Animation Anomaly Podcast Episode 1

Thanks to everyone who suggested that I give this podcast gig a go. Consider this episode the prototype rather than a fully-fledged episode.

Here’s a brief summary of the Animation Anomaly Podcast episode 1:

  • 00:00 – Introduction, the PTC doesn’t like FOX’s ADHD block
  • 08:30 – Viacom continues to sue YouTube. What that means for animation and residual payments.
  • 13:30 – Disney is heavily reliant on cable TV subscriber fees, but that won’t last forever. What does that mean for their animation division.
  • 17:30 – The real reason Disney bought Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel.
  • 24:00 – Brad Bird on changing the cinema experience.

PS. Please do leave some feedback below to let me know how I did 🙂

Audio file download

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Applying Milken’s Junk Bond Theory To Animation

Michael Milken made a fortune with junk bonds back in the 1980s. His theory was so simple, it was almost too good to be true except that it wasn’t. Basically, a junk bond is one that carries a high risk of default, i.e. the borrower doesn’t pay you back. Milken however, perceived that if you buy enough junk bonds, the ones that do pay you back will more than cover the losses from those that don’t. His plan worked far beyond his expectations and he quickly became the so-called ‘Junk Bond King’ before being brought down for some insider trading.

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Comapring and Contrasting the Strategies of Major Animation Studios

Business strategy is a class that many MBA programs (including mine) require students to take. The notion is that there is little point in learning a lot of business knowledge if you cannot execute or implement it correctly. Strategy plays a large role in that regard because it gives focus to where a studio or organisation is going and how it is going to get there. Today, let’s take a quick look at the apparent strategies of the major studios and what it might mean for where they are going.

Disney

As obvious as this may seem, Disney’s strategy when it comes to animation is not as friendly to the technique as they would have you believe. Are they making a lot of it? Sure, but what is the strategy behind it?

Disney executives would like you to believe that as the guiding light of animation for much of the 20th century, they are ushering it into the new era. In fact, the opposite is true. Disney animation in it’s traditional (non-CGI) form is dead (at least theatrically), and what remains is, for all intents and purposes, a pale facsimile.

I do not mean this statement to be profane in any way; plenty of talented artists continue to be employed at Disney. Their strategy though, has long shifted from being the pioneer of animation, to making the quick buck. Hitherto the purchases of Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm.

The apparent strategy is to simply buy companies with existing hit properties and milk them instead of creating risky original properties instead. Sure Frozen is semi-original, but it uses the well-worn fairytale story as a crutch; Wreck-It-Ralph relied heavily on existing video game characters. The rest of Disney’s slate of projects looks incredibly thin compared to the corporate subsidiaries and numerous articles abound as to the demise of the Disney studio proper.

DreamWorks

This studio’s strategy is by far the most entertaining at the moment. Moving in all directions into TV, technology, internet video and theme parks, Jeffrey Katzenberg is making a determined effort to give his studio the chops to survive on its own.

The question is, what kind of organisation will eventually result? While it is clear that DreamWorks needs to diversify in order to survive, it is not so clear where they will end up.

The notion of the diversified conglomerate not unlike other studios is the obvious choice, but DreamWorks is making a push on the technological side of things too. Clearly it intends to be more than a an entertainment company even if that remains its focus.

The other option is that of a takeover. It is rare for a CEO to run their company for the sole purpose of being taken over, but it is clear that a company that appears to be growing is much more valuable than one that has just one core business. Ergo the more businesses that DreamWorks is in, the more money a buyer will have to cough up when the time comes to write the cheque.

In any case, a diversified, independent DreamWorks appears to be the goal, at least for now, and their strategy of diversifying as quickly as they can seems to support that idea.

Sony

It would be easy to take the rash approach and say that Sony intends to make more Smurfs sequels, but the studio itself seems to be quite content to reside within the larger Sony corporate ecosystem. Their films are successful and make money and as long as head office is satisfied, they should have little to worry about.

Where Sony is going is hard to say; the studio is a department instead of a company and Sony itself has been paralysed for the last decade or so; incapable almost of the ingenuity and technological brilliance which permitted it to dominate the electronics landscape.

It’s safe to say that Sony Animation exists to make movies and make movies alone. It is perhaps the truest form of corporate animation studio today.

Blue Sky (FOX)

Despite too many successful Ice Age sequels, the Connecticut studio suffered a tad when its original epic, ‘Epic’ didn’t quite light the box office on fire. The studio is also in a bit of a quandry insofar as parent FOX distributes DreamWorks films as well. Thus far there appears to be no sense of favouritism but it does mean that Blue Sky may start to see more direction from FOX.

