DreamWorks Animation Wheels and Deals

Like they've never whelt and dealt before.

Netflix made another aggressive move to become the HBO of online television Monday by announcing a deal with DreamWorks Animation, which will create more than 300 hours of original programs based on fan-favorite films such as “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda.”

The multi-year deal with DreamWorks is the biggest of its kind to date for Netflix, which has been gaining subscribers by offering new, made-for-streaming series like the “Arrested Development” revival that debuted Memorial Day weekend.

Financial terms were not announced, but the companies said in a press release that the first DreamWorks shows are expected to appear in 2014 and “will be inspired by characters” from the studio’s movies, which also includes “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Madagascar.” ...

Seventeen years ago, DreamWorks Animation The T.V. Unit was on the cusp of producing animated content for the ABC network. Then Michael Eisner and Diz Co. swept in and purchased ABC, and there went that deal. Soon thereafter, Dreamworks got out of the television animation business.

Today, however, they are pushing into the television production business once again. The question I have is, where will this work be created?

(I was over at DreamWorks' Lakeside building this afternoon, and there are lots of empty cubes, so I don't think production will be taking place in Glendale. On the other hand, most pre-production on DreamWorks Animation product, features and otherwise, has been done in California, so there's a fine chance that lots of that work will be brain-stormed and created here.)
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Genius?

... who's building a new animation empire? The Washington Post gushes.

... [Nick Weidenfeld] may even be the boy genius of cartoons, having served as head of development for Adult Swim, which is Cartoon Network’s late-night block of irreverent programming.

Now he presides over a 120-person Los Angeles animation studio that Fox built just for him.

His mission: to wrest the coveted 18-to-34-year-old-male-spendthrift demographic from DVDs, YouTube, the Internet and NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” — the altar at which comedy lovers worship.

He is building an “animation block” of Saturday-night television and Internet programming that he has dubbed “ADHD,” for “Animation Domination High-Def.” ADHD will debut this summer with its own edgy content. ...

The question is, will he pay the artists decently?

Not so far, but maybe TAG can get him to sign a guild contract. Be a step in the right direction. Click here to read entire post

Missing the Stock Run-up

Long ago (2000), my significant other got out of the stock market at just the right time. It was the wrong reason (she was concerned about Y2K, but it happened at the right time. Fortunate her.

For people who got out of the stock market in early 2009, and stayed out, unlucky them. Investment guru Barry Ritholtz shines a light on the problem:

So, you missed the big market rally. U.S. stocks have moved nearly 150 percent since the March 2009 lows, and you sat out most of those gains.

I’ve heard all the reasons: Maybe you jumped out of stocks in 2008 and stayed out. Perhaps you were in at the lows, but after the first 20 percent advance, you lost your nerve. The Flash Crash of May 2010 sent you running for cover? Or was it the 19 percent drop before QE2 was announced in August 2010? ...

And Barry offers solutions:

1) Acknowledge the error: First thing you need to do is own up to the mistake. No, this wasn’t the fault of the Fed or President Obama or some algorithm trading server somewhere in New Jersey. It is your portfolio, your retirement account, your future. You cannot fix it if you are still blaming everyone else. ...

2) Stop beating yourself up: This market has confounded amateurs and pros alike. Unless you came to an early understanding of how the Fed has been driving liquidity and, therefore, equities, it was easy to miss. ...

3) Change your sources: Most of the people I speak with who have missed this huge move have been consuming a diet of doom and gloom. ... Constantly reading about hyperinflation and the collapse of the dollar and the end of the United States as a world power and the student loan crisis and omigod Obamacare is going to crush America and the Chinese are taking over the world and . . . STOP! Right now. It is recession porn. ...

4) Look at the rest of your process: How do you make investment decisions? Are you careening from stock pick to stock pick, after watching too much financial TV? Do you even have a process?

Whatever it is you have been doing obviously has not been working. It is likely you are missing two important components of an investment plan: the plan itself and an error-correction method that allows you to reverse the inevitable mistakes that will occur.

5) Create an asset-allocation model: Of course, if you missed the entire rally, you don’t have much of a plan. You need a full-blown investment strategy.

Own five to nine broad indexes, typically in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or low-cost mutual funds. In decreasing amounts (35 percent, 30 percent, 20 percent, 5 percent), you should own: large caps, small caps, emerging markets, global equities, technology, real estate, bonds (corporates, Treasurys, munis) and commodity indices.

6) Deploy your capital: You need to make your capital work for you, not sit in cash. Deploy this capital based on time, on market levels, on a model or any objective metric, just so long as it is not driven by your gut instinct. ...

7) Dollar-cost average: You can allow time to work in your favor by deploying your capital in 12 monthly (or four quarterly) equal amounts. This avoids the classic market timing issue, and allows any market volatility to work in your favor. ...

8) Rebalance regularly: You now have a simple model with various asset classes held in different weightings (35 percent to 5 percent). Over time, some will do better or worse than others. Eventually, the model drifts. The process of returning the portfolio to its original percentage weightings is called rebalancing. ...

9) Be diversified: We own stocks and bonds and real estate and commodities (pretty much in that order). When one market or asset class is falling, others tend to go in the opposite direction. ... A balanced portfolio approach tends to underperform markets on the way up but suffer much less on the way down. ...

10) Understand your time line: People have a foolish tendency to lose sight of the long term in the midst of the day-to-day noise. Most of you have an investing timeline between 10 to 40 years. (If you plan to start withdrawing money to live on in 10 years or less, you will need to be more conservative).

I don't agree with everything above (you can invest the market quite nicely in the classic Three-Fund Portfolio), but Mr. R.'s points are largely on target: Invest widely on a regular basis, and take only as much risk as you need to. All the rest is flapdoodle.


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Your Foreign B.O.

The caped one is causing the turnstiles to spin.

Man of Steel grossed $17.6 million at the foreign box office on Friday, scoring some of the best numbers ever for a superhero film in the U.K. and pushing the tentpole's three-day total to $25.9 million.

That puts Man of Steel's worldwide cume at $82 million through Friday when accounting for the $56.1 million earned so far in North America, where it is headed for a weekend debut in the $125 million range. The tentpole's performance is a victory for Warner Bros. and Legendary as they look to resurrect the marquee franchise.

Some "Meh" reviews haven't dampened the viewing public's eagerness to see the latest incarnation of Superman.

Meanwhile, Epic has collected $105.4 million overseas, a bit more than half its worldwide total. (Domestically, it holds down the seventh position and will pull down $3.5-$5 million over the weekend.) Click here to read entire post

Hidden Feature

With all the animated full-length movies rolling into multiplexes over the next few months, here's one (sort of) that is (kind of) traveling a different route:

Now that more games have been revealed at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) for the next-gen PS4 and Xbox One consoles, it’s clear there’s going to be a lot of bloodshed when the systems are released by the end of the year. ...

But how about a next-gen game that can make you laugh? Sony’s PS4 launch title “Knack” looks to fill a void.

In development from Mark Cerny, the PS4′s system architect, “Knack” is his attempt to bring “Pixar-quality graphics and storytelling” to the new platform. Cerny told Hero Complex on Wednesday at E3 that essentially what amounts to a full-length feature film is inside the game.

“We’ve embedded pretty much what is a full CGI movie into this game,” he said. “It’s a family story.”

And while he cited Pixar earlier, tone-wise Cerny put the feel of “Knack,” a cartoonish platformer featuring goblins and an unlikely, shape-shifting hero, more in line with the DreamWorks film “How to Train Your Dragon.” As for the “embedded” film, that’s unveiled throughout the game in cinematic sequences.

The trailer looks like an animated feature that the Weinstein Co. might put out.

Not quite theatrical quality, but hey. It's a freaking game. Besides which, games and animated features have been merging for a while. One day soon a game company will release their edited interstitials into neighborhood AMCs the way Disney, next month, will be releasing the direct-to-video Planes onto big screens.

It's about the synergy, friends and neighbors, and what kind of cash flow the property can generate.

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Annecy Winner

Rio 2096 took home the big trophy from a cartoon fest in France.

Annecy jurors fell in love with Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury, giving the Brazilian film the animation festival’s top prize at its closing ceremony Saturday night. Director Luiz Bolognesi will be taking home the Cristal Award for best feature for the fantastical love story which follows a couple for six centuries as they survive several tumultuous time periods of Brazil’s history and into an imagined future where the country is at war over water. ...

You see? Hand-drawn features DO get recognized. Click here to read entire post

The Plush Toys! The Plush Toys!

This is what makes America (and Japan) great:

Sony Pictures Entertainment‘s Consumer Marketing EVP George Leon announced Friday it has lined up one of the studio’s largest ever worldwide promotional campaigns to support the July 31st launch of The Smurfs 2.

