Eye Movements 3

Continuing his posts on animating eyes, Kevin writes:

Eye movements can be classified into seven different types:

Convergence is a motion of both eyes relative to each other that ensures that an object is still foveated by both eyes when its distance from the observer is changed. The closer the object is, the more the eyes point towards each other. This movement can be voluntarily controlled, but is normally the result of a moving stimulus.

Saccades are the principal method for moving the eyes to a different part of the visual scene, and are sudden, rapid movements of the eyes. Saccades can be initiated voluntarily, but are ballistic: that is, once they are initiated, their path of motion and destination cannot be changed. Visual input is suppressed during a saccade ...

Pursuit motion is a much smoother, slower movement than a saccade; it acts to keep a moving object foveated. It cannot be induced voluntarily, but requires a moving object in the visual field. One frequent failing of thoughtless animation is having the eyes demonstrate pursuit motion when there is no object being followed by the character’s eyes.

Nystagmus is a saw-toothed pattern of eye movements that occurs as a response to the turning of the head (acceleration detected by the inner ear) or the viewing of a moving, repetitive pattern (the train window phenomenon). It consists of smooth `pursuit’ motion in one direction to follow a position in the scene, followed by a fast motion in the opposite direction to select a new position. This is an eye movement that has probably never been animated, and if it was, it would probably get rejected by the supervisor or director because it would look so odd ...

Click on the link above for Kevin's complete post on lall seven types of eye movements ... and his take on animation of those little round orbs in the upper part of the face ...

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CGI's Slow March Into TeeVee Land

Iron Man, the television version, will soon visit a home-viewing unit near you:

Marvel has commissioned Gallic animation concept and content creation company Method Animation to make 26 half-hour “Iron Man” shows. Marvel and Method are co-producing with U.K. animation production company Cinnamon Entertainment.

Series is currently in production and the first episode is due to be delivered in a month ...

Now, I'm not here to wring my hands and whine about how IM is being produced in Europe and Oh How Awful! What I want to focus on is that another t.v. animated CGI show is rolling down the pike, but there's still plenty of hand-drawn product ...

Like, what's interesting to me is how slow and tentative C.G.I.'s encroachment into the flat, cartoony world of animated television has actually been, when the growth of c.g. features has been rapid and downright overwhelming in the theatrical realm.

Consider: a decade ago, Sony produced the theatrical feature Starship Troopers,; shortly thereafter, Sony-Adelaide created a c.g. series of the same name, which was big-time expensive and didn't come anywhere near the success Sony Adelaide hoped for.

So Sony didn't produce it for long.

Then there was the prime time c.g.i series Father of the Pride five years back. Big things were expected for that, too, but it quickly went to DVD land and was never heard from ... on network television ... again.

The problem, as it was explained to me by studio wise men, is that c.g. was (is) hugely expensive and, on television at least, the fact that it's computer generated images prancing around on the small screen doesn't necessarily mean big ratings.

And ratings, girls and boys, is what the game is all about. Programmers and studio development execs aren't in the exercise for their general all-around jollies or health. Their eyes are always riveted on the big prize: M-O-N-E-Y. And when the hand-drawn Simpsons and Family Guy are doing big business in the home entertainment area, who needs c.g.i.?

It's only been in the last couple of years that c.g. series have finally gained traction. Nick is producing Tac. Disney TVA has Mickey's Clubhouse and My Friends Tigger and Pooh, with Inspector Oso waiting in the wings. There are other scattered examples, but you get the idea. Computer-generated cartoons have established a strong beachhead in television, but they're a long way from taking the whole country over.

(And Disney's direct-to-video feature franchise has only now sloughed off the traditional-looking sequels that made the company so much heavy coin and is making c.g.i. Tinkerbell films.)

The point is, c.g. animation has been far less robust in television because, unlike its theatrical cousin, the cost-benefit hasn't been apparent. Kids, by and large, are happier watching hand-drawn 'toons like Fairly Odd Parents and Sponge Bob Square Pants than they are Star-Ship Troopers. And unless and until the comgloms see a big benefit to creating computer-generated television product (like higher ratings or lower costs), hand-drawn product will continue to flourish on the home screen.

Addendum: It's pointed out in comments that there have been a boatload of c.g.i. television shows, and that some have been successful. Absolutely right. But the success hasn't reached critical mass (at least, not quite yet) the way it has on the feature side.

