Los Angeles Animation Production

Every so often we review animation productions happening in and around Los Angeles. This is one of those times.

As always, we'll put up a list of shows, but the list will be "ongoing". Meaning, if you see a title that's wrong or a title that's missing (always a sad possibility), post a correction in comments. Adjustments will be made.

And now the list. ...

ANIMATED PROJECTS IN LOS ANGELES *

Bento Box

Bob's Burgers
Legends of Chamberlain Heights

(Other projects in development)

Cartoon Network

Adventure Time
Ben 10
Mighty Magiswords
OK K.O.
Powerpuff Girls
Regular Show
Samurai Jack
Steven Universe
We Bare Bears

(Also shows in development)

Disney TVA

Big Hero 6
Billy Dilly (wrapping up)
Country Club
Duck Tales
Elena of Avinore
Future Worm
Lion Guard
Mickey Mouse shorts
Mickey's Road Racers
Milo Murphy's Law
Penn Zero (wrapping up)
Pickle and Peanut
Puppy Capers (Wild Canary)
Star Vs. Forces of Evil
Sheriff Calley (Wild Canary)
Tangled

(Multiple shows in development by Disney-owned Advanced Media)

DreamWorks Animation (feature)

Trolls
The Boss Baby (production work out of county)
Captain Underpants (prod. work out of county)
The Croods 2 (in development)
Larrikins (in development)
How to Train Your Dragon 3 (in development)
Shrek 5 (recently announced)
Untitled Shadows Project

DreamWorks Animation TV

DreamWorks Dragons
Monsters vs. Aliens
VeggieTales in the House
All Hail King Julien
The Adventures of Puss in Boots
Dinotrux
Dawn of the Croods
Voltron: Legendary Defender
Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh
Trollhunters
Spirit Riding Free
Cow Boy

(Other shows in development.)

Fox Animation

American Dad
Family Guy
The Simpsons

Hasbro

Transformers
Transformers Rescue Bots
Micronauts
Stretch Armstrong
My Little Pony (scripts)

Marvel Animation

Avengers Assemble
Guardians of the Galaxy
Spiderman (newer version)

Nickelodeon

Bug Salad (6 eps)
Bunsen Is A Beast
Fairly Odd Parents (scripts)
Glitch Tech
Harvey Beaks
Hey Arnold
Loud House
Pig Goat Banana Cricket
Pinky Malinky
Shimmer and Shine
Sponge Bob Square Pants
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Renegade

Tom & Jerry (non-Guild)

Robin Redbreast (Titmouse)

Home: Adventures with Tip and Oh (DWA tv series for Netflix)
Future-Worm! (Disney series)
Nikko and the Sword of Light (Amazon series)
Big Mouth (Netflix series)

Rough Draft

(Multiple Disney projects - T.B.A.)

Shadow Machine

Bojack Horseman (non-Guild)

Splash Entertainment

Chloe's Closet (non-Guild)
Norm of the North (2 short features - non-Guild)

Stoopid Buddies Stoodios

Buddy Thunderstruck (non-Guild)
Camp WWE (non-Guild)
The Grand Slams (web series - non-Guild)
Robot Chicken (non-Guild)
Supermansion (non-Guild)

Warner Animation Group

Lego Batman Movie
Lego Ninjago Movie
Smallfoot
S.C.O.O.B.

Warner Bros. Animation

Justice League Action
Be Cool Scooby Doo
Wabbit
Mike Tyson Mysteries
Teen Titans Go!
D.C. Girls
Green Eggs and Ham (limited Netflix series)
Vixens (web series)
Unikitty
Bunnicula
Wacky Racers
Dorothy of Oz

(Also various video features in work)

Universal Cartoon Studios

Curious George
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Land Before Time

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Moana (nearing end of production)
Gigantic
Wreck-It Ralph 2

(Plus various projects in development.)

There is ongoing re-structuring going on in the Los Angeles animation industry. Disney TVA is outsourcing more production to local studios such as Wild Canary, Robin Red Breast, and Rough Draft. Walt Disney Animation Studios (Diz Co.'s feature arm) is completing the refurbishing of the Hat Building on Riverside Drive; with a gap between Moana and the next feature, it's also reducing staff somewhat.

Hasbro is moving its L.A. production offices to the former Yahoo Building just south of the Burbank/Bob Hope Airport. Fox Animation is now producing The Simpsons, with the production located in the Pinnacle complex in Burbank (not at Fox Animation's Wilshire Boulevard studio).

Matt Groening's new Netflix series is in development, but we haven't pinned down exactly where it's being developed. So this show (whever it is) we can consider "in process".

* Kindly note that almost all TV animation production in L.A. is pre-production (scripts, storyboards, designs, background keys, etc.) and post-production (editing, dubbing, etc.)

Most feature work is done in Southern California, soup to nuts, but there are some DreamWorks Animation features and all Warner Animation Group features that are produced outside of California. Illumination Entertainment (of Universal Comcast) does some pre-production of its theatrical long-forms in Southern California, but production work is done in Paris, France.


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The Top Title of '16

If you were wondering, it's this:

'Finding Dory’ Still Top Movie of 2016 ...

The Pixar entry's global earnings to date are $915,943,343.

Over the weekend it was still in 450 theaters stateside, and took in just under a million bucks. (This after ten weeks of release.) It's made $478.4 million across the fruited plain.

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Marriage Consummated

From a noontime announcement.

Comcast Corp. has closed its $3.8 billion acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, four months after announcing its plans to buy the studio.

Dreamworks Animation will become part of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, which includes Universal Pictures, Fandango and NBCUniversal Brand Development and is headed by Jeff Shell. Comcast made the announcement after the market closed Monday.

The deal calls for DWA stockholders to receive $41 in cash for each share of DWA common stock. DWA shares will no longer be listed on the NASDAQ. ...

DreamWorks Animation employees have asked: "Is the studio going to stop being Guild after it changes ownerhsip?"

A DWA lawyer confirmed with us this afternoon that DreamWorks Animation (feature and television) is still under TAG's collective bargaining agreement. Nothing changes, except that the company ceases being a corporation with its own stock and now exists as a division under the Universal-Comcast umbrella.

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INTERNATIONAL BOX OFFICE

The Secret Life of Pets is chewing through the global box office.

Foreign Box Office -- (World Totals)

The Secret Life Of Pets -- $45,000,000 -- ($674,500,000)

Suicide Squad -- $38,000,000 -- ($572,700,000)

Jason Bourne -- $11,300,000 -- ($278,800,000)

Ben-Hur -- $10,700,000 -- ($22,100,000)

Finding Dory -- $6,700,000 -- ($915,700,000)

War Dogs -- $6,500,000 -- ($20,800,000)

Ice Age: Collision Course -- $3,430,000 -- ($314,909,701)

Sausage Party -- $2,100,000 -- ($71,326,019)

The Jungle Book -- $2,100,000 -- ($955,500,000) ...

A fine trade journal gives us highlights:

... With a $45M weekend in 53 markets, The Secret Life of Pets leapfrogged over another motley bunch as Suicide Squad came in with a $38M third session in 64. ...

Kubo and the Two Strings opened in eight international markets with an estimated $900K. ...

Sony’s Sausage Party stuffed $2.1M into the bun on 540+ screens in 13 markets. The overseas cume is $6M. ...

Disney’s The Jungle Book swung a 30% drop in its second weekend in Japan to post a $2.1M frame. That was after strong midweeks. The total there after 11 days is $13.7M.

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Jurassic Park's Visual Building Blocks

"Computers are a tool."



You hear the above said a lot. The well-worn "computers are just one of many wrenches and screw-drivers in the production tool box." But today, they are often the Main Event. The thing that producers of big-budget, event motion pictures rely on.

Jurassic Park holds up almost q quarter-century after its making because it relies on animatronic puppets and close-ups of skin and eyes and claws to make the audience believe the dinos are there.

Two and a half decades later, it's easier to make the CGI do the heavy lifting. Which makes the cumulative power of some (many?) of the screen images weaker.

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Wander ...

... Over Yonder.

It's cancellation was announced some months back, but this:

... News of [Wander Over Yonder's] cancellation reached the team after season two had been written but before it had even premiered–Disney thought that 80 episodes was “enough,” and the fact that the show garnered better ratings in repeats than premieres seemed to bolster that. While the crew was both open and optimistic in their discussions about Disney’s handling of the show, ... it was pretty disheartening to see that Disney both refused to let the show take a serialized turn in season 2 (which discourages repeat viewings) and then doubling down on that by cancelling. ...

The compromise the writers reached after being turned down for serialization–to have four 22 minute “plot” episodes and the rest as 11 minute stand-alones–earned the series a bit more time in the spotlight (including a review slot on the AV Club), but also some accompanying frustration from fans who came in looking for a more narrative-driven, Gravity Falls sort of experience rather than a stylistic hybrid. Wander Over Yonder is a weird, earnest show that was only starting to find its niche before it was cancelled. ...

Word circulates that Disney TVA is restructuring a bit. There are more shows being outsourced to smaller L.A. studios (this saves the Big D money) and some series receive smaller episode orders. Both Netflix and Disney have decided that fifty-something episodes work just fine.

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End of Summer Box Office

Three animated features inhabit The List of Ten, but Kubo does not start strong.

