Henson Digital Puppetry

Netflix is hungry for entertainments for little kids, and rolls a new one out on Friday:

hThe first season of Word Party will have a total of 26 episodes and each show will be 11-minutes long.

The animated series was created by Bruce McCulloch and is produced by The Jim Henson Company. The directors for Word Party are Bret Nelson, David Skelly, and Brian Henson. ...

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The Henson Co. is producing the series in L.A. and using a form of mo-cap (see below). Henson is located at the old Chaplin studios in Hollywood.




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Speaking Of Stop Motion

It's not just getting made in China. Will Vinton's old studio has dropped another trailer.



Kubo and the Two Strings rolls into a multiplex near you on August 19th, deep into the summer. Of course, this is a summer that's chock full of animated features. (One comes out the end of the week, something about dogs and other pets). Then there's an offering from Blue Sky Studios entitled Ice Age: Collision Course, and then, a week before Kubo, we'll be treated to the immortal Sausage Party.

So yeah. A full summer. And a "cascading over the brim" kind of year for animated cartoons.

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Stop Motion From The Middle Kingdom

An entertainment journal tells us:

London-based GFM Films and Bill Schultz’s Home Plate Entertainment Company are teaming to develop and produce feature-length stop-motion animated pic, Codename Housewife: The Case Of The Missing Rock Stars (WT). The fish-out-of-water-meets-secret-agent musical comedy is based on the Korean short film, Code Name: Azumma: The Missing Rock Stars, and will be directed by Oscar-winner Will Vinton and Korean claymation helmer Hong Sukhwa. Jim Cox (FernGully, Oliver & Co) is writing the script.

Former Simpsons producer Schultz is producing with GFM providing next stage development finance together with UK-based White & Company. Animation will be carried out at the Pangao Studio in Beijing, under an agreement between China Film Group and Home Plate Entertainment. ...

Here's the Korean featurette on which the Chinese feature will be based.

It's good to see Will Vinton, who hasn't been too active in the animation game the past ten years, directing another animated movie. How the Chinese studio will work out, time will reveal.

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WGA Wages

From Deadline:

Earnings by members of the WGA West topped $1 billion last year for a fifth year in a row, although total employment was down 1.6% from the previous year, according to the guild’s latest earnings report.

Film writers, who have seen a steady erosion of income over the last 20 years, saw a 1.9% increase in earnings last year and employment was up 3.6% to 1,799 jobs. Even so, except for 2013 and 2014, last year’s $362.1 million in film earnings was lower than every year since 1997.

Television continues to be the booming marketplace for writers, who earned more than twice as much last year as film writers. And although TV writers saw a 2% decline in earnings from record levels in 2014, they topped $800 million for a second year in a row – double their earnings in 2000. ...

The guild’s foreign levies program distributed another $12.4 million to writers and heirs during the last fiscal year. To date, the program has collected more than $218 million on behalf of guild members and their heirs.

The Writers Guild collects foreign levies on behalf of animation writers. Several years ago, the Animation Guild joined a lawsuit initiated by foreign and American writers over the way the WGAw has administered foreign levy money. That case was ultimately settled.

Our fine entertainment conglomerates receive a chunk of the foreign levy cash paid out to creators in the United States, but not in most foreign countries. Many nations overseas have "moral rights" for writers and directors embedded in law, so many individual creators get 100% of the levy money. Thanks to congressional action in 1912, that doesn't happen in the U.S. of A.

The Animation Guild has been jousting with the WGAw over foreign levies for two decades. Nevertheless, we're pleased to see that television writers are making more money, even if movie scribes are not.

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Animation Vs. Animation

Let the cannibalizing begin!

Illumination Entertainment/Universal’s The Secret Life Of Pets is headed to the No. 1 spot next weekend at the nation’s box office with tracking showing a higher gross than what conventional wisdom is thinking. While tracking has the new animated family film opening around $80 million-$90 million, we’re thinking that Disney’s Finding Dory could swim away with anywhere between $25M-$30M next weekend to nip at Pets’ heels. ...