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Disney TVA

Part of the afternoon was consumed traipsing around the third floor of the Frank Wells Building, where Inspector Oso is being readied for a full launch, The Replacements is wrapping up its current season, and Phineas and Ferb is poised and ready to embark on its second season. Oh, and Yin Yang Yo is still thumping along. Sayet the artists:

"I'm supposed to swing over to the second season of Phineas and Ferb... "The producer says it's 99.9% certain to be picked up, but the Channel hasn't green lit it yet" ... "It looks like The Replacements isn't going to go beyond its current order, but I've heard from a couple people it might be renewed" ...

The corporate flow chart of which Disney TVA is a part has changed over the years. Back in the eighties, the place was a stand-alone, with the t.v. division reporting to Jeffrey Katzenberg (who headed up the whole studio operation, feature animation included.) Today, Diz Television Animation nestles beneath the sheltering wings of The Disney Channel, and that corportate subsidiary calls the shots for new and returning cartoon series.

The newest seasons of Mickey's Clubhouse and My Friends Tigger and Pooh have been in work for awhile; last week the Channel finally got around to making its public announcement:

Disney Channel has renewed Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and My Friends Tigger & Pooh for additional 35-episode seasons ... "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and My Friends Tigger & Pooh have captivated preschoolers and their parents around the globe," [said Nancy Kanter, the senior VP of Playhouse Disney Worldwide]. "Both have proven to be ratings winners from day one, and we are looking forward to successful third seasons filled with more exciting Clubhouse and Hundred Acre Wood adventures with Mickey, Pooh and all the gang."

And so on and forth.

For some artists up on the third floor of the Frank Wells Building, things are a little less upbeat, as some Replacements crew members have gotten notice that the gig is ending. "Where's the work out there?" one said to me.

"More hiring in features than television right now," I answered.

He nodded stoically. "Guess I'll just start making phone calls" ...

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Horton Climbs to the Top in Foreign Markets

Horton might have declined to the second spot domestically, but it's Numero Uno overseas:

"Horton Hears a Who" heard the jangling of the most overseas coin over the weekend, topping a moderate frame with $13.2 million at 5,743 playdates in 52 markets and edging "10,000 BC."

The weekend win lifted the toon's foreign cume to $77 million, with "Horton" midway through its international run. Dr. Seuss' big-hearted pachyderm -- a new character to most foreign markets -- has shown solid holdover traction, underlining the generally strong appeal of animated fare in offshore markets ...

The next several months looks to be bright ones for animated features. Horton pretty much has a clear field until Kung Fu Panda (considered by Those In The Know to be a strong entry) rolls out in eight or nine weeks, followed by Wall*E a month later.

The more success for animated features, the more employment making animated features.

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A SAG-AFTRA Bargaining Divorce? Another Strike?

The problems between SAG and AFTRA have been percolating for a considerable while. In the last couple of days, the trouble has boiled over:

... the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists voted today to suspend the guild's 27-year joint bargaining agreement with the Screen Actors Guild, leaving the two unions to negotiate separately on new contracts with the major studios ...

For months, I've heard from entertainment union officials that the blood was bad between the unions and the partnership wouldn't end well. I pretty much believed it until the Screen Actors Guild backed off some of its grab for more votes inside the joint-bargaining committee, and SAG and AFTRA reached joint proposals for their upcoming talks with the producers (the AMPTP) last week. Then I thought: "Well, bully for them, they patched things up," and breathed a sigh of relief that we were (perhaps) past the threat of another industry strike.

But maybe I was thinking too ... ahm ... wishfully:

A rift between the two unions could now undermine SAG's leverage to wring the best possible concessions from the studios in its new contract as AFTRA pursues its own agenda on behalf of its members, who work mostly in television.

The move ends a longstanding partnership between the two unions, known as Phase One, under which they had jointly bargained film and prime-time TV contracts for nearly three decades ...

Months ago, at our mother International's executive board meeting in Florida, I was told by an IATSE muckety-muck:

"SAG seems to be on this suicide mission. AFTRA is organizing cable work and that's where the growth is. SAG is going to find itself out in the cold if it's not careful. The studios aren't going to give the Screen Actors Guild more than they give to everybody else, it just frigging won't happen. They AMPTP will negotiate a deal with AFTRA and do a lot more business with them.

"Entertainment workers, actors and everybody else, follow the work, not the union. SAG better figure that out or it's going to be in deep trouble."

What's interesting to me is that SAG and AFTRA were, a few years back, within an eye-blink of merging into One Big Actor's Union. AFTRA wanted the marriage, but SAG voted it down. At the time, I thought "This is an idiotic move for the actors to make," but what did I know, a silly little labor rep sitting off in Animation Land?