Studio sources tell me the hotly anticipated sequel has $150 million being put up by these tie-ins with 100 corporation and licensee and retail global partners — from McDonald’s to Wal-Mart to Toys R Us to even blueberries. That’s huge dealmaking for Sony Animation family fare that’s not Disney, Pixar, or DreamWorks branded. This 3D hybrid live-action/CG animated global pic was able to build on the success of 2011′s The Smurfs which took in $563 million at the worldwide box office. ...

The Smurfs are a lot like Scooby Doo. They go on forever. It did wonderfully well for Hanna-Barbera back in the day, and now Neil Patrick Harris is one of the passengers on the magic carpet.

And of course, the heirs and assigns of Belgian artist Pierre “Peyo” Culliford aren't doing too badly either. Click here to read entire post

Man of Box Office Plenty

It's the super hero guy, the comedians, then everything else.

1. Man of Steel (Warner Brothers) [runs 4,207] Friday $49M, Weekend $120M, Cume $132M

2. This Is The End (Sony) [runs 3,023] Friday $6.85M, Weekend $21M, $32M

3. Now You See Me (Summit/Lionsgate) Week 3 [Runs 3,082] PG13 Friday $3.1M, Weekend $11.5M, Cume $81.2M

4. The Purge (Universal) Week 2 [Runs 2,591] R Friday $2.8M (-83%), Weekend $8.5M, Cume $52.1M

5. Fast & Furious 6 (Universal) Week 4 [Runs 3,375 PG13 Friday $2.5M, Weekend $8.4M, Cume $218.5M

6. The Internship (New Regency/Fox) Week 2 [Runs 3,399] Friday $2.2M (-65%), Weekend $7.0M, Cume $31.0M

7. Epic (Blue Sky/Fox) Week 4 [Runs 3,151] PG Friday $1.6M, Weekend $5.8M, Cume $95.2M

8. Star Trek Into Darkness (Paramount) Week 5 [Runs 2,331] PG13 Friday $1.3M, Weekend $5.5M, Cume $210.3M

9. After Earth (Sony) Week 3 [Runs 2,432] PG13 Friday $1.0M, Weekend $3.5M, Cume $54.0M

10. Iron Man 3 )Marvel/Disney) Week 7 [Runs 1,649] PG13 Friday $650K, Weekend $2.6M, Cume $399.4M ...

Epic is closing in on $100 million. How far past that will it get? Who knows? As for the pictures on the top rung:

Superman Returns's (2006) five-day debut adjusts to $102 million; if Man of Steel hits that in three days, it's off to a very good start. Meanwhile, if This is the End exceeds $30 million through five days, it's also in solid shape. ...

Mojo's speculation is already out-dated, as MOS will take more than $100 million and the Rogen comedy will also do quite nicely. Click here to read entire post

Voice Actors

New thesping gigs for A-listers

Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy teamed up for the action comedy, The Heat. Now both actresses are prepared for roles in animation films.

Bullock signed on in February to play next to co-star Jon Hamm in an spin-off of the Despicable Me series with the 2014 film Minions. McCarthy, on the other hand, has just joined the cast of B.O.O. (Bureau of Otherworldly Operations), which also stars Seth Rogen. ...

I like both Bullock and McCarthy, and seek out their live-action flicks for viewing and my local AMC.

But I've long had a gripe with big stars being cast in voice parts for animated features. Every time one of them gets the nod for a vocal job (and I understand the publicity angle, the marquee value, and blah blah blah) some mid-list actor trying to make a living ... who can probably bring as much (or more) to the table ... gets shut out.

Until the 1990s, casting big, top-line stars in animated features didn't happen*. Now it happens al the time. My griping about it isn't going to change things, but I'm going to gripe about it anyway.

* Okay, there was one exception I can think of: Bing Crosby in "Ichabod and Mr. Toad." Outside of that, nothing else comes to mind. Click here to read entire post

"Giants' First Steps"

On July 22, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences's annual Marc Davis Lecture in Animation will be held as the keynote lecture for SIGGRAPH, meeting this year at the Anaheim Convention Center.


The panel, entitled Giants’ First Steps, will explore the student works and early careers of the participating directors. Clips from their student films will be shown as part of the session. Among the panel participants are several Oscar® recipients and nominees including Pete Docter, Eric Goldberg, Kevin Lima, Mike Mitchell, Chris Sanders, Henry Selick, David Silverman and Kirk Wise.

This year's SIGGRAPH marks the fortieth anniversary of the annual computer graphics conference. For futher details or to register, go to the SIGGRAPH website.

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Cannibalizing the Release Slates

A fine trade paper relates:

DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, "This will be the strongest summer for animation ever."

In a normal summer, having Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University would be more than enough animated fuzzy-wuzziness to satiate audiences. But when you throw in Epic, Turbo and Planes (and Smurfs 2 for good measure), suddenly the high-stakes animation race has never been so crowded. By the time summer 2013 is done at the multiplex, Hollywood will have the answer to a billion-dollar question: Is there enough audience to go around? ...

The unprecedented glut of product points to a seismic shift in the animation business as new players such as Universal and Sony finally gain a stronghold and established companies like DreamWorks Animation, Fox, Disney Animation Studios and Pixar up their games. ...

Late last month, Pixar and Disney Animation chief creative officer John Lasseter essentially declared war on Katzenberg by dating a slew of untitled Pixar and Disney Animation Studios films through 2018, going so far as to claim June 17, 2016, even though DWA already had put How to Train Your Dragon 3 there. Never before have a Pixar and DWA movie gone up against one another. Katzenberg and Fox, where Vanessa Morrison heads up Fox Animation Studios, retaliated by flooding the calendar through 2018 with their own untitled films, even planting one on June 16, 2017, a Pixar date. ...

Historically the current glut has some (faint, mild) precedent. In 1940, the Fleischer brothers released Gulliver's Travels and Disney released Pinocchio on top of each other. And in the nineties, several studios attempted to replicate Disney's red-hot run of blockbuster animated features (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King) and pretty much fell on their corporate faces. (But for forty-eight months or so, there was a lot of competition.)

CG animation has been something else again. Lots of studios have jumped into the game and lots of studios have succeeded at marketing their animated offspring. Disney, DreamWorks, Universal, Sony ... all of them have produced major hits.

So the field of elbow-throwing competitors has now widened and grown deeper, and the release schedules have become more crowded. And here we are, with a busload of animated features rolling down the summer turnpike. (The Reporter failed to mention Cloudy with a Chance of Meataballs 2, which hits in September, but that isn't exactly a summer release, now is it?)

The real question is: How many films can succeed in one three-month stretch? And will the feature animation business start devouring some of its own? Click here to read entire post

The TAG Interview: A Brief History of CGI -- Part III

TAG Interview with Tom Sito - 2

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

College prof, feature director, animator and board artist Tom Sito continues his history of CGI:

... Most of 1985 was spent trying to find a buyer for the Graphics Group [Pixar], ten months of meetings and entertaining offers from buyers as varied as Seimens, Hallmark, Japanese manga publishers Shogakukan, and the makers of Silly Putty. ...

When talks with Steve Jobs commenced, on December 9, 1985, papers were filed that were approved in Fubruary of 1986 incorporating the Lucasfilm Graphics Group into a new company called Pixar Animation Studios. It was named for their signature retail product, the Pixar Imaging Computer. At first Jobs balked at Lucas's asking price of $15 million. After weeks of negotiation, getting the asking price down to just $5 million, with an additional $5 million in capital investment in the company, Jobs closed the deal on February 3, 1986. Doug Norby admitted later that had this deal not gone though, he had already decided to close Pixar down and fire all of its forty employees. ...

-- Tom Sito, Moving Innovation, p. 243.

(This concludes the Sito/CGI interviews. We apologize for the long gaps in the series, but the day job keeps getting in the way.) Click here to read entire post

Lucasfilm Animated Feature

The long-form cartoon started at LF before the Disney merger continues:

... Brenda Chapman revealed she’s completed work on an animated feature at Lucasfilm which is now being directed by multiple Oscar-winning sound man and Pixar director Gary Rydstrom.

The news came from an interview Chapman did with Animation Magazine, via Bleeding Cool. Last year, news broke Chapman was now consulting at Lucasfilm but it seems, since Disney took over, the project is still progressing, adding a director:

I have been working on a project with Lucas for quite some time — about six months. When Lucasfilm was handed over to Kathleen Kennedy, she asked me to consult on the film to help solve its story problems. It was an opportunity for me to work with her. I felt honored to be asked by her, after what happened at Pixar. DreamWorks was very generous to me in postponing my start date with them so that I could work with Kathleen, also. My work on the project is done. My good friend, Gary Rydstrom, is directing it now. ...

