Originally Posted By Disneyaria I agree with Kar2oonMan this exchange has been interesting and educating. Both sides have good points. A lot of things to ponder. <<<I think one of the reasons some adults stay away from Disney animated films is because they feel they have fallen into a predictable pattern (it isn't true, but I think that's the perception among some who don't patronize Disney animated films). >>> Perhaps this is true, however I think a lot of adults that grew up with Disney films are now thinking that "Cartoons are for kids". Could anything be further from the truth? I think now more than ever we need that magic and some more fairytales in our lives. Disney does have a sort of predictablity when it comes to their animated films. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Well, come to think about it "predictablity" can be taken a lot of different ways in this case. I am not even sure how I am using it. In the Animation Building in DCA they have a graphic time line up depicting several Disney movies (I am not sure if it is complete). My sister and I spent some time looking at it. After awhile we came to the same conclusion: Disney hasn't made a "Princess Movie" in awhile. I guess it has only been a few years, and maybe we noticed this because we are totally girly girls. LOL. However, there was a very broad range of animated films. Looking at this timeline was very educating. It seemed that Disney has had a few slow periods in the past, several movies in a row that weren't necessarily big hits and then a great movie would come a long and start a chain of a bunch of great movies. It seemed (to me) that Little Mermaid ended a particularly long slow period. My personal opinion is that there will always be a place for animated films and I hope the Disney Co. realizes this. It is unfortunate that they are so expensive to make, this makes it harder for them to take the risk of producing them. I just hope Lilo and Stitch can break the slow period that we have just experienced (however small this period was). I think Disney will always have it's ups and downs, every company does. It is our job to support them when they do something wonderful. I know that I just said the same thing this article did, I guess I just wanted to agree. I will definately go see Lilo and Stitch opening night and I hope a lot of other people do the same.
Originally Posted By arstogas >>>By the way, arstogas or AFA (or anyone who knows the answer) what does a film like Lilo or Spirit cost to make these days? Is it a LOT more than the average live action summer movie (say Men In Black II or Spider-Man)?<<< I've heard $50 million bandied about for LILO, which sounds about right, given the reigns were tight on R&D and stuff like that. Probably 5 to 10% of that went to the Elvis Presley Estate... SPIRIT's cost, from what I hear, was more like $85, but I don't have any confirmation of that. The average studio movie today runs in excess of $55 million, plus a good 15-30 million more in P&A (prints and advertising). That's WAY too high, but many of the studios have been absorbed by big companies with deep pockets, and accountability has gone out the window. And the companies that AREN'T owned by some mega-corporation STILL are spending that kind of money to compete and attract name actors and big ticket directors. It's ironic, in what I've been crying about in terms of the money available for animation, that today's FRONT PAGE of the LA Times featured an article about the vanishing German money that has flooded Hollywood for years. Part of that money went to companies like Disney, and funded movies like ATLANTIS. Film money is money, whether it finances live-action or animation. The resources for films in excess of 30 million ARE that small.. it IS a tiny pool, and it's increasingly tough to attract investors, particularly from the good old USA. At least when you invest in an oil well, you can SEE the rig, and there's something left over even if it was a dry well... An investor has NO way to tell if a movie, with real people are cartoon characters, is going to strike gold at the box office, until the film is released, and there are SO many people advising against investing in film in general... I can tell you, when people DO think about investing in film, they AREN'T thinking at all about investing in the next JIMMY NEUTRON or ICE AGE, or even LILO AND STITCH. It's just not a part of the mindset. You have to educate those investors, but if you're HONEST with them, you also have to show them what they stand to make, based on precedent. Heck, investors