to have visual effects students pay to do the grunt work on higher end visual effects extravaganzas.

However, also per our understanding, Brother Textor isn't backing off his swell plan. While he's performed the required mea culpas for inartful language, he hasn't budged a millimeter from the deal outlined in his spiffy video:

Students enrolled in the aforementioned visual effects college program will be doing work on projects in the third and fourth years of that program. He's been kind enough to clarify that the internships are voluntary. But really, which student isn't going to try to work on what he called "a major motion picture"?

Now, is Textor a booger for doing this? No, he's a businessman, trying to pump Digital Domain up into something bigger and better.

For Digital Domain investors.

This isn't about "doing right" by DD employees. This is about building a business model that turns a profit. And if Florida law allows Mr. Textor to use students in the making of visual effects, thereby increasing profit margins, that is exactly what Mr. Textor will do.

Making the staff that does the actual work happy and contented is way down Mr. T.'s "To Do" list. And the VES Society, which represents visual effects artists but also the studios employing them, ain't going to condemn him for the order of his priorities.

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Back at Negotiations

Today I'm back at the AMPTP, at the festivities known as "contract negotiations." ...

The issues as are before: Health, pension, wages, conditions of employment.

When we left off some weeks ago, we were kind of close, but there is still much arm wrestling to be done. We might be here late.

Telegram to follow.

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Pay Cuts and the Fickle Marketplace

Down south, there's discussion about animators' pay rates, and how they're not what they used to be:

Quality animators in c.g. command good salaries. So maybe the marketplace is telling us that quality matters.

Have animators salaries drop over the past decade?

They've dropped from the nineties, no question. But here's the last two years of data (3D animators):

(2010) low: $1018 -- median: $1,565.82 -- max: $2,836.36

(2011) low: $1,366.45 -- median: $1,808.41 -- high: $4,388.00

Minimum scale is $1628.56

It seems to me that the middle class of animator - the intermediate level are the ones getting the squeeze from below.

Same was true in the 2D heyday (both of them).

And so on ...

But as creatives take wage reductions, so do others:

DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg's compensation dropped more than 40 percent last year, down to $4 million from $6.7 million, according to the company's proxy filing. ...

(Also, too, there was a bit of money Jeffrey invested with Bernie Madoff, which turned out to be not a good move. Ah well. Seemed like an inspired idea among many folks prior to Bernie's arrest.)

Last thought about animation wages: They're never consistent over long stretches of time, for supply and demand are ever changing. There was a sense in the middle nineties, when Disney was rolling out hit after hit and television animation was booming, that the good times would go on forever

But that was a dangerous idea. The high water mark for hand-drawn animation -- Lion King -- was released on June 24, 1994, and rolled up huge box office. And mothers were telling their sons: "Go get into animation! It's better than a government job!"

Seventeen months after the lion picture, Toy Story made its debut. And though nobody knew it at the time, traditional animated features were on their way out.

All thing pass. (Hell. Many times they slide by without anybody knowing that they're slipping away.)

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Unionizing

Brew talks to Sony Imageworks employees pushing for the union label. They tell it:

... People need to ask why are the directors, producers, actors, cameramen, grips, best boys, are all union, but not us? We certainly don’t dare stand up and say anything for fear of angering the mothership right? ...

To catch people up: Several years ago, Sony Imageworks held a vote to see if the employees there wanted to "go union."

There were discussions, there were presentations of health and pension plans by IA officials and the administrator of the Motoin Picture Industry Health and Pension Plan. There was also major pushback from Sony Pimageworks' staff employees, who were reasonably certain that their fine benefits would remain in place.

Turned out they were wrong, but the IATSE went down to defeat in the election anyway.

Most of the Imageworks staff employees are now gone from the Imageworks premises, and the profit-sharing and high-end health benefits have also exited. In my travels, I occasionally encounter "buyers' remorse" from ex-Imageworks employees. I tell them the vote was then ... and this is now ... and there's always opportunities for do-overs.

This might be one of those opportunities.

Kaplan here ..

What's really inspiring about this drive, is the fact that the artists inside took it upon themselves to start it. While we support them as much as we can, they were the ones who created the site, talked to their peers, passed out repcards and are making the decision to have their voice heard over at Imageworks.

For all the nay-sayers and FUD mongers that are out there, its incredibly motivating to see artists coming to the realization that the only way the industry will change, is if they make it happen. With the help of the union, these artists are making a stand just as their predecessors in animation did years before. Not just the SPA employees, but the Disney and Warner Bros artists we fondly remember. I am honored to be a part of their movement and look forward to being a part of their success.