Now, however, the short-sightedness of that rejection could be coming back to bite the Actors Guild hard. I only hope that there isn't one more months-long strike that takes a bite out of the Pension and Health plan.

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Weekend Linkage

Ed Catmull

Pixar topkick comes to praise Utah's new animation training center:

University of Utah graduate Ed Catmull believes Utah has one of the finest computer animation programs in the country. But it's not at his alma mater, the University of Utah. Nope, Utah's finest is at rival Brigham Young University, and Catmull should know.

A graduate of the U.'s legendary computer science program of the late '60s and '70s, Catmull is president of the wildly successful Pixar Animation, which produced "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo." During a visit Thursday to BYU, Catmull complimented the school for producing students with savvy filmmaking know-how.

"All of a sudden in the last few years, BYU has risen to the top," Catmull said. "They're smart about what they do, and the students that come out of it are really good" ...

There's a nasty tax-break war going on between the Brits and a former colony over the traditional animation biz's younger sibling, the video game industry:

For months, British companies have been decrying the exodus of European game developers to Ontario, Quebec and B.C., where tax incentives are helping to attract multimillion-dollar investments and thousands of highly skilled foreign workers -- their talents fuelling the Canadian industry's exponential growth.

"The Canadians have driven a tank over the French Citroen and have now parked on our lawn," Paul Jackson, head of the main industry organization representing British games producers, complained to the Financial Times earlier this week. "It is becoming very challenging to keep core development studios here."

Like it or not, the animation industry encricles the globe. I get reminded of that on a weekly basis when I see the importation of foreign talent to work in the older part of Animationland here in Southern California. (The New York Times profiles the stateside battle for movie production -- including Blue Sky Animation -- here.)

Imagi, one of the newer 'toon studios in L.A., is cranking up its marketing department:

Imagi Studios has established a comprehensive Marketing , it was a Department, based at its Sherman Oaks facility announced by Co‐CEO Douglas Glen.

Headed by Erin Corbett, recently appointed Senior VP of Marketing, the Department will encompass all areas of worldwide marketing, advertising, sales promotions, licensing, tie‐in programs, publicity, public relations and corporate communications.

... In her new position, she will work closely with Imagi’s partners as the studio develops its marketing campaigns, promotions and licensing. Before coming to irketing.Imagi, Gutierrez worked in retal maImagi Studios’ next two films are Astro Boy and Gatchaman, both of which are slated for worldwide distribution in 2009 ...

Actor-director David Schwimmer talks about DreamWorks Animation's other animation franchise:

“There’s a little love story between the giraffe, my character, and the hippo [voiced by Jada Pinkett Smith],” Schwimmer laughed. “That image of them dating – it’s disturbing.”

Last of all. Jenny Lerew of BlankWing Diaries writes about her husband Pete Bateman, who passed away February 13th after a long fight with cancer. (I had no idea until I read her post this weekend.)

Jenny has my deepest condolences. To say the last year and a half has been difficult for her and Pete would be a monumental understatement.

Use what's left of the weekend wisely and well.

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Box Office Derby

The Friday turnstile totals are in, and Horton drops to #2, even as it crosses the $100 million threshhold with a $105,000,000 accumulation and a $5,250,000 end-of-week box office ...

21, the card shark epic from Sony, takes #1, with Craig Mazin's Superhero Movie spoof claims the third position with $3.4 million ...

If we use Kevin Koch's Domestic Box Office Total Calculator (pat. pending), we find that Horton will most likely end it's U.S./Canada run with $140-$180 million in the kitty ...

Update: And Horton keeps on trucking. The big guy ends up in the #2 position behind 21 (which collects $23.7 on more screens), but grabs a bigger per-screen average, dropping only 29.1% for the frame.

Superheroes Movie comes in #3, with $9.5 million in the hopper.

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Star Voices and Mainstream Movie-Makers

Big, A-list star? Then what was he doing making all those cheapie Sherlock Holmes pictures at Universal-International?

This article from down under complains about celebrities and their vocal cords taking over the sweet, pristine world of animation:

Horton is a shining example of the "all-audience animated comedy", in which celebrity voices spearhead a teflon-coated combination of pop culture references for the adults (Horton, for instance, loves "the smell of bananas in the morning") and kiddie-friendly cute critters, manic slapstick and soft-serve moralising.

Anyone looking for a culprit can blame Robin Williams. The whole celebrity voiceover thing reached critical mass after the comic voiced the genie in Aladdin to worldwide success in the 1992 Disney film ... The elevation of celebrities to the sine qua non of animation is reaching its logical endgame in influencing the appearance of the films. Remember Shark Tale, in which the shark voiced by Robert De Niro had his trademark mole and Angelina Jolie's fish her puffy lips? ...