WEEKEND DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE

1). Suicide Squad (WB), 3,924 theaters (-331) / 3-day cume: $20.9M (-52%) / Per screen avg.: $5,315 /Total cume: $262.4M/ Wk 3

2). Sausage Party (SONY/APP), 3,103 theaters (0) / 3-day cume: $15.5M (-55%)/ Per screen: $4,991 /Total cume: $65.5M/Wk 2

3). War Dogs (WB), 3,258 theaters / 3-day cume: $14.7M / Per screen: $4,507 / Wk 1

4). Kubo And The Two Strings (FOC), 3,260 theaters / 3-day cume: $12.6M / Per screen: $3,868/Wk 1

5). Pete’s Dragon (DIS), 3,702 theaters / 3-day cume: $11.3M (-47%)/ Per screen avg: $3,066 /Total cume: $42.9M Wk 2

6). Ben-Hur (PAR/MGM), 3,084 theaters / 3-day cume: $11.2M / Per screen: $3,633 /Wk 1

7). Jason Bourne (UNI), 2,887 theaters (-641) / 3-day cume: $8M (-42%)/ Per screen: $2,777 /Total cume: $140.9M/ Wk 4

8). Bad Moms (STX), 2,811 theaters (-377)/ 3-day cume: $7.9M (-30%)/ Per screen: $2,827 /Total cume: $85.7M/ Wk 4

9). The Secret Life Of Pets (ILL/UNI), 2,404 theaters (-554) / 3-day: $5.9M(-35%)/ Per screen: $2,446 /Total cume: $346.8M / Wk 7

10.) Florence Foster Jenkins (PAR), 1,528 theaters (0)/ 3-day cume: $4.4M (-34%)/ Per screen: $2,869 /Total cume: $14.5M/Wk 2

11). Star Trek Beyond (PAR), 1,966 theaters (-611) / 3-day cume: $3.9M (-43%) / Per screen: $2,007 / Total cume: $146.9M / Wk 5 ...

Sausage Party declined a precipitous 66% first week to second, but a lot of schools are now back in session, so that was probably inevitable. No picture had a strong box office hold. The well-reviewed remake Pete's Dragon will have earned $42,500,000. Its overseas rollout has scarcely begun.

Kubo's international performance remains to be seen.


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The Powerhouse Known As Animation

Five Thirty Eight, known as a polling aggregator for American politics, and also a sports blog (it's owned by ESPN/Disney) has done a breakdown and analysis of animated features and the studios that make them.

The domestic box office made $11.3 billion last year ... [of which] animated movies pulled in $1.4 billion. ...

So far this year, digital animation has accounted for 21 percent of domestic box office revenue. ... Although the annual number of tickets sold overall is down since 2000, that’s not true for animated movies — those numbers are up, entirely thanks to the genre’s digital branch. ...

Five Thirty Eight shows, in various graphs and charts, the grosses for animated features going back twenty years, pointing out that digital animation has exploded over the past two decades, enriching a plethora of companies and causing even more product to be made year after year. The website's conclusion?

... The animation field is ... somehow bigger than all the studios [doing animation].

“The Lego Movie,” the top-grossing animated movie of 2014, was made by none of [the regular animation producers]. It was produced by Warner Bros., (animation by Animal Logic), and there are sequels and spinoffs to come.

“Sausage Party,” which I understand is essentially pornography but still made $34 million in its opening weekend, was not made by any of these wholesome firms. Rovio, a cell phone game maker, commissioned an “Angry Birds” movie, which went ahead and made $100 million domestically. The commercialism is getting out of control! ...

In actual fact, animation is proving that it has broad global appeal, even when it comes in an R-rated format. As TAG blog has previously noted, cartoons are a form of story presentation, not a genre.

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Then There's THIS Regarding Board Artists

The craft meeting last Tuesday covered a lot of workplace issues, but it didn't cover one hugely important subject, raised by a veteran board artist:

... I decided to take my pension. It was a hard decision. Who wants to leave their career?

I had well over 60,000 hours, so it was doable. I have also segued into teaching.

Here's what pertains to our industry and me personally:

For me, this was a stress and eye related move. Storyboard has become untenable. It's been mentioned for years. And I know that nothing will change.

With the advent of cintiqs, board artists are ruining their eyes, [staring endlessly at computer screens]. I have gotten letters from so many artists, a number of them from Pixar. They are having retinal detachments.

Wacom says the cintiqs were designed for four hours of work a day. Staring into an LED blue light is the light that damages the retina.

I called UCLA a while back and asked them if any studies had been done on the effect of cintiqs/LED light. I explained that artists stare close to the monitor for eight hours. The research/clinical trial person told me there would be no trial unless wacom paid for it.

We are canaries in the coal mine and I am hearing more about it. Artists will not speak up about it because they do not want to rock the boat.

-- Sharon Forward

We should point out that while wacom tablets are terrific, innovative devices, artists' faces peer down at them from inches away. It's like sitting a foot from your wall-mounted flat-screen tv eight or more hours per day.

So besides damaged, misaligned backs and blown wrists from repetitive-stress injuries, artists need to watch out for eye damage:

... A 2015 report from The Vision Council, "Hindsight Is 20/20/20: Protect Your Eyes from Digital Devices", found that 61 percent of Americans have experienced eye strain after prolonged use of electronic devices — nearly 2 out of every 3 people. Long-term damage or not, we have an outbreak of eye strain. ...

One difficulty for artists in the business is, there's not a lot of long-term research about eye damage from sustained viewing of computer screens. even so, it's good to take precautions. Industry veterans have told us:

1) Wear yellow-lensed glasses while working to reduce blue light;

2) Take rest breaks; walk around and stretch your back;

3) Don't put your nose too close to the cintiq.

Paper storyboards are over. Artists must do what they can to proect their eyes and physical well-being.

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Biggest Welfare Queens Around Are Movie Conglomerates

Some fool shooting off his mouth:

“Every studio can get the work done cheaper now. All they have to do is outsource it to a job shop, and let the job shops bid on the work, and they’ll lowball each other to get [the work]. It is a low-margin business, because everybody is bidding against one another.” ...

"Sending work to Canada] makes good business sense; if you can get some chucklehead — in this case, the Canadian taxpayer — to cough up 50 cents on the dollar for you to do your movie up there, why not? It doesn’t make sense not to. The biggest welfare queens around are movie conglomerates. All they do is go where there’s free money. If you’re poor and getting a subsidy, you’re beneath contempt, but it’s perfectly OK if you’re a large corporation.” ...

Okay, so maybe the "fifty cents on the dollar" remark was a wee bit hyperbolic. The subsidies are moving around a bit, but you get the idea.

When you've got a nice tax credit, a good exchange rate, and a work force that doesn't have to be paid overtime because of favorable provincial labor regulations, large entertainment conglomerates, and the studios that suckle at their large full teats, stampede to your door.

I've had more than one entertainment potentate explain to me how the major studios now look at which geographical locations offer subsidies, and go where the Free Money is.

It's hard to blame them for it makes good business sense, but let's call this practice what it is: government welfare for the good folks we call entertainment companies.

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Combatants??

A fresh food fight has erupted between Cartoon Brew and Rick and Morty, baked lasagna flying with carefree abandon:

Class act @JustinRoiland loved his Rick & Morty crew so much that he created a shell company to avoid having to give them health care. ...

This looks to be old news to us, because R & M has been signed to a Guild agreement from some time. TAG responded: ...

@cartoonbrew @JustinRoiland To let folks know, "R and M" has been a fine TAG 839 show for a while now, No issues.

Rick and Morty today chugs merrily along, with the crew getting full health and pension benefits under the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan.

Also too, the Guild makes regular visits to Rick & Morty's offices in Beautiful Downtown Burbank. There are no complaints, and the show is rolling right along.

Add On: And the Brew tweets:

@839_BizRep Aware of that. But JR decided to rehash a two-year-old story b/c it still rankles him that we covered the unionization efforts. ...

Maybe everyone should let this lie, yes? But then, Twitter wars are the new non-contact sport.

Add On Too: Further research shows that old Twitter posts went viral again because of the situation in Vancouver ... and events took their course. (Old Zombified issues occasionally come back to life, proving the immortality of all things internet!)

To reiterate: the past is the past, and R & M crew is doing fine.

And here comes Season #3:

... [W]e’ll be getting to know some of the characters in the Galactic Federation prison. ...

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A Disney-Hasbro Marriage?

Seeking Alpha (an investment site) wonders.

... The Walt Disney Company is adopting the evolving industry trends after losing more than 7 million ESPN subscribers since 2013. Disney has responded to continued cord cuttings with seemingly small but crucial investment in BAMTECH, which will help the company roll out an ESPN-based multi-sport streaming service.

Disney is implementing a long-term plan that revolves around penetrating direct-to-consumer video streaming market. In the meanwhile, Disney is working on the multi-year expansion of theme parks and resorts by adding new attractions to compete with Dalian Wanda Group and Comcast. Similarly, Disney has scheduled movie releases well into the next decade to benefit from expected growth in global per capita film spending. ...

Disney is not very good at selling toys, which is evident from the disappointing sales performance Playmation and substantial discounts on Marvel-based connected wearables. Hasbro, on the other hand, utilizing franchised and licensed brands to generate healthy sales and profits growth.