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Profits

Per the Nikkster:

[According to SNL Kagan,] average revenues for the decade’s 101 animated films ran 108.4% ahead of costs. DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek 2 led the category with a 462% margin. The 71 sci-fi/fantasy films had a margin of 108.1%. Fox’s Avatar is the winner here with revenues 554% ahead of costs. ...

Sort of explains why fantasy and sci fi features, heavy with CG effects, get made so often. And why CG animated features are being produced by every major conglomerate. They are just too large a profit center to ignore.

But if you've been awake and paying attention during the past, oh, twenty years, you undoubtedly know this. We're a loong way from the sleepy days of Fox and the Hound, Pagemaster and Once Upon a Forest. And we're a long way from Saturday morning kiddie cartoons.

Computers and their spawn have turned the industry upside down and inside out, and made animation a high margin* part of moviedom.

* We're speaking here in relative terms.

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First in T.V. Land

The latest ratings:

Cartoon Network was television’s #1 network on Monday night for all kids & boys, while also the #1 network for boys on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights (7-9 p.m.). Each weeknight posted mostly double-digit delivery gains across key kids and boys demos.

... Monday night Season 4 Premiere of Adventure Time (7:30 p.m.) was the #1 telecast of the day among all key kids, and #1 in its time period among kids and boys. The half-hour premiere scored considerable double-digit gains among all kids and boys, ranging between 47% and 94% vs. last year’s time period.

Immediately following, Regular Show (8 p.m.) earned the #1 telecast of the week among boys 9-14, the #1 telecast of the day among all boys and #1 in its time period among kids 2-11, 9-14 and all boys. ...

Adventure Time is a droll series. There are a few geezers who are put off with the drawing and design style, but the half-hour contains considerable wit.

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Twenty Years Ago ...

President Emeritus Tom Sito reminds us that, twenty years ago today, a hand-drawn feature that's had some remarkable echoes in filmdom was released by Twentieth Century Fox ....

Fern Gully was produced in the middle of the San Fernando Valley. In a former brewery. It was among the first of the non-Disney hand-drawn features and had a remarkable crew of old Disney hands and various up-and-comers (Pixar icon Ralph Eggleston was FG's Art Director.)

The feature turned a profit, but not a large one. It was one of Fox's first animated releases, but far from the last. Fox Animation (Phoenix) and a Blue Sky Studios followed shortly after. Today, Rupert's minions are major players in the cartoon biz, with "Animation Domination" Sunday nights on the Fox network, with The Simpsons and the Seth M. shows making the company billions. (The Simpsons Movie was among the last hand-drawn animated features to earn big bucks.)

Fern Gully was a fine little film in its time. Besides Mr. Eggleston, it offered Robin Williams voicing his first cartoon feature. (Aladdin came out in the Fall of the same year.)

(The "Avatar/"Fern Gully" mashup comes via Bronwen Barry.)

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Oregon?

Matt Groening comes clean:

One of the best-kept secrets in television history has been revealed, with "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening pointing to Springfield, Ore., as the inspiration for the animated hometown of Homer and his dysfunctional family.

Groening told Smithsonian magazine, published online Tuesday, that he was inspired by the television show "Father Knows Best," which took place in a place called Springfield. Springfield, Ore., is 100 miles south of Groening's hometown of Portland ...

Was this really a mysterious unknown? I thought the dark secret was revealed a while ago.

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Cartoon Data Points

The live-action prequel to the animated feature Sleeping Beauty comes out the same day and date ...

As the animated feature based on the animated short on the animated television show Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Furthermore ...

The Broadway blockbuster based on the animated hit about lions has become the highest grossing musical/play/whatever on the Great White Way.

In recorded history.

Amazing, no? The Side Show of my youth has become the Main Event of my later adulthood. Who would have imagined?

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Renewed?

The media says:

Fox's fall tally [has] nine returning programs in all. Rounding out the list are "Bones," "The Simpsons" "Family Guy" "American Dad" "The Cleveland Show" and "The X Factor." ...

Funny thing. All the shows above have episodes in various stages of preparation.

All except the one in bold face. American Dad is now laying off artists who've been with the show for seasons and seasons because (it's reported to me) there is no official pickup for newer half-hours.

