It turns out that John Kricfalusi isn’t the only TV animation creator who is vocal about his dislike of contemporary animation execs. Doug TenNapel, the creator of three animated series—Earthworm Jim, Project G.E.E.K.E.R. and Catscratch, offered this amusing insight on how to become an animation executive in this interview from a couple years ago:

Executives usually get in through “development.” They can be receptionists, P.A.’s lawyers, Literature majors and they end up being good at anything but writing, directing, acting or drawing. They have excellent social skills and could use a business background.

Mark Evanier posted this Tex Avery-directed Raid commercial on his blog and I couldn’t resist linking to it as well. At the risk of offending pretty much everybody I know, let me say that I could watch hours of every single current animated series on CN, Nick and Disney, and not find five seconds of cartoon animation as beautifully executed as the animation in this spot. From the second these characters appear on the screen, everything about them exudes personality—their posing, distinct styles of movement, and little bits of personality animation, like the big bug scratching himself or the little bug readjusting his cap. The movement is timed funny, and their designs have appealing contrasting shapes (look at the big bug’s lumpy body, gangly arms and couple-sizes-too-small jacket).

What’s amusing is that this Raid spot is not what anybody would ever consider a classic piece of animation. It was probably knocked out by Avery and a couple freelance animators in a few weeks, and viewed by them as little more than a job. But boy, do their years of experience show. The guys who animated in the Golden Age had nailed the art of funny cartoon animation down to a science. Today, even with plenty of animation being produced in the States again thanks to Flash, there are few animators pushing themselves to elevate cartoon animation to this prior level of excellence. Everything I see in the mainstream is generic and blandly animated—as long as it moves across the screen, it’s good enough. It saddens me to look at what we had before, and how funny and entertaining even an inconsequential bit of animation like this Raid spot could be.

Spurred on by my recent posts criticizing Cuppa Coffee’s Zootube contest (here and here), animation artist Keith Lango has written some general thoughts about understanding the value of your creative properties. Using his own experiences as an example, Lango stresses one key point—”don’t ever, ever, ever give away rights to your work blindly, without condition and without real value in return. Rights have great value.”

In his post, Keith also uses the boys at JibJab as examples of artists who understand and practice good business. I love how JibJab’s Evan Spiridellis responds in the comments section that they’re not really doing anything revolutionary; in fact, Evan writes, “The case for retaining your rights goes straight back to Walt. If people are unaware of the Oswald fiasco they should read their animation history.”

Cuppa Coffee president Adam Shaheen responded indirectly to my recent post, “Cuppa Coffee Wants To Ream Filmmakers” (Feb. 5), by writing a letter to Cold Hard Flash’s Aaron Simpson. Shaheen’s response can be read in its entirety here.

It’s a lengthy response but what Shaheen doesn’t discuss is more noteworthy than what he does. For one, he doesn’t address my primary complaint: why does Cuppa Coffee expect to receive exclusive rights to all the animated shorts entered in the contest, across all media, forever, without any obligation of compensating any of the artists?

The only response that Shaheen manages is, “Any short film that earns a development deal with Cuppa Coffee, would then naturally involve the author being integrated into an upfront deal that would be negotiated fairly between the two parties - again, a true negotiation that doesn’t present as being anything but that.” That’s essentially saying, ‘Yeah the contract you sign to enter the program is unfair, but if you win, we’ll then negotiate a more fair contract with you. And guess what, if you don’t win our development deal, we still own the rights to your film.’

With the explosion of online video, there’s new contests like this popping up every week - two other recent ones are iLaugh’s Shortfest and AniBoom’s Eyedoll contest. All of these contests have ulterior motives: either helping to build a company’s brand/library or getting free development out of artists. In every case, the benefit of the collective entries coming into these companies far outweigh the benefit returned to the individual artists who are entering the contest.

Frankly, I think it’s time to get over this silly and insulting notion that creating animation is a game. Animated filmmaking is not a contest and no piece of classic animation has ever been produced because of a contest. Animation is an art form and a business. Investing time and effort into creating quality work and backing it up with some basic business skills is the only proven formula for achieving success in this industry.

One final thought. In his letter, Shaheen writes,

“At the end of the day, would you rather own 100% of something that sits on Youtube, or would you prefer to relinquish your rights and use this piece as a launching pad for your career?”

Personally, if I was going to “relinquish my rights” to further my career, I’d rather relinquish it to a major network like MTV (as Mike Judge did for Beavis & Butt-Head), Nickelodeon (as John K. and Stephen Hillenburg did), Fox (as Matt Groening did), Cartoon Network (as Genndy Tartakovsky and Craig McCracken did) or Comedy Central (as Parker and Stone did) than to a Canadian production house looking to attach itself to my talent under the guise of a contest.

