WDAS' Prep and Landing slated to return

We touted the Emmy Award winning achievements of the WDAS team on Prep and Landing a couple of months ago. Imagine our pleasure when we learned that Disney was going to release more of the enjoyable duo of Lanny and Wayne.

"Prep & Landing" returns this season with an all new 7-Minute animated short, "Operation: Secret Santa," airing on ABC in December, while the half-hour animated special, "Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice," debuts in 2011. "Prep & Landing" became an instant favorite with viewers and emerged as TV's number 1 holiday special in the 2009 season. It was also the highest kids rating (kids 2-11/ 7.5/23), for any primetime telecast on broadcast TV in 2009. The special went on to win four Emmy Awards.

Commenting on the announcement, [John] Lasseter said, "We had so much fun making the first 'Prep & Landing' special, and the response from the audience and our colleagues in the industry was so terrific, that we wanted to bring these great characters back for more holiday fun. Kevin [Deters] and Stevie [Wermers-Skelton] have done an amazing job writing and directing these films, and everyone at Walt Disney Animation Studios has pitched in to make them truly extraordinary entertainment. Wayne, Lanny and the rest of our animated cast are funnier than ever in 'Operation: Secret Santa' and 'Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice;' we know they will become holiday favorites."

Congrats to the folk at Disney Animation who are working on this project. We're looking forward to being entertained by your work once again.

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Candidate statement: Mike Roth

Candidate for Executive Board

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Thank you for your nomination. I've worked in animation for fifteen years in both NYC and LA as an animator, writer, director and producer.  I'm running because I would like to give something back to what I believe is one of the most important contributors to the health of our industry: our Union.  If elected, I'll work to expand the involvement and excitement of more of our younger members and future hopefuls. This is key to our Union's growth and strength and will help to secure the futures of all our members. Thank you for your consideration. 

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Here is the 2010 candidate slate.
Here are the candidate statements posted to date for the 2010 TAG officers' election.

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Behind the scenes at The Simpsons

The British graffiti artist Banksy is credited with designing the opening sequence of Sunday night's episode of The Simpsons (the first 1:45 of the episode).

Kudos to KC Johnson for directing, and apologies for the advertising ... the cost of posting it legally.

More commentary on the opening.

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Update on How To Train Your Dragon 2

Considering the success that How to Train your Dragon achieved, the announcement of a sequel back in April should have been no surprise to anyone. With the release of the DVD coming soon, Dreamworks has released some details as to the new film's line-up and creative team:

The second chapter to the critically acclaimed 2010 blockbuster, How to Train Your Dragon – which has grossed nearly $500 million at the worldwide box office – will again feature the all-star voice talents of Jay Baruchel, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, TJ Miller and Kristen Wiig.

The sequel is being made under the creative guidance of Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders, and Bonnie Arnold. It is written and directed by DeBlois and produced by Arnold. Once again based on the book series by Cressida Cowell, the sequel is executive produced by Sanders and DeBlois.

My feelings on stereoscopic cinema are well documented on this blog. However, I have to admit that I did not catch Dragon in the theaters when it was out. The reports I've heard speak well of the stereo-work.

I look forward to purchasing the DVD and watching the film, albiet in two-dimensional squalor. I also look forward to 2013 when I can support our members by going to see the second installment of this story while donning the dimensional goggles. Click here to read entire post

Pres Romanillos: A Celebration of Life

A celebration of the life and achievements of Pres Romanillos has been planned for November 5th at the Walt Disney Studios Main Theater.

The full details of the gathering have not been finalized. There will be speakers and opportunities to share experiences and memories. The event will be hosted by Charles Solomon.

Kevin Koch has posted about this on the Pres-Aid website. As more details of the evening are posted on the site, we will make them available here as well.

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Foreign Box Office

The big summer rollouts for animated features have almost run their course. The latest numbers:

... No. 2 on the weekend overall was Universal's "Despicable Me," which garnered $16.6 million from 3,500 venues in 35 territories, hoisting its overseas cume to $135.5 million. ... No. 3 was Warner's "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole," which opened in first place in Mexico and drew $11.3 million overall on the weekend from 4,500 situations in 35 markets. Cume ... stands at $25.8 million. ...