Today I talked to an artist working on the show; he told me:

"They were supposed to let us know last week whether American Dad would be doing new episodes. But no word. So we're all just finishing up our assignments and getting laid off. I've got three more weeks. Management has said that they'll start hiring for The Flintstones in late May, so people will be trying to swing over to that ..."

Another AD artist, recently laid off, informed me that there's a new Fox development exec who doesn't get any money for keeping the show on the air, so he's real motivated in trying to find a replacement for Dad. (No luck yet.)

Plus Seth M. doesn't want to do Stan Smith's voice anymore, plus AD isn't his show in the way Family Guy and Cleveland are. [I have no idea if the foregoing is true. I just report what ex-staffers say ...]

And there are a lot of episodes stockpiled, almost enough for a full new season.

So. Will American Dad be coming back beyond its current allotment of completed and nearly-completed episodes? I can tell you with total certainty that I don't know. Click here to read entire post

Marvel Animated Feature at Disney?

Speculation, always speculation.

When it was announced in 2009 that Disney had purchased Marvel, many wondered if the mouse house would adapt any of the superhero stories into animated features. When the deal was announced, CEO Bob Iger mentioned that they “talked about this internally” and that Pixar head John Lasseter had already “talked to the Marvel guys” about possibilities ...

[quoting Blue Sky:] The projects competing for 2014/2015 are the uber-secret film from Don Hall, which will be a marvelously unexpected project if it ever gets the green light, and Nathan Greno and Byron Howard’s films which are deep in development. ...

There are multiple fairy tales in development at Diz, and a person told me that Hall is developing some action thingie. But tied to a Marvel property? If memory serves, no. (But maybe this is later news. I get around so little.)

I know the fan-person crowd is always chomping to know every little bit of news that comes out of Disney, but honest to God, it isn't that exciting.

Really.

The reason it's not? Because at any given point in time, directors and story artists are developing projects. And a lot of those projects never get past the early gestation stage. (King of the Elves has been up and down the May pole multiple times. Frozen has been in and out of work four or five years at least. It was killed as a hand-drawn project, then resurrected as a c.g. fairy tale after Tangled's success. Plus, J.L. liked one of Frozen's later scripts so it moved up in line.)

The way development of animated features works: Creators dream up multiple projects and storylines. Mr. Lasseter looks at same, selects one of the projects/storylines for further development, and off everyone goes. Writers come aboard, scripts are written, and table reads of those scripts (with Mr. Lasseter in attendance) take place. Then, if Mr. Lasseter's reaction is "thumbs up," further development happens (sequence boards, story reels, more character designs, etc.) And the reels either lead to a production greenlight or not.

Before that, most everything is a candidate for a quick death. (And possible later resurrection.)

None of the above is news. The process has been pretty much the same since Hyperion/Snow White days. One difference now is that outside writers get hired on for script work, which was mostly done with in-house staff prior to the middle 1980s.

If I were more energetic, I could probably nose around and find out who's doing what and which projects are "looking good" and which not. But it's not something that is, at the end of the day, all that interesting. Projects fall on and off the tote board all the freaking time. (Tangled was in development for over a decade, with all kinds of different approaches. The only one that actually counts, when all the storyboards and script drafts and box office grosses are tallied up, is the approach that gets made.)

Disney now has more projects in different phases of development than previously. This is a good thing. But many of the incubating features won't be made anytime soon because that's the nature of development work. There are always many ideas. But only so many features can get onto a release slate.

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The Home Team

As regards animated features, it's not all about Disney and DreamWorks elbowing their way into the Middle Kingdom:

... Imagi -- a company that almost went bankrupt after the dismal failure* of its take on the Japanese TV series " Astro Boy" in 2009 -- is home to the champion of China's animation industry: Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf.

... [T]he franchise has produced four films in the past four years taking a combined domestic box office haul of 548 million yuan ($87 million).

In terms of animated films screening in China, that amount has only been bettered by DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda franchise, whose two films have commanded takings of 744 million yuan since the original's release in 2008. ...

China's theatrical market is growing by double-digit percentages year by year, so there's probably room for multiple players in the cartoon marketplace, but an $87 million gross isn't going to allow for BIG budgets. Unless, of course, those domestically produced features earn healthy amounts of dollars in other global localities.

* As we all know, the fact that Imagi's Astro Boy underperformed in the world marketplace is a serious black mark on the entertainment tastes of mankind.

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The First Union Rep

During these holy days, let us remember ...

