Analysis – Page 8 – The Animation Anomaly

The Hub, Hasbro and Shezow

The LA Times ran an article on My 28th by Joe Flint that’s pretty much all about The Hub; well The Hub and parent company Hasbro….and the former’s latest show thrown in for good measure. We’ll get to Shezow in a minute, but what the article brought up in a more important way, was the nature of the relationship between the network and Hasbro. Of all the kids’ networks, only the Hub is owned by a parent that also produces toys, and that makes things extra tricky.

The Network

The Hub is a youngster and has faced an uphill battle since it launched:

Launched in October 2010, the Hub has barely registered a blip in the highly competitive kids’ TV marketplace. It has a few minor successes including “My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic” and “Transformers,” but overall its ratings are tiny. Among kids 2 to 11, the Hub’s primary target, it averages 56,000 viewers a day, according to Nielsen. Disney and Nickelodeon each average 934,000 kids in that group.

Finding a runaway success in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the network has worked to expand it’s offerings of original content and Shezow is simply the latest in that effort.

So far so good, right? I mean, Rome wasn’t built in a day and the fact that the Hub has managed to get going with a small but fairly devoted following suggests that it’s continued growth is secured. However, there is the small matter of the owner of the entire operations and how it interacts with the network and studio.

Hasbro

The giant that is Hasbro was, for a long time, simply a manufacturer of toys, both licensed and original. The Hub is their first real foray into entertainment and so far, has spent $450 million between acquisition and investment in the Hub and its associated production facility, Hasbro Studios. The former has yet to turn a profit, but losses are narrowing.

Given this level of investment, Hasbro has exerted higher than normal levels of control over the Hub. This is where things get really intriguing for a number of reasons. Chief among them is that you have an established company moving into an industry that they are sort of familiar with but have never got their hands really dirty. They’ve invested a lot of money and some people have their necks on the line.

One would naturally expect that some experienced hands would be hired and given the freedom to do what they do best: develop great content. Well, that’s sort of been the case.

Lauren Faust left My Little Pony for conflicting reasons depending on who you ask, but interference from Hasbro executives appears quite commonly in rumours. That’s not all though. The LA Times article notes that Hasbro controlled the Hub’s own website before relenting.

Both of these play into the larger role that Hasbro seems to have: they want a top-down approach to content.

Back in the 1980s, there was a marvelous/terrible regime whereby animated shows were driven by toys. That is, existing toy lines were shoehorned into an animated half hour and sold to kids as a way to boost toy sales. Fair enough. But then Nickelodeon discovered that if you let animators do their thing, they could completely obliterate the competition with original content! SpongeBob Squarepants is the ultimate and best example of this: a creator-driven show that has sold billions of dollars worth of merchandise. In other words: the show drove toy sales, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, Hasbro doesn’t see things this way, and instead of using the bottom-up approach to content and merchandise, has decided to go in the opposite direction by dictating which content the Hub is permitted to make and broadcast, all in the name of synergy:

Several former Hub and Hasbro executives, who declined to speak publicly because of the sensitivity of the matter, charge that shows that performed well for the Hub but weren’t in line with Hasbro’s toy sales objectives have been canceled or had their episode orders reduced.

Those shows include the cartoon “G.I. Joe Renegades” and “Family Game Night,” a program in which kids and parents play life-sized versions of Hasbro games. The former was canceled because Hasbro did not have a doll that went with the show on the shelves of stores, these people said. The latter had its episode order cut when board games became less of a Hasbro priority.

Such claims led to the inevitable denials:

Hasbro President and Chief Executive Brian Goldner denied those assertions, saying programming decisions are “up to Margaret and the team.” Loesch said those moves were made for “business and budget considerations” and not because of pressure from Hasbro.

“They do not tell us how to run the business,” Loesch said. “They of course share with me which of the properties they think would tie in best with their strategy, which is a win-win for us.”

All I can say is, yeah right. CoughEquestriaGirlscough

When companies pour nearly half a billion dollars into something, it is impossible for them not to meddle on some level. Besides, if they can, well, bump their quarterly numbers up by 0.005% if they tell the network to do this or that, guess what? They will do it!

We haven’t even discussed how Hasbro bans ads for rival toy companies’ products from the Hub, but you should be able to figure that one out for yourself. If it isn’t evidence of overzealous control, I don’t know what is. At least Disney sidesteps the issue completely by not running any ads at all.

All this makes it all the more interesting as to how Shezow came to get picked up.

Shezow

This Australian/Canadian show has already been broadcast in both countries with success and will come to the Hub on June 1st, 2013. It revolves around a 12 year old boy, Guy, who basically turns into a superhero. So far so normal, right? Well the twist is that turning him into a superhero also ~~turns him into a girl~~ makes him feminine in appearance:

This twist is something new for an animated kids show and while it raises some very good points about genderisation, kids and socially-mandated gender norms (which is definitely a topic for another post), it also doesn’t appear to fit in with Hasbro’s ‘plan’ at all.

So, will it survive? That’s the simplest question, but furthermore, why doesn’t Hasbro adapt the merchandise to the content instead of the other way around? Is it because it retains the entrenched ways of creating merchandise that have been part and parcel of toys since the dawn of television? Or is it because the company really believes that it can do better than the other networks that have all embraced creator-driven shows?

We’ll have to wait and see.