We know some of the folks working on this project, but little about the project itself. We're told it's pretty much a one-off, as Disney probably doesn't need four* feature animation studios in its future.

* The other three? Pixar (Monsters U.), Walt Disney Animation Studios (Frozen), and DisneyToons Studios (Planes). Click here to read entire post

A Brief History of Montreal

... and getting screwed in the Canadian VFX industry, or: "Tales of a veteran visual effects artist."

The following comes from TAG member Dave Rand.

On May 25, 2007 an article came out by David Cohen of Variety:

Blockbuster Films Take Toll on VFX shops.

You may have seen this quote before:

"I am not doing my job unless I put at least one VFX shop out of business on my show ..."

Little did I know in May 2007 how that would soon be affecting my life. Up until then, I'd lost about five grand in comp time when Rainmaker went belly up in Burbank in 1996 but otherwise it had been pretty smooth sailing. I just wanted to put headphones on and get cool shots. I had no interest in VFX politics.

Then came Oct 2007. I'd been in Montreal for a year working on Journey to the Center of the Earth as the fx lead. Then our paychecks stopped. This was followed by a series of promises, excuses, and delays.

Finally we were asked to just deliver and the whopper check that came from delivery would pay us for the 3 months of back pay and overtime with a bonus for waiting, the bonus promise was for those who balked. They made the mistake of putting me in front of the group to explain the finances of one of our deep pocket owners, I had been a broker at one of the top firms on Wall Street, I understand balance sheets. Surely the conglomerate of family networks, Discovery Holding's Co., worth in excess of 8 billion with 200 million in cash would honor our pay. After all it was Christmas.

We delivered just before Christmas.

I was used, we were all used.

I was owed $22,000.00

All VFX shops I know of are incorporated and therefore separate entities. Many VFX shop owners regularly borrow against contacts they bid on, taking a lump sum up front, using the Fox, Universal, Warner, or like contract as collateral. Magically the banks become the culprits at that point because they "will not release the funds!" or "they suddenly just kept the delivery check!" Like it's a surprise and not the owners fault.

You can't have their personal money, but yours is up for grabs.

You should ask if this type of borrowing has been done with your current studio contracts. This can make delivery paychecks disappear.

Discovery bankrupted the studio, after claiming the bank kept the delivery check (as described above), and it reopened under a new name two weeks later under new conspicuous ownership and doing work for the former owners. It was now called Lumiere Studios. Two years later Lumeire would screw over the same artists the same exact way, string them along with out pay and finally falter.

Does any of this sound familiar yet?

It would be two years before we saw a fraction of our money from Meteor. In the beginning, we were told by the labor department, Les Normes, not to expect more than what we could recover from the payroll insurance policy Meteor had in place. I called the insurer and that policy would cover less than 10% of the 1.3 million owed over 130 people….and the agent added it was all under investigation, I gladly told them everything I knew about the situation in return for this information.

It was then I decided with some others that we needed to take charge of our own lives. We started a multi-pronged campaign. I had plenty of help. I took on relations with the Press. I decided to use my real name from that day forward.

On every blog and every article.

It's harder to rob someone in the daylight. And the press was the main reason we got most of our money. At first all the major Hollywood publications did not think it was news worthy. (we've come a long way from that day as evidenced by a union sponsored OT lunch at Rhythm & Hues this year...it made the Hollywood Reporter the same afternoon, and I never had to contact anyone.)

Times and awareness are changing, thanks to the artists that have come forward.

The Governor General of Canada did not think our plight was worthy of even a response to my many letters and phone calls. Surprising, as she was raised in Haiti and was an award winning director.

Les Normes told me the company was bankrupt and had no money and to basically to get over it, their payroll insurance was our only recourse. It was only because of our efforts to make this known that Discovery eventually cut a check.

I called Brendan Fraser's agent and publicists. Brendan was the star and executive producer on JCE. They decided to not even mention it to him.

So I did my own press release.

From there we began to get considerable attention, starting with the NY Post and a call from Brendan Fraser himself. (Brendan called me immediately and began taking meetings and making calls on our behalf.)

Then Playback Magazine (the Variety of Canada) made it their cover story.

The Governor General contacted me immediately, informed me she was making it a priority case with the labor dept. Les Normes contacted me the next day to let me know they were "on it" and it was now a priority case.

Finally it hit mainstream USA entertainment magazines, blogs, and went viral. You can browse through the articles on the press tab of my website www.daverand.com

Lots of people got very embarrassed as they should, and we got to see some of our money, but most importantly it raised the consciousness of artists and hollywood that their prized asset, Visual Effects, was coming of age an willing to take a stand.

Not only did we max out the tiny payroll insurance policy, we got Discovery to pony up the rest to make the 70% settlement. Thanks to the attention and press this situation got.

To this day Les Norms has had a poor track record of recovering money from fallen VFX shops that have coerced artists to work without pay, gone belly up, and reopened under new names.

The Canadian government has recently stepped up to offer up to 3k of taxpayer cash to those who end up unpaid from bankruptcies in Quebec. Keep that in mind.

DAMFX was the next stop for me, I was still spinning from the Meteor situation and warned that they had regularly bounced and missed paychecks and always had an excuse involving the banks, the wire, the mail and would run you in circles calling your bank..buying time. In my interview that was my main concern. I went there under the promise that "what happened at Meteor would never happen at DAMNFX". I was told by Josee they had some problems in the past yes, but now they had money to last for seven months whether they got a show or not.

DAMNFX missed my first two paychecks. I was told the money was wired, check with my bank, it takes three days….check again. Sound familiar? I went home to an eviction notice and discovered that Meteor had not paid my rent for 6 months (even thought they took it out of my check) and that DAMNFX was now late paying as well.

I stopped going to work until I got my money. I eventually did, but I never returned. I'd had enough.

If you can't pay me don't spin bullshit on top and add insult to injury.

Josee's partners separated themselves from her and began talking to a new partner Mark Cote.

Josee started New Breed.

Following Meteor's lead, Mark encouraged the DAMNFX management to go bankrupt and wipe past debts like that pesky back payroll they owned the artists an re-open as RED FX to please the client they had for the film RED CLIFF. They did a midnight raid on the joint and took all the hardware and software until the bank asked for it all back. This gave them enough time to copy over the custom code, and the work done on the show.

RED FX was born and eventually was bankrupted screwing the exact same artists the exact same way. New dog, old tricks.

They reopened under FAKE studios and then this happened, basically the same crap.

Is any of this starting to show you a pattern? Because it should.

Will this just keep happening as it has for years now?

You have to realize that these occurrences happen for one main reason….it is the one thing that just about every VFX artists is lacking in the very controlled world of VFX films:

LEVERAGE

Leverage is what ultimately runs everything in our business, and all businesses. Sadly it's rarely about ethics or fair play. Almost every labor law was created because of labor unions and the exposure they gave to injustices like these. (Here's the list.)

Our government labor departments have been weak when it comes to getting lost wages. Bankruptcy laws protect owners from losing their "personal money". Only your personal money is at stake. That is what incorporation is all about, their protection and not necessarily yours.

Right now your leverage is evaporating every day you approach delivery without a paycheck. Given this history of Montreal, I hope I've enlightened you to your world.

There is absolutely no excuse for these practices to continue in that town or any town. You did not sign up to share in the risk or the reward of that business, and you certainly did not sign up to be lied to and manipulated into doing free work for projects that American studios will do quite well with while you go broke under much duress. We are not picking bananas in Guatemala, we are creating very profitable imagery. There is competition, yes, but talent is rare and that is why, not matter what country you go this job in, your often surrounded by imported talent.

Of course I'd recommend you all walk out. That's hard to do, yes. VFX artists are very passionate about their work…you can take away our paychecks but don't take away our shots! Sadly this is also why you are so easily exploited, but it's actually the only thing that will generate your pay, and all of it, and almost overnight. In every situation where my check stopped if we'd all left immediately a far different solution would have been considered. Moving the show cost more that simply paying the existing artists what they are owed. Not to mention the attention the press would give to your exploitation. Important news for the entire VFX community and your fellow artists to consider.

This is why a union can be so helpful. It takes a little time to form and may not be able to solve your immediate needs but your taking action begins to increase your leverage instantly. Signing rep cards getting the news out will certainly begin to get your employer and the client to think about a better strategy. What makes the most sense is to simply make sure you get paid.

The VFX union effort is young, contracts will not be designed to scare away any business or break any VFX shops…. but how about just drawing a line …how about taking the choice to not pay the artist, for any reason, off the table for good !

It would forever be understood that when checks stop work stops....per

I think that is very reasonable. I can not imagine anyone who would not.