Exodus is a story about cruel labor conditions, workers' rights, and strong leaders, making Passover's hero a shop steward for the ages ...

Millions of families around the world, including my own, will sit down together this weekend for Passover Seder to read and celebrate the story of the Jews freeing themselves from enslavement. Independence is an important and powerful part of the story. But I think we're also celebrating something else: the first great moment in labor history.

Seriously.

The parallels come easily. The workers (Israelites) asked their union rep (Moses) to stand up to the boss (Pharaoh) about their terrible working conditions. In Exodus: Chapter 5, the boss denied Moses and doubled the workers' load. ...

Labor issues are remarkably similar through time.

Too much work. Too little rest. Brutal labor conditions. Meager pay.

Through much of human history, most people's lives have been brutish and short. The Top Dogs might live in splendid luxury, but everybody else is down in the muck and mire, scratching out a living. And dying at thirty-five.

It's recorded that a Roman Centurion, between wars, lived on a one acre farm with his wife and five kids, trying to make ends meet. The centurion's life was not untypical of how the lower classes lived.

The Dark Ages were a time of poverty for most. The Renaissance ... and rising incomes ... happened because plagues wiped out so much of the population that wages rose for the few survivors. (When workers are scarce, salaries go up. Adam Smith's supply and demand thingie.)

In the twentieth century, labor laws in the U.S and Europe helped unions get a toe hold, spread pensions and health care to the huddled masses yearning to make a buck, and generally strengthened the Middle Class.

That era has now receded somewhat, and the strong middle with it. So it's good to remember that the struggle between the many and the wealthy few have been going on for a lengthy while now.

"Oh Mary, don't you weep, don't mourn,

Oh Mary, don't you weep, don't mourn*,

Pharoah's army got drownded, oh Mary don't you weep."

* Although the subtitles say "... don't you weep no more," I believe Springsteen is singing "... don't mourn."

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Your Overseas B.O.

Though Wrath of the Titans remained in first place, animation was no slouch:

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax elicited $11.8 million from some 4,000 situations in 49 territories, lifting its international gross total to $59 million. ...

Sony Animation/Aardman’s coproduction of The Pirates! Band of Misfits grossed $10 million on the weekend, playing at a total of 3,890 venues in 29 markets, and raising its early oversea gross total to $25.2 million.

Lorax has no taken in a grand total of $257.2 million around the globe, while Pirates! has yet to be released stateside.

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Worst ...

Per those who profess to know.

Electronic Arts just won the type of college basketball-style tournament that no company wants to be associated with. EA was voted the worst company in America by Consumerist.com. The consumer site is published by Consumer Media LLC, a not-for-profit subsidiary of Consumer Reports, and takes no outside advertising. ...

Over its three-week run, the seventh annual Worst Company in America tournament drew more than 260,000 total votes, setting yet another contest record, from people fed up with the poor consumer policies of the 32 companies nominated from a range of industries, including airlines, telecommunications, retailers, financial institutes and more. Gamers drove the final vote to a tournament record 50,575 total submissions. ...

So consumers are ticked. Maybe it's better inside the company, and EA employees are happy campers with good salaries and better working conditions.

But a few years ago, TAG got contacted by a sizable number of Electronic Arts employees who griped about the long hours and flat pay. At the time, the video game industry had a deserved reputation for long work-weeks, and lawsuits were percolating over unpaid overtime and other unsavory things.

... Word of the lawsuit comes as an anonymous blog posting ... blasted EA and generated a flurry of complaints about punishing work hours in the industry. "The current mandatory hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.--seven days a week--with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30 p.m.)," read the post, whose author claimed to be the "significant other" of an EA employee. ....

That was then and this is now. If memory serves, some of the troubles were ultimately resolved. But as a game employee said to me a while back:

"The game industry wants employees who are fresh out of school and eager. It's good to be twenty-two or twenty-three. When you hit thirty, they don't want you anymore. They're back at the university campuses recruiting more twenty-two year olds. ..."

Issues of overwork never go away. Thirty-five years ago, my supervisor at Disney (who'd been there off and on since 1930) complained to me about the free overtime at Disney's Hyperion studio, where the wages for a Saturday of work were a lunch voucher at the corner diner.

In 2138, I'm confident there will still be long work hours and employees who don't get paid for them. And the worst company then? Probably hasn't been formed yet.

Add On: Michael Pachter, game analyst, thinks EA's new award is silly.

