For a time I didn't think I'd be attending this year's Kidscreen Summit because I wasn't a featured speaker or panelist. But, then I got the idea to propose a panel on the rise of low-cost/high-yield indie animated features. In other words, an animated feature made between for an average of $20 million dollars catering to a niche market or courting the mainstream success of hit indie films such as The Blair Witch Project, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Paranormal Activity.

The purpose of the the KidScreen Summit is for network executives, production studios, marketing folks, new media wizards, and distributors to meet, reconnect, and do business. As we all know, the business of entertainment has been changing year-to-year. One sign of the times was the abundance of independent producers in attendance. My friend, producer Melanie Grisanti, remarked that ten years ago most of the people like herself would have representing a production or a network, but these days producers are often between projects, working as consultants, and using the Summit to hustle up work much like creators might do. I've always thought that producers and animation artists were on the same team and now they are also in similar situations. An interesting trend showing that we have a long way to go before our industry fully recovers.

As a creative person attending the Summit, there's always a moment or two where the "business side" confounds me. On one hand there are business execs saying that a kids media pitch has to have a multi-media strategy built in from creation, which should include a games component, web specific content, etc. But, then you hear others say, "It's about finding great characters." I side with the latter because the internet and games worlds are filled with tons of failed character liscenesed product that makes no connection with an audience. Besides, what happened to the time when execs used to advise pitchers NOT to come in with a merchandizing plan showing characters on T-shirts but to instead concentrate on creating a strong character-based property?

So much of this confusing noise comes from these new media specialists or consultants that need to justify their own services. But, the bigger concern is that if creators bog themselves down with trying to hit every target at once as they develop an idea, they will end up with a big fat zero. Remember that Poochie episode of The Simpsons? That's just the type of creation you get with such thinking. You don't need a committee to be destroyed by committee-style thinking.

Two terms I kept hearing at this year's Summit was IP (intellectual property) and "play platforms" (another term for "toyetic" or how kids play along with a series through toys and games, etc). So don't make the mistake of calling a pitch a "creation" or ancillary areas "consumer products." Those terms are so "1999," which is incidentially the last year an animation mega hit was created (SpongeBob). SpongeBob predated a time when a would-be creator needed to worry about a plan for "play platforms." But, some how despite this, Spongebob proved itself pretty adaptable to those areas––even ones that weren't even invented yet in 1999. Food for thought.

One of the best sessions I attended at the Summit was "30 minutes with Kate Klimo," the VP & Publisher at Random House Children's Books. Klimo told us about Random House's new agenda to translate their books into animated TV series. I asked her if this was having any effect on how they were evaluating their children's book submissions. She said that at first it did have an effect on that process, a negative one. Having to look at book pitches with the added burden of imagining them as a TV series property greatly slowed down the works. They had difficulty choosing projects and trying to plan so far in advance also complicated their contract negotiations with author/creators. After a short while, they realized their mistake and decided to consider book proposals as strictly books. If and when a book takes off to big success, Random House can take that property and try to develop and sell it as an animated series. Listening to Kate Klimo was like a voice of reason in a sea of noise and a good reminder that creators should focus on creating great characters, be they in books, films, or animation pitches.

All this aside, my ticket inside KidScreen was my panel event spotlighting the new model of indie animated features. Here's a list of my panelists along with some insights they shared with the audience.


Iginio Straffi
The Founder and CEO of The Rainbow animation studio, as well as creator of its most famous product, the Winx Club series, which, culminated with the Winx feature film “The Secret of the Lost Kingdom." Beside its headquarters near Loreto, Rainbow now has offices in Rome, Spain, Hong Kong, The Netherlands and Singapore.
Iginio confessed to being a dreamer with a whole drawer full of feature film ideas he'd love to make one day...but, he lamented that the U.S. market seems near impossible to crack into. He treated us to a funny clip from a 3D movie his studio is making featuring the misadventures of some ancient Roman soldiers. The clip was well directed with snappy timing and clever writing. Maybe Roman soldiers could be the next big thing? After all, who would have thought pirates would have come back into style?