Actually, the die was cast for celebrity voices in animated films decades ago, when mainstream Hollywood execs ripped animated features from the hands of Disney old-timers and stopped making them the way Uncle Walt did.

The new posse in town wanted full-blown scripts instead of storyboards ("I don't get these drawings on cork board at all. I gotta see a screenplay!"). And they wanted writers with full WGA credentials to write them.

.

They also desired 24-karat movie stars to voice the words in the script. Sometimes it worked -- as with Mr. Williams in Aladdin. And sometimes it didn't -- as with Brad Pitt in Sinbad.

The Aussie scribe misses one major point: It's not about celebrity voices per-se, or scripted animated films, or anything else. It's about dragging animated features out of the sleepy backwater they occupied at Disney for decades, where a bunch of middle-aged story artists nobody had ever heard of holed up in second-floor rooms in the old Animation Building turning out features like Bambi, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmations, Jungle Book and the like.

Face it. Mainstream Hollywood execs have held sway over animated features since the 1980s, and they're going to make them pretty close to the live action model they know and are comfortable with. (John Lasseter and Brad Bird deviate somewhat from this norm.)

The new way isn't bad, necessarily. But it's certainly different from the old Disney model.

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Employees Who Eat It

So I walk into this studio a few days ago and a chunk of the crew starts griping:

"The production exec here had us all into his office and handed out employment contracts" ... "He said how things are going well and they wanted to offer new personal service agreements" ...

"And he said 'If these aren't signed by the end of the day,' you can clean out your desks and leave'" ... "We kinda got ticked." ... "I don't know if I can keep working here" ...

It's been a little while since I've heard the "my way or the highway" routine rolled out for use, but it (sigh) happens. Along with other things.

Here are some of my favorite corporate maneuvers over the years:

* Companies demanding that salaries be kept confidential (which violates law).

* Companies that make animators salaried employees (which violates Federal regulations that say "animators" are non-exempt -- meaning they have to receive overtime wages).

* Companies that argue "at will" personal service contracts (where an employee can depart at any time) are really "term" contracts (where an employee can't).

That companies misstate, intimidate and sometimes blackmail people who work for them is nothing new. Executives and employees alike have been caught up in a system where budgets and bottom-lines have huge influence and impact for, like, ever. But as we move deeper into the current corporatist age, abuses have gotten worse. Government regulations are ignored with increasing impunity, labor unions regarded with growing contempt.

When I entered the business, studios paid overtime rates of double and triple time and seldom batted an eyelash. Now the watchword is: "There's no budget for overtime" even though premium pay is computed at time-and-a-half and double-time, even though employees are performing o.t. weekday nights and weekends.

As a union rep, I've had execs tell me it didn't matter if they bent or broke the law as long as "nobody takes us to court." I've seen willful violations of state laws, federal laws, and union contracts.

There are, of course, reasons that are given for violating law. Years ago outside Klasky-Csupo -- where we were conducting an organizing campaign and threatening to sponsor lawsuits for unpaid o.t. -- an angry production manager confronted me on the sidewalk:

"These people you say we're not paying premiums to! They wander around the studio all day visiting their buddies!" We're not going to pay them overtime for that! So they have to stay 'til midnight and get their freaking work done! It's their problem!"

My argument that it was the exec's responsibility to manage wandering employees and make them work during business hours fell on deaf ears. Ultimately we had four employees sign onto a suit for nonpayment of o.t. Ultimately we settled for seven thousand dollars. We never got close to a union contract, and Klasky-Csupo was just as non-union the day it went out of business as the day it started.

So what can animation employees do to protect themselves in 2008? For one, it's imperative you know your rights, because if you don't know rules and laws are being breached, there's minimal chance you'll do anything about it.

Keep track of work-hours. Document conversations. Keep files of memos and e-mails that flow back and forth. You might not ever have cause to use them, but it's hard to predict the future. As a discharged animator told me:

"When the studio cut me loose in the middle of my show, I had a strong work record and could prove it. They offered to give me a few months of severance, I wanted double what they were offering. I was polite about it at first, but they kept saying 'no way.'

Finally I had a meeting with a senior exec and detailed the notes and documents I'd kept over the years (I'd been there a long time). Some of the stuff was pretty unflattering to corporate management.

The executive wasn't pleased about the material I had, but the company's attitude changed. In the end, we reached a money settlement I was a lot happier with. After the check had been cut, they told me I should have been nicer about the negotiations. I told them "Yeah, I tried that at first. It got me nowhere.'"