Pets has already opened overseas, but in only six markets. As a precursor of what we expect to come across international, it had No. 1 openings in all of them. ...

Having two animated features in the marketplace ... or three for that matter ... is only a problem if you're a media outlet looking for an angle about Cartoon A "crowding out" Cartoon B.

Because, honest to Pete. Animated movies are really a lot like live-action movies. Each is separate and distinct. "Animated features" are NOT a genre, but a method used to tell a story. They chew into each other only if they're perceived as being "the same".

Pets and Dory will have their own fans. Some of those fans will overlap, just like in live-action.

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Samurai J.

CN/Adult Swim dropped this a few days ago ...



It's been up 'round and about, but I've got a few information bits from staff at Cartoon Network. ...

Unlike almost every animated TV show in the 21st century, the new episodes of Samurai Jack are not aided and abetted with animatics. I'm informed that Genndy doesn't want them, so they're not being used.

Of course, twenty years back, nobody had ever done story reels -- which is all that animatics are -- for television cartoons, as doing story reels on film were deemed too expensive. Today, digital story reels known as animatics are ubiquitous across the industry, but not for Samurai Jack.

When Genndy Tartakovsky left Sony to return to Cartoon Network and work on SJ, there were no plans for him to work on Hotel Transylvania 3. He was done with the franchise, and that was what he told many (including moi). But time passed. And by and by Sony blatted out a press release stating that Genndy T. had been signed to the third installment.

My spies and stoolies tell me that Mr. Tartakovsky had no intention of going back for a third bite at the Transylvanian apple, however Sony made him a very appealing offer, so he's returning to Culver City.

My spies and stoolies also say that there will be some overlap between the end of Samurai Jack and the start of HT3, so for a bit of a while Genndy Tartakovsky will have some extra heavy work weeks, fitting both projects into his schedule.

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Animation Guild Golden Award Interviews #30 -- Al Bertino and Morey Zukor

Here on the glorious 4th, we present (in conjunction with H. Deneroff) two unsung foot soldiers of animation's First Golden Age:

Both Al Bertino and Morey Zukor commenced their animation careers in the mid 1930s. Mr. Bertino started at Mintz in 1934 before moving on to Harom-Ising and then Disney. He worked his way up through the ranks at the House of Mouse, ultimately working at WED in the middle sixties.



Al Bertino passed away in 1996 at the age of 84. ...

Morey Zukor (brother of animator Lou Zukor), began animation work at Tat's Tales in 1935. From TT he migrated to Ub Iwerks' studio, where he was one of a small group of pot-stirrers who tried to unionize the place. (The horror! The HORROR!)



Recruited by the Fleischers' Florida Studio at the end of the '30s, he labored on Gulliver's Travels and other projects before getting drafted into the U.S. Army.

After the service, he worked at Disney, M-G-M, and finally Filmation, where he spent more than a decade. Morey Zukor died in 1999, aged 83.

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International Box Office

Fish seem to dominate the international box office, but there are lots of other movies with CG animation.

WEEKEND FOREIGN BOX OFFICE -- (WORLD TOTALS)

Finding Dory -- $34,400,000 -- ($538,300,000)

The Legend of Tarzan -- $18,800,000 -- ($56,900,000)

Independence Day 2 -- $40,200,000 -- ($249,700,000)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- $30,500,000 -- ($188,700,000)

The Secret Life of Pets -- $11,900,000 -- ($29,600,000)

Warcraft -- $6,200,000 -- ($202,000,000)

The Jungle Book -- $1,700,000 -- ($934,000,000)

The Angry Birds Movie -- $1,300,000 -- ($231,100,000) ...

And a journal of entertainment tells us:

The 5th film in the Fox/Blue Sky Studios Ice Age franchise launched in seven international markets, this frame and scurried to $20M from 5,291 screens. ...

The Jungle Book in weekend 13 is softening its roar, for now. A $1.7M frame internationally brings the global tally to $934M. Korea added $1.3M this weekend for a total $18M. This is in advance of the final market – Japan – bowing on August 11.