Fred Seibert
The president and exec producer of Frederator Studios. He is currently the executive producer of six cartoon series on Nickelodeon's networks --including, the new hit series Fanboy & Chum Chum, and he's developing animated feature films at Sony Pictures and Paramount Pictures.
Fred has been targeting an underserved segment of the audience by developing animated feature films that fans of (say) Family Guy might pay to see. He noted that up till now the only films made for this audience are live action comedies such as The Hangover. Fred revealed he had developed a feature called Super Fuckers about a bunch of screw-up teen superheroes. Despite trying to gear some of his features towards underserved moviegoers, Fred explained that he's a "pop culture guy" who's goal is to make hit product a-laThe Beatles.


Heather Kenyon
The VP, Project Development and Sales, Starz Animation, a Division of Starz Media, where she is seeking projects suited for Film Roman for TV, features and the direct-to-DVD market. She is the former senior director of development, original series at Cartoon Network, and the former editor-in-chief of Animation World Network.
Heather explained that Starz is aiming to keep their features down below the $50 million budget mark. Their first feature venture, 9, cost $30 million and grossed $32 million in US box office. She noted that in America, Disney has traditionally defined what people think of as the animated feature but that perception can be changed over time with films such as 9 that sport different subjects and design approaches. She thinks this area of animation is growing: the smaller, differently targeted animated feature. 


Paul Young
The co-founder of Irish Animation and Design studio, Cartoon Saloon, Producer of the animated feature The Secret of Kells and Executive Producer of the animated children’s series Skunk Fu!. He is currently in development on a number of projects including a new Feature film by his studio partner Tomm Moore, Song of the Sea.
Paul accepted our congratulations on the Oscar nomination of The Secret of Kells and suggested that Cartoon Saloon would like to become the Jim Jarmusch of animated features, making small interesting films. He said that Kells director Tomm Moore's blog helped generate a lot of interest in their film during the long period in which it was made. When I asked him how they made the most of their meager $6 million Euro budget, he answered that all the money is up on the screen. Everyone worked for low wages in order to make the film as good as possible.

My main point was that the easy mistake for an indie to make would be to try to imitate a Pixar experience at a fraction of their budget, schedule, and resources. During the 1930s and 40s, the Warner Brothers Animation unit couldn't imitate what Disney was doing at that time so they became something else, culiminating in Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies. And, while foreign and domestic indie animated feature films have not yet created a major stir in North America, barriers like that were made to be broken. After all, who was looking for a 4 piece band from Liverpool prior to 1964? No English music star had amounted to hill of beans in America prior to the Fab Four's arrival. That logic tells me an indie animation Blair Witch-sized hit is inevitable. And, just like The Beatles ushering in the British Invasion, it might knock this barrier down once and for all.

Outside of the panel event I was buzzing around the Summit taking meetings with production companies, show creators, and network executives––sometimes pitching the show ideas Xeth Feinberg and I cooked up, and sometimes just comparing war stories on working in the business. Best of all were the opportunities to say hello and spend some time with old Nickelodeon collegues Kay Wilson Stallings, Teri Weiss, Dr. Alice Wilder, Koyalee Chanda, and Sarah Chumsky. I also enjoyed catching up with Little Airplane's Tom Brown and Tone Thyne, and former Little Airplane mainstay Heather Tilert, and Big Bad Boo founders Shabnam Rezaei and Aly Jetha. There's so many things going on at any given time that it's possible to miss someone completely. For example, I didn't see the Ottawa International Animation Festival's Azarin Sohrabkhani, who was there to check out Kidscreen's panel events for TAC research, until the very last hour of the three-day event.

Besides my official pitches, I was also the animator of a pilot for another project being presented by creator Shelly Delice with her partners Linda Kahn and Melanie Grisanti. It was fun to check in with them from time to time to see how their meetings were going.

Walking around the Summit you can grow contacts very easily. Your friends introduce you to their friends and its easy to meet others at the coffee station, on couches in the delegate's lounge, or simply by talking to your neighbor seated beside you at an event. A lot of these meetings have the potential to grow work, especially work with clients outside of the New York area. And, that can mean a lot in periods when work is scarce in the big apple. I don't consider myself a business person, but I take the business of my career very seriously.

