Business of Animation Blog

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Business of Animation Blog

Post by ShyViolet » April 20th, 2007, 7:28 pm

Wow, I thought maybe it actually went off-line? But nope, it was finally updated two days ago! :)


http://cganimation.blogspot.com/
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

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Post by Daniel » April 21st, 2007, 12:21 am

Cool. I've never been to this blog, but it looks great. :)

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Post by ShyViolet » April 21st, 2007, 12:42 am

He's awesome. He used to post a lot in 2004 and 2005, but lately....not much.

Maybe if he saw that people are still reading it, he'll post more! :)


Also, this is what he wrote more than a year ago after the Pixar merger:

Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Pixar Gets New Distribution Agreement

The long awaited promises of a new distribution deal have finally come to fruition. Pixar has struck a new deal with Disney to distribute their movies. The distribution fee is said to be low with the profits split 0% to Pixar and 100% to Disney. Okay, so that was a bad joke. The reality is of course; Disney purchased Pixar earlier today and walked away with a lot. What did Pixar get out of this? Not much.

For the mere price of $7.2 billion in a stock transaction, Disney now has John Lasseter as the new creative head of both Pixar and Disney Feature Animation. Ed Catmull becomes the president of the same, while the loser in all of this was David Stainton, who has left Disney. The house of mouse suddenly gets pumped full of creative and technical goodness along with a promise from Iger that the Disney corporate culture will change. Pixar on the other hand gets… Umm? Well? Distribution?

What Pixar gets out of all of this is unclear. What was clear is that Steve Jobs was fumbling all over himself during a Disney conference call this afternoon. When asked by a caller what made the Disney offer attractive as opposed to just getting a distribution agreement with them or someone else. Steve suddenly sounded like a confused man. I wish I could of seen his face, he must of looked like a deer on a dark highway as a semi trailer is approaching at full speed.

Face the facts. Steve Jobs sold out. Every promise he has made over the past few years has pretty much ended up as hot air. The shock must be hard for Pixar shareholders who have no choice but go along with it and roll with the punches. It really feels like Steve did this more for Apple than Pixar. Now that he sits on the board of Disney, if he can avoid a conflict of interest probe, he can try to steer more Disney content to iTunes.

Those that I know at Pixar are more than a little pissed off. They were this little company that rose up and slayed dragons to become ruler of the animation universe. Now they have been gobbled up and a lot of their ‘independent studio conquers world’ dreams are squashed. I don’t blame them. They are now part of the machine. Let’s just hope that Steve and Bob follow through with their promises that the Pixar cult (I mean culture. Or do I?) will continue untouched.

I believe Mr. Lasseter and pals head to Burbank today to rally the troops in a big giant group hug. Hopefully, it will go better than the attempted love fest today at Pixar as they announced to the studio that they have been swallowed whole.

Posted by Staloren at 11:02 PM 1 comments
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

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Post by ShyViolet » April 21st, 2007, 12:49 am

I also thought this was quite interesting:


What Pixar gets out of all of this is unclear. What was clear is that Steve Jobs was fumbling all over himself during a Disney conference call this afternoon. When asked by a caller what made the Disney offer attractive as opposed to just getting a distribution agreement with them or someone else. Steve suddenly sounded like a confused man. I wish I could of seen his face, he must of looked like a deer on a dark highway as a semi trailer is approaching at full speed.

I personally still think that Pixar should have stayed separate. Better for them. Better for Disney.


Steve Jobs did what was good for Steve Jobs.


I guess we'll see how things play out.....:wink:
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » April 21st, 2007, 6:49 pm

Call me pessimistic, but I really think the love affair between the public and Pixar is over.

Unless Brad Bird pulls a bird out of his hat and wows everybody with his "genius" (an overused word in animation today that really only applies well to DEAD animation pioneers), Pixar has shown all its cards.