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Bows and Arrows

Jennifer Lawrence isn't the only woman who knows how to stretch a bow string ...

Diz Co. has released a cluster of new Brave posters.

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The Derby in Springtime

The big ship take third place, horn dogs second, and spunky teen with bow and arrow (who's not "Brave") hangs onto first. (Here is the Friday to Thursday chart):

The Hunger Games -- $12.9 million (Total $282.2 million)

American Reunion -- $9.2 million

Titanic -- $7.1 million ($15.5 mill ... this time 'round)

Wrath of the Titans -- $5.4 million ($49.3 million)

Mirror Mirror -- $4.6 million ($30 million) ...

We're informed:

The Hunger Games is now starting to show off some of its stamina, as the sci-fi survival thriller dropped only 31 percent for an estimated $12.9 million on Friday. ...

Meantime Dr. Seuss's creation continues to hold up at the box office, gaining 11% on Good Friday. The Lorax has now collected $195.5 million domestically.

Add On: Time Magazine analyzes the first quarter's box office totals:

Everything about early 2012 was bigger, better, more than the year before. Twelve of the first 13 weekend grosses of 2012 have been higher, often far higher, than those of the same weeks last year. ...

The Lorax, in its first weekend, secured the biggest opening for any movie based on a Seuss book, for any nonsequel since Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland exactly two years before ... and for any animated feature since Toy Story 3 in June 2010. Still percolating, The Lorax is certain to pass $200 million, becoming the first animated feature to exceed that mark since Tangled, released in Nov. 2010. ...

Add On: Hunger Games again comes in first ... with the iceberg and the boat coming in third.

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Uncanny Uneasiness

I don't know if this is true, but it sounds plausible:

When Pixar screened a computer-animated short film called "Tin Toy" in 1988, test audiences hated the sight of the pseudo-realistic baby named "Billy" who terrorized the toys. Such a strong reaction persuaded Pixar to avoid making uncannily realistic human characters ...

If scientists don't know why the Uncanny Valley bothers humans, I have a few ideas about it.

Flesh and blood humans know how their counterparts on a screen are supposed to look. And digital "almost" humans aren't it. The face is off. The eyes resemble glass. Skin textures are too android-like.

Try this mind experiment: Think about the movie entitled Titanic. (It's out now at an AMC near you in genuine fake 3-D, so it's easy to get a quick memory freshener.)

Now think about Titanic if it had been done, stem to stern, with mocap actors and digital sets.

Still a grabber for you? Still emotionally involving? I'm betting "nope." Seeing digital replicas of Leo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates and the rest of the passengers would have pushed audiences away.

"Evolutionary history has tuned us to detect minor distortions that indicate disease, mental or physical problems," [psychologist Thalia] Wheatley explained. "To go after a human-looking robot or avatar is to go up against millions of years of evolutionary history." ...

Dr. Wheatley's analysis goes a long way toward explaining why America didn't clasp The Adventures of Tintin to its heart. As with Titanic, there was adventure on a ship. And there was a narrow escape in a life boat with a kid about Mr. DiCaprio's age. But there were no actual human beings.

So people watched the near-duplicates on a big, 3-D screen and squirmed in their seats. Why? Because the prehistoric parts of their brains whispered "sick ... sick ... sick."

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Not Getting Cancelled

Nickelodeon's Cartoon Network's ongoing hit:

Adventure Time returned Monday night with its fourth season, scoring as the #1 telecast of the day among all targeted kids—ages 2-11, 6-11 and 9-14—earning double and triple-digit growth vs. last year’s time period, according to Nielsen Media Research. The season’s first half-hour episode “Hot to the Touch” also out-paced all kids competition, by double and triple digits ranging between 20% and 353% ...

As it happens, I talked to AT crew members this week. One of them, who also worked on the pilot, said he was glad for the work, and glad that it looks like the series will continue for awhile. Fifth season ... sixth season ... and beyond?

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Round Two

The IA's boys and girls have known about this for awhile, but it's now hit the media.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Hollywood studios have agreed to return to the bargaining table on April 12. ...

The sticking point is how to pay for the rapidly rising cost of health coverage and to bolster the IATSE pension fund over the next three years. According to consultant estimates, the Motion Picture Industry Pension & Health Plans face a funding shortfall of as much as $500 million over that span for the workers represented in the talks.

