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TAG FOR “Ideas/Commentary”Cartoon Brew's home for up-to-the-minute, unedited announcements and press releases direct from industry sources.
September 29, 2009 3:19 am
I’d like to applaud Channel Frederator for finally seeing the light after nearly four years of operation, and announcing that they’re going to begin doing what Cartoon Brew TV has been doing since day one: paying filmmakers for their content. They even made a video to commemorate this momentous occasion: Let’s get one thing straight: Paying artists is always a positive thing. But the manner in which the guys at Channel Frederator are doing it continues to reflect their lack of regard and respect for the filmmaking community upon which they’ve built their brand. Seriously, in what universe is $50 considered an acceptable fee for anything nowadays? Have they been misinformed that filmmakers can time travel back to 1964 to make all their purchases? Here’s a reality check—the last time I went out to lunch with Channel Frederator founder Fred Seibert, our lunch bill ended up being over fifty smackers. In other words, this paltry amount isn’t even enough to fill up Fred’s tummy for one afternoon, yet somehow it’s supposed to represent a filmmaker’s reward for months of blood, sweat and tears. They’ve also announced that every month they’ll pay the filmmaker of the most viewed film a whopping $200. Guess what? That’s still less than what we pay every single filmmaker on Cartoon Brew TV. Cartoon Brew TV doesn’t claim to be the standard bearer for online film distribution. Our company is two guys, Jerry and myself, and we’ve never received tens of millions of dollars in funding like Channel Frederator’s parent company, Next New Networks. But at the end of the day, I sleep well knowing that I do my best within our limited means to give something back to the community. I don’t make self-congratulatory videos and blog posts when I decide to do the right thing that I should have been doing all along. I put my money where my mouth is instead of making grandiose outward shows of being artist-friendly and supportive of creators. And most importantly, I don’t insult filmmakers by paying them fifty bucks. I truly believe that there needs to exist an alternative to the hucksters who have been exploiting the animation talent pool for years. This is what drives me to continue building Cartoon Brew TV into the premier destination for animated shorts online. We all know that the possibilities for filmmakers to earn money on the Internet are greater than ever. And while I don’t have a lot of money, I have more than $50, and I’m more than happy to dole it out when I put your film on the site. Who knows, maybe this idea of paying animators a respectable fee for showing their work online will someday become an industry-wide practice. It’s only fair, right? 80 Comments » posted in Ideas/Commentary, Shorts 
September 29, 2009 12:05 am
And so it goes: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was the number #1 film in the country last week, grossing $30.1 million dollars in its first three days of release. However, Ben Fritz of the LA Times choose to report the story this way: Sony’s animated film opens at No. 1, but its $30.1 million is so-so. Although it’s relatively strong for the historically slow movie-going month of September, the opening of “Cloudy” is decent but not spectacular compared with its $100-million budget. Animated features are earning big bucks, but what does it take for animation to earn some respect? Cloudy had a $30 million dollar opening, coming in at #1 – with #2 (Soderbergh’s The Informant) grossing almost $20 million dollars less, $10.5 million. Hollywood would declare any live action flick earning $30 million over three days in September, beating the competition two-to-one like Cloudy did, a major blockbuster. Instead, the film’s opening gross was “decent, but not spectacular.” Instead of comparing Cloudy to other movies in the marketplace, or maybe to previous live action comedies, the LA Times rated its success against Dreamworks, Pixar and Blue Sky’s CG films – and judged it poorly against them. To quote again from Mr. Fritz: It also keeps Sony behind several of its more experienced animation competitors — DreamWorks, Disney’s Pixar and Fox’s Blue Sky — all of whose movies usually have bigger openings. For good measure, Fritz decides to remind us of how poorly Sony’s previous film did – and despite Cloudy’s number one status in South America, has doubts about its chances in Europe: The studio’s second animated movie, 2007’s “Surf’s Up,” was a box-office flop that opened to just $17.6 million. It remains to be seen how Sony’s new animated film will perform overseas, although it did open at No. 1 this weekend in four countries: Britain, Mexico, Chile and Ecuador. It never ceases to amaze me. You can have the biggest hit in Hollywood, and the industry trade reporters will still treat your film as a second-class citizen – if its animated. Now, for a second week in a row, Cloudy came in again at #1 – with a 19% drop-off in attendance from the previous week. Word of mouth is clearly kicking in; and 19% is a record low for a second week of any Hollywood film. Still, several industry pundits are now tying Cloudy’s surprise success to the fact that it was released in 3-D. Has it ever occurred to these geniuses that maybe, perhaps, possibly… that this non-Pixar-Dreamworks-Blue Sky animated film could actually be “good”. That audiences might conceivably want a funny story, with crazy characters, spectacular visuals and great animation? Until they figure it out, animation will remain Hollywood’s biggest mystery. And like Rodney (or Rover) Dangerfield, animated features will still be waiting for respect. 26 Comments » posted in Ideas/Commentary
September 24, 2009 3:35 am
We’re launching a new—and hopefully regular—feature on the Brew today where you ask the questions, and we find the answers. I wanted to kick things off with a question that I’ve been asked repeatedly by animation students and short filmmakers, and about which there seems to be an endless amount of misinformation and confusion. Here is the question as it was posed to us by filmmaker Eric Bates:
For some opinions, I decided to ask two people who program animation festivals: Chris Robinson, the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Film Festival, and Susie Wilson, the Festival Director of Projector and a member of film selection committees at festivals like Annecy. (Also, see the UPDATE below from Mark Osborne.) Here’s what they had to say:
I guess the negative side of posting things online is quality. There’s nothing like sitting in a cinema with a thousand people watching a film on a big screen. People talk about the increased connection you get between artist and audience online, but nothing is more immediate that the reaction you get (or don’t get) in a cinema. It’s also a bit of a different audience. The bulk of the audience at animation festivals are animation professionals or students. Online screenings can open you up to a slightly different audience. Short film animators have limited opportunities to get there films out there so take advantage of everything available to you.