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DC Goes The Direct Route for SBFF Merchandise

Analysis / Charles Kenny

There has been on-demand merchandising available on the internet for quite a while now. CafePress was once the most common, but in recent times, they’ve seen a bunch of competitors emerge offering either specialised products like T-shirts (such as WeLoveFine) or simply better quality products (like Redbubble, etc.) What all have in common is the DIY approach. Essentially there are standardised items and then your name/logo/graphic is printed on according to the customer’s preference. It’s been used by independents and smaller studios with success, but larger players seem to have held off, until now.

DC Comics Gets Involved

The news recently emerged that DC Comics (erstwhile appendage of the Time Warner conglomerate) had established a presence on the merchandise site Zazzle featuring characters from the Super Best Friends Forever series of shorts by Lauren Faust.

The list of products is quite long and includes much more than your standard fare like T-shirts and mouse pads. There is stretched canvas art (a respectable upgrade from a poster), a pet sleeve and even stamps!

Why Now Though?

It’s perhaps surprising that a large entity like DC hasn’t gotten involved in something like this before. It’s natural given large companies preference for dealing with established merchandise players for reasons of connections and profit.

The reason that DC is doing so now is down to how on-demand merch retailers like Zazzle represent a way of extracting the dynamo effect of merchandise from shows/shorts that couldn’t necessarily sustain regular merchandise that would be sold in stores.

The short duration of the shows is certainly one factor, but so is risk. DC/Warners/CN had no idea how they would be received and rather than tie up capital for months with a high probability of failure, it makes much more sense to simply make it as customers demand, even at the expense of higher per unit cost.

Where They Stumbled (Slightly)

The only place where DC missed the mark was timing. They should have had this set up even before the first short aired. It’s great that stuff is available now, but they’ve missed the swell of interest that accompanied the shorts’ broadcast on TV.

Frederator have this down pat having had Bravest Warriors merchandise available on welovefine well in advance of that series debut on YouTube last year. They’ve since significantly expanded the range to include characters and quotes that have resonated with fans.

A Merchandise Model For the Future?

We should certainly hope so. If anything, it would be nice just to see other DC shorts merchandise too [coughAmethystcough]. With a little fine tuning, it would be possible to get on-demand merchandise up and running for any animated property and use it as a way to not only drive sales, but also to sustain interest for longer periods than current merchandise models permit.

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Brony and Fan Escapism Through Animation

Analysis / Charles Kenny

A normal example of fan expressionism via Equestria Daily

Where does the line between fandom and serious escapism lie and what risks do fans undertake by crossing over it? The Brony phenomenon and its popularity brings a contemporary focus to this topic.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

When it comes to fandoms and the properties on which they are based, there is always a range of levels when it comes to deovtion. There is the casual fan who watches occasionally, the more serious fan who will watch devotedly and may/may not buy the DVDs when they come out. From there, it’s a pretty quick graduation into serious fandom, where watching is not only considered mandatory, it is considered the gateway into further show discussion, which can consists of much more than just character and plot theories, but expand into philosophical musings on things like the deeper meanings behind the show to backstories for the characters. Fanfiction also comes under this grouping.

Even those top level of fans are capable of separating their fandom from their daily lives however. From there, we slide into a degree of fandom where the distinction between the universe within a show and the real world become quite blurred.

Just to note, cosplay doesn’t fall under this; it’s a method of expression and an outlet for creativity that resides either within the confines of conventions or photo shoots. That said, there exists fans for whom it is considered acceptable to either replicate, or mimic many characteristics of a show of character in their daily appearance who would.

So if regular fandom is one side of the coin, what is on the other?

Escapist Fans

Again, I need to emphasise that the line is a blurry one, and it’s easy to mistake an escapist fan for a very serious one. Escapist fans operate on a much deep psychological and physiological level. For them, their chosen show/film, is so much more than a source of entertainment, it is, in effect, a potent source for some, most or all their morals, decision-making and outlooks in life.

Escapist fans engage in much more than simple roleplay, cosplay (see above) and displays of their affection. Rather, they act and behave in ways that display heavy degrees of influence by the show(s) in question. They respond (or fail to respond) to problems and conflicts in ways that are based upon characters in the show. Again, this can occur in varying degrees/levels and even the vast majority of fans engage in a “what would X do if…” discussion. What this post is concerned with are the fans who base every dilemma on what a character would or would not do.

The Blurry Borderline Between Normality and Escapism

So where exactly does the borderline lie, and how can we tell when it’s been crossed? In the case of bronies (just to pick an example, but plenty of others exist out there), escapism would be somewhere in and around the point where My Little Pony becomes more than just a show. When we cross into looking at the show for advice and guidance, that’s when we’re either very near or over the line.

The influence of shows on kids and younger people in general has been known about for decades. Kids reenacting scenes, quoting characters and creating their own adventures has been part and parcel of televised entertainment and toys since the dawn of television. The introduction of various educational and informational programming (what it’s called in the US, but similar programmes exist around the world) were intended to ensure that kids not only took away the correct meaning from a show, but were also able to make a connection between the show and real life but still be able to draw a line of distinction between the two.

Where escapist fans inhabit is an area where there is little if any distinction between a show and reality. Sure the characters do not exist in real life, but they may as well given their influence.

Where Escapism Becomes a Concern

Escapsim itself can be a concern on many levels, but for most people escapism is temporary. It lasts only as long as they watch TV, play videogames or read a book. Temporary escapism can be beneficial; helping people relax and whatnot. It can be social too, in the case of Dungeons and Dragons. Where it becomes a concern is when it infiltrates real life and potentially affects a fan’s ability to function in it.