Sony’s The Angry Birds Movie flapped up another $1.3M this weekend from over 2,900 screens in 71 total markets to take the international cume to $231.1M. Japan is the next key release, in October.

Fox’s X-Men: Apocalypse brought together $1M 22 holdover markets. The offshore cume is now $375M with Japan coming up, also on August 11.

Zootopia is playing out internationally with Japan adding $900K in its 9th weekend of release. The cume there is $68.5M, helping bring the global tally to $1,019.1M.

The Secret Life of Pets has now bowed at No. 1 in all markets where it has opened. This weekend, it added $11.9M in a total of six for a cume of $29.6M. Taiwan led launches with $1.9M for the biggest animation debut weekend of 2016 and the second-biggest opening weekend for an original animation of all time behind Madagascar. ...

Finding Dory has now finned out to 40 international territories with a cume of $166M. Together with its record-breaking domestic run, the global total on the Pixar sequel is $538.2M. ...

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The Guild Contract - One Year In

THE 2015-2018 TAG CONTRACT

We are twelve months into the latest Animation Guild contract, one of the best the Guild has negotiated in many a moon. 363 days ago:

There were no rollbacks in wage minimums, and TAG negotiated higher contribution hours for storyboard artists working under "unit rates", as well as improved hours for freelance timing directors.

Contract talks started on Monday and continued until late Wednesday night. Negotiations are never a walk through a flower-filled meadow, but this contract session was less rancorous than the 2012 talks, and achieved better results. ...

The good news? One year later, there have NEVER been more people working in the cartoon biz in the whole history of Los Angeles animation. And more freelancers are getting more pension and health coverage hours, thanks to the Guild's success in negotiating increases for freelance rates.

The less-good news? The New Media sideletter allows studios to pay below Guild minimums for artists and writers working on Netflix and Amazon shows delivered via the internet. DreamWorks Animation TV in particular is taking advantage of sideletter language and paying less for some storyboard artists -- especially new ones -- and rookie animation writers.

New Media rates will no doubt be a major issue in contract negotiations two years hence.

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The Granddad of Hollywood Entertainment Unions

Eight-three years ago this week - A group of actors met in secret at Frank (The Wizard of Oz) Morgan' house and formed the Screen Actors Guild. The secrecy was because studios threatened to blacklist anyone who so much as breathed the word "union."

Among the founding members that night were James Cagney, Groucho Marx, Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, Frederic March, Robert Montgomery and Boris Karloff. ...

This meeting (there had been others) turned out to be critical. High profile actors had joined the cause, and inside of a month SAG's membership expanded from 80 to 4000.

Even so, there was no immediate recognition from the studios. It took another four years, the passage of the National Labor Relations Act, and more agitation from on-screen talent before studios finally, grudgingly, agreed to sit down and negotiate the first contract with SAG in 1937.

Decades would pass before significant health, pension and residual benefits were negotiated into SAG collective barganing agreements.

(h/t Tom Sito)

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Star-Spangled Box Office

The Fish Movie remains at the top of the Big List, while newcomers become instant also-rans.

HOLIDAY BOX OFFICE

1). Finding Dory (DIS), 4,305 theaters / 13.4M Fri. / $14.8M Sat. (+10%) / $13.2M Sun. (-12%) / 3-day cume: $41.7M (-43%) / 4-day: $49.7M / Total cume: $380.1M / Wk 3

2). The Legend of Tarzan (WB), 4,068 theaters / $14M Fri. (includes $2.55M previews) / $12.7M Sat. (-10%) / $11.7M Sun. (-10%) / 3-day cume: $38.49M / 4-day: $45M to $48M / Wk 1

3). The Purge: Election Day (UNI), 2,796 theaters / $14.5M Fri. (includes $3.64M previews) / $9.3M Sat. (-36%) / $7.5M Sun. (-19%) / 3-day cume: $31.4M / 4-day: $34.7M to $35M / Wk 1

4). The BFG (DIS), 3,357 theaters / $7M Fri. (includes $775K previews) / $6.2M Sat. (-12%) / $5.3M Sun. (-14%) / 3-day cume: $18.6M / 4-day: $21.8M / Wk 1