Post-it sketch and warm up doodles by animation director Ian Jones-Quartey (pictured above).

"Don't focus on getting a job. Focus on your passion for animation." These words of advice were spoken by Venture Bros. animation director and SVA alum, Ian Jones-Quartey, to the students in my career class at SVA this past Monday night.

Ian is an impressive character, and not only because his first industry job was as an animation director. He interned at World Leaders during his junior year and it was then that his inking talents were noticed, leading to the studio offering him freelance work into his senior year. But, once it became clear how much of a commitment his thesis film would require, he had to decide which was more important, finishing school or dropping out to work. Wanting to finish what he started, he informed World Leaders that he'd have to stop working for them to focus on his thesis.

Once he finished his thesis he returned to World Leaders to screen the film for his former employers, also handing out promotional postcards. A few days later, they called him with a job offer to direct a flash animated series. Yes, Ian had made a terrific film, which certainly helped World Leaders decide to offer him a job...but, another key element to his opportunity was the fact that he visited the studio, wanting to show them his film. It showed that he valued their opinions and the relationships he'd made during his time interning and working there.

But, the most impressive part of the story happened a year later. Ian was still working at the studio when he happened by a desk that belonged to a supervisor on The Venture Bros. Ian hadn't worked on that project, but he noticed a stack of envelope packs on the supervisors desk. He asked what they were and the supervisor answered that they were Venture Bros. sheet directing tests about to be mailed out. Ian asked if he could see one and the supervisor had one xeroxed up.

"I had no plans to do the test," Ian recalls, saying, "I just thought it might be cool to check out and be a fun thing to have." But, Ian did more than check it out. He tried to time out the first scene that night. The next day he showed it to the supervisor who helped him correct the work and gave him other pointers. Ian repeated this process each day for the next week and a half until he had the test finished. But, he still had no expectations that he would get the job. He was just curious and wanted to learn. And, this passion was not lost on the production, which wisely offered him the sheet directing job on the series.

In contrast, Ian told our class about a former intern he knew that was very bitter after not being offered a job at the studio following the internship. In that intern's eyes, he was owed a job and fully expected to be offered one at a moment of his choosing. For Ian, this was an affirmation of his approach to not focus on any single job opportunity, but on his passion for animation instead. And, passion mixed with talent and good people skills has way of landing job opportunities. Ian Jones-Quartey is one of those people that seemed to instinctually know this from the start. I'm very grateful he returned to my class to impart a bit of that wisdom and experience to the students.

And, if the above is not impressive enough, for much of the last three years, in his spare time, Ian has been producing his own animated Web series, with co-creator Jim Gisriel, called knockFORCE. As they say, If you want something done, ask a busy person.

ASIFA-East logo design by Fran Krause.

Two weeks ago I delivered a third contracted animation book to my publisher, Allworth Press. When I dropped off the manuscript, which was written over the course of a very busy year, I got to meet the editorial assistant and publicist that will be helping edit and (later) promote the book. The president of the press exclaimed, "We're excited to read this." I responded, "I'm excited to get rid of it." And, everyone had a good laugh.

Don't get me wrong––I'm very happy the way it came out, but it is such a relief to pass it off to someone else for a while. It might be as long as two months before the editorial assistant gives me a copy edit to read. And, by then I'll be happy to dive in again and make any necessary corrections.

The new book won't hit stores until November, so it's premature to share any other details. But, I will say that this book feels like the end of a trilogy. With all of my books I tried to fill a void, to write books on areas of our industry that had not yet been written, or at least not written from the animation artist's point of view.

Writing continues to be a growing area of my business, with a new deal to write an art-of style book next. I was not a writing major (or minor) at school and I never dreamed I would have these opportunities. But, I know exactly why and where to trace it to: ASIFA-East. When I finished my first indie film in 1998, then-ASIFA-East newsletter editor Maria Scavullo asked me to write an article about the experience. Although I enjoyed writing the article, I found it a bit terrifying to think that ASIFA veterans would be reading my words, so I didn't really write again for ASIFA until I became president in 2000 and had to write the monthly letter from the president column.