Coming across this Mashable post by Jessica Goodman, I read these few paragraphs:

“Our generation has a lot to deal with in life,” Marlow said, “We’ve had to deal with the cruddy-ness of progress, the changing economy. The early two-Ks have a gutter of pop cultural gross-ness. It’s post-9/11. Everyone’s been diagnosed with chronic depression, ADD, an eating disorder.” She paused and touched an emerald streak that stood out against her dark hair. “We like to pick up and go to a different world.”

….

With the growing popularity of Pixar movies and adult-oriented cartoons, it’s become easy for people her age to “extend our adolescence,” said Marlow, especially online. Her first fandom love was Harry Potter. A tattoo on her left forearm pays homage to Severus Snape, one of the series’ main characters.

While the part about escapism as a method of dealing with reality is a concern, her declaration that Pixar films and cartoons are a method for ‘extending adolescence’.

Look, the lure of youth and its presence in animation is as old as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (look up Michael Barrier’s excellent Hollywood Cartoons if you are in any doubt) and the emphasis on youth within the wider [American] culture is almost overwhelming. However, using animation as a tool to extend the immature and quite frankly, suffocating period known as adolescence is certainly an example of the kind of escapism mentioned above.

Anyone looking to extend their adolescence should realise that succeeding in the real world demands that you leave that period of your life behind. Sure you can keep your hobbies and interests (on a different level of course) but if you are relying on an animated show to sustain whatever exuberance you feel into adulthood, you will be in for a rude awakening.

One cannot but worry that escapist fans (especially younger ones) will face an even tougher time getting to grips with life than others. Plenty of geeks already inhabit their parents’ basements (and I’ve met plenty of them) and it is always sad to see a person invest more in an entertainment property than with real people.

Escapism at its deepest level certainly does permit a fan to withdraw from reality and inhabit a world that is comfortable and friendly (this includes online forums by the way) but it does so at the expense of their social responsibilities and connections. Conventions only come around so often and last for so long. Online forums and message boards provide communication and friendliness, but there remains the physical disconnect that will never be able to be replicated over a telephone line. Content itself is only so much and lasts for so long and one can only extract a finite amount of meaning from it.

Where Creators Play a Role

Needless to say, without creators, there is no content and without content, there are no fans or fandoms. The question is, what, if anything, can creators (individual and otherwise) do to either assist and promote social interaction by fans and ensure that escapism retains an undesirable taint?

Personally, it comes down to emphasising the temporary nature of entertainment and how it is certainly capable of playing a role within a fan’s life, but should remain a relatively small one. When content starts to dominate someone’s life, they are in trouble not matter what age they are.

Escapist fans who define who and what they are by a singular TV show have essentially sold themselves to whatever corporation creates it. Such people and those who tolerate it, contribute, in a meaningful way once they are numerous enough, to a degradation in overall society and a decline in overall quality of life, including their own.

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Pixar’s Selective Sequel Problem

5 Comments / Analysis / Charles Kenny

Is this not the most badass poster you've seen for this film? — Is this not the most badass poster you’ve seen for this film?

Pixar. No studio has been as influential over the last 15 years and no studio has had as many consistent hits as the one from Emeryville. They’ve even been notable for an aversion to sequels that makes their competitor DreamWorks look positively addicted. However, we’ve already seen three Pixar sequels and are about to see one more this summer. Almost every one Toy Story 2 has brought calls for Pixar to stop. Claims that they bring down the studio’s much vaunted integrity have gone unheeded as the Finding Nemo sequel Finding Dory was announced earlier this year.

Pixar’s Selective Sequel Problem

So just what is Pixar’s selective sequel problem? Well, The Pixar Times recently highlighted it with a tweet:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/ThePixarTimes/status/335181933984219138″]

The flames of this haven’t exactly been dampened as of late with director Brad Bird continually proclaiming his openness to a sequel provided he finds a story that fits.

So why does Pixar face such a dilemma with its sequels? It basically comes down to the fans.

Why Fans Are Two-Faced When It Comes To Sequels

Fans are a studio’s best friend but also their greatest enemy. The former is because they fork over money but the latter is because they are often blinded to the need to create content that attracts viewers outside of the fanbase.

This conflict manifests itself particularly in sequels and movie series. The simple reason is that fans form their own expectations and can be left disappointed should a sequel or latest film in a series fail to live up to their expectations.

The problem is compounded by the need to be profitable, which necessitates making films that attract the largest audiences possible; a situation that can put studios in conflict with fans, who will gladly proclaim their love for an original film, but gleefully scorn and deride a sequel that has, essentially, been made specially for them.

Pixar’s Special Case

In Pixar’s case, many of their films are self-contained stories that, being never intended as the jumping off point for subsequent films, wrap all plot points up by the time the credits role. Any sequel put out by the studio has relied upon creating a wholly new plotline distinct from the old one.

This has (in addition to the studio’s declared practice of not making sequels) meant that fans, having witnessed the descent of the Walt Disney Animation Studios into a sort of viscious circle of sequels confined in direct-to-video hell, are quite vocal in their concern that Pixar be lead down a similar road. Toy Story 2 was saved from this by Lasseter et al and was long considered the anomaly in the Pixar cannon.

Consequently, whenever the studio has announced a sequel (be it for Toy Story, Cars or Monsters Inc), it has been greeted with a curious mixture of elation and dismay.

So the question is, why are fans dismayed at the announcement of, say, Finding Dory (with its oh-so-imaginative title) but are seemingly clamouring for an Incredibles 2?

The Curse of the Superhero

The fault can be laid at the feet of the very genre that the Incredibles is based on; the superhero.