It doesn't seem like Lasseter has any great ideas left. Cars sure didn't leave a lot of good taste in most people's mouths. The loss of Joe Raft has really hit the Pixar story department hard. I don't know that there's much else other than yet ANOTHER redo of Toy Story 1 which I don't intend to watch. I guess we can look forward to yet ANOTHER Fantastic Four -- er, Incredibles -- movie in the near future, too.

I still say Pixar has been repeating themselves for a while but I seem to be a lone voice in a jungle full of people who are too slavishly fannish for their own good. Granted, their CG output has been better than anybody else (especially DreamWorks), but they're no longer perfect. There's a bit of rust on the company now.

We'll see...

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Post by ShyViolet » April 21st, 2007, 7:01 pm

I guess we can look forward to yet ANOTHER Fantastic Four -- er, Incredibles -- movie in the near future, too.
As long as it's called "Ray Gunn" and is in 2d, then count me in. :)


But overall, I totally agree George.




It doesn't seem like Lasseter has any great ideas left. Cars sure didn't leave a lot of good taste in most people's mouths.


My biggest problem with Cars was that for a movie that has some amazingly energetic, kinetic sequences, talented voice actors (for once :roll:, I mean with animated films) gorgeous colors and a whole lot of potential, so much of it was so boring....:roll:

Pixar talks about the "unity of opposites" of characters that have different interests offsetting and highlighting each other....but we never really understood who Mater was (I assume Lightening's "foil") or, better yet, who Sally the Porsche was, even though she's the love interest and all.

Lightening could have been a wonderfully selfish character who reforms by actually SEEING the effect that his behavior has on others (we assume it has an affect, although we see very little of it, other than with the under-used Mack) and how someone is responsible for their actions.
(A bit like the great sequence in Monster's Inc--Pete Doctor's gem--where Sulley, an otherwise good guy, realizes how "scary" a monster can really be to a small child and decides to chuck everything he's worked for and do everything he can possibly do to save the little girl he now loves. :wink:)

It starts out that way, with Lightening taking advantage of Mack and then winding up in Radiator Springs, where he refuses to fix their road and just wants to drive away....then it somehow ends up being about how highways are bad and that it's good to live in small towns.

In between, Sally shows him some mountains, Paul Newman (can't remember car's name) lectures him on treating others right...and that's it.
He's a nice guy now, and the movie's over. :?
Last edited by ShyViolet on April 23rd, 2007, 2:37 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by ShyViolet » April 21st, 2007, 7:06 pm

As for Steve Jobs suddenly getting a seat on the Disney board due to owning a whole lot of Disney stock even though he's never really expressed any affinity for Disney as a company (I mean the parks and films); in fact saw them as the enemy for a very long time when Eisner was there....am I the only one who doesn't think this is a good idea?


Steve Jobs is a very powerful man at Disney now, and yet he's never even posed with Mickey. And believe me, he never will.


That alone should tell you something. :roll:
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

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Post by ShyViolet » April 22nd, 2007, 11:01 pm

Written in 2003 I think.....fascinating in light of recent events.


http://nymag.com/nymetro/movies/columns ... od/n_9186/

There are just so many points (particularly when discussing the animated films) that the writer is either unaware of or purposely ignores...and that's what makes it interesting. :?

You just don't know whether to laugh or cry....:roll:
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

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Post by ShyViolet » June 2nd, 2007, 11:07 pm

Staloren has updated again: :)


http://cganimation.blogspot.com/


I like how he doesn't take one particular side or another....:)


Also, I don't know how widely known this was, but apparently more animators were laid off after Meet the Robinsons failed to be a "giant" success. :(
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

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Post by ShyViolet » November 13th, 2007, 10:35 pm

Just thought I'd post that this site was finally updated after many months, with quite a few new posts:



http://cganimation.blogspot.com/


I don't agree with much of what he says, but he's still interesting to read.


Plus, his Foodfight poll is funny!! :P
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

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