in Disney's various LLC's... those movies that have made money make money for DISNEY the way the deals are structured... find a private investor who struck it rich on one of those deals, and we'll have a party. No, instead what has happened is, the deals get more restrictive, even as investors keep shying away and getting tougher to find. It's DEFINITELY that way for live action filmmaking, and it's compounded to a greater degree when you raise the prospect of animated film. Consider the following pitches to an investor: "Well, we've got a great movie set in the baltic sea during the cold war, and we've got Sylvester Stallone, who can deliver America (that's a big lie nowadays) and Stellan Skarrsgard, who can deliver the international audience (a smaller lie)." "Well, we've got an animated film about flying turtles whose undersea paradise is being invaded by a group of overweight penguins who mistake the paradise for a fat camp. Uh, we've got Cameron Diaz and Jonny Depp doing two of the penguins, and David Ogden Steirs doing the mayor of Turtlevania." "What's that? Oh, he did a bunch of Disney character voices... in Pocahontas, in Beauty and the Beast... Well, he was in Mash. Remember? He replaced Frank Burns." "Our directing animator was a producer on the SIMPSONS and he was also a storyman on IRON GIANT, a great, great animated film." "No, it didn't make that much money." "No, um, it didn't make a profit. But that was Warner's Marketing department's fault... And these guys REALLY know comedy and how to tell a great..." (long pause as investor gives you this "Overweight penguins?" look) "Okay, well, Stallone is alone on this oil rig in the Baltic Sea, in chains, at the beginning of the movie, being tortured by Alan Rickman... yeah, he was in Die Hard. The Bad guy. Right..." Now which movie is the investor going to THINK he understands? Which is he going to (Mistakenly) think is the better investment? It ain't just the Germans who've flown the coop...
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan2 >>I can tell you, when people DO think about investing in film, they AREN'T thinking at all about investing in the next JIMMY NEUTRON or ICE AGE, or even LILO AND STITCH.<< They're more interested, as your not-very-exagerrated example shows, in stuff like Scooby Doo, or even better, a sequel to a hit with a proven track record/star/director. Which is fine for investors, but sad for real movie fans.
Originally Posted By maxrebo1212 I think it is also sad that people flood to see bad movies. Take Scooby Doo for example. I have not seen it but every review I saw for it said it was horrible. The previews I saw for it also made it seem to me like it would be a bad movie. But it set a new June opening weekend record for the box office. Movie companies will continue to make these bad movies if we continue to go see them.
Originally Posted By Disneyaria Good Point. Take for example all the "teen" movies that have come out lately. They don't have a storyline what-so-ever. They rely on dirty jokes and nude scenes to pull in the money. So-called Humour is getting more and more degrading. Movies like "Not Another Teen Movie" glorify the fact that they don't need any of the elements that used to make a movie great. The people that work on these movies don't care if their movies go down in history with "Gone With the Wind" or "Citizen Kane" they just want a big opening weekend and lot's of money. They could care less about movie reviews, who needs them if your movie can be "succesful" anyway. It is sad that people can't appreciate a well done movie. Movies with great stories, well developed characters and artful cinematography. All too often, however, the first two things I mentioned get sacraficed to cinamatography. I have seen movies with great cutting-edge technology and special effects but couldn't remember the characters names or what the story was supposed to be about the moment the credits started rolling. I seem to just be ranting off topic now. My point is that it is too bad that good movies, animated or not, get overlooked by the crass population that likes to laugh at the "humour" in things that should make you blush. arstogas: Regarding your comments about how much movies cost to make - Do you think that budgets go unchecked because everyone seems to ask how much a movie did cost? It seems that money determines sucess. (Sarcasm Alert) If someone has a lot of money they are better than everyone else right? Using the same logic you would assume that since Movie A cost more than Movie B then Movie A is the better movie.