5). Independence Day: Resurgence (FOX), 4,091 theaters (+23) / $4.65M Fri. / $6.1M Sat. (+31%) / $5.8M Sun. (-4%) / 3-day cume: $16.7M (-60%) / 4-day: $20.35M / Total: $76.5M / Wk 2

6). Central Intelligence (WB/NL/UNI), 3,166 theaters (-342) / $3.7M Fri. / $4.5M Sat. (+22%) / $4.1M Sun. (-10%) / 3-day cume: $12.4M (-32%) / 4-day: $14.8M / Total: $94.35M / Wk 3

7). The Shallows (SONY), 2,962 theaters (0) / $3M Fri./ $3.1M Sat. (+%) / $2.6M Sun. (-12%) / 3-day: $8.6M (-46%) / 4-day: $10.1M / Total: $36.1M / Wk 2

8). Free State of Jones (STX), 2,781 theaters (-34)/ $1.2M Fri. / $1.5M Sat. (+30%) / $1.4M Sun. (-5%) / 3-day cume: $4.1M (-45%) / 4-day: $5.07M / Total: $16.1M / Wk 2

9). Conjuring 2 (WB/NL), 2,008 theaters (-1,025) / $1.2M Fri./ $1.4M Sat. (+14%) / $1.1Sun. (-16%) / 3-day cume: $3.7M (-50%) / 4-day: $4.4M / Total cume: $95.9M / Wk 4

10). Now You See Me 2 (LG), 1,788 theaters (-957)/ $880K Fri. / $1.1M Sat. (+12%) / $980K Sun. (-10%) / 3-day cume: $2.98M (-47%) / 4-day: $3.6M / Total cume: $59.3M / Wk 4...

Meantime, animated features far below the Top Ten but still pulling in a wee bit of cash at a handful of theaters are: The Jungle Book with a total of $359,041,958; The Angry Birds Movie at $105,502,614 , and the long-running favorite Zootopia with $340,608,333.

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Mo Cap Performance

Maybe it's not "the devil's rotoscope"?

'The BFG' Visual Effects Whiz Joe Letteri Makes the Case for Motion-Capture Performances

The film combines live action with a performance capture giant played by the Oscar-winning Mark Rylance.

... “Each character comes with its own challenges and you apply what you’ve learned to each new project so we’re constantly improving the quality level,” Letteri told The Hollywood Reporter. “Our recent work on the BFG required us to deliver a 24-foot giant whose performance was so close to what Mark Rylance did on set that you’re almost asking the audience to see through the digital character and emotionally connect with Mark.

“Mark used extraordinary subtlety in his performance of the BFG and it was up to us to understand how his acting manifested itself visually so we could make our giant convey the same thing.” ...

The thing about motion capture is, when it's used in conjunction with live-action, it tends to be reasonably effective. Planet of the Apes and Avatar were all movies audiences embraced. The mo cap was well-integrated with live-action characters and environments, and the movie-going public beat a path to the movie-makers big-budget features.

With wall-to-wall mo cap, specimens like A Christmas Carol or Tin-tin don't perform very well. There is a deadness in the eyes, a stiffness in the performance, and more than a hint of "The Uncanny Valley" that makes theater-goers a wee bit uncomfortable. It's not pure animation and it's not live-action, but for most people it seems a trifle weird.

How Spielberg's BFG ultimately performs is still up in the air, but the creators were smart enough to blond motion capture with real people, so there will be fewer creeped-out audience members. Uncanny valleys will be kept to the lowest possible minimums.

Add On: What's often overlooked in "mo cap" movies, where publicity departments (not to mention the directors of these films) always tout the actors and their performances, while ignoring the people at the computers enhancing and enriching images on the screen, including the histrionics.

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TAG Wage Survey

Every year for the past twenty years, the Animation Guild has conducted a wage survey of members working in the industry.