Disney's "Toy Story 3," $644.4 million .... Fox's "Fantastic Mr. Fox," $25.5 million. ...

And Box Office Mojo still has "Shrek Foever After" tracking globally at $731.8 million (rounded.)

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Stan Lee and Digital Comics

Huff Post reports on comic book veteran Stan Lee's newest venture:

MTV ... is joining forces with Lee's POW Entertainment to create a new digital comic series called "The Seekers."

"It involves superheroes, it involves a very high-concept plot, it's a story such as you never have seen before, and it spans the centuries," Lee said ...

Stan Lee Media had a short, red-hot run in the 1990s. But it ended up like many other dot com businesses of the time, owning a profit and loss model that did not work. (And it was less than helpful that Mr. L.'s business partner turned out to be not entirely honest ...)

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Candidate statement: Bronwen Barry

Candidate for Executive Board; incumbent

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I have been a proud member of  TAG (Local 839) since ‘77, have served on the Executive Board since ‘93, and was elected Trustee in ‘07.
While as a Board member I always welcome any and all inquiries from TAG members regarding union matters which may be of concern, I feel I could be particularly effective in continuing my focus on issues affecting us all as we age in this industry.
I would be most honored and privileged to serve again should you, the Membership, choose to re-elect me.
Many thanks for your consideration,
Bronwen "Bronnie" Barry

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Here is the 2010 candidate slate.
Here are the candidate statements posted to date for the 2010 TAG officers' election.

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The Weekend Box Office

Nikke Finke has numbers, and the owls are still with us:

1. Life As We Know It (Warner Bros) NEW [3,150 Theaters] -- Friday $5M, Estimated Weekend $15M

2. The Social Network (Sony) Week 2 [2,771 Theaters] -- Friday $4.5M (-43%), Estimated Weekend $15M, Estimated Cume $45.4M

3. Secretariat (Disney) NEW [3,072 Theaters] -- Friday $4.2M, Estimated Weekend $14.5M

4. My Soul To Take (Rogue Pictures/Universal) NEW [2,572 Theaters] -- Friday $2.5M, Estimated Weekend $7M

5. Legends of the Guardian: The Owls (Warner Bros) Week 3 [3,225 Theaters] -- Friday $1.8M, Estimated Weekend $6.8M, Estimated Cume $39.3M

The birds are hanging in there, but they don't look like they're going to gain a lot of elevation.

On Thursday, Box Office Mojo had "Alpha and Omega" tracking at #11 with $19.5 million.

Update: "Legends" has a good hold -- third best for a Top Tenner -- and collects $7 million for a total of $39.4 million.

Other animated features trundle along: "Alpha and Omega" drops 49% to #14 for a $21 million total. "Toy Story 3" shoots back up to #17, collects half a million new dollars and now stands at $412 million. "Despicable Me", down at #22, has (to date) collected $246.5 million.

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The "Hey, Let's Find A Job" Game, by Tina Kugler

Originally published in the May 2006 Peg-Board, and on the TAG Blog on May 16, 2006. Click the thumbnail for a larger image.
Tina's blog.

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Happy birthday, John

In honor of his seventieth birthday. And yes, it's an ad for Satan - but it's still cool.

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Candidate statement: Gordon Kent

Candidate for Executive Board

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I’ve been a member of the Animation Union since 1977 when I was an inbetweener at Hanna-Barbera. Since then I’ve worked at most of the major studios and been involved in most aspects of animation including storyboard, writing and story editing, producing, voice directing and, most currently, timing direction. I believe in a strong union and I believe that strength is best achieved through involvement. I hope you will allow me the privilege of getting involved.

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Here is the 2010 candidate slate. Here are the candidate statements posted to date for the 2010 TAG officers' election.

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Ballots mailed - and the candidate statements begin

Today, the American Arbitration Association is mailing ballots to the active membership of the Animation Guild. Next week, we will be mailing a special election issue of The Peg-Board containing statements from candidates for contested positions in this year's officer election.