Every few years the contacts are renegotiated ….we can start by pushing back with this simple and righteous effort and we can do it with the only factor understood in our business.

LEVERAGE.

..and maybe the crap can start rolling back up the hill. Personally I feel I owe it to my industry AND to myself. While unions in America are in decline…they are not where talent is concerned like in entertainment and sports. These unions are growing quite nicely and so are the industries that they work with…. Disney, a union shop for 75 yrs. Not only are it's entertainment divisions thriving, it's stock at an all time high and it gets half it's revenue from ESPN ..sports...--> it's all about talent. Hard to find, easy to exploit, but with balance it's soon realized it's better to nourish rather than to exploit, because if you take care of your talent.... everyone wins.

Think about that.

You're the only one in the credit list that is not organized and none of the others above you have to deal with this shit because they got tired of it 75 years ago, and everyone thrived, talent and studios alike.

It's sad we are all bunched up at the bottom of that credit list but what's far worse is that we are all too often ending up at the bottom of the creditor's list …and in Montreal that has occurred more than anywhere else per square mile of talent… a place where the American studios are already getting more than half off, artists suffer the worst history in our business. These practices spread like cancer unless people stand up. We've seen it recently in Los Angeles with DD and Rhythm and Hues. DD was inches away from missing payroll on several occasions. R&H artists were not so lucky. Hundreds of them worked towards delivery and are now owed millions. The last offer was for 17 cents on the dollar, the lawyers will get a third of that, and it looks like it will be tied up in court for some time.

If you want to begin to do something, sign a rep card online www.vfxunion.info a hard copy will be mailed to you shortly. Christian Lemay, your local rep, will meet with you personally also and hand you a card on the spot. Either way you've taken a great step.

Next, I'd encourage you to follow a path that has been the number one influence to date in getting artists paid...Tell your story to the press, put some light on the injustice. Your fellow artists are behind you. It's actually fellow artists that responsible for hiring you..HR relies on them for recommendations. I've never had trouble getting a job since I became vocal. I'm respected and you will be to.

I hope you all get paid this time round... but beware that this is nothing new to Josee or Mark Cote, or Montreal, and will most likey it will merely wash, rinse, and repeat as it has for almost ten years now.

Drop these guys below a note they are putting together your story. You can trust them. Often their calls to the owners are enough to initiate and guarantee pay checks, and stop scams. You can be on the record or off. It's up to you.

The VFX community is counting on these kinds of stories being put into the light. Only then will we get real change. Click here to read entire post

Interns

We'll see if SCOTUS reverses this:

Two unpaid interns on the film "Black Swan" were actually Fox Searchlight employees, and a third intern can represent a class, a federal judge ruled.

Eric Glatt and Alexander Footman sued Searchlight and its parent company, Fox Entertainment Group, in October 2011 under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law.

Both men worked on production of "Black Swan" in New York without pay or college credit. Two other unpaid Fox interns who did not work on that film later joined the suit. Kanene Gratts, an unpaid intern in California on the film "500 Days of Summer, alleged a separate claim for violations of California Unfair Competition Law.

The fourth unpaid intern, Eden Antalik, worked at Searchlight's corporate offices in New York.

Interns at many (not all) production studios are participating in corporate scams.

Years ago, I found an unpaid "intern" doing production animation work on a commercial. The crime occurred at a small, union animation studio. I put a stop to it, but there was probably more crap going on elsewhere that I didn't catch or put a stop to. (I often feel like a man slapping a damp towel on hot flames as the forest fire rages around me.)

Glad the court ruled like it did. Wish that companies would just pay the people who do the work. If Rupert (or whatever CEO you care to talk about) makes five thousand dollars less at the end of the fiscal year, is it really a calamity? The end of capitalism as we know it? I think not. Click here to read entire post

France Underwrites Animation

From our friendly digital trade paper:

Coming off a year marked by budget cuts, France Televisions, Europe’s number one animation backer, highlighted its commitment to commissioning and financing toons during its annual presser at the Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival.

Last year, France Televisions injected Euros 29.5 million ($39.3 million) into animation, and co-produced 155 hours with indie players. It aired 4,200 hours of youth programming across its four channels and dedicated 67% of its airtime to in-house production. ...

“Among our many creative activities ..., animation ranks among the most rewarding to us,” said Remy Pflimlin, France Televisions CEO. ...

The pubcaster has also stacked up on U.S. toon skeins for its 2013-2014 slate. New pickups include “Dragon Riders of Berk” from DreamWorks Animation; “The Tom & Jerry Show” from Warner Bros./Renegade Animation; “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” from Nickelodeon Animation Studio; and “Ultimate Spider-Man” from Marvel Animation. ...

Of course, $39.3 million wouldn't pay for lunches and snacks at DreamWorks, Pixar, and Diz Co., but apparently the French get a lot of mileage out of the money.

And it's nice that France's public network is loading up on American cartoons. Sharing the wealth is a good thing, yes? Click here to read entire post

The TAG Interview: A Brief History of CGI -- Part II

TAG Interview with Tom Sito - 2

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

Tom Sito guides us through CGI's halting start (and all the stumbles that occurred along the way) ... all the way up to its dynamic present. ...

... Cornell University established its Department of Computer Science in 1965. It trained many who would figure prominently in CG, like Michael Wahrman, Marc Levoy and RIchard Weinberg. In the lat 1980s Levoy and Weinberg did research into digital paint ...

At Ohio State University Charles Csuri was an abstract expressionist painter who had been intrigued by computers since the mid-1950s. "I became confident that (CG) animation can become a new kind of art form," he recalled. He began to utilize the university's resources to create art on a computer in 1965. ... In 1967 Csuri created the groundbreaking film Hummingbird. The film is considered one of the landmarks of CG, because it is the first time someone attempted to move a living thing rather than geometric shapes. ...

--Tom Sito, Moving Innovation, pp. 57-58.

(This is Part I of the video version of Tom's CG talk, and Part II of the audio version. Confusing, isn't it?) Click here to read entire post

the Hand-Drawn Version

Wreck-It Ralph has he might have appeared in ... oh ... 1993.



The Mouse will likely take the above down in ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...

But before that happens, imagine what the CG film might have looked like in the mid '90s. Use the test animation to help you.

Mr. Ranieri and others did a lot of test animation for some of the CG features because they could animate to the voice tracks faster than CG animators who hadn't gotten the rigged models yet. It gave the director(s) an idea how the character would move and act. (And it'd be nice if Disney would put these tests out on the interwebs so animation fans could savor, if only in small bits and pieces, the glories of hand-drawn animation.)

Enjoy it before it's taken down. I'm not going to bother looking what other sites have put it up. I don't care. Click here to read entire post

Renewal

The re-imagined TT has been re-upped.

Cartoon Network announced today it has picked up a second season of Teen Titans Go! from Warner Bros. Animation. Since its premiere on the network in April, Teen Titans Go! has been a viewer favorite averaging more than 1.7 million total viewers (P2+) per telecast. In addition, the series is the #1 program (excluding movies) on Tuesday on all TV among kids 2-11, 6-11 & 9-14 and boys 2-11, 6-11 & 9-14. Ratings for the series have outpaced its lead-in and prior four-week benchmarks by double-digits. ...

I've run across individuals who prefer the old version of Titans to the new, but the board artists that I talked to who draw the newbie think it's dandy. Click here to read entire post

The TAG Interview: A Brief History of CGI -- Part I

TAG Interview with Tom Sito - 2

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

TAG's President Emeritus Tom Sito (who is also an animator, director, storyboard artist and college professor) has written a fine book on the history of Computer Generated Imagery:

Computer graphics (or CG) has changed the way we experience the art of moving images. Computer graphics is the difference between Steamboat Willie and Buzz Lightyear, between ping pong and PONG.

It began in 1963 when an MIT graduate student named Ivan Sutherland created the first true computer animation program. Instead of presenting a series of numbers, Sutherland's Sketchpad program drew lines that created recognizable images. Sutherland noted: "Since motion can be put into Sketchpad drawings, it might be exciting to try making cartoons." This book, the first full-length history of CG, shows us how Sutherland's seemingly offhand idea grew into a multibillion dollar industry. ...

And Tom takes us through that long-ago beginning to right now. ...

This is Tom's second TAG podcast. The first covered his animation career, the second is centered on his just-released book and the history of CG.

(This audio interview is broken into three parts of thirty minutes each. Starting tomorrow, the video/YouTube versions -- each 45 minutes in length -- will appear. So choose your format.) Click here to read entire post

Move Over, Walt

Rupert and his minions are working to wrench the cartoon crown away from Diz Co.

Fox will release five animated movies in both 2017 and 2018, the studio announced on Monday, further demonstrating its desire to dominate the feature animation game.