In today's America, it's about money and leverage (have I mentioned this fifteen times before?). If you have more of the second thing you'll get more of the first. I tell people new to the business: "You don't have a lot of power when you start, that comes with time, when the perceived value of your skill sets rise. Don't expect to drive a hard bargain when your leverage is weak."

And those disgruntled crew members up at the top of this post? They didn't like the verbal gun that was pointed at their heads by the supervisor, but after I explained the clauses of the contract being forced on them; most decided it wasn't as awful as they'd orignally thought.

But the attitude of management still irritated them, and therein lies a lesson: In the movie business, people skills are important, especially when dealing with talent needed to create viable product. Companies that don't acquire that skill -- and some never catch on -- tend to be in existence for shorter periods than companies that do.

Sooner or later, bad business practices -- whatever they are -- bring coeporations down. Even in a corporatist age.

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Studio 401(k) Meets

Half the week has been spent with 401(k) enrollment meetings -- Disney, DreamWorks, Disney Television Animation and Nick. The drill is, do the meeting, then run from cubicle to cubicle, catching people who blanked out on the confab in the nearby conference room.

"Was that meeting today? I planned to go ... those things just creep up, don't they?"

The format is always the same: Pension Plan overview. How to fill out the forms. How to invest ("Allocate assets between stocks and bonds" ... "Diversify.")

The movie production front: At DreamWorks, crew is swinging off of Kung Fu Panda as the last few departments wrap up their work ...

At Disney, the lighting and surfacing departments on Bolt have cranked into high gear on the trailer, and have gotten word that the work flow is going to be ramping way up in the weeks ahead.

I got a bunch of questions today about overtime ...

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Midweek Linksfest

So many articles, so little time. (And I'm running around to studios the next few days, so a mid-week mini-festival of links is in order. I don't have time just now for a pithy think-piece.)

Director Kevin Lima expounds on his dreams and career:

[Re: Enchanted]: “How does a Disney animated film balance all of these [different] genres?” Because very, very often in those films, especially in the Renaissance of Disney animation with The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, they tended to balance a lot of different genres. You know, this movie is a romantic comedy, it’s a musical, it has action-adventure elements and it’s a 2D and 3D animated film, all in one. So, I looked back to what we had done with those classic films and used that in my structure.

(Variety details Lima's latest film project here).

Runaway production to Iowa (not just to the arid Middle East) ... where the corn is as high as a pachyderm's eye.

A family-owned animation company servicing the entertainment industry has moved to Winfield from Los Angeles after Iowa legislators created new tax incentives for film companies locating in the state.

The Iowa Film, Television and Video Project Promotion Program was passed in 2007 to provide tax incentives to attract the film industry, job diversity, and talent to the state. The Iowa Film Office of the Iowa Department of Economic Development operates the program.

“It created fertile ground for companies to relocate to Iowa,” said Stephen M. Jennings, founder and co-president of Grasshorse Technologies Inc. “It was the deciding factor in our transition to Iowa.”

Nick is trailing the Disney Channel into the wonderful world of live-action:

Nickelodeon will follow the Disney Channel into the live-action family-movie business in August with "Gym Teacher," a comedy starring Christopher Meloni ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit") as Dave Stewie, a humiliated Olympian turned "Rambo in polyester shorts and a whistle,"

On the other hand, a new cartoon series arrives on Nick in late April:

"The Mighty B!" [launches April 26], Amy Poehler's new cartoon series about Bessie Higgenbottom, an "aspirational superheroine who's kind of intense and gets advice from her index finger ..."

Disney is getting into the anime game, adapting some of its animation titles to the Japanese market:

US entertainment giant Walt Disney on Thursday unveiled pilot versions of television animation series it is producing in first-of-a-kind tie-ups with Japanese animation studios.

The move, first announced earlier this month, marks a change of strategy for Disney, which has traditionally distributed US-made characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck around the world.

A Japanese adaptation of the popular US "Lilo and Stitch" series will start in late 2008 as "the first Disney animation made in Japan and set in Japan," an official at the Japanese arm of Walt Disney said.

Okay, we're over the middle-of-the-week hump. I want everybody to sprint to the finish.

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Runaway to Abu Dhabi

Runaway production is often on animation employees' minds because it often impacts the munber of jobs in So Cal. We just, you know, never envisioned that the United Arab Republics and Dubai would figure in it so prominently:

MGM has inked a massive deal with Abu Dhabi-based real estate developer Sorouh and Jordanian animation shingle Rubicon to create an entertainment destination using MGM and Rubicon franchises ...