Originally Posted By actingforanimators You left out the singing nuns and the magic wishing ferret as voiced by Chris Rock. Guys, c'mon. These are unfair exaggerations of the worst kind of pitch anyone could make. And a fairly simplified approach to pitching an un-tested creative endeavor to investors. LOL I'm sure you meant it to be very tongue in cheek. It sounds like "The Producers." If that were how your pitches to investors are going then I'd turn you down too. I can't imagine you're approach is anywhere near that. However, consider that smart producers invest in their investors and capitalization has to start with the founders or there's no evidence of similar risk. A critical part of that personal capitalization has to include spending money to attract money. Bringing someone in as part of a select group of individuals who are courted over the course of a weekend, showing them the work of some exciting artists - including clips from previous works (such as the $400 million "Lion King") and giving them an opportunity to understand first hand how an animated film is made. They are invited to sit in on a recording session for the scratch track - and meet at lunch with the casting director who talks about the talent they're approaching, and why. The investor is driven back to their hotel to rest up for the afternoon and given a copy of financials for their review - giving them an opportunity to review actuals without the immediate pressure of producers present. Finally, the investor is taken to dinner with the principals of the project/studio where they're allowed to ask questions that better have real answers, and invited to join the production at a key level of financial support that has projected returns relative to the level of risk. Once done they're given time for consideration of the proposition. Various levels of involvement are discussed and key players such as exhibitors and distributors are reminded to send a note or place a call to the investor simply to ask how the visit went, and find out what their experience was like. Perception feedback informs the process of any good investment relations strategy. Before you go fire off a missive about any perceived lack of reality on my part, I offer this as but one example of the approach. Building relations with investors is a slow and careful process. If an investor understands the machinations and can see the value of supporting the production then the understanding of the risk is tempered with a keener sensitivity to the VALUE of the risk. The cultivation of investors who have a genuine affinity to the process and the product is critical for the unique niche of animation. Silver Screen Partners is an excellent example of how investor relations can lead to creating a dynamic group of individuals willing to see beyond this month's financials. That model was very similar (and largely based on) the Doger Group model in professional theatre. Hollywood is stuck where it is with international investors because - going back to something I said earlier - an MBA mentality has likened film funding to car company funding and so we've approached people who are uninformed and may be general market savvy but are far from being industry savvy. The model has many benefits - and some that I've championed in the threads of this topic, but the investor education and investor relations are vastly different and need to be revamped if we're to see real growth. The industry was flooded in the 1980's with "get rich quick" puppies who left Harvard and Anderson and ten dozen other schools and came to LA with absolutely zip experience in any creative industry. And they took the reigns at nearly every major house in town. CULTURAL SOCIALIST ALERT---- AWOOGA AWOOGA….. it's time for the MBA's to GO!!!! We have a responsibility to cultivate smarter investors both here and abroad, and that's a big job. Nobody is going to do it for us. The investment pool is small because the whole industry's spin to them has been narrow (about as broad as a sound bite, frankly, and in that regard Arstogas's little pitch session is on target) and so the understanding has been myopic. And our own approach further hindered by our consistent failure to look beyond domestic box-office numbers. FYI "Spirit" was budgeted at $80.5M but exceeded that by some 10%. The average figure for the films produced at Disney between 1985 and 1999 was $75M. Disneyaria, I don't think good movies get overlook for any reason other than how they're marketed. The only approach to "audience development" 9 times out of 10 is the trailer and the ad campaign. Disney is VERY smart in their synergistic approach. "Lilo & Stitch" is an excellent example of how the products help educate the public and thus help sell the movie. Disney also has the advantage of having a built-in distribution for those audience development tools. Still, it's a great model. None of this is simple, in spite of my reductive rhetoric, and I don't want to imply that it can be solved quite so efficiently as a few well-placed verbs. But the discussion is valuable and more comes from keeping of the discussion than just wandering back to our offices and pouting. - AFA
Originally Posted By arstogas >>>It is sad that people can't appreciate a well done movie. Movies with great stories, well developed characters and artful cinematography. <<< For twenty-plus years, audiences have been eating hamburger at the movie theater. They've forgotten, as have almost all of the younger critics, what STEAK tastes like. So now we rave about ground chuck like it's prime rib. Very sad. It's taken years of conditioning. Remember that most movies are BAD... and that's not going to change. >>Building relations with investors is a slow and careful process. <<< While I agree with you on this as a maxim, the truth is, film is a different business for investors. It's different from almost any other business in the world, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, because I like your idealism ... you keep seeming to ignore what exists right now - a market of increasingly tight resources for investment capital (Did you read today's LA Times article that I cited? It echoed what I wrote several days ago) and investors who frankly have SO much bias going in against animation and film in general, that it requires an almost Herculean effort to persuade them. Look, the big joke is, never go to Texas to raise