Last year, there was a record-high number of survey forms mailed out, and we received a record-high number or responses (although the 30% response rate was below the 33% from 2015.) A few summary stats from 2015:

2015 Median Wage Rates

TV Directors -- $2,414.06

Feature Board Artists -- $2,227.27

TV Production Board Artists -- $2,000

Character Layout Artists -- $1,900

Rough Layout Artists -- $2,250

Previs Artists -- $2,273.68

Art Directors -- $2,312.50

Visual Development Artists -- $1,981.82

Production Designers -- $2,235.31

Tech Directors -- $1,932.63

3D Animators -- $2,021.05 ...

From 2014's survey to the '15 version, 34% wage categories were down, while 66% of were up.

This year should see more changes, since employment is up year over year, and studios tell us they have trouble filling some positions.

The survey will run from June 30th to August 8th. After two days, the Animation Guild has received 76 wage reports reports from members.

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Union Rules

A few days ago I got calls from staffers complaining how their studio wouldn't let them work in multiple jobs or receive multiple screen credits.

... Supervisors told us we couldn't direct and board on one show and receive two credits because union rules wouldn't allow it. ...

This was news to me. But I've only worked at the Guild for twenty-seven years, so what do I know? Maybe I should re-read all the footnotes to be certain I didn't miss something.

But I've run into the "It's not us! It's the u-nion!" gambit before, at a wide array of studios. Whenever a manager or supervisor is too chickensht and gutless to own inconvenient company policy, they point at non-existent rules that the lead-footed Animation Guild hands down. A couple of my long-time studio favorites:

"We'd LOVE to give you more than two weeks vacation per year, but that's all the union contract says we can give you."

"We've got to keep you an apprentice another six months. That's the union rule." ...

My careful, measured response to the latest wave of complaints regarding phantom rules?

This is horsesht. I wish these dweebs would grow some spines and just tell employees the studio makes the rules, since they fcking well do.

Why your studio would want to piss off talent when the market is this tight makes no sense to me, but jackasses come in all shapes and sizes. Tell your supervisor that the union guy says the union has NO rules about doing two or three jobs and getting two or three credits. Musker and Clements get two and three credits on most of their movies, the Guild has never made a peep! Because there are no rules. ...

The Guild contract specifies wage floors and minimum working conditions. It says nothing about maximums because there freaking aren't any. If somebody has the leverage to negotiate two months of vacation or ten grand a week, the Guild doesn't stand in the way. In fact the new contract, like most before it, says

Nothing in this Agreement shall prevent any individual from negotiating and obtaining from the Producer better conditions and terms of employment that those herein provided. [Article 4.C.] ...

So are we clear? If anybody wants to do the script and storyboards, draw the layouts and then animate a feature-length epic, nothing in the contract prevents them from doing so. The studio might say "no" but the Guild and its collective bargaining agreement are totally fine with it.

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Wreck Deux

Okay, so maybe the roll-out date is a surprise. Hard to believe that this particular title with a "2" after its name could be.

... Standing in front of a not so subtle brick background, Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, the director and writer, respectively, of the first Wreck-It Ralph made the announcement on Facebook Live earlier today. But they weren’t alone. As they tried to make it official, John C. Reilly, who was wearing giant Wreck-It Ralph fists, kept interrupting wondering where he could find the almond milk and asking why Moore and Johnston were standing behind bricks. The three also announced that the film would be released on March 9, 2018, much earlier than the unannounced Disney Animation Studios title they have dated for 2020 – which may be for a different film entirely. ...

In today's entertainment industry, followups to successful animated features are as shocking as the sun coming up in the east. Second, third and fourth movies to Toy Story, Shrek, or Ice Age are to be expected. Merchandise must be sold. Ancillary markets must be served. Profits must be generated.

And conglomerates know that even robust franchises run down over time, so originals must be produced from time to time in the hope (expectation?) of creating brand-new tent-poles to generate more profits.

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Strength Through Animations

The L.A. Times profiled the training of young North Korean minds last month, and referenced this:



Apparently the immortal North Korean classic Squirrel and Hedgehog (produced by the glorious People's Collective, SEK Studios) has been instructing tomorrow's Socialist workers for some time. Thirty exciting episodes are accessible on YouTube.