The U.S. is a prominent mid-east presence these days. What with the improvement projects now costing $12 billion per month in nearby Mesopatamia, money seems to be flying out the window. So it's nice to see moolah flowing the other way.

The multifaceted strategic alliance, which could be worth up to $1 billion once all the projects are completed, will include retail, leisure and entertainment facilities.

Execs are also looking into creating a dedicated film and TV production fund, as well as exploring the possibility of building an animation studio in oil-rich Abu Dhabi.

"We'll be working together to develop unique content for the region," said Rubicon chief exec Randa Ayoubi. "We will be bringing together East and West to get the best out of both worlds. We have so many stories to tell the rest of the world and actually make money out of it."

Scooby Doo produced in the UAR? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

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The Studio Roundabout

I spent the morning at Imagi, satellite studio of the Hong Kong c.g.i. animation company. They've got newer, larger quarters at the Galleria which are wonderfully decked out.

Astroboy is moving through pre-production. With the story more-or-less locked down, a c.g. crew is visualizing the characters and various environments.

"On other c.g. pictures I've worked on, 2-D designers drew up characters and handed off to the computer graphics crew. On this one, 2-D and 3-D artists are paired up and working together. It makes things go a lot smoother ..."

While Astroboy moves down its track, Gatchaman -- the other feature that's been in work -- is going through continuity and boarding changes.

Over at Nick, Madagascar Penguins is going full steam while El Tigre ends production after two years and 26 episodes.

Penguins is doing a lot of c.g. modelling and visualization work at the Burbank Studio. Animation will be done overseas.

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Health Plan Caps

This question was posted down below:

Is it true there is a 2 million dollar lifetime cap on union member's health care?

Good question. The plan book states: "Each participant or dependent is subject to a lifetime maximum of $2 million paid by the Active Health Plan for benefits ...(p. 44, Active Motion Picture Industry Health Plan Summary Plan Description, July 2007).

There's a few additional wrinkles to this, which anyone who's a participant in the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan should know about ...

Wrinkle One: The lifetime maximum will be reduced to the extent such type of benefits have been paid by the Writers' Guild-Industry Health Fund, Directors Guild of American-Producer Health Plan, Screen Actors Guild-Producers Health Plan, AFTRA Health Fund or successor plans.

Wrinkle Two: The Plan office informs me that once an Active Health Plan participant becomes a Retired Health Plan participant, the Retiree health benefit cap starts at zero, and a retiree is good for another $2 million worth of benefits ...

Lastly: I'm giving you general info here, not holy writ. For the complete Summary Plan document, you need only click here, and all the glorious details of the (Active) Motion Picture Health Plan will be revealed to you.

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At Will Employment? Term Agreements?

Employment of animation artists, writers and technicians go two directions at the bigger studios these days.

Route #1: People are hired "at will", meaning somebody gets employed at the start of a project and laid off at the end, no muss, no fuss and (mostly) no personal service contracts. (This is the road Disney Animation Studios and most television cartoon shops currently travel.)

Route #2: People are employed after signing a Personal Service Contract.

These contracts are either "term" (guaranteeing the employee a defined period of employment, say "June 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009") ...

Or "at will" (meaning no defined period of employment, just the phrase "employed until such time as services are no longer required" embedded somewhere in the document).

Now. Why am I going through this tedious, legalistic crapola? Because, from recent evidence, studios using Personal Service Contracts have undergone a sea change. They are now paying closer attention to which employees are "at will" and which not because of a 2006 California Supreme Court ruling:

... [I]n Dore v. Arnold Worldwide, Inc. ... an employment contract containing an "at will" clause and without a definite term for employment means that either an employer or an employee can terminate that contract without cause and without explanation. The particular contract in issue in this case included a provision that the termination could occur "at any time" ...

What we were seeing a year and a half back were PSCs (Personal Service Contracts) that had mushy language about artists being employed for "run of picture", but without any guarantee of long-term employment.

The animation guild kept saying: "Hey, this is an at will contract, you can lay your employee off when you want, so your employee can leave when she wants."

But some studios kept telling us: "Oh no! These are term deals. These folks have to stay until the end of their assignment. Forget that there are no hard end dates."

Now, however, "run of picture" PSCs are giving way to contracts that are actual term deals ("May 1, 2008 to May 2, 2009").

It took the California Supreme Court to do this. When it was just little us, some 'toon factories maintained that "at will" agreements were really "term." Interesting what a few well-placed judges can do.

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Our long nightmare is over ...