money, but the same thing is true of anywhere... potential investors court filmmakers so they can dine with name directors and actors, and tell their friends at the country club who they went to dinner with last Tuesday. The RARELY have a real intention to invest in film... genetics, sure, big potential... housing, banks, anything where there's a PRODUCT or a diversified slate for spreading the risk. The Silver Screen Partnerships you mentioned... they raised a lot of money and made some successful films - for Disney. Those investors are STILL angry about how the structure kept them from realizing any real gains. Hollywood has great lawyers structuring their co-financing deals. The studio executives LAUGH about it when they lecture film students (the VP of Paramount was positively gleeful when explaining how they'd ripped off not just investors, but Tom Cruise when they made TOP GUN)... This is the reality. I AGREE that an objective - the ideal, should be to try to educate some willing investors with lots of cash. The problem is, you have to PAY people to find those investors, and keep them working. Then you have to pay LAWYERS to structure a deal that is satisfactory, and keeps changing. This can take years. The conditions to "overhauling the process" are so daunting... I would cheer you on in attempting it, but the reality is, financing for films in general will continue to be mostly one at a time, and the multi-picture financing deals will rarely, if ever, contain ONE animated film. But be my guest at attempting to educate those mysterious investors who will sit still long enough to go through the process. How long will they plan to be away from Texas? They'll need time to be wined and dined and taught and charmed. I can tell you what happens with that prospectus too... See, there's one OTHER thing you've forgotten in this idealized scenario: virtually every single investor with enough money to be interesting, has at least ONE PAID financial advisor, whose job it is to keep him/her away from investments with a precedent of high risk. EVERY FINANCIAL ADVISOR will immediately be on guard against film investments. That's not fair to the good guys (you and me, AFA) out there, who really want to return a profit to our investors (so they'll invest again, among other things) but it is what 30 years of burning the investment community has wrought. When they're powdering their feet at the club after racquetball, they're saying "Oh yeah, don't invest in movies... I took a huge writeoff and never saw any of my money back on the movie, and it even had Harrison Ford in it." Almost no amount of charming storyboards, education or hard liquor is going to overcome that simple statement that everyone repeats over and over... BUT, if you manage to find 30 million to produce a great animated movie (and we have some ready to go, but greenbacks are hard to find) then I will cheer you on and extol your name to EVERYONE.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Almost no amount of charming storyboards, education or hard liquor is going to overcome that simple statement that everyone repeats over and over...<< Key words being ALMOST no amount of hard liquor! : )
Originally Posted By arstogas >>>Key words being ALMOST no amount of hard liquor! : )<<< There is something to be said for keeping the bottle flowing when courting investment money. But will they respect you after they've signed the LLC?
Originally Posted By actingforanimators A parable: A fellow living in Los Angeles bumps into an old colleague from back east at the airport while waiting to board a plane for a business trip. "Harry! I'm moving to LA. What's it like living here?" Harry pauses and replies "What's it like back east?" "OH, back east folks are closed minded and petty and pretty much concerned about themselves and only themselves." "Oh," says Harry, "you're going find it the same way here." Then on the return flight Harry is seated next to a young woman, and they strike up a conversation. It turns out she's moving to Los Angeles from back east for a job. "What's it like living in Los Angeles?" she asks. "What's it like living back east?"asks Harry. "Oh people are so open minded, so friendly, and so supportive!" she says. "Well, " says Harry, "I think you'll find it's pretty much the same in Los Angeles." Oh I know, Arstogas, the REAL world doesn't work like that and platitudes are great when you're 18 but useless when you've got three projects that aren't funded. I can't pretend that the business responds the way I wish it would and expect to succeed. There's one way, and only one way and ignoring facts and reality won't make it different. I should stop aggravating you any further and just agree. It's in print. It's been tried. There is no new way. The figures are in black in white, the evidence is empirical, the verdict is in, history proves otherwise, and I can't fight it. You're right. Sorry you couldn't make it to lunch. AFA
Originally Posted By arstogas You can certainly fight it. And I'd applaud you loudly when you succeeded. But conditions are the way they are, and if you've got the manpower and money to FIND the money, you might overcome those conditions. Eventually, society might breed some billionaire or a group of mega-millionaires who are willing to fund animated projects in spite of the advice of their financial advisors, in spite of historical precedent that they won't make money, and in spite of their own gut feelings that this is really high risk. They would be people with money that LOVE animation, and want to have it done for purely noble reasons, because they love the artform and believe it should be supported. There are people like that who fund museums and opera houses. I haven't ever heard of any that have that kind of money who attribute that kind of love to animation, but they must exist somewhere. So, even though I'm right (heh heh heh) your quest and aims are valid, and with a generation of people raised on cartoons and nourished on fantastic films, there might just emerge a Bill Gates type who could plunge the money into a new reservoir of funds for great animation. THEN the challenge will be to get them to fund HAND DRAWN animation as opposed to "tradigital"... as JK likes to put it... As to lunch, I'm sorry but I like to keep my internet associations and my day-to-day associations separate. Nothing personal. I've found it to be a healthy guideline.