Superhero comics have been around for almost 80 years with many titles lasting decades. Pretty much every (good) superhero film has been only the first in a series or part of a trilogy. The idea that someone would make one and only one 120 minute film within the genre is, well, alien!

The blame can’t be levelled at fans however, superhero tales lend themselves extremely well to recurring stories and their ability to last for so long without becoming insanely repetitive is a testament to their strength as characters.

With all that in mind, it’s natural for fans to see a sequel to Pixar’s (thus far) lone superhero film while lamenting sequels of other stories.

Should there be a sequel? Ah, a tough question to answer. This blogger sees The Incredibles as a family film first and a superhero film second. Creating another film based on the family unit and the strife within it would be a very tall order. Basing it on the superhero part risks lowering its stature so that its defining qualities are erased in the quest to equal or better other superhero films.

To make an Incredibles 2 or not, what’s your call?

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The Blockbuster Backlash Is Coming

Analysis / Charles Kenny

It’s been on the horizon for quite a while and yet is rarely discussed even though it has the potential to wreck the entire industry. It’s been discussed here of course, but in the grand scheme of things, the good times will seemingly never end for movie studios. Yessiree, the blockbuster has become the king of all movies over the last few years and shows no signs of slowing down. That’s a problem though, because the question now isn’t so much whether the industry will crash, but how far it will fall.

The Current Blockbuster Bubble

The New York Times had an article last week that looks at the current situation:

Steven Soderbergh, the much-admired filmmaker, delivered a blistering critique of the phenomenon at the San Francisco International Film Festival a few weeks ago, bemoaning studio executives’ lack of imagination and their fixation on big-budget franchise films. “Cinema as I define it, and as something that inspired me, is under assault by the studios,” he said. He likened the big studios to “Detroit before the bailout” and worried that the hegemony of the blockbuster is “a trajectory that I think is pretty difficult to reverse.”

But his warning may have come too late for this summer, when the studios seem to be headed over a blockbuster cliff.

….

With its acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel and, last year, Lucasfilm, Disney has spent billions to acquire others’ intellectual property, and what Disney hopes will be the foundation of generations of future blockbusters. Whether this bold bet ultimately pays off remains to be seen, but Marvel under Disney has gotten off to a strong start. “Disney is basically 100 percent blockbusters,” Mr. Creutz said, not counting films it distributes for others, like DreamWorks Studios. “There are a few exceptions, but when they’ve invested in the big event movies, they’ve come out pretty well.”

Essentially, Hollywood studios see blockbusters as being more expensive but embodying less risk than if they made many films for the same price. The logic is sound, but only if you’re the only one doing it.

What’s Causing Things to Crack

Blockbusters are everywhere now, there’s practically one every week. Sure there are losers just as there are winners (John Carter being the recent example), but even those can come close to breaking even thanks to both foreign receipts and home media sales.

The concern is that with such large budgets at stake, studios will narrow their range in an attempt to maximise both the size of the potential audience as well as how much money they can hope to extract from them. Hence, the recent rash of comic book-based films and a heavy reliance on franchises such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter.

Inevitably, we start to see the same kinds of films popping up week after week; Thor last week, The Avengers this week, Iron Man 3 next week. Notice a pattern? Animated films aren’t immune either. Large budget efforts from pretty much all the major players mean that parents (the prime targets for animated films) are getting close to being over-stretched.

The Consequences of the Fall

So there’s no doubt that the crash is coming. What we’re seeing is an increasing number of hands dipping into the same pot. That can only last so long, and since gold rushes always result in people being empty-handed, the only question is how many, and how badly?

First of all, cinema attendance will drop. If you discount all the fanboys who’d show up regardless, that leaves single people and families. The former will undoubtedly continue to visit the cinema; they’ll just look for alternative films. The latter will just flat out look for cheaper alternatives. That isn’t a snide at cinema’s or ticket prices, just economic realities. Kids don’t particularly care whether the content they view is brand new or not. Parents make that decision and something on DVD is a lot easier on the wallet than a trip to the omniplex, especially if you’re tired at shelling out for the same kind of movie with the same kind of jokes week after week.

So if consumers start to look for alternatives, what’s the impact? Well, films aren’t made in a day, and large blockbusters can be in production for a year or more. Imagine if you’re a studio with a full slate of films in production that suddenly no-one wants to see; you’re pretty much up the creek for about a year or so, aren’t you?

Large studios are therefore the one’s most likely to get tripped up. They’ll be a few tough quarters that Wall St will undoubtedly penalise them for. Smaller studios may be OK, but they will find it difficult to both infiltrate large cinema chains and pay the necessary marketing budgets to attain a profitable release.

Rock Bottom

For the purposes of this post, rock bottom is going to hit animation harder than anything else. Animated films take longer to plan, longer to produce, and carry budgets that dwarf most live-action films. That puts them in the crosshairs for cuts, especially if they don’t bring in the moolah.

Animated films are not immune at their traditional homes either. They only survived the 80s at Disney because Walt continued to cast a very long shadow over the studio. It’s hard to see anyone in that place batting an eyelid at shutting an unprofitable division now though.

So what’s the worst-case scenario that we’re facing? Well, expect severe cutbacks at all major houses. Expect Disney to yank on the rope around Pixar’s neck harder than it’s ever done before should that studio’s films start to lose traction. DreamWorks is a target for FOX and the smaller players (all subsidiaries) will most likely get shuttered.

What’s important to take from all this is that the major animation studios bar DWA are all subsidiaries of parent corporations. Animation is not a prime driver of their business and employment within those divisions is a function of profitability (both local and corporate).