Hasbro is one of the primary beneficiaries of favorable toys & games industry dynamics due to its strong storytelling abilities. According to Euromonitor, with a substantial improvement over the past five years, the U.S. toys & games industry sales will grow at a CAGR of 3% by 2020. However, on the global scale, the growth prospects are even brighter due to improving per capita income in emerging markets. ...

Of course, Hasbro is also in the cartoon-making business, which is well inside Diz Co.'s wheelhouse.

But that wouldn't stop the Mouse if it thought buying Hasbro would be a good buying opportunity. (Disney has purchased cartoon companies before, after all, because John Lasseter and Ed Catmull. And if Hasbro is a toy/game powerhouse and Disney believes that it needs one of those, why not do a buyout?)

The question is, does the purchase of Hasbro make corporate sense to Robert Iger and co.? And what would become of Hasbro's animation arm? And new Irish studio? These are things to ponder.

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Why All The Success?

Now that the old meme "Animation is failing because all the animated features are cannibalizing each other!" has faded into the roiling mist, a trade journal ponders... and answers ... the question above:

... [A]nimation has been the story — and savior — of the disappointing 2016 box office.

Three of the ten highest-grossing animated movies of all time hit theaters this year, with “Dory” in the top spot, as it gulped down $476.8 million at the domestic box office and $897.6 billion worldwide. Disney’s “Zootopia” and “The Secret Life of Pets” from Universal’s Illumination Entertainment placed ninth and 10th, with $341.3 million and $336.2 million, respectively. ...

One distinct advantage of animation over live action is that it’s not terribly difficult to produce customizable alternate language versions that look perfectly natural, with characters’ mouth movements aligned with the specific soundtrack. ...
but the fact that these movies are good helps even more. ...

Hollywood hasn’t forgotten how to make good movies in at least one genre. The kids are not just all right — they’re keeping the box office afloat.

It's eve simpler than that.

Animated features, though they've become more captive to Hollywood's corporate movie-making machinery than previously, are still less caught up in the live-action power structure.

Board artists who know the craft still have considerable input with story development.

Newer talent can move up to director slots.

Some studio management does understand that animation development can't be done in the same way as live-action. (The more successful stuff is driven by visuals, not dialogue.)

And the media is finally accepting the reality that animation is a mode of story-telling, not a genre. When a live-action feature fails, neither Variety, the L.A. Times nor Deadline blather on about "cannibalization" or an "over-crowded live-action lineup." They say the movie kind of sucked, and so it didn't make much money.

The same exact cause-and-effect applies to animation. No cartoon eats another cartoon. The bad cartoons simply fail. (Simple, no?)

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Surf's Up Once More

For those who don't recall, Surf's Up was Sony Pictures Animation's second animated feature, and a movie that, by and large, received glowing reviews. It opened at #4 at the box office in June 2007 and went on to gross $58,867,694 in North America, and $90,176,819 in the rest of the world. (The total take was $149,044,513).

Chris Buck and Ash Brannon helmed the original. Mr. Buck subsequently returned to Disney and co-directed Frozen. Mr. Brannon has since directed Rock Dog, scheduled for American release in early 2017.

Henry Yu the sequel Surf's Up 2: Wavemania, coming in early 2017. Today a short trailer for the feature dropped:



The first picture was produced in Culver City, California. The second was done by CG studio Rainmaker Entertainment, Inc. located in Vancouver, Canada. There are a lot of CG animation and visual effects facilities in Vancouver, due to large amounts of Free Money being handed out by the provincial government. (The Free Money is working.

Most of our fine entertainment conglomerates are in Vancouver and other Canadian provinces, vacuuming up cash as they do live-action productions, animated productions, and loads of visual effects. This is now the way the game is played: locate a generous subsidy, go and slurp it down.

Welcome to the brave new world of Free Enterprise.


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Craft Meeting #1 -- Storyboard Artists and Storyboard Revisionists

photo - Bronwen Barry.

Tuesday night, one hundred and thirty artists packed the upstairs meeting hall of the Animation Guild to discuss the state of the animation industry, finer points of the contract, and how professional lives can be made better inside studio walls. ...

THUMBNAIL NOTES

One year into the 2015-2018 contract, there are 3750 people at signator studios.

Staffing levels continue to be robust, and board supervisors at some studios continue to say it's difficult to hire and hang onto seasoned talent.

Disney Television Animation is doing some restructuring, and outsourcing some shows to Rough Draft (recently signed to a contract), Wild Canary, and Robin Red Breast/Titmouse in Hollywood.

New Media (Streaming Video On Demand and other internet-delivered content) will be one of the major negotiating items during 2018 contract negotiations. A number of new artists are working below minimum wage rates because their jobs happen to be under the New Media sideletter, and none of the New Media productions reach budgetary tiers that trigger higher minimums.

The Business Representative noted that the sideletter in the 2015-2018 contract reflects live action budgets that are considerably higher than TV animation budgets. But the sideletter is almost identical to other New Media sideletters, and one size doesn't really fit all, but that's what we've got.

Studio tests have been a hot button topic at recent General Membership Meetings. A Guild Testing Abuse Committee has been created and is reviewing a sample studio test. It's recommended that the test be no longer than thirty panels with ten of those panels being "clean-ups". It recommended a 72-hour turnaround time for each test. The committee is now waiting to hear back from the studio on its proposal.

Uncompensated Overtime. The biz rep said that uncomped o.t. has been a long-term problem. Artists continue to work free extra hours because production deadlines are too tight and a number of artists are perfectionists regarding their work. Several veteran board artists said that individuals need to stop working free o.t. and sepak to production when schedules can't be met. Too many employees do uncomped work because they're frightened of blowing a deadline.

It was pointed out that that artists need to communicate how much work they can get done in forty hours, and work looser where necessary. Several artists said that production needs to be told "no" when something can't be done. Quality artists who are somewhat slower than the norm continue to be employed because talent remains at a premium in the Los Angeles labor marketplace.

Several artists stated it was important for story crews to communicate among themselves and share information. Exchanging work-load info about different shows in on a TAG 839 private Facebook page operated by members was noted as a good way for artists to know how much work was expected (and done) on various TV series

Many Production Schedules are tight and unreasonable because production managers have a distorted idea abut how much work can be done on a forty-hour basis because of uncompensated overtime. Several artists said a culture and community needs to be built that can push back on free work being done.

Freelance Work. The business agent and two executive board members reviewed the Unit Rate Wages in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (pages 76-79). All three noted that the minimum wage rates are low and no studios use them. The bigger problem are the Pension and Health contribution hours are low, although they were raised 30-35% in the last contract negotiation.

Questions were asked about daily minimum wage rates vs. weekly minimum wage rates. The business agent said that daily rates are 117.719% above weekly rates, 10% of which is a premium, while 7.719% constitutes vacation and holiday pay.

Animatics were discussed. The business agent emphasized that animatics work is under the jurisdiction of the Editors Guild, not the Animation Guild. The biz rep said that the Editors have filed a grievance against Cartoon Network over animatics, and under which guild's jurisdiction it should be placed. Several Warner Bros. Animation artists said that Warners has them doing animatics work. The business representative stated he'd reported this to the Editors Guild.

It was noted that many board artists do animatics where the Editors Guild has no contract. The biz rep said artists should charge for the time they do animatics because it's important they be compensated for their time. One board artist said that since employees are asked to be layout artists, storyboard artists, writers and animatics editors, they should be paid for each of those jobs. The business agent said if the extra work puts them into overtime as storyboarders, they should charge overtime for it.

There was general agreement that members need to push on issues that could become bargaining proposals in 2018.

The meeting, which began at 7:02 p.m. was gaveled to a close at 9:32.

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The Teasers Keep Coming

Moana, even as the surfacers and lighters finish their work ...



And don't forget the Warner Animation Group.



The feature rolls out in September.

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Trouble in Vancouver?

From the Times:

... On the animation news website Cartoon Brew, several animators who identified themselves as members of the “Sausage Party” crew talked of unpaid overtime, poor working conditions and walkouts at Nitrogen, the Vancouver, Canada-based animation studio that made the film. ...

“The production cost were kept low because Greg would demand people work overtime for free,” said one Cartoon Brew commenter. “Over 30 animators left during the coarse [sic] of the production due to the stress and expectations.” ...

Nitrogen Studios Chief Executive Nicole Stinn disputed this account.

“These claims are without merit,” Stinn said in a statement. “Our production adhered to all overtime laws and regulations, as well as our contractual obligations with our artists.” ...

Me, I don't know if alleged animators' alleged claims have merit or not.

And I'm not versed in British Columbian labor regulations, so who knows?

What I do know is that animation contractors often low-ball their bids to land a project, then squeeze the crew to bring the production in on budget.

Is this what happened with Nitrogen and Sausage Party?

Naw. Sony probably went with the high bid because "quality" was their tippy-top priority, profits be damned.

This is what I wrote to Cartoon Brew when they asked for a statement:

Long, unpaid hours aren’t the norm in feature animation studios covered by labor contracts, but it happens often in low-budget grind shops. Sony is in Vancouver for two reasons: 1) the animation studios are non-union and often willing to offer a competitive (i.e. low) bid to get projects inside their walls, and 2) the Free Money that the provincial tax payers (bless their generous hearts) hand out to entertainment conglomerates is substantial.