Though none of the 10 movies dated for 2017 and 2018 have titles, that tally surpasses anything Fox or any other studio has done in recent memory. Pixar releases just one movie a year while its parent studio Disney releases some of its own animated movies as well – but not five.

The two-year animated slate also means Fox's two suppliers – Blue Sky and DreamWorks Animation – will combine to make more movies per year than ever before. ...

As it happens, I was over at DreamWorks Animation's Glendale campus this afternoon, but the place didn't have the vibe of a busy beehive. Said one animator:

"Lots of empty cubicles around here. We've gone from being Manhattan, New York to Manhattan, Kansas. Plenty of wide open spaces." ...

I talked to another staffer who's soon to go on hiatus for three months. We had a long talk. He's worried about staying as an employee of DWA for the next three or four years. Hell, he's concerned about the next year. I told him that Disney (further up the L.A. River in Burbank) is stepping up its production schedule, so maybe he can find work with the Mouse.

Then again, if DWA is going to expand its production slate, maybe the guy can stay where he is and get more years as a DreamWorker under his belt.

(I think the company will be cutting production costs and squeezing production schedules, but they're going to need artists and technicians to get all those movies ready for release dates. The work won't all go to Redwood City and Bangalore, will it? DreamWorks might soon have the same roller coaster production schedule that Walt Disney Animation Studios does: packed to the rafters during deadline crunches, then half-empty during early development.)
Click here to read entire post

Jeffrey K. Speaks

In China. About China.

... We’re working together to build a company that takes full advantage of the combined strengths of China’s tremendous artistic and technological talent and our experience as storytellers in the film medium. ...

I see the partnership between DWA and Oriental DreamWorks in action when I walk through the Glendale campus, things like story development.

No, I don't think this means all the work will be going to China. But there's going to be work coming out of China. Count on it. Click here to read entire post

The Crystal Ball

... that we've all been waiting for.

... A whitepaper released [June 6] by the search giant’s Think Insights group called “Quantifying Movie Magic with Google Search” reveals that trailer-related searches done four weeks before a film’s premier can be used to determine opening weekend revenue. According to the paper, coupling that “key leading indicator” with the current movie season and a film’s “franchise status” — a metric that evaluates whether a movie is part of a top-tier franchise like James Bond films, or a “midnight” blockbuster like a Twilight film — can predict the box office take with 94 percent accuracy.

“While we’ve always known that trailers are an important aspect of the movie decision-making process, we were surprised at how strongly trailer search volume is linked to intent at this particular point in time,” Jennifer Prince, Google’s head of industry, media and entertainment, said in an email. “While news articles or movie reviews can give you the facts from another person’s perspective, movie trailers allow individuals to experience the film firsthand, and that’s what can really help a moviegoer form an opinion about a movie.” ...

It makes sense that in the age of the interweb, the Big Search Engine would be the big predictor for what movies succeed and which fail. My kid even uses it, in-between long sessions of internet gaming

(You can find the Google paper on the subject above right here.) Click here to read entire post

The Road Ahead for VFX

Industry conference. Lots of Prognostication.

Chris DeFaria, executive vp, digital production, animation and VFX at Warner Bros., opined that the future of California-based visual effects companies might involve offering R&D and production management, while the creative workforce continues to leave California to operate in international markets. ...

Chris DeFaria, executive vp, digital production, animation and VFX at Warner Bros., opined that the future of California-based visual effects companies might involve offering R&D and production management, while the creative workforce continues to leave California to operate in international markets. ...

Various speakers discussed the use of tools to previsualize work, but DeFaria related that for Warner’s upcoming Gravity, a large number of visual effects were actually "well underway if not close to completion" even before the movie was shot and “backward engineered for the actor's performance." ...

I've been an interested observer of the digital effects business for a bit of a while now, and here's the way it will likely go:

* A chunk of work will get outsourced. Pipelines can be worldwide, talent pools are now international so why not? But the quality issues will always hover. If you're doing R & D work in California, you will likely have a mop and bucket brigade in California as well, fixing the overseas mistakes, working on money shots.

* The low-end work will go where the labor pool is cheapest. But when you get a director who demands quality, our fine conglomerates will accommodate him and do the work at ILM, DD or wherever he's (she's) comfortable.

* Visual effects will likely be integrated into productions as time goes on, as Mr. DeFaria says here:

DeFaria was ... asked where he sees the VFX business heading from here and stressed that the day is quickly coming when there will no longer be visual effects departments operating as separate entities. They will instead need to be more seamlessly incorporated into the individual films’ production.

“You already have visual effects appearing in every single line item,” he points out. “It’s in vehicles, it’s in extras, it’s in cast, it’s in set design. It’s all throughout the budget of the film. And yet we’re still making films with this notion that down the hall we’ve got these visual effects. And anytime you need these digital tools you call digital effects. Which is insane.”

He likened it to having a production department for hammers and having to go see them every time you need a hammer. DeFaria thus sees a change occurring in the next few years “where we’re breaking down digital effects into much smaller pieces. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Imagine! The VFX crew as part of the production crew! Supervised by and interacting with the director and DP!

What a concept!

One thing I know. The predictions people are making about VFX are going to be different from the way events actually shake out. Some bright, innovative creator will find a more efficient way of making effects inside a film, and other creators will pile on board. And the current state of affairs will change.
Click here to read entire post

Foreign Box Office

The top of the international list is as expected.

Weekend Int'l Box Office -- (Grand Total Worldwide)

1) Fast & Furious 6 -- $45,300,000 -- ($584,645,735)

2) After Earth -- $45,500,000 -- ($95,191,569)

3) The Hangover -- $34,800,000 -- ($272,873,956)

4) The Purge -- $1,000,000 -- ($39,878,920)

5) Star Trek: Into Darkness -- $17,600,000 -- ($376,540,439)

6) Epic -- $12,700,000 -- ($191,154,556)

The pure animation entry is probably not what Fox wanted. But some animated entries do better than others. Click here to read entire post

South Africa's Feature

If DreamWorks can do prehistoric cave families, and Pixar make pictures about fish, then Africans can create animated movies about zebras.

... At France’s Annecy Intl. Animation Festival: “Khumba,” the second 3D animated feature from South Africa’s Triggerfish Animation Studios, Africa’s flagship toon studio. The pic, a coming-of-age comedy adventure about a half-striped zebra’s search for a magical watering hole, is voiced by Jake T. Austin, Laurence Fishburne, Annasophia Robb, Liam Neeson and Steve Buscemi.

Beverly Hills-based Cinema Management Group, which reps the pic in international markets, has closed pre-sales to Mexico (Gussi), Spain (Antonio Llorens’ Lauren Films), Malaysia (Suraya Films), Thailand (Mono Films), Taiwan (Creative Century) and Vietnam (IPA).

CMG’s international sales roll-out for “Khumba” covers 40 distributor deals, said exec producer and CMG prexy Edward Noeltner. ... Part of “Khumba’s” appeal ... is “the warmth of its color and lighting scheme which makes ‘Khumba’ stand out. What Triggerfish has achieved ... is that they are culturally distinctive from Pixar, Disney or DreamWorks movies but are technically and visually on the same level.” ...

Whether or not the movie is on the "same level" as Pixar/DWA/Blue Sky remains to be seen. But distribution deals are piling up around the globe, so people with money think it offers theatre-owners something tangible.

Will Khumba do Pixar business? DreamWorks Animation business? Probably not, but it's a niche product that could make some okay money. It wouldn't be the first, and animated features are a movie genre that is red hot. Click here to read entire post

Doing Well

... In this best of all possible times.

Walt Disney Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Iger and Chief Financial Officer James Rasulo sold large quantities of company stock in mid-May, when shares of the Burbank entertainment giant were near an all-time high.

Iger sold 1 million shares of stock on May 14, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The sale netted Iger $37.7 million before taxes. ...

Long ago, a News Corp. exec explained to me how paydays for the Chosen Few in Hollywood work:

"When you're the CEO or CFO or some other top executive, you have some leeway with the company stock price. You know when the company is going to release a bad movie, or has some other problem. So you've got a pretty good idea that the quarterly profits report is going to stink, and you take advantage of that. The price of the stock goes down, you get the board to grant you a lot of stock options. Or you buy company stock.

"And then you wait. You wait for the next quarter or the one after that, when the Cameron film is going to come out, when profits will probably be way up. And you wait for the stock price to rise. When it does, you cash in by exercising those lower-priced options or the lower-prices stock shares.

"Top executives have lots of ways of playing with the company's share prices." ...

And that, boys and girls, is how the game is played at the higher elevations. Don't you wish you had crampons and ice-picks so that you could play too?


Click here to read entire post

June Box Office

A cheap fright fest is off like a rocket.