This isn’t to scaremonger either, it’s a fact of capitalistic life. If people stop buying a product, there are consequences up and down the supply chain.

Will animated films survive? There’s no doubt about it, but budgets will be much, much smaller. More will be done with less (in all respects) and we will likely see fewer releases from fewer players. (Who those will be, I leave up to you.)

Rebuilding Advice

The simplest way to approach a crash like the one we are facing is to do more than simply look at where we went wrong. An over-reliance on a narrow range of content? Sure. A false belief that throwing enough money at a production will make it profitable? Absolutely. But what else can we analyse?

Are we making films in the right way? Are we making money from them in the best manner? Huge box office grosses make for great opportunities to crow on the Monday morning news but they’re a on-shot deal. A hit is great, but a miss is disasterous.

What will need to be done isn’t hard or complex, but will have to be done in earnest:

Make more for less. Instead of one $300 million picture, why not six $50 million ones?
A greater variety of stories: Instead of attracting the largest possible audience, attract a varied one instead.
Don’t bore consumers with franchises. The risk of failure is less, but the risk of burnout is higher; and the latter will never become apparent until it is too late.
Vary the style! CGI is a singular style and has been done to death for the last 10 years.

Lastly, all the above pertains to studios. What about the animators on the ground? The bottom line, vary your skills and be prepared financially as best you can. There is still time to prepare. News of layoffs has only just begun, not peaked. Get those personal projects going and practice your hustling skills. We’re in for a tough couple of years.

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Critical Thinking About Kids And Online Marketing

Analysis / Charles Kenny

Via: The Washington Post - When is a kids’ online game actually an ad? — Via: The Washington Post – When is a kids’ online game actually an ad?

Today’s post is more of a recommendation than anything else. It’s to direct you to a recent piece by Peter Gutiérrez over on The Digitial Shift and it’s about how seamless marketing and content are on the web, especially when it comes to kids.

Although we all wish there was more of a balance between kids and adults when it comes to animation, the fact of the matter is that in the US and many other western nations, animation aimed at young kids is vastly predominant. What’s interesting though, and what Peter’s article discusses, is just how easy it is to fool kids on the internet when it comes to content and marketing.

I highly encourage you to read the entire thing, but what you should dwell on is not so much whether it is right or wrong (marketing to kids is not, inherently, evil) but why it has to be so subtle and psychological in nature. Why do networks, etc, feel the need to deceive kids when it comes to either advertising or promotions?

Furthermore, can such underhand tactics actually hurt animated content in the long term? My hunch is that since networks and studios overly target kids. They in a way, contribute to the stigma attached to the technique by teenagers and young adults.

What are your thoughts? What do you suggest be done to right the situation?

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When Animation Software Hinders The Technique

3 Comments / Analysis / Charles Kenny

Via: Rob Kohr's blog — Via: Rob Kohr’s blog

Technological developments in animation have allowed the technique to prosper considerably since the early days of Mickey Mouse. If it wasn’t applicable to film in general (colour, stereo sound, etc.) then it was specific to animation in ways such as the multi-plane camera and acetate cels. While all these improvements helped animation, software can also handicap it, which is what we’re discussing today.

Computers Are To Blame

There’s no doubt that computers and IT in general have done wonders for animation, and not just in the strictest production sense either. The internet has enabled the co-ordination and production of a single film in multiple locations around the globe and has resulted in many fine films being produced that otherwise would not have.

Where computers fail though, is in their longevity. No-one uses a computer from 15 years ago and certainly nobody is using the same software that ran on such a machine.

The issue is that the animation produced on such machines may not be able to be read on a modern machine. Sure, Pixar is still in business, but what of other studios? Plenty have either gone out of business or been shut down. The animation they produced resides somewhere but may not be accessible. There’s a big difference between the two.

Rapid changes in IT and computing technology mean that nothing that relies on them can stand still. Hardware and software must be constantly updated to remain competitive and there is always the risk that something will either get corrupted or worse, deleted.

Animation Software is Even Worse

For all the faults that hardware has, it is not the worse culprit. That title belongs to software. The impetus for this post is the recent announcement from Adobe that customers will no longer be able to purchase Creative Suite software. Instead, they will subscribe to ‘Adobe Creative Cloud’ for a monthly fee. Essentially customers will not even be renting the software but access to it.

The change caused a bit of a ruckus but rather than dwell on the merits and demerits of the move itself, let’s focus on the problems it highlights and what can be done about it.

What the Adobe Announcement Highlights

First and foremost, any proprietary software firm will be quite adamant that as a customer, you never ‘buy’ software. Rather, you buy a license for it. In most cases this is a perpetual license, but it is still a license. You cannot do what you like with the software no matter how much you paid for it (legally).

For animators and studios, what the move highlights more than anything else is that the technology that they rely upon for their continued operation is fleeting at best. Adobe, like Microsoft and Apple, does not maintain their software forever and especially in the latter’s case, has shown a willingness to cut off users of older software; essentially forcing them to upgrade or find another provider.

Finding an alternative is all grand and good, but what if there is no alternative? That is to say, what if no-one else makes the piece of software that you need to open/read files?

The Ticking Timebomb

Consider Adobe Flash. It won’t be around forever and at some point in time, Adobe will stop supporting it. That’s grand and good you say, you’ll just keep and old copy on an old dumb terminal just like Disney did with their CAPS system.

A fine theory, but completely improbable if you rent the software instead.

If Adobe decides at some point in the future (willingly or not) to suspend access to Flash or another creative program, you are quite literally very far up the creek without a paddle.