Meanwhile, starting today the candidates' Peg-Board statements will appear on the TAG Blog every other day through November 3, a week-and-a-half before the ballots are counted.

Here is the 2010 candidate slate.

Again, to remind you of our policy: Electioneering will not be allowed on the TAG Blog. Until the ballots are counted on November 13, all comments on the blog will be moderated, and off-topic comments will be blocked.

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No 3D for HP7.1?

Warner Bros. was quoted in today's Variety announcing that, contrary to previous publicity, they will not be releasing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 in 3D on November 19. However, they said that Part 2 would be released on July 15, 2011 in both 2D and 3D.

Studio said Friday that it wasn't able to convert the film in its entirety and meet the "highest standards of quality" in time for next month's release.

"We do not want to disappoint fans who have long-anticipated the conclusion of this extraordinary journey, and to that end, we are releasing our film day-and-date on November 19, 2010 as planned," the studio said. "We, in alignment with our filmmakers, believe this is the best course to take in order to ensure that our audiences enjoy the consummate "Harry Potter" experience."

It may be significant that they did not say whether they might release in 3D at some future time, only that it wouldn't be seen in 3D on November 19.

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Organizer's Notes .. When did Union become a bad word?

Growing up, I can remember seeing Norma Rae and trying to understand what unions did for their members. I also remember hearing about the benefits of the collective voice and wondering how my self-employed father could get those benefits. I grew up knowing what the acronyms SAG and UAW meant and who the Teamsters were. I remember thinking of how great it must be to be part of a group that worked with the company to make sure that working conditions were kept up in order to maintain employee satisfaction and therefore profitability and productivity.

When did all that change? When did being a member of a Union change into something that needs to be kept hidden?

At the risk of being labeled a Marxist, its pretty easy to point a finger at Big Business/Republicans and say that the money hungry bourgeois have spread their propaganda against the tools available to the working class designed to bring a modicum of comfort and peace of mind. When you strip away the rhetoric, who really benefits from vilifying organized labor?

Organized Labor stems from the needs of the workers to unite in collective action to secure fair and equitable wages and working conditions. To achieve this, a balance of the decision making "power" in the workplace had to be forged. Through decades of negotiations and concessions, contracts and agreements were hammered out giving the workers leverage and a voice in the operations of the workplace.

Within the last 30 years, union membership in our United States has seen a significant drop. This link shows a more linear decline from 1948 to 2004 with a steep turn in the decade between 1974 and 1984. There are multitudes of theories bandied about that ascribe reasons for this shift. Market globalization, the crash of the auto industry and the increase in resistance on the part of corporate management being the most prominent.

There is still one unshakable fact that this Organizer can't get past. The reasons for labor organization haven't changed because the desire to make money hasn't changed. The entertainment industry will remain because people want to go to the movies and turn on their televisions to be amused; and are willing to pay for it. That money then gets distributed back to the people who sat in their seats to: write the story, draw the character, model the cast, paint the textures .. among the other tasks it takes to get the production done. These artists will consistently be the ones who will be asked to sacrifice in order for the companies/producers to get more for their buck.

And therein lies the struggle. So, no matter how many websites are built by mischievous organizations aimed at disseminating false and scandalous information about Labor Organizations, the need for worker protection against wage and workplace violations will still exist. Our vigilance and contractual protection, matched with a seamless cloak of health and pension benefits across the industry, remains the strongest option for the artist who just wants to exercise their skills and enjoy a long and prosperous life.

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Mike Myers stinks

You can already start to smell the bad jokes. In the words of Danny Cox of the New Orleans Examiner:

Sometimes even the cartoon characters you thought were gone for good are brought back to life. And in a big way too.

Warner Bros. is currently developing a live-action/CGI movie (aren't they all?) based on the French animated skunk, Pepe Le Pew from Looney Tunes. Mike Myers (Austin Powers) is attached to voice our foul friend.