The blog glitch is fixed, and clicking on "Click here to read entire post" will no longer open a separate window.

leonsooi and fabianv had it right on the money, there was indeed a target='_blank' tag hiding in the template code ... we haven't done anything to the template since the format change, so why it took so long to behave that way I have no idea.

Anyway, resume your normal activities.

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Animation Overseas

Horton and other animated/live-action features prosper abroad as well as at home:

As in the U.S., school holidays drove international markets during the weekend, with "10,000 BC" maintaining its No. 1 overseas spot for the third consecutive stanza ...

Placing a close No. 2 was 20th Century Fox International's "Dr. Suess' Horton Hears A Who!" The Blue Sky Studios animation title drew an estimated $25.2 million from 6,600 screens in 49 territories, and at least 10 of those were new, including the U.K. (with $6.1 million including previews from 508 screens) and Australia ($2.5 million from about 350 sites). The overseas cume is $50 million, with $136.5 million worldwide.

Capitalizing on the holiday season, Paramount opened "The Spiderwick Chronicles" in 29 markets, nabbing an estimated $15.6 million on the weekend overall from 3,642 screens in 51 territories and grabbing the No. 3 spot. The film's overseas cume stands at $30.1 million.

Other international cume updates: New Line's "The Golden Compass," $276.6 ... and Fox's "Alvin and the Chipmunks," $138 million.

Not too shabby. Alvin, Horton, 10k, Spiderwick, Golden Compass and probably a couple I've left off are all doing swimmingly at foreign and/or domestic box offices.

So we can see that there is a poop-load of animation doing well around the world.

The point to be made: the success of animation in the marketplace leads directly to more animation jobs. Which explains why the number of those jobs worldwide is at an all time high.

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The Technical Glitch

For some reason or other, everytime someone clicks on Click here to read entire post, they get the entire post, but in an entirely new window.

Which drives some people crazy. It sort of drives me crazy.

We're rummaging around, trying to discover what causes this strange phenomenon, but until we do, you're probably going to get a new window to read entire post.

One more thing. There's no need to Click there to read entire post, because this is the entire post.

You may now return to your normal pursuits.

Text below the break goes here.

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Easter Box Office

For Friday, Horton Hears a Who remains on top of the heap with $10.5 million and a $71,870,000 total after eight days ...

Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns ends up a strong second with $8,200,000.

And Drillbit Taylor, Mr. Apatow's latest, arrives at #4 with $4,000,000.

Update: Horton stays on top, racking up another $25 million in its second weekend (44% decline). It now owns $86,470,000 of the nation's theater-going coin.

Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns (at #2) is the only other feature to break into the charmed $20+ million circle.

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Linkdom

One more load of linkage, starting with the return and restoration of Disney artwork left in a museum closet for a few decades:

Disney said that the art — cels, backgrounds, preliminary paintings and storyboard sketches — was part of a collection that was handpicked by Walt Disney himself. It was sent to Japan in 1960 for a touring exhibition timed to the opening of the film “Sleeping Beauty.” The exhibition opened at Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo in May of that year and traveled to 16 other stores throughout Japan.

“Walt wanted to explain every element of the animation process, so he chose artwork from all phases of production and a number of films,” said Lella Smith, creative director of the Disney Animation Research Library in Burbank, Calif., which preserves the studio’s artwork. “But the primary focus was ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ ”

Although most of the art is from that film, the collection also includes rare set-ups (cel and background combinations) from two Oscar-winning Silly Symphony cartoons: “Flowers and Trees” (1932), the first Technicolor cartoon and the first film to win the Academy Award for animated short film, and the landmark short “Three Little Pigs” (1933).

The Indian animation company Toonz is apparently kicking into a higher gear:

Toonz started out in 1999 as an animation subcontractor doing the unglamorous legwork for companies that controlled the creative process from the U.S. or elsewhere in Asia. But three years later it made a conscious decision to quit the service sector and take control of its own destiny. The gamble paid off, and Toonz is now courted by potential partners and negotiates its own deals with intellectual property owners and distributors. "We are no longer beggars," says founder and chairman Prabhakaran Jayakumar.

Proof of that is evident from Toonz's slate. Company is partnered with Hallmark on 78-episode kids serial "Finley, the Fire Truck," is hitched with Ashok Amritraj's Hyde Park on "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus," and with Marvel on the $10 million "Wolverine and the X-Men" series. It recently delivered a direct-to-video feature, "Dragonlance," for Paramount Pictures.