The fact that the supervisors on “Sausage Party” [allegedly] demanded that animators hit their deadlines without overtime or additional compensation is a feature of these kinds of productions, not a bug. And a young crew, desperate to break into animation, will put up with the abuse and general horsesh*t because they are keen to hang onto their jobs (underpaid though they may be). The watchwords are “don’t rock the boat”; the goal is to just hang on until the show wraps. Understand that most staffers are in their twenties, and (sadly) a kind of Stockholm Syndrome develops.

[The allegation] that animators were denied screen credit because they didn’t toe the line would, if true, demonstrate an amazing level of petty vindictiveness. But it’s occurred before on animated projects and will likely rear its ugly head again. ...

Of course, maybe the production was above board as Ms. Stinn claims.

Maybe no threats, pressure or retribution went on.

And maybe this person commenting at CB is a troll:

This was my first job on a feature film, after watching it the other day I was very impressed how everything came together and how good it looked. Feeling super proud to be a part of this groundbreaking project.

The awe & excitment quickly turned sour after the credits had rolled with my name not showing up. I was on the animation team for just over a year, at the start of production, but had to seek employment elsewhere due to visa issues. Through emails towards the end of my contract, I felt I left on good terms with the studio.

Apparently not.

The people I worked with at Nitrogen were incredible. Some of the most friendly and down to earth folk I have ever met. It's a massive shame we weren't credited for all the hard work we put into this movie. I honestly can't understand the angle Nitrogen was going for and why you'd want to burn bridges with all this great talent after your first feature.

I've been at this union gig too long, because I've seen this sort of stuff go down many times before. At Klasky-Csupo. At Bluth-Sullivan. Even at union studios where a production supervisor got a teensy bit overbearing.

When low budgets collide with the crew's health and well-being, the people cobbling the movie together fourteen hours per day often lose. It's a reality as old as film-making.

More on the fun at Nitrogen here and here.

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The Latest Animated Hit

... is more Fritz the Cat than Toy Story 3. An entertainment journal explains why it prospered:

1. It’s one of a few original concepts. ...

2. Fans who saw it early liked it. ...

3. A very popular trailer. The trailer was viewed more than 182 million times when it dropped, marking the biggest red-band trailer launch in Sony history. ...

4. Sizzling reviews. The film started last week with a super-high 93 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, which settled into a still-glowing 83 percent. ...

5. Timing was key. ...

6. Seth Rogen got creative with marketing. He ... was featured in a video with a talking cantaloupe. And Rogen narrated original food recipe videos — just to name two examples. Indeed, the movie’s marketing budget was spent on online promotion — approximately four times more than the 12 percent that’s usually allocated. ...

Also too, Rogen has spent years building the Rogen brand. This is the End, Superbad, Neighbors, Pineapple Express, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Knocked Up, come on already. Seth is known for raunchy comedies, and SP sails right down the middle of that fairway.

Various critics are amazed audiences turn out for a naughty cartoon, but they apparently missed the memo (now widely circulated) that animation is a style of presentation, not a genre. R-rated animated features should be ... and eventually will be ... no rarer than R-rated live-action comedies. (That other Seth, the one named MacFarlane, also knows a lot about edgy animated and live-action comedies, having made his share).

Sausage Party also has the benefit of being produced with Free Money, since it was made in Canada. And when production costs stay low, it becomes easier to see your movie go into profits. Seth's latest animated feature looks to be making money in relatively short order.

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International Box Office

This week's overseas (and world) totals.

WEEKEND FOREIGN BOX OFFICE -- (WORLD TOTALS)

Suicide Squad -- $58,700,000 -- ($465,400,000)

The Secret Life Of Pets -- $40,000,000 -- ($592,600,000)

Sausage Party -- $2,600,000 -- ($36,200,000)

Jason Bourne -- $18,600,000 -- ($246,200,000)

Finding Dory -- $8,100,000 -- ($897,400,000)

The Jungle Book -- $6,200,000 -- ($947,800,000)

Pete's Dragon -- $5,100,000 -- ($26,600,000)

The Legend Of Tarzan -- $4,100,000 -- ($347,008,688)

Ice Age: Collision Course -- $6,100,000 -- ($305,942,747)

Star Trek Beyond -- $2,500,000 -- ($211,279,949)

Independence Day: Resurgence -- $1,300,000 -- ($382,570,912)

X-Men: Apocalypse -- $3,100,000 -- ($539,701,327)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- $1,700,000 -- ($239,012,726) ...

Kindly note that, as it is with domestic box office, so it is with international. Lots of CG cartoons, and lots of live-action with animated visual effects. There seems to be a trend.

... An $8.1M weekend lifts Finding Dory to $420.6M internationally and $897.4M worldwide. ...

Swinging up a further $6.2M in four territories, Disney’s The Jungle Book opened notably in Japan, its final market. The four-day haul in Japan was $6.2M. That wasn’t good enough to top The Secret Life Of Pets, but there’s no need to shed a tear for little Mowgli and big Baloo, as the film closes in on $950M worldwide. ...

Skating past $300M globally, Ice Age: Collision Course added $6.1M this frame in 52 international markets. France was the top holdover at $854K for a 47% drop in its 5th week. The cume there is $20.1M. Germany also held well in its 6th frame for a total $22.6M. ...

Never underestimate the power of pet owners. With a $40M weekend, The Secret Life Of Pets helped push Universal Pictures International over the $1B mark for the 10th consecutive year. ...

Sausage Party is just getting started overseas where rollout began in nine markets this frame to ring up $2.6M from over 470 screens. ...

Pete's Dragon opened to $5.1M. With an A CinemaScore domestically and great reviews, it’s still got a lot of play to go overseas. The major launch markets were Russia, Italy and the UK. ...

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Seventy-Four Years Ago ..

Disney's Bambi opened in theaters nationwide. Today the film looks quaint but in its time many artists felt it was as realistic as artists could attain.

Joe Grant told me Designer Rico LeBrun had a hunter friend bring in a real deer he shot in the Sierras. LeBrun set up drawing and anatomy sessions to study the dead animal.

But LeBrun was so inspired by the opportunity he refused to dispose of the carcass even after several days. And it began to smell badly and attract flies. Finally the other animators waited until LeBrun had left for lunch and tossed the rancid thing. Walt arranged to bring in some live deer.

-- TAG President Emeritus Tom Sito (aka "Mr. History")

My favorite Bambi story was told to me by Disney veteran Frank Thomas:

The picture was finished and a bunch of us went with Walt to a sneak preview in L.A.

The movie started showing and was going over pretty well. Then it got to the scene where Bambi's mother is shot, and Bambi wanders through the snow crying out "Mo-ther! MO-ther!" You could hear a pin drop. Then some wise guy up in the balcony shouts back: "Here I am Bambi! Here I AM!"

I leaned out and looked down the row at Walt. You could almost see the steam coming out of his ears." ...

Bambi today is a well-loved classic, but it didn't turn a profit until its second release in 1947. The first animated feature into development after Snow White, it was the last pre-war animated feature to be released. There wouldn't be another until Cinderella in 1950.

Add On: Screenwriter William Goldman, in his book Adventures in the Screen Trade, has this to say about Walt Disney's fifth animated feature:

... Deer Hunter told me [what] I already knew and believed in: No matter how horrid the notion of war, Robert de Niro would end up staring soulfully at the beautiful, long-suffering Meryl Streep.

So I say in spite of its skill and the seriousness of its subject matter, we have a well-disguised comic-book movie. Nothing shook my world.

Okay, Bambi.

If the shower scene in Psycho was the shocker of the sixties, and for me, it sure was, then its equivalent in the entire decade of the forties was when Bambi’s mother dies.

And what about that line of dialogue ‘Man has entered the forest’?

And the fire, and the incredibly strong anti-violence implications […]

I know it was a cartoon. I know Thumper had one of the great scene-stealing roles, I know there was a lot of cuteness.

But I left that movie changed.

It had, and has, a terrifying sense of life to it, and not life as we like it to be. You may think I’m crazy, and you may be right, but Bambi still reverberates inside me. ...

So says Willian Goldman, author of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, The Princess Bride, All the President's Men and on and on.

And he ought to know (even though Goldman maintains that "Nobody knows anything.")

Despite the assertion, I say William G. knows his movies.

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Your American Box Office

Animated features keep landing near the top of the Big List, Sausage Party being the latest.