Universal’s ultra-low budget home-invasion thriller “The Purge” powered to a scary-good $16.7 million in its debut Friday and is heading for a $35 million first weekend.

That would mean the studio’s first movie to come out of its deal with “Paranormal Activity” producer Jason Blum will make more than 10 times its $3 million production budget – in its first three days. It’s doing it at just 2,536 theaters, while most of the other films are in at least 3,000. ...

And the scorecard to date?

FRIDAY'S TOP FIVE (Grand Total)

1) THE PURGE -- $16,700,000

2) THE INTERNSHIP -- $6,550,000

3) FAST & FURIOUS 6 -- $6,100,000 ($198,286,000)

4) NOW YOU SEE ME a-- $6,045,000 ($47,919,000)

5) EPIC -- $3,600,000 ($75,655,000)

(Epic opened $10 million below The Croods' opening weekend ($33 million to $43 million), and continues to track behind the cave family picture.)

Click here to read entire post

Hit Makers

A few days back, there was this from one of our fine trade papers:

“The Simpsons” began as a toon segment on “The Tracey Ullman Show,” “South Park” got its jumpstart as a viral Christmas card and “Robot Chicken” emerged out of an Internet-only precursor. So it’s long been clear that award-winning animation can be nurtured outside the traditional pilot-to-series development track.

Such once-novel routes have become commonplace. Network execs and new-media honchos have made it a priority to root out the next big hits by embracing short-form and incubating talent in-house. But the process remains an inexact science.

That’s why Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, per chief content officer Rob Sorcher, are experimenting with the CN Shorts Program to breed the next big skeins. Sorcher says the program cuts the production timeline down and allows creators to avoid foundering in “development hell.”

The current program and its former iteration, “The Cartoonstitute,” have given rise to “Uncle Grandpa,” “Adventure Time,” “Rick and Morty,” “Steven Universe and Clarence,” as well as the Emmy-winning “Regular Show.” ...

Let's go back in time a bit.

The first "Let's Develop a Series By Doing a Bunch of Shorts" started at Hanna-Barbera in the 1990s, when top-kick Fred Seibert invited staff artists to pitch their home-grown ideas to the studio, and the best of them would be turned into shorts that would go on the t.v.

This throwing-things-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach was actually quite successful. In fact, the core series on Ted Turner's Cartoon Network -- Dexter's Lab, Power Puff Girls, Johnny Bravo -- came out of the experiment and helped make the network what it is today. It also boosted a lot of young artists' careers.

This development format has gone on at most of the studios doing television animation, also (in one version or another) the feature animation outfits. But this incubator process for t.v. cartoons is now twenty years old, and VARIETY has one thing above wrong. Adventure Time, one of Cartoon Network's big hits, began life as a Nickelodeon show, developed by Fred Seibert's group. (The same Fred Seibert that created the format at Hanna-Barbera.)

Despite positive staff reaction (I was in a screening and watched it being positive), and despite middle management's push to get the short turned into a series, upper management elected to go with something else, and Mr. Seibert took the show to Cartoon Network and ...

The rest (as they say) is ratings gold.

Good news for CN, less good for Nick. Which might be one reason that much of Nickelodeon's upper management has since boogied on. Click here to read entire post

Still More Moving View Master

I can't wait for this.

The classic “The Wizard of Oz,” will be coming to theaters once again—but this time in 3D.

Warner Bros. is celebrating the movie’s 75th anniversary by rereleasing it in 3D for one week, starting Sept. 20, and only in IMAX theaters.

“My hope is that they [audiences] say, ‘This is the way I imagined it to be seen,’” said Greg Foster, president of filmed entertainment for IMAX. “This isn’t about making a quick buck. These are very important brands.” ...

Uh, no.

It's about making a buck. Maybe not quick, but certainly long-term. That's what studios do, after all. Why they're in business. And we shouldn't begrudge them for it, but we should bray a horse laugh when some Very Important Exec spouts forth:

“This isn’t about making a quick buck." ...

Because of course it is. It certainly isn't about advancing the art of film. Or lifting up down-trodden humanity. It's about the MONEEEY.

And I look forward to Gone With The Wind 3D and The Adventures of Robin Hood 3D, coming soon to an IMAX theater near you. Click here to read entire post

Worldwide Biggie

Now with high-grossing Add On.

While nobody was paying much attention ...

... The Croods is basically out of most US theaters, but while its $180 million domestic take is quite impressive, Dreamworks’ 10th biggest such haul and the sixth-largest for a non-sequel, its overseas performance is undoubtedly powered by 20th Century Fox ‘s infamous overseas muscle. ... The film’s foreign take is $388 million, the ninth-biggest such haul and the second-largest such gross for a non-sequel at DWA, behind the $416 million overseas gross of Kung Fu Panda.

The worldwide total, $569 million (and counting?) is also the second-biggest total for a non-sequel, behind the $631 million gross of Kung Fu Panda. It’s also currently the second-biggest global hit of 2013. ...

You want to know why all of our fine, entertainment conglomerates want to be in the animated feature biz? Half a billion dollars (and up) is the reason.

The Croods got good but not ecstatic reviews, and it's cleaned up at the box office. If you compare a sampling of DWA features, it's instantly apparent that the prehistoric family is right up there (and above) recent releases. It's outperformed Chris Sanders other DreamWorks hit, How to Train Your Dragon, which was also a corporate money spinner.

The outperformance of many (though not all) DreamWorks Animation movies is one of the reasons there is still a lot of CG animation work in California. When large companies hit on a winning formula for making lots of money, they are reluctant to change it. There's been a sizable talent pool in the Golden State that knows how to make long-form cartoons, and that pool's batting average (DreamWorks, Disney, Pixar) has been higher than other places.

Entertainment companies being what they are, more often than not they go with the teams that have the best stats. (So far, anyway.)

Add On: But even a successful feature doesn't always have smooth sailing.

... Chinese theater owners were ordered by regulators to end [The Croods'] theatrical run two weeks earlier than anticipated.

The move was widely interpreted as a way to make room for local animation films, underscoring how even the Hollywood studios that are most successful in China can be subject to the unpredictable decisions of government authorities eager to expand their own film industry.

"The Croods" has generated nearly $65 million in ticket sales since its release on April 20 -- making it the top grossing original animated movie in China and even surpassing "Kung Fu Panda," which was also a hit in China, the world's second-largest film market. ...

Click here to read entire post

Australian Subject

DreamWorks draws on the Land Down Under.

DreamWorks Animation is turning to the Australian outback for inspiration for its first full-on animated musical.

The Glendale-based studio said it had tapped award-winning composer, actor and writer Tim Minchin to help create a musical project called "Larrikins," which is Australian slang for mischievous youth.

The all-animal comedy, based on an original idea written by Harry Cripps ("Supernova") and produced by Christina Steinberg ("Rise of the Guardians," "National Treasure"), tells the story of an uptight bilby ...

This will be the second animated foray to Australia for Mr. Katzenberg. Twenty-odd years ago, he put the first full-length animated sequel into work. It was entitled The Rescuers Down Under, released between the better-remembered Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.



The only other animated feature set in Australia that immediately comes to mind is Fern Gully, but there are probably others. Best of luck to DWA with the new project. Click here to read entire post

Four Artists - June Gallery 839 Show

Selected works from Charles Pickens, April Thomas, Princess Ifeoma “Ify” Obienu and Alexandra Kube will be on display through the month of June at Gallery 839. The show's opening is tomorrow night starting at 6:00pm.

Click here to read entire post

MPI Health Plans Summaries of Benefits and Coverage

Participants in the Motion Picture Industry Health Plans should now be receiving their Open Enrollment packets in the mail. This is the annual period when participants can elect to switch in to one of the HMO Plans currently offered (either Medical or Dental).

This year however, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, MPI was required to provide a very helpful set of documents called a Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC) along with the enrollment paperwork.

These summaries are provided by law to help participants make better and more informed decisions regarding their health plan choices. For your quick reference, we're providing links to these documents below, and on our website. We will also be passing these out during our New Member Meetings for new members to review before making their initial plan choices.

MPI/Anthem Blue Cross Summary of Benefits and Coverage

Kaiser Permanente Summary of Benefits and Coverage

HealthNet Summary of Benefits and Coverage

If you're a participant and interested in switching into one of the HMO plan options, you must complete a Benefit Selection Form and submit it to MPI by July 12, 2013. Coverage should begin by August 1, 2013. Any questions or concerns should be directed to MPI Customer Service at (818 or 310) 769-0007.

Click here to read entire post

TAG Panel: Investing For Retirement

At the May 28th General Membership Meeting, TAG presented a panel discussion on "Investing for Retirement" featuring Timothy C. Metcalf and Timothy P. Cronin from Wells Fargo Advisors. The talk covered a lot of ground, and there were some lively and provocative questions from Animation Guid Members ... which can be heard at the link below ....

