George S's List: Film & Animation

• explosive growth in mobile and online video
• online videos now account for more than 50% of all mobile traffic, and up to 69% on certain networks. In fact, no matter what device they're using, 96% of online shoppers watch online videos (Comscore, August 2010).
• According to an April 2012 report by Social Media Examiner, 76% of marketing professionals planned to add video to their websites in 2012, which took top priority over reaching out to potential customers via Facebook, Twitter, or blog integration.
• According to the Implix 2010 Email Marketing Trends survey, video in email marketing has been shown to increase click-through rates by over 96%. Internet Retailer's April 2010 report announced that viewers who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who do not.
• Helping these businesses stand apart from others in particular is the use of animated explainer videos

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• Firstly the industry is dominated by a few major studios who effectively broker and fund these films, contracting out all the creative content. When it comes to special effects, the studios are contracting the work to stand-alone companies who are underbidding to win work, making them vulnerable when extra work is demanded or who are simply under pricing their bids under pressure. These companies are in competition with each other and also more and more of the work is being done in low wage countries putting additional pressure on price. Basically the business model is faulty and designed to suit only the studios.
• The artists talked about chasing work around the world as the subsidy benefits shift. They complained of raising their kids by phone, of not being able to get decent health care or security from this ever shifting sand, and of the futility of these subsidies when they are not accompanied by any bottom lines regarding ongoing commitment of the industry to the country or state or to any guarantees around decent work
• ack of organisation in the industry – both the employers and the artists
• encouraging employers to work together through a trade association to challenge the business model and work together on what they need to thrive
• The workers also want representation and voice
• Thirdly they want the dignity of recognition for their work – for their creative contribution to be acknowledged!
• The workers then talked about the appalling conditions they work in all countries – including in the video game industry – very very long hours, many hours not paid and a total expectation that they will work any time, any place. Insecurity and risk was a key feature or these stories.
• New successful social movements (including unions) are springing up around the world to represent workers that find themselves in non traditional industries or situations – street sellers organisations that want insurance and to live free from police harassment, migrant workers that want protections from unfair deportation and protection from unfair employment practices, youth who want employment and voice across the three or four jobs they may hold.

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• Older models are becoming obsolete. Perhaps those frustrations with Shorts International have less to do with the company itself, but rather that they are simply purveyors of an outdated model—analog curators in a digital world.

• Nickelodeon Group president Cyma Zarghami acknowledged that 2012 had been a tough year, in which "new competitors came on strong" -- a reference to the Disney Junior upstart. However, she added that, "[Nickelodeon] has hit the reset button" and is "reinventing itself," with a strong focus on animation.

  • Looks like animation will resurge again after 2012. It's been a tough few years, with layoffs and doubt, but this also means much hope and growth for the industry. I think it's simply a time of "cleansing" and renewal.

• While the story crew was debating how we would kill the villain at the end of Mulan, we began reflecting on how strange it was that we spent so much time trying to find fresh ways to kill characters in Disney films. In Mulan we (the story crew) came up with the idea that the villain could be blown to bits by fireworks, rather than falling to his death as was written in the script. A lot of those villains fall at the end of Disney films. Some get stabbed first, but a whole lot of them fall. There was almost always a death at the end of our movies. It was one of those patterns I worried about.
• Boarding is physically more demanding than writing. It just is. Write a battle scene, then try boarding it. A single paragraph of a script can stretch into hundreds of drawings. Feature animation is ultimately written on the boards. Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, are all massive collaborations. Scenes are written, boarded, pitched… and then the real work begins. Those meetings can last days, and the story artists, directors, and writers are all in that room together. Writers return to their computers alone, but they are carrying all the material generated in those story meetings. So be careful not to imagine a pristine process where a writer sends pages along, and they simply get made into a movie.

• Tinga Tinga Tales is based on traditional African animal folktales passed from generation to generation. The look of the show is inspired by the striking Tingatinga art of Tanzania.
• To create Tinga Tinga Tales, Tiger Aspect productions has created, set up and trained the first fully-equipped animation studio in Nairobi, Kenya employing local designers, writers, animators, and musicians and Tingatinga artists from Dar es Salaam.

• ``Father of Heritage Interpretation,” Freeman Tilden,
• ``Father of Heritage Interpretation,” Freeman Tilden, defined interpretation as "any communication process designed to reveal meanings and relationships of cultural and natural heritage to the public, through first-hand involvement with an object, artifact, landscape or site."