The studios have already met with negotiators of individual guilds to discuss demands specific to each union, primarily concerning work rules. The upcoming talks will focus on wage and benefit issues and how to bridge the $500 million health and pension gap. ...

There have been other "sticking points" if memory serves. Sadly, I'm not at liberty to say what they are/were.

What I can say is: When were were deep into the festivities a couple weeks ago, the parties were closer to a deal than they'd been half a week before, but had not reached a deal. At 3:30 on a Monday morning, the labor unions at the table decided to put a pin in the talks and try again later.

April 12 is the later. When there is resolution, we will let you know.

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Foreign Labor

And as there is free labor via eager students, so are there foreign alliances with overseas super powers.

China may finally be opening up its animation market to foreign investment, with the latest word that none other than Disney (NYSE: DIS), arguably the world’s most famous brand in the field, is in talks with Internet leader Tencent (HKEx: 700) for a tie-up in the lucrative but largely undeveloped space. The media reports are rather vague, saying only that Tencent, China’s largest Internet company, is “communicating” with Disney about a potential animation development tie-up ...

This makes sense on any number of levels.

1) DreamWorks Animation has already done a deal with the Middle Kingdom.

2) We're talking a HUGE market here, and Disney is already building an amusement park in Shanghai (so why not this?)

3) John Lasseter is probably itching to fly to China and show the folks how cartoon-making is done.

There will be the inevitable It's going to China!" but I tend to think not. The idea with these budding alliances is to create domestic content and make money from a huge population base.

Besides which, I've watched "runaway production" for thirty-odd years, and it never works out the way originally planned. It took thirty years to achieve the first foreign-created animated theatrical hit, and it arrived from France, not Asia.

I don't expect California to be drained of animation work much before 2185.

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Free Labor!

Hey kids! Pay a big fat animation studio/visual effects house to work on their movie! It's all the rage!

We've been following this issue with VFX Soldier for some time now. (And we've commented on variations of this charming practice multiple times before.)

My own thought: In 2012, nothing surprises me anymore. When there are politicians beating the drum to get rid of Medicare and Social Security and the minimum wage, why would it be a surprise that a Chief Executive Officer is touting the joys and advantages to having twenty-year-olds pay for the privilege of working on a big-budget feature?

Sort of shreds the idea of minimum rates, but ... oh well.

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The Bob Schaefer Interview -- Part II

(c) The Walt Disney Co.

TAG Interview with Bob Schaefer

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

Bob Schaefer began his career in backgrounds with work on "The Flintstones" in the 1960s. "Doing the insides of the caves was simple. A little sponge work for texture, a few wall cracks, and you were there" ...

Bob was more interested in complex and realistic work, and found that in abundance when he worked on many of the animated sequels that Disney Toons was producing in the 1990s:

"On Lady and the Tramp: Scamp's Adventure and Cinderella III we had to duplicate the work of the older films. On L and T I had to paint a master setup of the parlor, which they didn't do in the original. It was a challenge, but I like challenges."

You can view a bit of Bob's handiwork up top, and the video of the interview below.

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The Bob Schaefer Interview -- Part I

There are a bajillion different goat paths into the scented uplands of the animation business, but veteran background artist Bob Schaefer's entryway was probably unique ...

TAG Interview with Bob Schaefer

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

Bob was a young man with a sign company in Bakersfield, California, gifted with a steady hand and a keen eye. Also a knack for pinstriping, sign painting, and applying gold leaf to windows.

He was making an okay living at his trade, but thought he should stretch for something more. And lo, a friend who worked at a cartoon studio in distant Hollywood called to say that the studio was in need of a title painter, and fast. So Bob loaded into his sign truck and drove to Southern California.

Over a long and hectic weekend Bob turned out a lot of title art for Hanna-Barbera. On Sunday, Bill Hanna came in and looked at what he was doing, liked what he saw, and offered Mr. Schaefer a longer term job on the spot.

For the next four-plus decades, Mr. Schaefer was seldom out of work, moving from titles to background work within a few years. Bob credits his success to hard work and a natural gift for painting all manner of surfaces, first evidenced while he was a teenager in Bakersfield.

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Angry Birds, the series

When the wave is still tumbling toward shore, ride it.

The 52-episode animated Angry Birds series - each between two to three minutes in length - is being produced by Rovio at its in-house production studios in Finland but co-production partners are being sought, Rovio’s head of animation Nick Dorra told the Mip TV audience in Cannes. ...