TAG Panel Discussion - Investing for Retirement

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

Tim Cronin is a Senior Vice President with WFA, and Mr. Metcalf is a Managing Director. They presented strategies for investing, also their outlook on the world economy over the next several years. (Hulett's in the mix too, blathering about the Animation Guild 401(k) Plan and the Motion Picture Industry Health and Pension Plan.)
Click here to read entire post

The Little Silver Disk

Is it going away? And will direct-to-video animated features be going out the door marked "Exit" with it. Wanrer Brothers Animation supervising producer John Tucker makes his prediction:

Are the animated D-T-V an endangered species as the market changes and streaming moves to the forefront?

Tucker: My specific knowledge on that particular subject is limited but from what I gather, the DVD market is struggling but it's holding on. It's like network tv, the demise of network tv has been forecast for a while now and they're still holding on.

I think there will always be a need for people to have a tangible object in their hand when they buy stuff. But having said that, I know that [WB] Home Video is really happy with the downloadable market. The numbers on that appear to be pretty good. With DVD's some do better than others, there's really no accounting for that really.

With downloadable, I don't know if the overhead on that is a little cheaper, but I'm hoping it will afford us the chance to do lesser known characters down the line. Even the whole direct to Netflix or direct to "whoever" or even direct to the WB website, I think that's in the future, I just don't know how far in the future. ...

Our fine, entertainment conglomerates have been lamenting about the decline of the Little Silver Disk in contract negotiations for the better part of a decade. Animation, interestingly enough, has held up better than other segments of the movie market. Still in all, the DVD/Blu-Ray market has taken hits.

Me, I think that animated long-forms for the home flat-screen will continue into the foreseeable future, but I think the platforms for them will change over time. There will be more streaming video. There will be more downloadable files. But there will still be a market (albeit smaller) for the shiny round things in the jewel boxes. We still have network radio and network t.v. and live theater, after all. And people still drive to their neighborhood multi-plexes (many of them owned by China) for their weekly dose of raunchy comedy or a muscled actor kicking somebody's head to mushy pulp.

In other words, I don't think the world's entertainment needs are going to be changing in significant ways anytime soon, although some of the delivery systems will change. It's going to be up to the conglomerates that rule us to find the best ways to monetize all those delivery systems, but the creation of fresh content (I think) will continue.

Click here to read entire post

Time Again For The Wage Survey

Yesterday we mailed the 2013 edition of the questionnaire for the Guild’s wage survey — our check of where rates of pay have been ... and where they’re going. Read it over, complete it and return it to us, by mail or online.

You’ll find last year’s results online here.

The wage survey questionnaire is also available online at animationguild.org/wage-survey-2013. To fill out the online questionnaire, enter your name, home e-mail address and the last four digits of your SSN. This will only be used to ensure that all respondents are members and that there are no duplicates; your name will not be attached to or associated with your online answers. To ensure absolute anonymity, return the enclosed questionnaire in paper form. The data will be processed the same regardless of how it was submitted.

It takes less than five minutes to complete the questionnaire. Please return it to us in the postage-paid return envelope by July 26. (Important: Use the return envelope for this survey only, and not for payments, etc.) The results will be published in The Peg-Board, on our website, on the [tag839] e-mail list and here on the TAG Blog.

It’s important that everyone — writers, artists and technicians, traditional animation and CGI, employed or unemployed -- give us accurate statistics of wages in the business. Low participation results in inaccurate or misleading results.

We’re especially interested in increasing the survey participation of animation writers and freelancers, also those who may be working non-union. If you’re currently unemployed or not working in animation or visual effects, please give us information about your most recent animation job.

Under Section 232 of the California Labor Code, you have the absolute right to share wage information without employer discipline or discrimination.

Remember: This is information that the producers know already. By participating in this survey, you allow yourself and your fellow Guild members to negotiate with employers on a more equal footing.

Click here to read entire post

Big Ticket Items

Did anyone notice this headline?

Saudi Prince Spends Nearly $20 Million for Three Days in Disneyland ...

I thought he'd gone and bought those newer, higher-priced DL tickets. But it seems I was mistaken. He'd just rented acreage inside the park.

Stupid me. Click here to read entire post

Big China Launch

When in the biggest country in the world, it pays to be high profile.

The Shanghai International Film Festival has picked Pixar’s sequel to open its 16th edition on June 15. Monsters University will be the first 3D or animated pic to christen the fest. Walt Disney Studios also will screen 16 Pixar shorts during the Shanghai fest ...

This looks like a major marketing coup for the Mouse. China offers up major box office to the filmmaker who can break through the government red tape and the inertia. Looks as though the usual aggravating impediments are being taken care of. Click here to read entire post

Happy Days

DreamWorks shares, they are moving in a northerly direction.

DreamWorks Animation stock has made an impressive run up the charts in 2013, boasting a year-to-date gain of about 33%, and outpacing the broader S&P 500 Index (and SPY) by more than 20 percentage points during the past three months. What’s more, the stock gapped notably higher at the beginning of last month after topping analysts’ first-quarter earnings projections, and went on to tag a year-to-date high of $22.26 on May 14.

Meanwhile, DreamWorks shares continue to trade above support at their 10-week moving average ...

DreamWorks has had good fortune with The Croods, the studio's latest entry in the animated feature box office sweepstakes, but it has some of the same issues as before. Though its branching out into television and amusement parks, it still needs every ninety-minute cartoon to be a hit. Otherwise, there are complications.

DWA has a couple of different ways it can go. The company can push to become more conglomerate-like, where it gets into doing live-action features of hybrids. Or it can get swallowed up by one of the existing entertainment conglomerates. My bet is that News Corp. gulps down DreamWorks Animation whole before too many more years pass.

Naturally enough, I could be totally wrong. Click here to read entire post

Motion Picture Pension and IAP Plan Statements

*Now with Freshly Minted Add-On!!

If you're an active member of the Animation Guild, you should be getting your pension statement from the MPIPHP (Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan) right about now ...

The earnings statements contain:

1) Total Qualified Pension Years (Defined Benefit Plan and Defined Contribution Plan)

2) Total Credited Hours

3) Total Accrued Monthly Life Annuity Benefit at Normal Retirement Age

4) Individual Account Plan (Defined Contribution Plan) through December 2012

The numbers participants should check are ALL of the above. And "Normal Retirement Age" is 65.

Broken down, seven billion dollars (and change) in the two pension plans below were invested in the following jams and jellies:

Defined Benefit Plan (Monthly Annuity)

U.S. Equities -- 10%
International Equities -- 20.5%

Fixed Income -- 29.1%

Alternative Investments -- 33.6%
Real Estate -- 6.8%

Individual Account Plan (Defined Contribution -- Lump Sum)

U.S. Equities -- 9.6%
International Equities -- 14.7%

Fixed Income -- 35.8%

Alternative Investments -- 35.2%
Real Estate -- 4.7%

The Defined Benefit Plan has been around since 1953. The Individual Account Plan came into existence in 1979. Both have a good chunk of change in them. (For more information about the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plans, go here.)


* Add On:
Steve Kaplan presented a breakdown of the MPI Pension statements last year in this post. It may be helpful for you to review for your clarification.

Click here to read entire post

Trouble in Pine Valley

And a labor organization (wouldn't you know?) is in the middle of it.

The union that represents the "All My Children" crew thinks the soap may be underpaying its members.

The issue is between Prospect Park, the production company that gave the sudser a new life on the internet, and the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees - Local 52. Representatives from IATSE are going over the production's books to see if "All My Children" has gone over budget and violated a labor agreement in the process, according to an individual with knowledge of the union's plans. ...

Funny thing, but one of our fine entertainment conglomerates underpaid the staff of a half-hour cartoon show late last year and the Animation Guild filed a grievance.

Took us six months to straighten things out, but the crew finally got paid per the contract. (This is about all I can say about the conundrum, confidentiality issues being what they are. But everybody was happy to get their checks. However late they were.)
Click here to read entire post

Prime Time Animation

The Animation Guild continues to pick up new employees at signator studios. Disney TVA continues to sub-contract work outside of its Glendale and Burbank studios.

Why is this happening? Because animated programming continues to thrive on home flat screens, to wit: ...

TV Ratings: Fox's Animation Repeats Top Night

FOX -- 7:30 p.m. -- American Dad -- #3

8:00 p.m. -- The Simpsons -- #1

8:30 p.m. -- Bob's Burgers -- #1

9:00 p.m. -- Family Guy -- #1

9:30 p.m. -- Family Guy -- #1

A staffer on The Simpsons told me last week that when productions stops on original episodes of the Yellow Family, Gracie Films will get a BIG payout for syndication rights. (I have no idea if this is accurate, but it might explain why Fox continues to create new half-hours of The Simpsons two decades on.)