How many studios out there use Flash or a similar program? A lot. What could happen if those programs disappear? Mayhem.

That isn’t to scaremonger either. Old files are much more than just animation data; they’re content! If that isn’t cause for concern, consider the many 35mm films in Hollywood archives that literally represent history rotting away. We’re talking about the digital equivalent of that. Goodness knows Pixar got a shock when they discovered that the original Toy Story files had been corrupted while being digitally archived

What Can Be Done

First and foremost, its important to identify what is causing the problem; namely technology that is no longer profitable to produce/maintain but whose customers require access to.

Proprietary technology is notorious for causing these headaches and while they have been tolerated for the most part, we re getting to the point where there are no more excuses.

As I wrote in this post, open source software offers an alternative that may lack slightly in the features department, but more than makes up for that with its open nature that promises at least the ability to always be able to create a way to read/edit files. Proprietary systems lock this ability up and are under no obligation to release it.

Animation studios (and independent animators too!) need to consider things such as this because they have the potential to cause very expensive mistakes at some point in the future and surely it’s better to actively avoid them than to try and deal with them, right?

Existing programs such as Blender and Synfig are steps in the right direction; we just need a major studio to step up and promote the idea that if we are to rely on technology for creativity, then we should at least be able to build some permanence into the system. It works for pencils and paper after all.

Do upgrade prices give you high blood pressure? What about Adobe’s Creative Cloud? Is it a bad idea and if so, why? Let us know with a comment!

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Merida’s Makeover and Character Continuity

2 Comments / Analysis / Charles Kenny

You’ve undoubtedly read the stories by now. You know, the ones proclaiming Merida’s coronation as the latest entrant in the ‘Disney Princess’ brand and (on the other side), the ones decrying her redesign into one with more than an air of sexuality about it. The point of this post isn’t to belabor either side (although this blogger leans heavily towards the latter), rather its to discuss how Merida proves how unwieldy characters can become within large corporations such as Disney and why they need to keep tighter grip of the reins.

Why It’s a Problem

So why would such a change be of issue in the first place? We all know that multitudes of artists work on these characters and the very nature of merchandise (with all its differing surfaces and sizes) necessitates changes to permit an acceptable level of familiarity across the range.

Well, normally it isn’t a problem because the characters remain relatively consistent. In Merida’s case, however, the change is near radical. In fact, all the Disney Princess have undergone some sort of noticeable change from their original appearance on film.

Another reason Merida’s case stands out is that she’s undergone not so much a redesign but a transformation. Even by comparing her looks (and her measurements) one can deduce that she isn’t likely to exhibit the same character traits as her CGI original. Such a transformation runs the risk of confusing consumers.

The Confusion Caused By Merida’s Transformation

In times gone past, the change wouldn’t have been given that much thought. After all, merchandise always lagged behind the films and the medium through which the largest audience would see it (home video) was released many months afterwards, when memories had faded somewhat.

Fast forward to today, and the omnipresence and semi-permanence of the internet has meant that fact-checking and comparison can be done instantaneously. If a corporation makes an overtly obvious change to a character, you can be sure that someone somewhere can confirm the change and indeed, analyse it to astonishingly high degrees of accuracy.

Changes in character can be easy for adults to gloss over, but kids can find it hard to reconcile the apparently unnecessary alterations. Kids place a lot of value in characters and they readily identify with them; changing the character can cause not only confusion, but also trauma. That’s not to say that Merida’s change will cause the latter, but it will not go unnoticed by kids (mainly girls) who’ve identified with a character who’s most significant trait is not fitting in with a crowd.

Even mature adults (and particularly parents and those of us in the field) are having trouble reconciling the change in any kind of rational light. Peggy Orenstein gets pretty close to the truth:

I’ve always said that it’s not about the movies. It’s about the bait-and-switch that happens in the merchandise, and the way the characters have evolved and proliferated off-screen.

This is true, and certainly part of the cause. The Disney Princess brand relies upon a broad range of characters to appeal to all types, but who still reside inside a statistically maximising percentage of the population. In other words, the characters can be different, but not too different lest they be marginalised and hence, unprofitable.

How To Fix It

Since the confusion and frustrations that are caused seem to be emanating from the changes made, wouldn’t the simplest thing be to just keep them the same as they were in the film (or concepts in the case of CGI)? We’re long, long past the time when merchandise had to look different on account of manufacturing technology and the like. Today, it’s possible to maintain a high degree of quality across the board. There really is no reason why a Merida doll has a different structure to her animated counterpart, or for that matter for a stock image of her on a T-shirt requires a redesign.

Heck, even the Disney Princesses themselves do not need such a standardised sense of design. What it amounts to is the merchandising or marketing division of the corporation attempting to stamp their impression on characters created somewhere else (by animators). It amounts to overstepping their boundaries insofar as they may adapt characters to their work, but outright changing them is unconscionable.

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Animation Skills: Supply and Demand

2 Comments / Analysis / Charles Kenny

Mark Mayerson recently published a blog post entitled ‘The Don’t Want You’. A short but compelling declaration that studios see aniamtors and artists as more a tool than at any time in the past. The paragraph below is the kicker:

They don’t want you. They want your skills because they can profit from them. But if they can get your skills from software or find somebody with your skills (or almost your skills) who will work cheaper, they’d prefer that.

That’s the absolute truth. Animators are expensive to hire, maintain and run. They’re also cranky, have off days and are not near 100% productive like they could be. That said, they’re also people, and people tend to be like that no matter where you go or what you do.