DOMESTIC WEEKEND GROSSES

1). Suicide Squad (WB), 4,255 theaters (0) / $13.3M Fri./ $17.9M Sat (+34%) / $12.5M Sun. (-30%) / 3-day cume: $43.8M (-67%) /Total cume: $222.9M/ Wk 2

2). Sausage Party (SONY/APP), 3,103 theaters / $13.6M Fri (includes $3.25M previews)/ $11.4M Sat (-16%) / $8.7M Sun. (-24%) / 3-day cume: $33.6M / Wk 1

3). Pete’s Dragon (DIS), 3,702 theaters / $7M Fri. / $8.4M Sat (+20%) / $6.2M Sun. (-26%) / 3-day cume: $21.5M / Wk 1

4). Jason Bourne (UNI), 3,528 theaters (-511) / $3.9M Fri. /$5.9M Sat (+53%) / $3.8K Sun. (-35%) / 3-day cume: $13.6M (-39%)/Total cume: $126.9M/ Wk 3

5). Bad Moms (STX), 3,188 theaters (-27)/ $3.6M Fri. /$4.5M Sat (+26%) / $3.4M Sun. (-25%) / 3-day cume: $11.45M (-18%)/Total cume: $71.5M/ Wk 3

6). The Secret Life of Pets (ILL/UNI), 2,958 theaters (-459) / $2.5M Fri. / $3.7M Sat (+46%) / $2.6M Sun. (-30%) / 3-day: $8.8M(-23%)/Total cume: $335.9M / Wk 6

7). Star Trek Beyond (PAR), 2,577 theaters (-686) / $1.8M Fri./ $3M Sat (+62%) / $2M Sun. (-32%) / 3-day cume: $6.8M (-32%) / Total cume: $139.7M / Wk 4

8.) Florence Foster Jenkins (PAR), 1,528 theaters / $2.1M Fri. (includes $190K previews) /$2.65M Sat (+27%) / $1.85M Sun. (-30%) / 3-day cume: $6.58M / Wk 1

9).Nine Lives (EUR), 2,264 theaters / $1.1M Fri./ $1.4M Sat (+31%) / $990K Sun. (-31%) / 3-day cume: $3.5M (-44%)/Total cume: $13.55M/ Wk 2

10). Lights Out (WB/NL), 1,652 theaters (-929) / $985K Fri. / $1.4M Sat (+38%) / $880K Sun. (-35%) / 3-day cume: $3.2M (-46%) / Total cume: $61.1M / Wk 4

...

Farther down the box office roster you will find Ice Age: Collision Course and Finding Dory. The Pixar feature is an unalloyed hit, tracking north of $475 million, but Ice Age, in release for a mere 22 days, has fallen flat, with $57,223,271 in the tote bag.

Happily, the picture has done much better overseas, and has now earned $236,117,791, 80.5% of its $293,341,062 worldwide gross.

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Employment At L.A. Animation Studios

As is TAG blog's habit from time to time, we give you the employment numbers at our larger* signator studios.

TOTAL EMPLOYEES BY STUDIO

Bento Box -- 89
Cartoon Network -- 300
Disney Television Animation -- 382
DreamWorks Animation -- 584
Dr4eamWorks Animation TV -- 309
Fox Animation -- 243
Marvel Animation -- 66
Nickelodeon Cartoon Studios -- 288
Paramount Animation -- 65
Rick and Morty -- 54
Robin Red Breast (Titmouse) -- 117
Original Force Animation -- 23
Six Point Two -- 27
Sony Pictures Animation -- 85
Walt Disney Animation Studios -- 570
Warner Animation Group (WAG) -- 47
Warner Bros. Animation -- 275
Wild Canary -- 45
Woodridge (Hasbro) -- 35 ...

Animation work in Los Angeles has grown steadily over the past four years. Studios still strive to hold down costs, however, laying crews off as soon as a current project has ended. But show supervisors continue to complain "We just can't find enough qualified people out there!"

Some studios are restructuring, and some shows are outsourcing storyboards and design work to Canada, but the Los Angeles animation industry continues to do well, even with the cascade of Free Money happening north of our national border.

Globally, animation continues to be a growth industry, booming in Canada, growing in the United Kingdom, making gains at various studios across Europe and South America. China and India are also growing their domestic animation studios, and China is setting up satellite studios (like Original Force) in Southern California.

* Studios with less than twenty (20) employees are not listed.

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Why They Keep Making The Cartoons

This:

Cartoon Network Enterprises announced the addition of new apparel and accessories partners for Rick and Morty, Adult Swim’s animated series. Joining current apparel and accessories partners Ripple Junction and Zen Monkey, Underboss, Bioworld, Hot Properties Merchandising, Daylight Curfew, Hyp and Surreal Entertainment have all signed on to create ranges of products based on the popular original series. ...

Bioworld (Booth #25099) will introduce an assortment of new Rick and Morty accessories including bags, wallets, belts, headwear, wristbands and more, which will be available at specialty stores nationwide this fall.

Hot Properties Merchandising is set to debut key chains, magnets, patches, buttons and stickers this fall at specialty stores nationwide.

Adding to their existing offering of Rick and Morty t-shirts and sweatshirts for men and women, Ripple Junction (Booth #26019) introduced enamel pins earlier this year.

Daylight Curfew introduced limited edition, co-branded apparel, including t-shirts and sweatshirts, as well as a collaboration with Run The Jewels this May. The collection is available on DaylightCurfew.com. ...

And so on and so forth.

It was a challenge getting Rick and Morty under contract. Cartoon Network/Turner treats its Adult Swim content as edgy/experimental/ lower budget fare. And the policy of the suits in the executive suites is to have a lot of AS series ... including R & M ... be non-signator.

Of course, a lot of this "lower budget" product, where the crews work for sub-par wages and benefits. reaps enormous profits for the fine, entertainment conglomerates that own the shows. A lot of those profits come from the t-shirts, jackets, bandanas, leather straps, video games, action figures, and apps for your favorite mobile devices that (let's face the reality squarely) rake in large amounts of currency. This enables the corporations (plus profit participants, if any) to make out like freebooters sailing the South Seas.

Free enterprise, fck yeah!

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THIS Will Test the Waters

The Reporter tells us:

... Sausage Party, debuting in roughly 2,800 theaters, has the potential to be a breakout hit, thanks to a modest budget, glowing reviews and producing duo Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the team behind This Is the End. The pair partnered with Annapurna's Megan Ellison and Sony to make the movie, which is about a brave sausage who leads his fellow hot dogs on a quest to learn what really happens when they leave the grocery store. ...

Ah, but it's so much more than a tale of food exiting the market. ....

SP has 83% of discerning critics saying "This is a bit of okay!" with a 95% want-to-see rating.

Over the next four days, we'll discover what that high percentage desire translates into at the American box office.

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A Moment In Time

Observe top movies (per Box Office Mojo) released worldwide ...

HIGHEST GROSSING MOTION PICTURES

1. Captain America 3 -- $1,151,887,060
2. Zootopia -- $1,023,138,866
3. The Jungle Book -- $941,315,813
4. Batman v Superman -- $872,662,631
5. Finding Dory --$872,504,409

Three of five moving pictures with the highest worldwide grosses are animated features.

There's Zootopia, a picture with funny animals in clothes. Then The Jungle Book, a picture with funny animals (and some scary ones) without clothes.

And a movie about talking fish.

The other two? They're live-action films with layers of animated visual effects. So it's probably safe to say that animation has made giant inroads into modern movie-making.

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Nick Cartoon's 25th

I went up to Nickelodeon Cartoon Studios this afternoon, but all the cubicles were empty and the lights were off. A tech guy told me: "Everybody's gone to the Equestrian Center for a Nick 25th anniversary party."

Twenty-five years. A lot of animation studios don't last twenty-five years.

Vanessa Coffey (former NickToon exec): ... Because I was into animation, I looked up Nickelodeon as the only game in town for kids. I didn’t know anything about them. I basically cold-called them. They said, “We can’t really afford to do animation, but let’s have you do a special and, while you’re producing this special, we’re going to hire you as a consultant to go see if you can find some original programming.” ...

I basically just started hunting. I went to LA for two weeks in late ‘88 and did pitches every hour. I put the word out to animators: “I’m looking for ideas, I’m looking for concepts. The less developed, the better. I want drawings, not a big pitch.” Nickelodeon gave me an hour and a half that we were going to fill as a block. My idea — and Nickelodeon’s consensus — was to go find whatever you want. I didn’t want a consistent look like Disney. I specifically wanted and was desperate to have three projects that looked completely different. ...

Of course, NickToons has changed a lot since the early nineties.

Now it's heavily corporate. There's more bureaucracy, more superstructure and focus groups, many more chefs sipping the broth (and giving copious notes).

But that's how much of the cartoon business rolls these days. It's not just Nick that's grown thick layers of administrative barnacles. It's every studio that's owned by one of our fine, entertainment conglomerates. Nickelodeon, however, does have its challenges: Disney knocked Nick from the TV animation high perch a few years back; it's had executive turnovers; there is turmoil at the higher reaches of Viacom.

But the division marches on, with several shows in work and a new Burbank office tower on Olive Avenue almost completed. The present (and the future) could certainly be worse.

Here's another fine article on Ms. Coffey and her early days at Nickelodeon, when it was all fresh and new.


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Shuffling Animated Releases

From an entertainment journal:

... DreamWorks Animation's The Croods 2 may have to hibernate for a bit longer.

The animated family film had been set to hit theaters Dec. 22, 2017, but Fox has moved the film off of that date as NBCUniversal finalizes its deal to buy Jeffrey Katzenberg's DWA and make it part of the Universal fold. Katzenberg will step down as CEO to pursue new ventures once the pact closes later this month or next.

Croods 2 will now be released by Universal in 2018. Fox is still keeping the Dec. 22, 2017, date, but for one of its home-grown animated films, The Story of Ferdinand, based on the classic 1936 children's book. (Ferdinand was previously set to open July 21, 2017.) ...

Regarding Croods Deux, informed sources say there have been multiple passes on the story (meaning scripts, boards, story reels) and the pursuit of just-the-right-mix of ceomdic thrills and chills interwoven through a prehistoric plotline continues.

(Do animated features get developed and re-developed? All the time? Why, yes they do!)

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Hasbro Builds Its Business on the Disney Framework

A toy company imitates the Mouse.

Hasbro recently agreed to buy an animation studio. ...