I'm one of the few upright, carbon-based life forms that hasn't seen or played Angry Birds. But I know a big hit when I see it.

And in 2014, Angry Birds, the Feature.

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Game Developer Salaries

Game Developer magazine rolls out its salary survey:

... The average salary across the entire U.S. 'mainstream' games industry was $81,192, only a marginal increase to last year's $80,817 reported average. Nevertheless, 66 percent of survey respondents made more money in 2011 than they did in 2010, compared to 56 percent from 2010 to 2009. ...

It's wonderful that salaries are rising in these troubled times. But what I'd like to know is: What the hell kind of hourly rate are people making? Did salaries go up because employers are paying more? Or did the climb happen because because employees are working more?

As I found out seventeen years ago, to make $2000 per week working a hundred hours in a seven-day span isn't really as good as making $1400 by laboring, say, forty hours.

(On the other hand, if the work load is such that you sleep under your monitor and consume coke and hot dogs off the roach coach for daily sustenance, maybe you'll have more money when the gig is over, because you won't have had time to go out and spend any of the generous wages. ...)

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Not the Best Weekend

From the Nikkster's site:

... Sophomore Bob’s Burgers (1.6/4) and veteran Family Guy (2.5/6), which debuted the trailer for Seth MacFarlane’s first feature, Ted, were down double-digits — 20% to a series low and 11%, respectively. American Dad (2.0/5) was flat. ...

Two weeks ago the story was somewhat different:

The Matt Groening animated sitcom amused 5.2m (2.4) at 8pm, after which Bob's Burgers also soared, with 4.4m (2.1) tuning in for its latest edition.

Family Guy (5.7m/2.8) and American Dad (4.6m/2.1) capped a solid evening's work for Fox. ...

The last time I visited Fox Animation, American Dad hadn't been picked up, although to the outside world new episodes spin merrily on. I suppose we will see what half-hours of Fox's Animation Domination get new produced episodes ... and which don't.

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Mega Crockett

If you're of a certain age (borderline geezerhood?) then David Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, might have a certain resonance with you ...

As it happens, Mega Collector is recently the proud owner of a large panel from "Davy Crockett, the Comic" that was drawn in 1955 to aid and abet the television mini-series/ theatrical movie of the same name ... when Davy Crocket wasn't just a craze but close to a national religion.

Meg doesn't know who the artist of these panels is, but he knows that the comic is uber nostalgic for a chosen few ...

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Of Birthday Parties, Leverage, and Picket Signs

Disneyland Paris notes a milestone with Disney-type festivities:

Disneyland Paris celebrated its entry into adulthood in spectacular style this weekend, with a 20th birthday extravaganza replete with celebrities, parades and a new state-of-the-art show.

The resort 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) east of Paris has a lot to celebrate. After overcoming a rocky childhood, the "Magic Kingdom" now makes up a chunk of the French economy and of Disney's own revenues. ...

It's nice to see that the parks have stabilized, in contrast to the horrid days of 1994 when the place was in financial free-fall. (The '94 drama presents us with another fine lesson in "You get what you have the leverage to get.")

By the start of 1994, with the company [EuroDisney] in serious financial difficulties, and rumors circulating the the park was on the verge of bankruptcy a series of emergency crisis talks were held between the banks and backers.

Everything came to a head during March 1994 when Team Disney offered the banks an ultimatum, that Disney would provide sufficient capital investment for the park to continue to operate until the end of the month, but unless the banks agreed to restructure the $1bn debt that the park's construction and operation had run up, the Walt Disney company would close the park, and walk away from the whole European venture, leaving the banks with a bankrupt theme park and a massive expanse of virtually worthless real estate.

EuroDisney then forced the banks' hands by calling the annual stock-holder meeting for March 15th. Faced with no alternative other than to announce to the stock holders that the park was about to close, the banks started looking for ways to refinance and restructure the massive debts. Then to further increase the pressure on the banks, Michael Eisner, Disney's CEO, went public shortly before the stock-holder meeting and announced that Disney were planning to pull the plug on the venture at the end of March 1994 unless the banks were prepared to restructure the loans.

Finally on March 14th, just before the annual meeting the banks capitulated, and agreed to Disney's demands, effectively writing off virtually all of the next two years worth of interest payments, and a three year postponement of further loan repayments. ...

Back to 2012: No bankruptcies in sight, but there appears to be some discontent percolating at the Magic Kingdom, Paris.