What Mark touches on is the fact that animators aren’t hired because they are people, they’re hired because they have skills, valuable skills. The relative scarcity of such skills, and the fact that they are not easily replicable on an computer means that real people continue to produce animation.

The Supply of Animators

People are a finite resource. There are only so many animators out there and only so many new ones coming into the field every year. However, if more enter than leave, then that creates a larger supply of talent from which to pull from, and the result is that studios can (and do) pay lower prices than they would have to if supply was tight.

Consider Brown Bag Films; they consistently have to look overseas to find artists with the skillsets required, and the result is that they have to pay more than if they could source local talent in Ireland.

A topic that is brought up in the comments is the fact that new animators are being produced at a high rate; more so than what the industry is increasing by every year. This is a problem that stems from a couple of reasons but the main ones are the fact that tuition = money and universities always want more of that. Secondly, there is no (or very little) co-ordination between studios and schools in regards to training, skills and potential demand.

If both camps co-ordinated, then students with the correct skills would be graduating and prepared for future careers. As it stands, plenty of 2D animation is being taught despite the fact that CGI has rapidly rendered (no pun intended) the style obsolete as far as mainstream productions go.

The Animation Skills Needed

The key here are skills. Creativity is a small aspect of labour, and studios, while ostensibly looking for creative minds, are also looking for skills. Skills drive their businesses; the very entity that animators and artists depend on for a livelihood.

As with any industry, more does not necessarily equal better. Specialisation does not necessarily equal higher pay. Rather on both counts, variety and scarcity matter more than anything.

Put simply, the greater variety of animation skills you can have, the better your chances are. The downside is that you may be a jack of all trades but a master of none.

If you are a specialist, you will be scarce, and companies like to (and have to) pay more. The risk is that you may be specialised in the one area that may be scarce, but for which their is no demand; e.g. 2D animators in southern California.

So what’s the secret to skills? Well, the secret is to specialise, but to constantly and continually improve and develop them. Always be hungry to learn something new. You may not be a specialist immediately, but you can at least put those skills on your resume in the meantime.

The Determining Factors Are Far Outside Your Control

What angers a lot of people is that they see jobs going abroad when there are perfectly capable people available locally. While this is an understandable situation, you, the person reading this, have to realise that globalisation has enabled not only work to go abroad easily, but also vastly increased the number of people you must compete with for jobs. You cannot control it and more importantly, you cannot stop it.

If an Indian animator can produce the same work as you can for a tenth of the price, there is little you can do about it save bringing him to the States. What you can do, is be a better animator than him, be a faster animator than him or produce animation that he can’t. Those are the kinds of aspects that you can (and should) do something about.

The Life Lesson

The takeaway lesson is that there is no such thing as a job for life any more. Similarly lifelong learning is now a mandatory part of any career, animated or not. Only by staying one step ahead of the competition can you hope for steady employment.

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Streamlining the Animation Development Process

2 Comments / Analysis / Charles Kenny

Via: Cartoon Brew. Since it's mandatory reading, you can buy it on Amazon. Alternatively, you can try your local library — Via: Cartoon Brew. Since it’s mandatory reading, you can buy it on Amazon. Alternatively, you can try your local library

It’s something that this blogger has been contemplating for a while; just how can the development process for animation be streamlined? Right now there’s a fair bit of black magic and voodoo involved with getting a series created, developed, made and on the air and despite some people’s attempt to change that, the efforts are far from codified. The problem is the changes the entertainment landscape is going though will render traditional development models obsolete. Simply put, the risks of developing an original property from scratch will be seen to be too great and will be sidelined. So what will take its place? Here’s a look:

Only Pre-Existing Concepts Will Be Considered

Essentially, this means that major studios will seek out and only seek out those ideas which are already successful. That includes pretty much anything from comics to webseries. Yes, networks already like to find established properties, but they are not averse to new, unfounded ideas if they check all the boxes. That will change though, and at some point, if you’re not a success on your own, studios won’t want to know you.

Consider it similar to the way franchise are currently sold. Basically, the franshisee must prove a certain amount of capital so for example, although a McDonalds restaurant is practically a license to print money, you have to stump up $300,000 of your own before you can run one.

In the case of animation, this capital will come in the form of an audience. Read: your idea will have to have an audience before a studio will consider buying it. The purpose of this is essentially risk avoidance; i.e. you undertake the risk of creating and marketing your idea as opposed to the studio. Naturally they will compensate you for this when they buy or license it, but if studios can offload risk, then they will absolutely do it.

How big will the audiences need to be will vary, but they will rely on the core, returning audience (i.e. fans). Total visitors won’t be enough to convince them otherwise.

Timelines Will Be Compressed

Animated projects can take months, even years, to develop. That will all change however, as the shift to pre-existing concepts as outlined above will eliminate many of the steps involved with creating an animated TV show or movie. While you can expect some of the pre-vis work to disappear from studios (they will naturally live on outside) this will have the effect of compressing timelines significantly.

Furthermore, if it’s a series that will go out on the web, expect immediate release, perhaps even on the day production wraps. Simply put, if it isn’t online, it won’t be bringing in the bacon. South Park already exhibits this kind of behaviour in the famous Six Days To Air documentary which has also handily kept the series fresh after so many years where others have long gone stale.

Expect Better Classification Of Concepts

Today, development executives and networks are pretty good at outlining the kind of content they are looking for. That said, there is still plenty of room for improvement and saying “I’m looking for a fantasy show for ages 6-10” is a heck of a lot less descriptive than “I’m looking for a fantasy show featuring a lead female amongst a group of four (50-50 gender split) who has been tasked with defeating an evil antagonist over the course of 13 web episodes of 10 minutes each.” Expect studios and networks to really drill down on what they are looking for but within tolerances.