What do you the film-maker want for, and from, your film? It’s your answer to this question that will guide you in managing its exposure. Some initial elements to consider: Is the volume of viewers important to you? Quality vs. quantity. Yes, the Web might reach more people, but also think about the cinema experience which can be far superior, no matter how hi-res the computer screen or how woof the speakers. Is your film non-narrative, experimental, abstract? If it’s a difficult piece, festival audiences can be more open. (Ok, not counting the notoriously impatient Grand Salle crowd at Annecy.) However, there can be more cohesion in groupings of films online, and the viewer can make up their own private festival. But wait, they can also stop watching it if it’s not satisfying them whereas in a cinema situation, they’d have to sit through the whole damn frustrating prickly amazing piece! Think a year ahead when you’re planning on where to send your film and read the requirements of what you consider to be the most significant festivals in the upcoming twelve months. If they demand virgin births or non-line pedigrees, and it’s an event that will introduce you to what you consider to be an important audience, abide by their rules. The clearer you are about where you want your film to go, the easier it will be for you to navigate all the festival and Web opportunities out there. Sit down, think about the ultimate destination, then chart your course. It’s your film, it’s your call. A closing thought from myself: the trend clearly favors filmmakers nowadays, and most festivals don’t require filmmakers to keep their films off-line. Whenever somebody poses this question to me on the Brew, I always encourage artists to post their films online. The benefits of having your film on the Internet far outweigh the potential (and increasingly unlikely) exclusion from a handful of film festivals. (On a sidenote, the administrators of animation schools that require their students to keep their animation off the Internet should be slapped. They are performing a disservice to their students at a crucial time when these young filmmakers are trying to make a name for themselves.) Even festivals that require films to be offline, like Sundance, are not enforcing their rules strictly. Last year, Sundance selected a number of shorts that had already debuted online. One of those, From Burger It Came, was a film that was available on Cartoon Brew TV, and at the request of the filmmaker, we removed the film for the period of the festival to comply with Sundance’s rules. However, another short film in Sundance competition, which was already an online hit, remained online throughout the festival without any repercussions. UPDATE: Director Mark Osborne wrote to say that if you’re trying to get an Oscar nomination, then posting the film online is a bad idea. Mark says:
28 Comments » posted in AskTheExperts, Ideas/Commentary
September 23, 2009 11:30 am
I just got back from Seoul, Korea, where I spoke at a conference called DICON 2009, a digital conference that was part of the International Creative Content Fair. I liked that this event had its own slogan, “Show the Spirit of Creative Content!” since I rarely attend events that have slogans these days. I don’t think the Ottawa Festival has a slogan. I can only imagine what it would be. (“Sit down, shut up, listen to Chris?”) While at DICON, I gave a presentation on the elements of quality cartoons. I was happy they had asked about that particular topic since it’s a fun topic to talk about. No one in the US seems terribly interested in pondering this anymore. I guess we have it all figured out here. The Korean animation industry is an interesting case study. After years of doing service work for the US, Canada and Europe, throughout the 2000s, the animation industry in Korea shifted its attention to creating cartoons. Schools added programs in animation, and beautiful, moody Korean short films began showing up in festivals worldwide. Within a matter of years, original Korean series began showing up on the air in Korea. The Korean animation industry’s most recent focus has been how to sell these cartoons outside of Asia. It is hard to sell to the US, even for people who live here, I assured them. There’s not a lot of space on the air and there are a lot of shows out there. The American animation industry has a long and interesting relationship with the Korean animation industry. Through the 1980s and 90s, a great deal of animation service work was sent to Korea. Most animation executives, creators and producers participated in a particular rite of passage, a trip to Korea to visit the production studios. Reeling from jet lag, you would then have the surreal experience of seeing hundreds of people you had never met sitting and drawing or painting various series you worked on. Actually, some would be working on your series, and the people next to them would be working on series for rival networks, which would make it even more surreal. I was always impressed with the work of the studios we worked with, Rough Draft, Yeson, Sae Rom, and several others. I remember thinking over the years that it was just a matter of time before these animators and studios would want to create original content, shows in