"We went and licensed 'Wolverine' from Marvel, we are doing the production and the packaging," says Jayakumar. "On 'Dragonlance,' we went to Hasbro and it was us who approached Paramount."

Company also develops its own content for the Indian market, notably India's first homegrown animated series, "The Adventures of Tenali Raman," and "Geet Mahabarat." ...

DreamWorks Animation has gone and hired itself a new topkick for development:

DreamWorks Animation SKG has named Alex Schwartz head of development, responsible for overseeing the development of all projects at the toon factory. She fills the position vacated by Kristine Belson, who will produce the studio's upcoming feature film, Crood Awakening [This is Chris Sanders' project.].

“As we see the line between live action and animation continue to blur, we are eager to broaden our slate and bring new talent into the studio,” says Bill Damaschke, co-president of production at DreamWorks Animation.

The New Wall*E trailer (like, if you haven't seen it) is here.

Starz Media is producing an animated version of Electronic Arts's Dead Space.:

EA will partner with Starz Media which will produce an animated film for TV and DVDs which will appear at the same time that Dead Space launches this Halloween. The game is akin a third-person shooting game where a crew aboard a mining ship has to deal with the discovery of a strange artifact and the aliens that come with it.

This move is part of a clear strategy by Electronic Arts to turn its video games into cross-media entertainment franchises. EA realizes that movie and book licenses are becoming increasingly expensive. It also sees that Hollywood studios such as Warner Bros. are investing heavily in their own video game divisions ...

Actually this baby is already well into work. Board artists were working away on it when I ambled through the studio last week. But now that it's been announced on the internets, I can unsipper my big mouth.

The L.A. Times profiles a tribute to two of animation's finest:

[Tex Avery and Michael Maltese], who worked briefly together at Warner Bros. in the 1930s and remained good friends, were both born in 1908 -- which is why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is presenting a double centennial tribute, "Putting Looney in the Toons," on Monday at the Linwood Dunn Theater.

"We're showing about a dozen cartoons in their entirety that will reflect their individual accomplishments," programmer Randy Haberkamp says. "And we're running sound clips and a couple of other pieces that will serve to give them a little bit of voice as far as them talking about their own work." (Avery died in 1980; Maltese, in 1981.)

Maltese's daughter, Brenda, is also scheduled to talk about her dad. "He was always funny . . . he had charisma," she says. "He would walk in a room and take over." ...

Her father, she says, used his home environment for his art. "He took a lot of [his ideas] from our animals. We had dogs and cats, and he would pick up on anything."

The dvd for Enchanted is now out, and visual references in the flick to various Disney animated features have been flogged until the bones show. Even so, Rope of Silicon has taken the time to line a lot of them up:

The Academy Awards and Annies aren't the only animation awards out there. Far across the sea, India also holds an awards contest:

... Tech 2 and Arena Animation in association with Aptech and CNBC 18 held the Golden Cursor Animation Awards on 20 March, 2008 in Mumbai.

The event saw a massive turnout in terms of the who's who in the Indian Animation Industry. These awards were awarded in 21 categories including best Indian and international feature film (animation). The guests of honor included Speedy comic strip creator Tim Mostert and Spark Unlimited Animation director and co-founder Sunil Thankamushy.

Percept Studios won two awards for Return of Hanuman for Best Animated Film (Abhishek Nayyar) and Best Animated Background Score (Tapas Reliya) ...

An exhibit of the works of one Carl Barks is now up for viewing at a Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Baltimore:

... Born to Oregon farmers in 1901, Barks spent years as a laborer and struggling cartoonist before joining Walt Disney's animation team in 1935. In 1942, he left the studio, due to health reasons, and tried farming. But he soon began writing and drawing comic books, anonymously, for Western (aka Dell and Whitman), the publisher of Disney comics. After a time drawing all sorts of characters, he settled on Donald Duck comics, and over the next quarter century ... created Duckburg, Uncle Scrooge, Gyro Gearloose, and other familiar characters and settings and cartooned hundreds of duck tales in titles such as Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.

...The chance to see a full original story is an opportunity that can't be passed up for anyone interested in Barks or comic-book history in general. To connect with an artist, to reflect on his life and work, there may be no better way to do so than seeing his actual pencil and ink lines, to see the whiteout and other corrections. Despite the somewhat clumsy gallery configuration and Barks' too-slick line work on "Yukon," his skills still shine. He sweeps his characters along in this story of Uncle Scrooge, Donald, and his nephews heading to Alaska to prevent some chiseler from taking Scrooge's fortune ...

Have a productive yet restful Easter weekend. And please, don't over indulge in chocolate eggs and rabbits.

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