Toronto-based animation studio Cuppa Coffee Studios has always struck me as a decent outfit, but I’ve lost a lot of respect for them after hearing about their latest endeavor. ZooTube is an “animation contest” essentially designed to screw filmmakers. Here’s the description of the contest taken from their website:

Cuppa Coffee Animation is offering a real opportunity to get your foot in the industry door. We’re looking for exciting talent to be part of a new animated television and web series for a teen and up audience. Submit your short animated film for a chance to showcase it online and on television!

A select group of Cuppa Coffee Development Executives and Directors will choose the best to be part of our new show and then viewers wil be invited to vote for their favourites. The creators of the films that receive the most votes get a shot at the big time with a development deal with Cuppa Coffee Animation.

A development deal with Cuppa Coffee? Cuppa Coffee is neither a major studio or a TV network. They still have to pitch their shows to Disney Channel or Nick, just like everybody else. In other words, a development deal with Cuppa Coffee is about as useful as a development deal with your Aunt Agnes. The deal is seemingly designed to exploit the young artist with no connections to the industry because an artist with any level of experience doesn’t need an intermediary to get their project shown to the networks.

Now this “contest” would perhaps be a little more innocent if it was set up in a fair manner. The problems begin, however, when you examine their Submission Release Form (download PDF here). The submission release basically states that if Cuppa Coffee likes your short, they will take every right they can to your film. Forever. Without guaranteeing you anything in return.

In legalese, they get the rights to “to reproduce, exhibit, distribute, promote and otherwise exploit the Series including the Short or any part thereof, in all media and formats now or hereafter known (including without limitation, theatrical, non-theatrical, telecast, DVD and other video devices, mobile telephone and other wireless devices, MP3 players and other hand-held devices and Internet transmission, including without limitation, posting the Short or any part of the Short on Producer’s website (and the website of any broadcaster or distributor of the Series)), in all languages, throughout the universe, in perpetuity.” And on top of that, “If Producer does use the Short in the Series in accordance with the rights granted in this Submission Release, I acknowledge that I will not be entitled to any compensation.”

Sweet, huh? Who in the hell would ever be stupid enough to enter a contest like this? Such a contest would have been atrocious ten years ago, but today, it’s absolutely unacceptable. It used to be that filmmakers were willing to enter lopsided deals, with places like Spike & Mike, because touring festivals were often the only way they could get exposure for their independent animation.

Thankfully, those days are long over. With the emergence of video on the Internet, filmmakers now have the unprecedented opportunity to have their work seen by millions. Take, for example, Dony Permedi, who a few months ago posted his student short film KIWI! onto YouTube. It has already been viewed over five million times. Granted, Dony didn’t make any money by having his work on YouTube, but he got his work and his name out there to a huge audience without giving up a single right to his work.

The Internet has opened new doors of opportunity for creators, artists, and filmmakers. The power has shifted to the animators’ corner, not the producers or studios trying to exploit your work to establish their brand. You can post your work on your website (Homestar Runner, JibJab), onto YouTube, or make deals with AtomFilms or Revver that don’t strip away your rights. You can publish your work onto dvd and distibute it via the Internet. You can contact development execs at Nick, CN, Disney and elsewhere - it’s their job to seek out your work - and if they like it, you can get a legitimate development deal.

Bottom line is that if you’re going to give your film to anybody, make sure that you’re compensated in a way that is fair, transparent and benefits you as much as it does the other party. As for Cuppa Coffee, let’s hope they seriously rethink this ripoff-disguised-as-contest. It’s embarassing for any studio to so openly and blatantly attempt to dupe filmmakers in this manner.

Here’s a recent AWN interview where a Disney exec producer explains his credentials that qualify him to work in the animation industry:

As exec producer of Disney’s newest animated shows for tweens, what exactly do you do? How is an exec producer different from a producer?

JT: As the exec producer I am the “show runner.” The ultimate responsibility for all creative decisions rests with me. Having said that, my background is comedy writing, so my style is to delegate a lot. Heather Martinez, my director, who is a great artist, is in charge of most “art decisions.” I only weigh in on what I feel are the most crucial ones and I concentrate more on writing, acting and editing.

How long have you been interested in animation? You originally came to Los Angeles with the goal of becoming a lawyer. At what time did that switch for you and how did you transition into animation?

JT: Actually, I came to L.A. as a stand-up comedian. I had quit the law to do comedy. My transition to animation was pretty abrupt. I had been writing for American Movie Classics and Fox Sports when Steve Marmel suggested I freelance a script for the Fairly Oddparents. (He was the story editor.) I wrote a script in February and in June, I was a staff writer.

If you’ve ever wondered why mainstream studio cartoons are so intolerably awful, just ask the former lawyer and stand-up comic who’s responsible for all the artistic decisions on a Disney TV series. There’s hundreds of people like him in this business; it’s just that most of them don’t go on the record talking about their lack of knowledge about the art form. Then again, a lot of them do go on the record. To better understand how they’re collectively screwing the animation industry, be sure to read John Kricfalusi’s fearlessly honest blog post “Crackpot Executive Beliefs.”