Unions representing workers at the Disneyland Paris complex, operated by Euro Disney SCA (EDL), have called for a 48-hour strike, starting today, in a dispute over salaries and benefits, French newspaper Les Echos said, citing union representatives.

The strike was called by a group of four unions that are seeking a pay increase of at least 4 percent, while the company has proposed a 1.5 percent raise, the newspaper said.

I've no idea if the unions have the kind of leverage Michael Eisner did eighteen years ago, but this is France, so I guess we'll see.

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PIMCO Predictions

Sunday night's investment post, where Mr. William H. Gross of Newport Beach, California -- and the commander of the TAG 401(k)'s PIMCO Total Return -- gives us his thinking.

* When interest rates cannot be dramatically lowered further or risk spreads significantly compressed, the momentum begins to shift, not necessarily suddenly, but gradually – yields moving mildly higher and spreads stabilizing or moving slightly wider.

* In such a mildly reflating world, unless you want to earn an inflation-adjusted return of minus 2%-3% as offered by Treasury bills, then you must take risk in some form.

* We favor high quality, shorter duration and inflation-protected bonds; dividend paying stocks with a preference for developing over developed markets; and inflation-sensitive, supply-constrained commodity products. ...

At the end of the piece, Mr. Gross gets down to brass tacks about what investors should focus on:

For bond markets: favor higher quality, shorter duration and inflation protected assets.

For stocks: favor developing vs. developed. Favor shorter durations here too, which means consistent dividend paying as opposed to growth stocks.

For commodities: favor inflation sensitive, supply constrained products.

And for all asset categories, be wary of levered hedge strategies that promise double-digit returns that are difficult in a delevering world.

... [S]econdly, be mindful of investment management expenses. Whoops, I’m not supposed to say that, but I will. Be sure you’re getting value for your expense dollars.

I encounter a number of 401(k) participants who say they know little to nothing about investing, and have little interest in learning. (Totally understandable, but a wee bit short-sighted, since it's their future to which they are giving short shrift.)

Happily, inside TAG's 401(k) Plan, there are some strategies that hit many of Bill Gross' points. And they don't take a lot of heavy research or work to implement.

1) If you use PIMCO total Return, you will get a successful, actively managed bond fund that has had good performance numbers for multiple years.

2) If you use any of the Vanguard Target Fund series, you will acquire intelligently-constructed "Funds of Funds" that have ultra low-cost asset allocations of less than 1/5 of a percent (PIMCO, despite its success, is considerably higher than that.)

My basic recommendation has stayed pretty much the same over time: If you're at a loss over where to stick your money, think about the Vanguard Target Retirement Income Fund. It gives you a 30% exposure to broadly diversified stocks, a chunk of Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (which Bill Gross recommends) and a big slice of the Total Bond Market Index*, which concentrates on high-quality bonds and doesn't have a super-long duration (Five years.)

But what kind of portfolio can you build from TAG 401(k) pieces that hits most of what Mr. G. is talking about? How about ...

50% -- Vanguard Target Retirement Fund -- (cost: .17%)

25% -- PIMCO Total Return -- (cost: .69%)

25% -- American Funds Euro Pacific Growth Fund -- (cost: .55%)

Like most 401(k) Plans, TAG doesn't offer a fund that is a pure developing market play. (Common wisdom deems this too risky.) But over-weighting foreign stocks will capture a slice of emerging markets.

As for investing in commodities, you'll have to do that outside a 401(k) Plan. Because all or most Defined Contribution plans stay away from them.

* PIMCO and Vanguard Total Bond Index are both intermediate bond funds. PIMCO is actively managed; Vanguard is passively managed, tracking a bond index. To lower costs for the above three-fund suite directly above, you could simply allocate 75% to Vanguard Target Income, and 25% to the Euro Pacific Growth Fund.

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Foolish Foreign Derbies

... The Lorax gallops along.

Blanketing the foreign theatrical circuit over the weekend, Wrath of the Titans easily displaced The Hunger Games as the No. 1 box office attraction overseas, opening to an estimated $78 million at some 13,900 screens in 60 territories. ...

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, Universal’s 3-D animation adapted from the classic children’s book, finished No. 3 after opening in 17 markets including Mexico (No. 2 with $2.7 million from 542 sites). Weekend overall provided $14.5 million drawn from 4,100 playdates in 43 markets. Overseas cume stands at $37.7 million. ...

Lorax has now made $227.3 million globally, more than triple its production cost.

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