So the big question: When is Netflix going to order fifty-two fresh episodes?

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DreamWorks Animation, November 3

DreamWorks Animation releases its next animated feature on November 3rd. The trailer for same dropped earlier today.



Like most animated features launched into production, Trolls has gone through its share of story and personnel changes. The picture, in development for several years, is directed by Mike Mitchell and co-directed by Walt Dohrn. Having Justin Timberlake in charge of the music can't hurt the movie's commercial prospects.

At all.

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Disney Feature/TSL Contract

The latest collective bargaining agreement under which Walt Disney Animation Studios employees work can be found here.

We put it up on the Guild's website a few days ago; it's the labor contract that's been used by Disney's feature animation unit for the past sixteen years. ...

This agreement is a cousin of the Animation Guild contract.

These agreements, while having lots in common, are not the same. TSL is lineally descended from the Guild agreement that was written in 1952, but the TSL document is shorter, with fewer wage categories, and includes positions covered by the Editors Guild and Cinematographers Guild.

The TSL contract got negotiated in 1999, shortly after Diz Co's purchase of Dream Quest Images, a visual effects studio located in the further reaches of the Simi Valey. After Disney's purchase, DQI was merged with Disney Feature Animation and renamed "The Secret Lab" (after a location in the hand-drawn feature The Emperor's New Groove). For a few hard-scrabble years, the Lab operated as the Mouse's internal live-action VFX studio. The TSL agreement was originally formulated as a visual effects contract.

Sadly, the visual effects division didn't last very long, and in the early oughts, The Secret Lab was closed. But the IATSE contract under which it operated lived on, since most of Disney Feature Animation's regular staff were working had migrated to the TSL contract from the 839 agreement.

The reason? CG animation.

Here in 2016, Disney uses two related animation contracts. The Animation Guild/839 agreement is employed by Walt Disney Television Animation. And the TSL agreement is used by Walt Disney Animation Studios, also DisneyToon Studios.

We thought you'd want to know.

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SIDE DEAL?

The media tells us:

Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc's chief executive, has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit over what a minority shareholder called an "extraordinarily valuable" side deal he struck as part of the $3.8 billion sale of the studio to Comcast Corp.

Comcast, the owner of NBCUniversal and the largest U.S. cable distributor, agreed in April to pay $41 in cash per DreamWorks share and Katzenberg agreed to vote his controlling stock for the deal, assuring investor approval. The deal for is expected to close by the end of this year.

Monday's class action complaint by Ann Arbor City Employees Retirement System, a DreamWorks shareholder, claims Katzenberg breached his duty to minority shareholders by reaching a lucrative consulting deal for himself.

Once the deal closes, Katzenberg will become the chairman of DreamWorks New Media, which will oversee Awesomeness TV, an online studio for teen-oriented content, and a 3-D animation business.

While Katzenberg will only be paid $1 annually as a consultant, he will also collect 7 percent of the profits from DreamWorks New Media in perpetuity. ...

Seven percent in perpetuity? That could generate a nice cash flow.

It is good to be king, even if you are an outgoing king.

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Zero/Hero

So here you are, hand-drawn fans. The behind-the-scenes deal as directed by Ron and John.

John Musker: We were emulating MTV in its heyday and this number was always meant to be this big music video. When we were trying to visualize this I was on a plane, and I was listening to the track and I was watching an NBA highlight reel and hearing the song in my headset and thought, ‘oh we should really do a video where we intercut the great sports exploits of Hercules intercut with a dance number.’ The other really big music video at the time that this was influenced by was C+C Music Factory’s “Things That Make You Go Hmmm.” I had watched that video and broken down how they did it shot by shot, and it was really cool. ...

What makes this different than the usual live-action reference/rotoscope thingie is the music video/NBA mashup.

The directors conceived this music sequence, and then pre-planned and choreographed it. As Mr. Clements says, somewhat similar to the Marge Champion [Belcher] dancing in the rotoscope for Snow White, but considerably more complex (or as Ron says, a "crazier scale")

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