This business case study of Ferran Adrià’s restaurant elBulli restaurant has nothing to do on the surface with cartoons, yet the conclusions of the study can be applied equally well to the animation industry.

In particular, this comment by Michael Norton of the Harvard Business School stands out:

“Adrià’s idea is that if you listen to customers, what they tell you they want will be based on something they already know. If I like a good steak, you can serve that to me, and I’ll enjoy it. But it will never be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. To create those experiences, you almost can’t listen to the customer.”

One of the key points in Norton’s study is making a distinction between understanding and listening to customers; the former is what Adrià does. Apply this to the idea of focus grouping in animation, and you might see where I’m headed. Norton is saying that if Adrià focus-grouped his food to satisfy the preconceived notions of his customers, his restaurant would be no different from all the others. The reason his restaurant is sold out year-round is because he surprises the tastes and sensibilities of his customers with an unpredictable personal vision.

In an increasingly homogenized culture, audiences (whether in a restaurant or in front of TV) crave experiences that are different and new. The entire purpose of focus groups in animation, however, is to ensure that audiences are given more of the same previously-successful ideas. But, look at many of the most successful animated series of recent years—The Simpsons, Ren and Stimpy, Beavis & Butt-head, South Park, Family Guy—and what they have in common is that they broke the mold of everything that preceded them. Focus groups (which I should point out are different from test screenings that can actually aid filmmakers) are a hindrance to the development of successful animation; an unspoken reason for their existence is largely to relieve execs of accountability for their decisions: “Well, I don’t know why the show failed,” they can say. “The focus groups loved it.”

21 Comments »   posted in Ideas/Commentary

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The Princess And the Frog (NY & LA) talkback

November 25, 2009 12:00 pm

Opening in exclusive release today in New York and Los Angeles is Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. If you’ve seen it, please give us your thoughts in the comments below.

55 Comments »   posted in Disney, Feature Film, Talkback

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Planet 51 talkback

November 24, 2009 11:45 pm

I was at the CTN Expo last weekend and completely forgot to see Planet 51. Am I missing something? If you saw it, I’d love to read your comments below.

19 Comments »   posted in Feature Film, Talkback

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Not So Mighty

November 24, 2009 4:25 pm

A Brew reader reports that Erik Wiese, the co-creator of Mighty B, hinted on his Facebook today that Nick has cancelled the show. Wiese wrote:

“Goodbye Bessie. Goodbye Happy. It was good knowing you.”

In case you’re curious, here are Nick’s top-rated programs from a few weeks ago. It’s a more revealing comment about the stagnant creative state of Nick than anything I could write:

#1 – SpongeBob’s Truth or Square
#2 – SpongeBob’s Truth or Square
#3 – Fanboy & Chum Chum
#4 – SpongeBob
#5 – Fanboy & Chum Chum
#6 – SpongeBob
#7 – SpongeBob’s Truth or Square
#8 – SpongeBob
#9 – SpongeBob
#10 – Penguins of Madagascar
#11 – SpongeBob
#12 – SpongeBob’s Truth or Square
#13 – iCarly Movie

78 Comments »   posted in TV

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Quote of the Week: Tom Rothman

November 24, 2009 2:56 pm

From the November 2 issue of The New Yorker:

“The trick is, from the business side, to try to be fiscally responsible so you can be creatively reckless.”

— Tom Rothman, president of Fox Filmed Entertainment, on why the $40 million budget of Fantastic Mr. Fox allowed them to be more creative.

Rothman’s comment couldn’t be more common sense, yet I’ve never heard an exec say this about an animated feature. The mega-budget Pixar/DreamWorks features are not a sustainable business model for other studios. When smaller studios without an established creative infrastructure attempt to emulate the model, like Planet 51 ($60 million budget) and Astro Boy ($65 million), they typically end up with a half-assed product that falls flat on its face at the box office. Audiences are increasingly demanding variety in their animated features, and the studios that figure out how to offer original and unconventional animated films that are modestly budgeted will find themselves amply rewarded. One of the major keys to keeping costs down and maintaining originality will be to implement a top-down creative strategy by hiring directors with a strong personal vision, like Anderson, instead of the usual approach that consists of building bloated creative teams. Mark my words, the $15-40 million animated feature will be the big thing of the next decade.

16 Comments »   posted in Feature Film, Ideas/Commentary

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How to Make $55,000 by Giving Away A Film

November 24, 2009 7:58 am

Filmmaker Nina Paley explains in the Wall Street Journal how she’s earned $55,000 from her animated feature Sita Sings the Blues by giving it away for free. The idea of offering content for free is still counterintuitive to a lot of artists, but I’m a firm believer that this concept will eventually become an important part in the arsenal of indie filmmakers. Nina is among the first within the animation community to prove that it works. A good starting point for understanding the concept is Chris Anderson’s recent book Free: The Future of a Radical Price.

31 Comments »   posted in Business, Feature Film

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Cornelis by Ayaka Nakata

November 24, 2009 12:12 am

Beautiful animated short by Ayaka Nakata that stems from a foundation of dance choreography. I like how the filmmaker creates an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue from abstract movements and sounds.

(Thanks, Tim Rauch)

7 Comments »   posted in Shorts

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A Page From TV Animation’s Past

November 23, 2009 7:51 pm

(click to enlarge image)

Understanding the extent to which artists have lost control of the animation process in the past is vital to ensuring a robust and healthy future for the art form. With that in mind, here’s a page of Broadcast Standards notes from a 1978 episode of the Filmation series Fabulous Funnies. The notes are comical and absurd, but it’s utterly horrifying to think that any artist could endure working under such conditions. Would TV artists today be willing to put up with such maddening bull crap or is the community more enlightened?

(The names in the cc are telling: Margaret Loesch and Jean MacCurdy, who would soon thereafter gain great power as kidvid execs, and NBC up-and-comer Brandon Tartikoff.)

53 Comments »   posted in Bad Ideas, TV

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