The reason is simple: as audience measuring and tracking tools improve to the point of identifying individual viewers, studios will be able to create truly niche programming that they will [accurately] target at their audience. They will know this audience almost as well as they know themselves, and studios will request concepts accordingly.

Does this mean you have to create something with such a precisely targeted audience in mind? No, of course not, but be open to the idea that you’ll have to persuade someone to buy it based on who it will attract rather then simply ‘girls’ or ‘boys’.

Standardisation Should Become Commonplace

Pitching and development is more of an art than a science but efforts like Amazon Studios is the first salvo in attempts to change that. Their rules are plain and simple and are available for everyone to see. That said, what happens after concepts are submitted is still a bit of an unknown.

Either way, expect future animation development to follow a more regimented pattern that should be universally known within the industry. There is a likelihood that we’ll see a greater number of steps in development primarily as a tool to weed out ideas before they get too far. In essence, development will become close to the ideal of a production line with set steps and procedures. You can also be sure that whichever studio develops an efficient pipeline will see it copied by others, thus proliferating it as a standard.

Animation Development Should Become Easier

Lastly, all the above changes should mean that animation development should become a bit easier for all concerned. With development becoming easier, this can only mean that we will see a greater level of animated content being created and broadcast. Sure, it might still err on the expensive side of things, and it may still take some time to do, but overall, the easier it is to get animated content on the screen, the more likely we are to see it on the screen.

Is there something you would change about the development process as it stands today? Let us know with a comment!

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How To Genuinely Manage Creative People

Analysis / Charles Kenny

CMB creatives

Yesterday, the Harvard Business Review permitted to be published a truly troll-worthy piece by Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London in which he outlines what he believes are Seven Rules For Managing Creative People. Given the rather explosive nature of the piece and the fact that it would be all too easy to score cheap points by simply dissecting and invalidating his rules, instead, let us consider how to genuinely manage creative people.

Respect Them

For starters, artists are people just the same as anyone else with skills. Even if they do not have the formal education that many careers provide, require or recognise, they are individuals first and foremost. Giving them the respect they deserve should be the foundation of any business let alone creative ones. Too often the problem becomes systemic within management and workers are treated unfairly. Indeed, workers in manufacturing industries are often viewed as economic units of production rather than human beings. Such views run counter to the long term view of any industry and animation is no different.

Praise Them

Did an artist do a good job? Then tell them! You remember what it was like in school, right? Remember the sense of satisfaction and joy you had when the teacher, honestly and sincerely, said you did a good job? Well what works for kids works for adults. Praise is the cheapest form of flattery you can give and you can wrangle a lot of miles out of it.

It’s important as well to always praise, even if something is the crappiest thing you ever saw, make a habit of finding something about it to praise. Make an effort to focus on the good things and wonders will result. Constantly berating, criticising and chastising employees may achieve short term results, but will incite long term resentment to your detriment.

Encourage Them

While praise is a cornerstone of good management, encouragement helps employees to shine. Encouragement is just as cheap as praise, but the results can be spectacular. Does an artist have a bit of bother with a certain style? In addition to finding praise in their hard work, suggest an extra class they can take, or even better suggest they hook up with someone else within (or without) the studio to whom they can be mentored by. See? The praise would only go so far, but the encouragement is what will really spur the desired change.

Encouragement should be seen as a necessity no matter what the level or age of the artist. Certainly not all will attain the top level of the career ladder, but that should not preclude anyone from constantly improving their skills or exploring new ones. Only through such continuous development can artists hope to maintain their focus and interest in the job at hand.

Did I mention you can encourage personal work too? Yeah, that can also help a lot; witness many studios’ in-house exhibitions.

Pay Them

Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys.

So said legendary ad man David Ogilvy. He’s as right then as he is now, even though he’s, uh, dead. You can pay the very minimum of wages and get the job done, but at what long term cost? A low wage will not act as an incentive or even as a motivator for many people. Conversely, a high wage may not act as a motivator for some people. (An important fact to keep in mind.) Do you need to pay people a million dollars? No. But you should pay them a wage that is proportionate with their age/skills/motivation. Naturally, those that are motivated should be paid more than those who are not as an incentive to continually develop in a professional context.

The long term focus should be on the mind of all management at all times. Squeezing the extra out of people may be OK every now and again, but sustain exploitation will do studios no good at all. Mainly because it masks costs, but that’s a topic for another day.

The same goes for interns. They are they to learn, not to produce and if they are, they deserve to be paid.

Nudge Them

Praise can work, encouragement can work but sometimes you need to nudge creative people. Uncertainty is natural but only by moving outside of their comfort zone can anyone hope to succeed. For this blogger it meant leaving Ireland to come to the USA. A drastic move to be sure, and it was waaaaay outside his comfort zone, but it has afforded him many opportunities that he would not have had if he had never undertaken it.

Just bear in mind that prodding should be subtle and not an outright demand. The former is more likely to produce results whereas the latter will only invoke that dreaded resentment. By prodding people, you need to effectively and positively, illustrate the benefits to pursuing whichever action is desired.

The Interesting Conclusion To Managing Creative People?

The interesting and fascinating conclusion to the above points?

Their applicable to anyone!

Yes! Creative types are not some weird pseudo-class of person; their just like everyone else! The above points are just as applicable to them as it is to anyone else, in any industry!

So what points would you add? Draw upon your experience and share with others with a comment!

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