As of now, the strategy must be to simply make great films; on par with Sony, but in a distinctly more precarious manner in light of FOX’s relationship with DreamWorks.

Illumination

Bringing home the bacon with Despicable Me 2 ought to keep this studio in the good graces of Universal for a few more years at least. Another corporate possession, Illumination seems content to put out animated films and nothing more.

It’s strategy is unknown, but Universal would be unwise at this point not to expand it’s operations (into TV or otherwise), especially in light of DM 2.

Conslusion

It’s incredibly tough to determine which studio is following the best strategy. They are, after all, following paths which suit them or are chosen for them. In the long run. even given DreamWorks precarious position as an independent company, theirs is the strategy that I would bet on. They are not simply making films or figuring out how to make easy money. Nope, they are doing that but also setting the company up for growth. With that in mind, they look set to continue their growth despite setbacks in theatrical animation.

 

 

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Anyone Interested in an Animation Anomaly Podcast?

To get straight to the point, I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a weekly podcast for a while but am not sure if it’s a good move or not. (Not least because there are a million others out there already.)

If you have any interest in hearing my thick Irish brogue wax lyrical about animation, just leave a yay or nay in the comments.

Feel free to suggest topics that you’d like to hear me cover too!

 

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How Difficult is it to Set Up an Animation Studio Today?

Via: Cartoon Brew
Via: Cartoon Brew

A while back I published a rather sarcasm-filled piece that highlighted the apparent ease with which someone felt that you could get an animation studio up and running. Quite simply, the source explained things in a far-too-easy manner. Today though, we’re taking a more serious approach to how difficult (or rather, how easy) it is to get an animation studio up and running in 2013.

What IS An Animation Studio?

The first thing to consider is exactly what counts as an ‘animation studio’. We’re long past the point where a true studio was a group of artists working in a shared space on projects of a certain duration. With modern technology, it is very much possible to be a one-person studio or to operate in a virtual studio environment separated from colleagues by thousands of miles.

Let’s say though, for simplicity’s sake, that you wanted to set up a ‘traditional’ studio; i.e. a shared space housed in a building that people commute to. Is that still a realistic goal or has that ship sailed thanks to costs?

It’s hard to say, but there is certainly still a lot of value (monetary and otherwise) to having everyone in a single place at the same time. Marissa Meyer is famous for eliminating Yahoo’s telecommuting policy and forcing people back into the office.

Are the costs still significant? Yes! However, that is not to say that they are insurmountable. In reality, they are no more expensive than for any other office, and cheap space should be easy to find no matter where you are.

Are they Still Viable in the Internet Age?

One of the complaints about the internet age and its effects on content is that it simply doesn’t pay enough to make an investment in a studio worthwhile. That seems like it’s true, but in fact, it has little to do with how much the animation itself pulls in as it does how much total money the studio brings in.

Productions may or may not be revenue spinners in the way they have been through licensing and so forth, but they are still the primary generators of revenue for any studio. The goal is to get a number of them going at the same time so that revenue streams are relatively stable over a prolonged period of time. In such instances, a traditional studio should be absolutely viable in the internet age.

Why They Have To Start Small

Everyone starts a studio with grand ambitions. While Disney never seemed to display them, it is fairly certain that he knew how big his studio would eventually become. He started with only a handful of people churning out shorts at breakneck speed and barely managing to break even in the process.

History is littered with plenty of examples of studios that started out big and failed entirely. Don Bluth leapt from Disney and started into his own features. He ultimately failed. DreamWorks very nearly suffered a similar fate; bolting out the gate with blockbuster films that were identical to what Jeffrey Katzenberg had produced at Disney. Those nearly brought the studio down before it caught a break with Shrek; a cheap film that made a lot of money. In the end, that studio had to shrink before it could grow.

Any new, startup studio, needs to start small. How small? Well in one of my Animation Scoop pieces, I theorised whether it would be possible for a feature film to have a genesis in an animated GIF. It would be a long and winding road for sure, but the concept is certainly possible given the right tools and people.

In a more realistic sense, short or very short films would be the ideal starting point; growing as the audience does. One big hit ought to be enough to spur production on a second, concurrent series. Once that’s in place, you can really get going in terms of improving the quality of the content and the amount of effort that goes into it.

Will Features Remain the Ultimate Goal of an Animation Studio?

Features have long remained a goal for animation studios for the simple reason that they exemplify and personify a significant amount of effort. Shorts and TV series are different beasts, but they do not seem to represent the marathon that is feature film production. The glamour and allure of Hollywood, the Academy Awards and vast profits seem to remain the goal of many who enter the business.