The studio is said to be incredibly high on bringing the giant cast of animated characters back to life considering how much money in licensing revenue is used for them each year. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, and Foghorn Leghorn are just a few of the other icons on the Looney Tunes roster.

Jeff Sneider of thewrap.com says:

According to Vulture, only Pepe and his unrequited love interest, Penelope Pussycat, would be CGI characters, while the rest of the film will be live-action, just like "Garfield," "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and the upcoming "Yogi Bear."

Jaime Weisman of Macleans.com points out:

This does give me the opportunity to post this cartoon, which I think would be the only one that could serve as a template for a Pepe Le Pew feature. All the other Pepe cartoons have the stalker/attempted rape issue that Dave Chappelle and others have pointed out. But in this 1959 film, the girl cat is actually as interested in Pepe as he is in her. The problem is that they can’t get together because he smells so terrible that it makes her pass out (for which she’s taunted by June Foray as the narrator: “You are not going to let a little thing like breathing stand in your way?!”). It was written by the great Michael Maltese; oddly, the only cartoon that departs from the usual Pepe formula was not directed by the creator, Chuck Jones, but by one of his animators, Abe Levitow — leading many cartoon buffs to wonder if Jones would have accepted this change-of-pace script if he’d been in the director’s chair.

Weisman is wrong -- there's a similar twist in the Jones-directed "For Scent-imental Reasons," the Oscar-winning third Pepe Le Pew short.

The Macleans article concludes:

WB is planning these projects because their cartoon characters don’t make anywhere near the money in merchandising that the Disney characters do. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I will point out something I’ve pointed out elsewhere: Disney, for the most part, allows Mickey and Donald and Goofy cartoons to stay on YouTube. Some of them have been there for years. Meanwhile, Warner Brothers is constantly cracking down on YouTube uploads of Bugs, Daffy and Pepe cartoons. Do they not think Disney cartoons might get some extra merchandising value from the fact that they’re actually there, on the biggest video site in the world, where kids can see them?

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Glenn Beck responds ...

... to this.

Having spent the last week bending over backwards to be fair to all sides, it came as second nature for me to post this.

And I'm sure that in return he'll be more than happy to run our rebuttals to his broadcasts.

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Dreamworks wants to take a stab at Master Chief's movie

DreamWorks is attempting to pick up the rights to a Halo film. However, if history is any kind of teacher, it could be a bad decision.

The halting, years-long effort to turn Microsoft’s $2 billion Halo video-game franchise into a movie is again moving forward [..] DreamWorks Pictures is renewing its efforts to obtain the rights and revive the project, which has been in a state of suspended animation since late 2006. It's obvious why this property seems even more valuable now. Halo: Reach grossed $200 million on its very first day in release last month, making it 2010's best-selling game. But after Fox and Universal already dumped millions of dollars into developing the project only to come up with nothing, why does DreamWorks seem so intent on trying, and how will they steal away with this franchise without getting sucked into the other two studios' money pit?

[After] all of these years, many wonder whether the idea of a Halo movie is an impossibility. Because while Hollywood politics derailed the first go-round, there are also Microsoft politics that lay in wait. Somebody has to be in control of a movie; it’s a director’s medium. But they’re completely averse to that. Because if Steven Spielberg [screws] it up, what’s your recourse? So the rule is: ‘First, do no harm.’

Maybe so, but if anyone has enough street cred to get Microsoft to relax, it's Spielberg. One can imagine him casually turning to Microsoft's Steve Ballmer at dinner and murmuring, "Halo's only made $2 billion worldwide? I thought it was like, a big deal or something? I mean, my films have grossed $8.5 billion worldwide, so ... well. Anyway, who'd like dessert?"

Hollywood has been scraping and scrounging for movie ideas for a very long time now. If films of popular cartoons and children's books can make a mint, why not the most popular video game of 2010?

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We're not the only ones with career problems

From the Medium Large webcomic by Francesco Marciuliano.

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Right Wing Radio Duck

Regardless of your political affiliation, you gotta admire the skill and humor of this "mix video". Thanks to Tom Sito for bringing it to our attention.

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