Originally Posted By actingforanimators Lunch is a metaphore, Arstogas. Rethink it when you get a chance. AFA
Originally Posted By arstogas >>>Lunch is a metaphore, Arstogas. Rethink it when you get a chance.<<< If you're talking about working together towards a common goal, I think we're doing that already in our own way. If you mean anything more intimate than that... well, I had a late breakfast, thank you.
Originally Posted By actingforanimators Neither. LOL Never mind. Good luck with those three projects. AFA
Originally Posted By arstogas Three? Hah, if we only had three projects to push, we might as well go farm corn in Nebraska. As to metaphors... well, I'm all for 'em. Maybe someday we can meet for brunch...
Originally Posted By actingforanimators Well....you can make a lot of money "in Nebraska" (This is getting comical) r.
Originally Posted By Jim Wow, did my little old commentary start all this? I hope we're all still the best of friends I've been wanting to stop by and comment on so much, but I've been a bit on the busy side of life. This will have to be short. A few thoughts on different comments: There's no doubt in my mind that LILO AND STITCH will be a big hit . . . but it all depends on how Hollywood determines it. I thought $120 million was pretty good for MULAN, but people called that a financial failure. I disagree that people will only attend two animated films a year. Right now, computer animation is where Disney fairy tale musicals were in the early 1990s. In reality, the TOY STORY films, A BUG'S LIFE, MONSTOR'S INC, and the non-DIsney CGI comedies have all been very, very similar. I believe that it soon will also reach its peak as audiences say, "I've seen this before." Tomorrow I'm off to LILO AND STITCH (with at least two friends). I'm excited to say the least. Let's hope there is a TREASURE PLANET preview before the movie!
Originally Posted By arstogas >>>Wow, did my little old commentary start all this? I hope we're all still the best of friends <<< It may be hard to tell because of our respective passionate positions, but I know I at least have been chuckling the whole time (though I've rolled my eyes a few times), and I would suspect that AFA has probably had the same good humor throughout... Nothing but good vibrations here. A good discussion is healthy... it means people are actually CONCERNED about an issue, and might do something about it. As I mentioned before to AFA, I think we both are, in different ways. Just because you believe something a goal is virtually insurmountable, doesn't mean you QUIT TRYING to find a way to get there. But I think an accurate assessment of the obstacle HELPS in discovering more creative ways to beat it.
Originally Posted By actingforanimators No, no hard feelings that I’ve experienced. A few exasperated eye rolling moments of my own, but I hire people like Arstogas for the very reason that they ensure whenever I'm too far ahead I'm brought back a few steps to double check the details. Similarly, their pessimism ensures that I insist that they aim higher and push farther than they think they can go, thus opening up new veins of creativity. No, nothing wrong here - maybe some failed repeated attempts to connect talent to money, but that ‘s nothing new. Naw, too old to waste time being hurt. Heck, there's barely enought time to gloat about being right as it is. ;-) AFA