The first takeaway here is that Hasbro has increasingly moved toward the Disney model in recent years. Essentially, it has been working to create brands around its toys that live in the toy aisle and in the media space via television and movies. Like Disney, this allows Hasbro to benefit from cross pollination.

From Hasbro's point of view, buying Boulder is a logical next step in the process. ... The only problem is that it sets up a potential conflict with key partners like Disney, as the toymaker increasingly moves toward being a media company of its own. It's clearly the right move for Hasbro to make in many ways, but it comes with complications.

... As Hasbro shifts its business model, both Hasbro and Disney will be increasingly forced to consider implications beyond dolls and action figures. The problem for Disney is that the list of major toymakers is pretty small and a key competitive advantage that Mattel and Hasbro have is distribution - that's something that isn't easy to replicate. In other words, they are pretty much the only game in town.

So the big question: Who does Disney turn to if it isn't pleased with Hasbro's business direction? ... As for Hasbro, how far can it move into media before a company like Disney starts to balk and, potentially, pull vital licensing agreements.
...

The Walt Disney Company's business model -- built on efficiently managing various brands, a la Berkshire Hathaway -- is too alluring for other entertainment companies to resist. Movies. Television. Cable systems. Super heroes. Amusement parks. Animation. And lots of merchandise tied to various brand names.

All of it is good, also reinforcing. Also highly, highly profitable.

Which hasn't been lost on the wider world.

DreamWorks Animation, prior to its acquisition by Comcast/Universal, imitated the Mouse's business model. And the conglomerate that gobbled up DWA certainly apes Disney's approach to entertainment. Warner Bros. has revitalized the Superman/Batman/Justice League name-plates, striving to exploit them the way Disney exploits its Marvel franchises.

So it shouldn't be a surprise that Hasbro has leapt into the pool, building out from its lines of toys, creating animated brands it can exploit with different toy-lines. The question is, will Diz Co. be flattered ... and receptive ... to the latest pretender to its throne elbowing in on Disney territory?

Wouldn't think so.

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The Mouse Climbs Higher

From an entertainment journal:

Disney just gave investors a lot of news to digest including June quarter earnings that were slightly ahead of expectations, and announcement of a plan to to launch an ESPN-branded streaming service with its purchase of 33% of Major League Baseball’s BAMTech.

Wall Street’s initial reaction? Disney shares are down 1.6% in post market trading.

The company reported quarterly net income of nearly $2.60 billion, up 4.6% vs the period last year, on revenues of $14.3 billion, up 9.0%. That beat the $14.2 billion analysts expected. Adjusted earnings at $162 a share beat the consensus forecast by a penny. ...

The website Seeking Alpha tells us that revenue by segment is mostly up:

Media Networks, $5.91 billion (up 2%);

Parks and Resorts, $4.38 billion (up 6%):

Studio Entertainment (and this is the BIG percentage increase, fueled by super heroes and cartoons), $2.85 billion (up 40%);

Consumer Products and Interactive Media, $1.15B (down 1%).

Disney's buying a 33% stake in video streaming firm BAMTech for $1 billion. (BAMTech had been formed by Major League Baseball and as part of the transaction has been separated from MLB Advanced Media. That will form the basis for an ESPN direct-to-consumer service.) Disney will pay in two installments and could take majority control in the future.

Cash provided by operations was up 29% to $3.6 billion, and free cash flow rose 51%, to $2.49 billion.

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FX Cartoons

Per Deadline:

... FX Networks in 2013 made the biggest off-network deal for The Simpsons library to air on FXX. The reruns have boosted FXX’s ratings. FX/FXX has one animated pilot in the works, a cop show from Louis C.K. and Albert Brooks, that is eyed for FXX. More animated development will follow as the efforts in that area will be stepped up. ...

That is not to say that FXX, which launched with FX’s biggest comedy hit, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, is getting out of the live-action business, [FX Networks CEO John] Landgraf said. But animated content will be ramped up. “It’s one of the things that we excited about, it’s us taking new really big shots.”

Part of the rationale for the push — animated comedies attract the younger viewers that FXX is after.

The "attract younger viewers" strategy also explains why Netflix and Amazon are loading up with animated product. They want the eyeballs of pre-schoolers and elementary school kids to watch their brand and then graduate to live-action fare as they become teenagers and young adults.

It's the "catch 'em early and keep 'em" philosophy. I'm not sure it will work exactly as FX or Netflix or Amazon plan, but you can see what they're going for.

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Raising the Bar for Stop Motion

An animation studio in Portland keeps pushing envelopes.

How LAIKA 3-D Printed an Animated World

... LAIKA is a studio that’s unique in the worlds of animation and filmmaking because everything about a LAIKA production is massive, even when things are in miniature. A LAIKA film is the product of an army of people — costume designers, puppet fabricators, 3D-printing experts, visual effects teams, animators, set decorators, model makers, painters — coming together to solve problems and create worlds that feel real, even and especially in their extreme stylization. ...

LAIKA’s been using a unique approach to 3D printing for replacement animation (for which it was recently awarded a Scientific and Technical Oscar) since Coraline.

“We realized that we had really pushed the performance of a stop motion character into a whole new realm,” McLean said of the work on Coraline, “something that was never achievable before, but the technique of having to hand-paint each individual face was pretty laborious and time-consuming. So between Coraline and our next film, ParaNorman, we tried to build off of what we had sort of pioneered and we worked towards using a different type of printer, which was a color 3D printer.”

... With Kubo, the character designs of Kubo, Monkey and Beetle were more complex and the scale of the film demanded that McLean and his team find a way to mass produce colored 3D printed components for these characters. Needing to find a way to fine-tune the process without sacrificing speed of production and the quality of the colored components, McLean set to work trying to find a 3D printing solution that fit LAIKA’s needs for Kubo.

Eventually, he found it in a very new printer from Stratasys, one of the leading makers of 3D printers. ...

The Rapid Prototyping team, which made up of 70 people, prints character faces in two main sections (the brow section and the mouth section), but also prints all of the elements that go inside of a character’s head (think eyeballs, eyelids, ears). This allows animators to use pieces to create more combinations to make characters more expressive. ...

Stop motion animation is an old and respected art form, but it hasn't enjoyed the boffo box office that CG animated features regularly pull down, though the two are close cousins.

Maybe it's the technology. Maybe audiences really are more comfortable and in tune with CG animation. The Nightmare Before Christmas is a well-loved film, but the love didn't translate into monster grosses. LAIKA's Corlaine, the studio's first release, collected $124,596,398 in worldwide ticket sales, but that's a fraction of what Frozen or Zootopia have raked in. And by the end of its run, Coraline had the same domestic box office that Nightmare did.

Or maybe it's the quality of story-telling, and not the screen technique, to which audiences respond. Maybe Toy Story and Finding Dory just happen to click better with movie-goers.

Kubo gets released on August 19th. It's LAIKA's most ambitious feature to date. It's got a pretty high want-to-see quotient on Rotten Tomatoes. By Sunday night of its first weekend the entertainment industry should have a pretty good fix on how the picture is going to do in the domestic gross department.

One thing is dead-bang certain: LAIKA is sure as hell giving stop motion features the old college try.

"From the Grapevine" has its own piece on LAIKA's 3-D printing here.

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Thirty-Two Years Ago - Part III

The last part of the Animation Guild's (then called "The Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists") Golden Awards banquet, circa 1984.



It was a fine night all around. Food and drink and a lot of animation legends. But there were so many recipients that nobody said very much. They just marched to the podium and accepted their award.

And Gary Owens cracked wise.

And here is Part Deux. And also the first installment.

Added to which, you will find Harve Deneroff's list of Golden Award honorees (with biographical sketches) here.

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Zen Retirement Investing

Eighty-five percent of TAG 401(k) participants are in Vanguard Target Date funds (which are: Total U.S. Stock Market/Total International Stock Market/Total U.S. Bond Market/Total International Bond Market; wide diversification, yes?)

Which leads us to this in the New York Times:

... After the stock market collapse in 2008 and early 2009, Fidelity [Mutual Fund Company] noticed that 61,200 401(k) account holders had sold all of their stock. So the company started tracking them to see whether that move would pay off.

Since then, 16,900 had not bought stocks in their retirement accounts through the end of 2015. About 13,000 of them are under 60, so they probably didn’t just cash out and take early retirement either. Through the end of 2015, their account balances rose by 27.2 percent, including new contributions.

People who had at least some stock exposure, however, saw their accounts jump 157.7 percent. That left them with an average balance of $176,500, $82,000 more than the people who got rid of all their stock. ...

[O]nly 1 percent of the Fidelity account holders in [target-date] funds made any moves during the second quarter. ...

The week after next, the Animation Guild commences new 401(k) enrollment meetings. The Plan now covers 2650 Guild participants, but forget about that narrow universe. If you're fogging a mirror and earning some kind of a living, you should damn well be putting a chunk of some kind of investment program.

An IRA.

A Roth IRA.

And if the IRA thingie doesn't grab you, then set up a single, low-tax index stock fund account (costs $3000 to get started, and then dump $50 per week, every week, into it*.

At the end of thirty years you'll be able to retire with a nest egg that will enable you to avoid shopping for eats in the dog food aisle.

* And for Gawdsakes don't look at it. Just pretend it isn't there.