Korean that they could watch on the air. By the early 2000s, much of the Korean animation industry had jumped head first into the murky waters of intellectual property development, along with a great deal of help from the Korean government, by way of KOCCA, the Korea Creative Content Agency. The focus on service work had come out of a long history of Korean manufacturing. Conversely, the desire to create and own intellectual property probably came more from the marketing and publishing areas of Korean business and the desire to own the rights to the series they are producing, as well as the honor of seeing these Korean series get sold internationally. I have met several newer studios over the years, through pitches and visits, and I have always sensed that frustration you have when you first start out doing something and you want everyone to appreciate what you are doing right away. I got a sense that the Korean government was looking at the American and Japanese industries and wondering why after six or seven years, Korea’s animation industry hadn’t caught up yet. I have taken a number a pitches from these Korean studios over the years and one thing has been consistent — the amazing artwork. They make CGI look effortless and almost each show I’ve seen features amazing artwork. Direction and design in the pilots I look at is always topnotch. However, I have watched a number of pilots wondering whether I’d watched something with a plot or characters, or just a study in movement. I often feel the same way watching Japanese animation, and I’ve always chalked it up to the idea that the way Japanese animators tell stories is just different from the way we westerners tell stories. No problem, I’d think, every culture deserves to have a national film style. But the issues kick in when the Korean studios want to sell these series to the US, Canada and Europe. Some of their series that remind me of independent films, but then I see they are targeted to preschool or 6-8 audiences. I guess that’s why we were invited there to give our speeches. There was a mix of speakers from the US at DICON: Max Howard, David Voss from Mattel, Christopher Skala of HIT, Josh Selig of Little Airplane, Brian Konietzko and Seung Hyun Oh of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and a long list of other speakers from Asia and Europe. I did my session with Celine Chesnay from France Television. Kevin Rafferty, the well known feature film visual effects supervisor gave a keynote speech along with Rintaro (aka Shigeyuki Hayashi), the Japanese director of Galaxy Express 999 and Metropolis. They didn’t just cover the film and television industries. Other sessions focused on mobile and internet content, social networking, co-productions, financing, and the music industry. For my speech, I did walk through a long list of things you must do to make a cartoon a good cartoon. After my presentation, I received a number of smart and well-thought-out questions. The most direct was, “be honest, what do you think are the weaknesses of Korean animation?” I said what I’d been saying right along, “You create amazing artwork here and direction is always great. You need to focus on character and story.” A few of the studios pointed out they had hooked up with British writers. That’s a start, I suppose. All in all, it was a fun trip. There was a store called Aniland right near the hotel, with Totoro right on the sign next to the store’s logo. I bought some great toys for my kids. The Korean aesthetic is all about extreme cuteness. Their toys and designs are even cuter than Japanese characters. That’s good news if you have a four-year-old daughter. I bought all the toys from vending machines that looked like gumball machines. We have a good collection of Tofu-head magnets now. However, I slept no more than ten hours in three nights so I have been spending the week catching up on that all important sleep.
18 Comments » posted in Ideas/Commentary
September 15, 2009 10:08 pm
This one’s worth a few guffaws… (Thanks, Roque) 36 Comments » posted in CGI, Ideas/Commentary
September 7, 2009 5:15 am
Danny Antonucci (Lupo the Butcher, Ed, Edd n Eddy) posted this refreshingly frank piece of advice on his Facebook page, and he’s allowed me to share it with everybody on the Brew. Even with all his years in the biz, Danny hasn’t forgotten what it’s all about: Danny Antonucci’s 4 “C”s to Great Cartoons 27 Comments » posted in Ideas/Commentary
July 31, 2009 10:54 am
One of the most interesting animated-related pieces I’ve read in a while: David OReilly discusses his technical and aesthetic approach to the short Please Say Something. His ideas are a polar opposite of mainstream computer animation:
9 Comments » posted in CGI, Ideas/Commentary, David OReilly
July 16, 2009 1:00 pm
There has been a lot of growth in site-specific animation over the past few years, and artists like Blu and Pablo Valbuena are finding different ways to incorporate the built environment into animation. The video installation “Tetragram for Enlargement,” created by the Italian visual artist collective Apparati Effimeri, is set against a medieval castle, and it’s one of the trippiest marriages of architecture and animation I’ve seen to date. |
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