That isn’t to say that features will disappear; far from it. However new studios will have to find a way to produce top-quality features that are economical to make. If revenues from other areas of the business are steady, then that shouldn’t be a problem, but betting heavily on a large production would be unwise,

Will Anyone Ever Topple Disney?

Sure, someday someone will figure out a way and do it. Pixar nearly did but they let themselves get bought out. Given another few films, they could easily have toppled Walt’s studio as the animation studio to beat.

So what are you waiting on? Get out there and found your studio!

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Why the Boom and Bust In Animation Employment?

 

There seems to be a consensus among studios or the powers that be that mandates how productions are ataffed. No, this has nothing to do with ability, skill, gender makeup or anything like that. Rather it’s how animation employment levels tend to ramp up for a production and are then reduced as said production makes its way through the pipeline.

I raise this issue because someone likened it to being a construction worker. I.e. once the building is built, it’s time to move onto another job. That’s only partly true though, because even construction workers (unless their self-employed) aren’t fired from the overall firm. Instead, they’re simply moved to another contract that the company has.

The benefits are obvious, hence the reason it’s a widely instituted practice in construction. Contractors save money (and boy, do they like to save money) by not having to constantly hire and train workers. Their admin overhead costs are lower too, since they don’t require a large HR department to sift through resumes and file all the necessary paperwork. Lastly, they save a ton of time, because they already have a skilled workforce in place. All they have to do is manage it’s deployment.

An animation studio should be no different. the different productions are the different jobs, and a studio in the 21st century does not have the right to exist if it can’t manage it’s slate of productions so that crew numbers are constant.

What I fail to understand is that as a studio, your output ought to be constant. Sure a feature film requires a massive amount of manpower, but if you’re constantly releasing films, can’t you allocate resources to provide for a seamless transition?

It’s an even more critical issue for TV shows, which are in production year-round. Staffing up and down for a TV show is a ludicrous way of managing your team.

While there may very well be tax and wage benefits to hiring and firing, that is only because the rules of the game are set that way; to the detriment of the people actually playing.

Some of the greatest animators had very long and very stable careers with one or two studios and both parties were all the better for it. The concept of a job for life has vanished in recent decades, the notion of steady, dependable employment lasting more than one season or production should not be a rarity; indeed it should be standard.

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Week Links 29-2013

Another late roundup this week thanks to extenuating circumstances. All I’ll say is that the lack of public transportation options in the US is about to cost me a lot of money and car dealers truly do embody the stereotype of vultures. Anyways, enough of my troubles, here’s what you ought to read this week.

The end of the Hollywood blockbuster

This story has been kicking around for a while now ever since Spielberg and Lucas opined at a talk. This Pando Daily piece doesn’t attempt to explore the financial changes or pressures facing studios. Rather it looks at the generational shifts in terms of viewing habits. Here’s the key paragraph:

But here’s what should keep Hollywood executives up at night. My daughters don’t care much about the so-called quality of the experience. They don’t like to schlepp to movie theaters because the big-screen experience is less appealing than small-screen viewings on our television or iPad. The only time they want to go is when a movie they can’t get on TV or the iPad comes out, like “Despicable Me 2.” As for me, I’m happy to save the money it costs for us to see a movie in a theater – for a family of four it can be $40 or more plus transportation. That pays for four months of Netflix.

For the animation industry, whose core audience today is kids and by extension, their parents, that last sentence ought to serve as a wakeup call. This summer we’ve been lucky, but that may not be true in 2014.

Burka Avenger: Pakistan’s cartoon superhero battling for girls’ education

Via: The News
Via: The News

Coming via a regrettably rather snide piece in the Guardian is the news that the very first animated TV show to be produced in Pakistan will feature a superhero, and a female one to boot!

There’s a dearth of female protagonists in the west, but even more so in heavily masculine countries around the world. Burka Avenger is an attempt to counter the views of groups such as the taliban when it comes to the education of girls and young women.

The News has a much more well-defined and positive overview of the show.

Rising Animators Spring into Action

This New York Times piece (sorry, the on link I could find leads to a paywall but Cartoon Brew’s might be good) appears to be more fluff than anything else. For one, there’s only one female animator listed and you know there’s more than that in the industry that could be worthy of a place. That isn’t to belittle the guys on there though; everyone is top-notch talent. It would just be nice to see something a bit more representative, that’s all.

Ice Queen By Brianne Drouhard

Ice Queen Potatofarmgirl

I wish I could draw like this. I really do, but I can’t. Thankfully people like Brianne exist out there who can, and do, create awesome things like this. Ice Queen is a favourite of mine, and this captures her perfectly.

 Tweets of the Week

 

 

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