In a larger context, the continuing commercial power of television animation explains why more ... and more ... and more of it gets made. And why our fine, entertainment conglomerates sink significant bucks into the form: There are big profits to be made.

(There is only one game show cable network, but there are multiple outlets for animation. You can sell lots of merchandise for cartoon characters, but live-action thespians? Not so much.)
Click here to read entire post

Cross Adventuring

The Hub's latest ...

The first episode of “SheZow” has hit ... and besides the fact that there appears to be a lot of pink and some very strong stereotypes regarding girls and boys going on, the show can definitely be said not to be about a boy who has any gender confusion ...

Others differ:

Just when you thought you'd seen it all, along comes an announcement from The Hub, a low-rated cable TV channel that is attempting to increase its audience of children between 2 years old and age 11 by airing a cartoon featuring a boy who gains super powers by wearing a special ring -- and dressing as a girl.

“SheZow” has had its share of ups and downs. The series began as a “One Episode Wonder” on “Shorty McShort's Shorts” and drew such high ratings it became an animated series.

However, in order to air the series in the United States, the catch phrase had to be changed from “SheZow happens!” to “You go, girl!”

Despite the strange, bizarre premise, Loesch is maintaining a positive attitude about the series, speculating that if “SheZow” is a hit, the channel and its toy partner Hasbro can start merchandising her white go-go boots and her ring.

Small wonder that the moral fibre of this Great Land is rotting at the core. First inter-racial marriages, then same-sex marriages, and now THIS.

My only question is, where will it end? Wives earning more money than their HUSBANDS? Click here to read entire post

Your International B.O.

Where two animated features reside on the list.

International Weekend B.O. --> (Worldwide Accumulation)

1) Fast & Furious 6 -- $75,000,000 -- ($480,577,345)

2) The Hangover 3 -- $82,300,000 --> ($198,785,654)

3) Star Trek Into Darkness -- 37,600,000 --> ($328,556,486)

4) Epic -- $28,500,000 --> ($151,461,181)

5) After Earth -- $2,600,000* -- ($29,600,000)

6) The Great Gatsby -- $22,600,000 --> ($248,255,892)

7) Now You See Me -- $600,000* --> ($28,650,000)

8) Iron Man 3 -- $9,900,000 --> ($1,179,951,000)

9) Oblivion -- $5,900,000 --> ($274,562,095)

10) The Croods -- $3,700,000 -- > ($571,738,061)

The Croods is whirling toward the end of its global release, displaced by its newer Fox cousin:

... Fox's 3D family animated pic Epic placed No. 4 overseas, grossing a solid $28.5 million from 57 markets for a foreign total of $86.3 million and worldwide cume of $151.6 million. ...

To date, Epic has grossed $65.2 million domestically.

* Not really in a major overseas release as yet. But just wait ... Click here to read entire post

Simple, Cost-Efficient Investing

The other day I got an unhappy phone call from an Animation Guild member. She wanted to enroll in the TAG 401(k) but didn't like the high cost of some of the funds, the index funds in particular.

Your Large Company Index Fund, it costs 21 basis points (.21%). Vanguard or Schwab only charge 6 basis points. What you're charging is way too much.

I told her that I sympathized with her unhappiness, but that the Plan had to collect enough fees to administer the investments, so what could we do?

She understood the problem, but still wished it were otherwise.

Well, so did I. Because broad-based, low-cost index funds will make you the most money over time. And the three-fund portfolio -- Total (U.S.) Stock Market Index, Total International Stock Market Index, and Total Bond Market Index in combination will earn dandy returns.

Who says so? These people: ...

American Association of Individual Investors: "It should come as no surprise that behavioral finance research makes a strong case for buying and holding low-cost, broadly diversified index funds."

Mark Balasa, CPA, CFP: "That three-pronged approach is going to beat the vast majority of the individual stock and bond portfolio that most people have at brokerage firms. There is a certain elegance in the simplicity of it."

Christine Benz, Morningstar Director of Personal Finance: "A single, broadly based index fund can give you exposure to the whole stock or bond market, enabling you to build an entire portfolio with just one or two funds."

Bill Bernstein, author, adviser: "Does this (three fund) portfolio seem overly simplistic, even amateurish? Get over it. Over the next few decades, the overwhelming majority of all professional investors will not be able to beat it."

Jack Bogle: "The beauty of owning the market is that you eliminate individual stock risk, you eliminate market sector risk, and you eliminate manager risk. -- The ideal portfolio would combine Vanguard Total Stock Market Index and Vanguard Total Bond Market Index with a splash of Vanguard Total International Stock Market Index if you must."

Warren Buffett: "Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks is through in index fund that charges minimal fees."

I bring the cost thing up because the TAG 401(k) Plan trustees have been wrestling with the issue, and one month ago voted to ratchet the Plan's fund fees down.

As of July 1st, these funds will be less expensive:

TAG 401(k) Fund Fees: Old Costs ---> New Costs

(Northern Trust) S & P 500 Index -- .21% ---> .08%

Select Mid Cap Growth -- .86% ---> .74%

PIMCO Total Return -- .68% ---> .41%

The TAG 401(k) Plan still has expenses, and the trustees don't know if the lower cash flow to the administrator will cover the Plan's total nut.

(If not, then expenses will come from Plan assets on a pro rata basis. The goal, however, is to keep Plan costs as low as possible.)

TAG 401(k) Plan Enrollment Meetings

Sony Pictures Animation -- Tuesday, June 4th, 2p.m., North -- Rm 2050

Fox TV Animation -- Wed, June 5th, 2 p.m. -- Main Conference Rm

Click here to read entire post

Early Summer Box Office

The big C.G event movie with the big star appears to be faltering.

... Exhibitor Relations is reporting that the all-star magician/heist caper Now You See Me earned just a touch more than the Will Smith/Jaden Smith sci-fi vehicle After Earth last night, grossing $10 million vs. After Earth‘s $9.8 million. Even if Now You See Me is front loaded (unlikely, since it’s not a heavily anticipated genre sequel aimed at kids) and ends up with around $23 million, that’s still a huge win for Lionsgate/Summit. ...

Which only goes to show that the L. Ron Hubbard sub-genre tends to under-perform at the whirling turnstiles.

The projections for the weekend:

1. Fast & Furious 6 (Universal) Week 2 [Runs 3,686] PG13 Friday $10.5M, Weekend $35.1M, Cume $171.0M

2. Now You See Me (Summit/Lionsgate) NEW [Runs 2,925] PG13 Friday $10.0M, Weekend $27.8M

3. After Earth (Columbia/Sony) NEW [Runs 3,401] PG13 Friday $9.8M, Weekend $27.2M

4. The Hangover Part III (Legendary/Warner Bros) Week 2 [Runs 3,565] R Friday $5.2M, Weekend $15.3M, Cume $87.4M

5. Star Trek Into Darkness (Paramount) Week 3 [Runs 3,585] PG13 Friday $4.4M, Weekend $15.5M, Cume $181.0M

6. Epic (Blue Sky/Fox) Week 2 [Runs 3,894] PG13 Friday $4.1M, Weekend $15.6M, Cume $64.3M

7. Iron Man 3 (Disney) Week 5 [Runs 2,895] PG13 Friday $2.2M, Weekend $8.0M, Cume $384.8M

8. The Great Gatsby (Vill Roadshow/Warner Bros) Week 4 [Runs 2,635] PG13 Friday $1.9M, Weekend $6.2M, Cume $128.3M

9. Yeh Jawaani Hai Deew (Bollywood/Eros) NEW [Runs 162] NR Friday $445K, Weekend $1.3M, Cume $1.3M

10. Mud (Roadside Attractions) Week 6 [Runs 580] PG13 Friday $319K, Weekend $1.2M, Cume $16.9M

Click here to read entire post

From Roto to Astaire

This is a loong career.

After being immortalized as Snow White and, later, the Blue Fairy in “Pinocchio” and the Dancing Hippo in “Fantasia,” Marge Champion quickly moved on from being an animator’s model to an enviable performing career encompassing stage, screen and television work. That legacy will be on full display June 3, when Champion receives the Douglas Watt Lifetime Achievement Award at the Fred & Adele Astaire Awards in New York. ...

Before she was one half of the dance team of "Marge and Gower Champion" (and married to Mr. Champion) she was the teenaged Marjorie Celeste Belcher and then ... Mrs. Art Babbit. Decades later, she was stepmother to actress Katey (Futurama) Sagal.

Our congratulations on the Lifetime Achievement Award. Click here to read entire post