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The Mouse's Drum Beating Continues

And a new video drops.



Animation is complete. Fifty days hence, he lighting department will wrap up their work on the movie. And the whole feature will roll out at Thanksgiving.

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Foreign Box Office

Around the globe, computer generated images, in both animated and live-action VFX form, are in abundance.

WEEKEND FOREIGN BOX OFFICE -- (WORLD TOTALS)

Suicide Squad -- $132,000,000 -- ($267,100,000)

The Secret Life Of Pets -- $68,600,000 -- ($502,200,000)

Time Raiders -- $64,600,000 --- ($70,000,000)

Jason Bourne -- $20,900,000 -- ($195,300,000)

Finding Dory -- $11,500,000 -- ($870,300,000)

Ice Age: Collision Course -- $11,500,000 -- ($288,157,416)

The Legend of Tarzan -- $8,100,000 -- ($335,050,024

Ghostbusters -- $6,400,000 -- ($179,511,936) ...

As a trade mag relates:

Busting out in 57 international markets, Warner Bros’ Suicide Squad banned together for a $132M start on its debut weekend. That sets a new overseas record for August and nearly doubles the opening of comp Guardians Of The Galaxy which kicked off on essentially the same date in 2014, albeit in 15 fewer markets. ...

Expanding this week, Illumination/Universal’s The Secret Life Of Pets has crossed $500M worldwide, sitting up in China with a $28.9M start after debuting Tuesday. It was led locally by Time Raiders, a 3D adventure fantasy that is giving a boost to a lackluster Middle Kingdom season with a $70M+ opening. ...

Finding Dory continues reeling in a memorable run overseas with another $11.5M weekend taking the offshore cume to $396.4M. Combined with domestic, that brings the global total to $870.3M. ...

As the 5th Ice Age eyes further releases in Italy and China later this month, Fox’s Collision Course collided with $11.5M this weekend in 66 markets. France, Germany and Poland had strong holds, each down less than 30% as families look to cool down during summer. The respective cumes in those markets are $18.7M, $21.4M and $3.7M. ...

Kindly note: TAG blog doesn't link the list at the top because TAG blog has to build the chart all by its lonesome.

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Arc Productions Followup

All the Free Money that Arc Productions got from the Provincial government? Even though Arc went belly up, the subsidy is all good.

A Toronto movie and TV animation company that abruptly closed this week — leaving more than 500 jobless — won’t have to repay a $23-million Ontario government grant it got in a splashy photo op with Sir Elton John in 2009.

Arc Productions had long ago met job-creation obligations in the deal, Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid said Friday, defending programs that dole out taxpayer money to help businesses expand.

“They fulfilled their end of the bargain,” he told reporters at Queen’s Park after Statistics Canada reported the province lost 36,000 jobs in July as the provincial unemployment rate held steady at 6.4 per cent.

“You can’t hold a company responsible to operate forever because they’re operating in the real world.”

Progressive Conservative MPP Monte McNaughton said the company’s failure is why he’s been pressing the government for six months to release a comprehensive list of government handouts to corporations and details on how many jobs were created.

“The government needs to come clean . . . so all taxpayers can see whether they’re getting value for money,” said McNaughton, who has called the money “crony capitalism” with no transparent guidelines, targets or measurement of results.
...

A fw weeks ago I heard from an industry bigwig: "Tax subsidies are here to stay."

Today at the IA District 2 Convention in San Diego I heard a labor leader say: "Tax subsidies are here to stay."

So, you know, I'm starting to believe that tax subsidies, otherwise known as Free Money, are here to stay.

I just wasn't aware that tax subsidies stick to companies that have gone bankrupt. I mean, aren't there a bunch of employees who have yet to be paid?

Read about Arc Productions going bust here.

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Your American Box Office

Two animated features remain in the Big Ten, even as comic book heroes (again) dominate with a huge gross in the #1 spot.

WEEKEND GROSSES

1). Suicide Squad (WB), 4,255 theaters / $65m Fri. (includes $20.5M previews) / 3-day cume: $146.1M/ Wk 1

2). Jason Bourne (UNI), 4,039 theaters (+13)/ $6.6M Fri. (-71%) / 3-day cume: $22M (-63%)/Total cume: $102.8M/Wk 2

3). Bad Moms (STX), 3,215 theaters (0) / $4.5M Fri. (-53%) / 3-day cume: $14.1M (-41%)/Total cume: $50.8M/ Wk 2

4). The Secret Life of Pets (ILL/UNI), 3,417 theaters (-260) / $3.3M Fri.(-41%) / 3-day cume: $10.9M (-42%) / Total cume: $318.9M/ Wk 5

5). Star Trek Beyond (PAR), 3,263 theaters (-665) / $2.6M Fri. (-61%) / 3-day cume: $9.5M (-61%) / Total cume: $127.2M/ Wk 3

6). Nine Lives (EUR), 2,264 theaters / $2.3M Fri. / 3-day cume: $6.6M / Wk 1

7). Lights Out (WB/NL), 2,581 theaters (-254) / $1.9M Fri. (-45%) / 3-day cume: $5.9M (-56%) / Total cume: $52.6M / Wk 3

8). Nerve (LGF), 2,538 theaters (0) / $1.6M Fri (-50%) / 3-day cume: $5M (-47%)/ Total cume: $27M / Wk 2

9). Ghostbusters (SONY), 2,545 theaters (-507) / $1.3M Fri. (-56%) / 3-day cume: $4.6M (-54%)/ Total cume: $116.5M / Wk 4

10.) Ice Age: Collision Course (FOX), 2,738 theaters (-1,259) / $1.2M Fri. (-64%)/ 3-day cume: $3.9M (-64%) / Total cume: $53.1M / Wk 3 ...

The Secret Life of Pets will hit the $320 million marker while Nine Lives, the other funny talking animals movie in the new release mix, will arrive still-born. (But then there's live action human beings in it, so who are we kidding?)

But the large story here is that big budget special effects movies still scream, yell and kick at the box office. Between VFX offerings and CG animated features (and they are close cousins), 50% of the movies in the Big List are of the computer generated imaging persuasion, which means there are lots of men and women sitting at computers creating the visuals in various dark rooms around the planet.

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Fresh Okies

Entertainment journals note:

Fox has given a pilot presentation order to Okies of Bel Air, an animated comedy executive produced by Los Angeles Clippers star Blake Griffin. The project, written by writer-comedian Sean O’Connor (The Late Late Show), hails from Imagine TV and 20th Century Fox TV. It borrows some elements from Griffin’s life. ...

From the various news stories, OoBA appears to be lineally descended from The Beverly Hillbillies except edgier.

And TAG blog makes an assumptive leap here and assumes, if Okies makes it to the series order stage, it will be part of Fox's prime time lineup, most likely on Sunday nights.

Of course there are hurdles to ge jumped before it gets to the next tier. So we'll see.


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The Making of "The Little Prince"

... is recounted by the L.A. Times.

How Mark Osborne got 'The Little Prince' to the big screen, with a computer animated twist

... Osborne, 45, first read “The Little Prince” in the early 1990s, while an art student at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., when his girlfriend, who who would later become his wife, gave him a copy as he was contemplating a transfer to the California Institute of the Arts, where he would ultimately graduate with a bachelor’s degree in experimental animation. ...

By 2010, he had directed an Academy Award-nominated short film, “More,” a live-action feature, “Dropping Out,” and worked on the “SpongeBob SquarePants” TV series and movie when he was contacted by producers looking to make a CG-animated feature of “The Little Prince.” Instead, Osborne suggested an ambitious idea to tell the story with a mixture of the two animation styles. ... CG and stop-motion animation. ...

Mark Osborne has spent a long time in the animation business. He's worked in television. He's directed features. He's also crossed over to do the live-action thingie. (And why not? All of it is story-telling on a flat screen).

TLP has received positive reviews and upbeat word-of-mouth, but that didn't prevent Paramount from dropping it shortly before release. It's at $100 million in international markets, but by the time Netflix finishes its domestic release, The Little Princes should be close to edning into the black.

What's brave and edgy about the feature is the mashup of stop-motion and CG. The producers hedged their bet by doing production in Montreal (where Free Money is abundant). Still in all, the budget was major league, and that demonstrates more than a little confidence in the director's vision and the subject matter, no?

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Rear Admiral Obvious

From the interwebs:

... We’ll see if Seth Rogen’s raunchy, CG-animated “Sausage Party” (opening August 12) has a better chance of commercial success.

“One of the biggest reasons I wanted to do this was for the industry itself, just to be able to knock down the door and prove that R-rated animation has an audience,” admitted director Conrad Vernon, who first met Rogen as a voice actor on DreamWorks’ “Monsters vs. Aliens. “It just depends on how you tell the story and we think animation’s not just for families and kids and that it’s a medium and not a genre.” ...

Mr. Vernon, being young and wet behind the ears, has probably never heard of Ralph Bakshi's cartoon:



Fritz the Cat had a worldwide box office of $90,000,000. This on a budget of under a million bucks.

Let's think about this for a long minute. The gross was more than 90 times the production costs. Which is a certified hit in almost anyone's ledger book.

And it was X-rated as well as animated.

So Mr. Vernon's statement above? Well, yeah.

Animation is definitely "a medium and not a genre". But that's been true since about 1937. All kinds of animated features get made, many that aren't easily categorized. Unfortunately, American audiences don't see many of them, since most high profit animated features, as is most high-profit live-action product, turn out to be movies controlled and manufactured by our fine, entertainment conglomerates.

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"Secret Life" II

From the trades and various other points on the compass.

Illumination Entertainment and Universal on Tuesday announced that a sequel to this summer's animated hit The Secret Life of Pets is a go, and that it will hit theaters July 13, 2018. It is Illumination's second major franchise after the Despicable Me and spinoff Minions series.

News of the follow-up — which will see the return of director Chris Renaud — comes as Ilumination and Universal's 'The Secret Life of Pets' crosses $400 million at the global box office.

There will be more barking. ...

As we've noted here before, Illumination Entertainment is one of the only studios to outsource story work for animated features and actually make it work. (That is, do the development outside studio walls and end up with a hit film. There have been plenty of other companies that have used this method, but they've all fallen on their corporate faces by creating a dud movie).

Illumination Entertainment uses a lot of storyboard artists domiciled in California. It uses board artists in other locations. And it has a growing number of development artists in Paris, where the animation is done at IE's MacGuff studio.

To date, animation producers that four-wall feature animation work have done better than out-sourcers and predominated. But Meledandri and Illumination Entertainment have shown there's another way.

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Fifty-Seven Years Ago ..

The October 1960 Peg-Board announced the election of supervising animator Ben Washam as the animation union's new President, with animator Charlie Downs as his Vice-Presidential wingman. There was also this:

UPA FEATURE

UPA's forthcoming animated feature, Gay Purr-ee will be financed and distributed by Warner Brothers, instead of by United Artists.

Henry Saperstein, president of UPA, claimed he was tired of stalling by UA and so negotiated abetter deal with Warners. ... The cartoon's original budget of $700,000 has been raised to a million dollars.

Saperstein reported that Warners wanted to sign UPA to another feature. He refused, since "40,000 drawings have yet to be made on Gay Purr-ee, and since the studio also is committed to produce a one-hour cartoon for television. ...

In retrospect, maybe Mr. Saperstein should have taken the WB up on its offer to bankroll a second feature, because Magoo's Christmas Carol, though fondly remembered, failed to lift the studio to new heights. ...

Hanna-Barbera

Three new series for syndication are to be produced by Hanna and Barbera. One hundred and fifty-six segments of five minutes each ae being developed. They are Wally Gator with voices by Bill Thompson and Paul Frees, Touche Turtle and Dum Dum with voices by Bill Thompson and Paul Reed, and Lippy the Lion and the Sad Hyena with track by Mel Blanc.

Other plans by H-B include live and animated commercials and an hour-long cartoon variety show.

H-B's first cartoon feature with Yogi Bear is scheduled for Thanksgiving 1962 release by Columbia. ...

A shame that Hanna-Barbera's "cartoon variety show" didn't pan out. But there were, in 1960, a few pretenders to Disney's feature animation throne. H-B and UPA were ultimately minor contenders, but they were in the arena competing.

New Disney Animated Features

The Rainbow Road to Oz will be the next animation feature to be produced by Walt Disney.

Disney has owned rights to all of Frank Baum's Oz stories (excpt The Wizard of Oz) since 1954 but had been debating whether to make his Oz feature live or animated. The feature has a "multi-million dollar budget" and is scheduled for 1963 release. Also being prepared for a 1963 debut is The Sword and the Stone, adapted from a story by T.H. White. Its six million dollar budget makes it the most expensive animated feature by Disney.

Speaking of animation budgets, Walt Disney Productions' The Rescuers cost $7.5 million in 1977; The Fox and the Hound had a $12 million price tag when released in 1981.

As for Oz features, there was nothing animated in '63 but much later, two live-action specimens emerged: Return to Oz (1985) was edgy, dark and did minimal business. Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) took design cues from the '39 M-G-M classic and ended up a medium-sized hit.

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Into the Black

... and on to the warm embrace of Comcast-Universal.

“Kung Fu Panda 3” helped kick DreamWorks Animation into the black during the second quarter, the Glendale-based studio said Wednesday.

DreamWorks Animation, which is preparing to be acquired by Comcast Corp., reported $2.3 million, or 3 cents a share, in profit for the three months ended June 30. That compares with a $38.6-million loss during the same period of time last year.

The company’s earnings easily exceeded the expectations of Wall Street analysts, who had projected a quarterly loss of 6 cents. ...

DWA's efforts to grow a TV division, beef up merchandising, and purchase Awesomeness TV has happily bone fruit. And the company's latest feature making north of half a billion dollars? That's also very helpful.

U-C is no doubt licking its corporate lips over riches soon to come. Jeffrey will be ambling out the door, but he'll be milk a percentage from the internet assets after the deal closes (and after investor lawsuits over this side deal get resolved).

So it's a win-win for everybody, yes?


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Yesterday's Trailer Drop

... where the company named for the Brothers Warner (Harry, Jack, Sam) released the third trailer for its oncoming animated feature built around some tall, white birds.



Set for a September release, Storks was originally incubated at Warner Bros. Animation in 2013, but now flies under the WAG (Warner Animation Group) banner. The picture is directed by Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland, and written by Stoller, based on Mr. Stoller's original idea.

Storks shines a fresh light on a group of birds whose business model was first explored ... if only briefly ... in an earlier animated epic:



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The Short Goodbye

So Arc Productions, cartoon company of Canada, exits hastily, stiffing employees as it goes.

“We regret to inform you that Arc is experiencing significant financial difficulties and a liquidity crisis,” [Arc] CEO Tom Murray wrote to his staff in a letter. “Despite the very best efforts of management to find a solution to this financial emergency, we have not been able to resolve this matter with our lender.”

Among other projects, Arc was in production on the feature Blazing Samurai ..., which is scheduled for release next year by Open Road Films. ...

And so on and so forth. (The original notification of Arc's sudden demise can be found here.)

This kind of stuff happens. often the way it goes is: Company has financial problems. Doesn't pay employees. Employees get miffed.

And when employees voice dissatisfaction over the "no wages" thingie, the company plays its bullying/loyalty cards: "Hey, you'll get paid! Just have patience! We need everybody to remain at their desks, grinding away! What's the matter, don't you know we're GOOD for it!? Where's your LOYALTY?! We're a FAMILY!!" ... (etc.)

I've seen the above scenario play out any number of times, occasionally for as long as a month: a studio will keeps its doors open, making promises to the staff that payment of back wages is imminent, and employees keep working. (Why folks remain on the job at a non-paying company doing charity work is a head scratcher, but there it is).

However, in this case, it appears that Arc owes its employees one cycle of pay and accrued vacation money, and it has had the good grace to close up shop and inform people that Canada has a "Wage Earner Protection Program" that can be accessed. It's useful the company didn't string people along for any length of time, because that has too often been the pattern.

We wish Arc's now-marooned employees the best in finding new work. Canada has lots of animation and VFX companies working at high capacity just now, so new opportunities should soon present themselves.

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Froggie Went Cartooning

A journal of entertainment says:

Trevor Pryce, two-time Super Bowl champ with the Denver Broncos and all-pro defensive end, has launched a post-NFL career based on his childhood angst about frogs getting flattened on the roads of Florida.

Netflix last year bought the rights to “Kulipari: An Army of Frogs,” based on his book triology published by Abrams, about superhero frogs fighting hordes of scorpions and spiders in the Australian outback. The show’s 13 22-minute episodes are set to debut worldwide on Netflix Sept. 2, as part of a fall wave of original kids’ programming coming to the service.

Pryce funded the production of the animated series himself, teaming with production company Splash Entertainment. Originally envisioned as three feature-length animated specials, the project was distilled into a single season for Netflix — after the streamer jumped to acquire the rights to “Kulipari.”

“Netflix said ‘yes’ the quickest,” said Pryce, who also shopped “Kulipari” to two traditional TV networks (which he declined to identify). He signed the deal with Netflix before even pitching it to Hulu or Amazon. ...

Splash Entertainment, headquartered in the Warner Center on the western end of the fabled San Fernando Valley, (where Warner Bros. used to make cavalry pictures) has been around for years, first as Mike Young Productions, then as Moon Scoop. The Animation Guild briefly held a contract with the company when it was producing its Clifford the Big Red Dog feature, but there are no binding legal documents in force between the parties at the present time.

Netflix is pursuing animated projects in a major way, which is one of the reasons the cartoon business is at sky high levels of employment here in the second decade of the 21st century. Kulipari is a cagey mashup of cartoon and super hero. (What could be smarter than taking two red-hot sectors of the movie/television business and combining them?) Whether the series blossoms into a feature, or video games get developed, whether action figures and shiny medallions are in the offing, remains to be seen.

But it wouldn't be surprising if those things come to pass.

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Thirty-Two Years Ago, Part II

So here's the second part of the Guild's Golden Award banquet at Sorrentino's, circa 1984.



Of the various Golden Awards ceremonies that have been held over the years, this one was the most zazzy.

The room was full of energy, almost electric.

I had never seen so many animation legends in one place.

Gary Owens was at the peak of his powers.

And it was good that all kinds of animation employees ... from inkers and painters to storyboard artists to animators to directors ... were being honored together on the same night, all with the Golden Awards trophy, a golden pegboard on a wooden base.

(Of course, pegboards are kind of "yesterday" at this point).

Part Uno can be found here.

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