Suddenly I was forced to write, find, and research topics that might be of interest to the readership. Little by little I started to enjoy myself and gradually my confidence grew as I started to find my voice. By the time I pitched my first book in 2004, I had five years of steady articles to my credit, some of which were used as samples for Allworth Press.

In June 2009, ASIFA-East decided it was fiscally irresponsible to continue printing the newsletter, especially when it could have such a more vibrant life online at a fraction of the cost. A digital newsletter is interactive, reaches more people, is more up-to-date, and can feature color graphics, video, and audio. Since June, ASIFA-East board's Web committee (under the guidance of Web site manager Adrian Urquidez and Exposure Sheet blog editor Dayna Gonzalez) has been working hard to relaunch our newsletter as a modern paperless magazine.

Today, on February 1st, ASIFA-East has issued the following press release:
"ASIFA-East is very excited to announce the upcoming debut of the aNYmator online! Moving from print to online, the aNYmator will feature a full team of bloggers reporting on the animation industry. Come February 1st, we are expanding to cover much more than the usual events reportage seen on the Exposure Sheet –– everything from film reviews, to feature articles, to member's animation. Richard Gorey will be our new Features Blogger, covering all feature articles and stories, including posting articles from our membership. Elliot Cowan will be our Community Blogger, posting links to members' news and animation. Dayna Gonzalez will continue in her role as Blog Manager and Events Blogger, handling all reporting on local animation industry events. The Exposure Sheet will be hosted on our website at www.asifaeast.com.  Along with the Exposure Sheet, the aNYmator will include Animondays from ASIFA-East President David B. Levy, The International Update from our International Representative, Ray Kosarin, the Events Calendar, and archived original aNYmator print publications."

Many of the original aNYmator newsletters were edited by Mark Bailey who served as our most recent editor until the final June 2009 issue. I'm thrilled his wonderful work can still be shared with a new generation of ASIFA-East members through our new archive. There's a lot of content in there that you can't find anywhere else. Take some time to check it out. And, look for more newsletters from decades past to join the archive soon.

Most of all, I'm very excited that our new digital newsletter will continue the tradition of providing writing opportunities for veterans and newcomers alike. Who knows where such writing might lead? You might write the next trio of books, knocking mine off the shelf.

Image of squirrels for unrelated projects.

I used to think working from home would mean occasional days off with afternoon trips to the movies or long lunches with friends. While that sometimes is the case, this week that time was spent prepping for the KidScreen Summit in February, where I'll be hosting a panel discussion on the topic of new low-cost international animated features called "The Big Screen Frontier." I'll share more about that in an upcoming post.

Since my event is only one hour out of the three-day Summit, it leaves me a lot of time to fill in my schedule with other events I can attend. There are interesting workshops, lectures, and discussions. And if all else fails there is coffee. This week it dawned on me that it would be missed opportunity to attend the Summit without pitching a couple of projects to the network executives gathered from around the world.

When it comes to developing my own preschool pitches, my wide experience working in preschool TV has been both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because I know how to organize the material according to the network rules of do's and don'ts. It's a curse for the same reason. Knowing all that information can be like a confining box, an automatic sensor or editor, keeping me from trying something interesting and new.

Over the last six months I had spent a tiny bit of time sitting in coffee shops (again with the coffee!) developing two preschool pitches, which I roughed out in notes and sketches. They were very raw, but something about them kept me interested.

With the KidScreen deadline looming I thought it might be practical to collaborate with someone on the pitches. Besides the time factor, it's always more fun to work with another creator than to go it alone.

Xeth Feinberg (Bulbo, Queer Duck, Papu, etc.) is one of my favorite creator/designer/writer/directors in the business and an all around great guy. He has an amazing work ethic, frequently balancing commercial projects and personal films, and (best of all) he has an offbeat/adult-oriented sensibility. I instantly thought of him as being the perfect foil to my overly structured, grounded, and more wholesome style.

When I spoke to Xeth about the possibility of us working together, he was interested but cautioned that he didn't know the rules of creating preschool projects. This was new territory for him. I assured Xeth that his lack of knowledge in this area was a strength. Happily, Xeth liked both my rough concepts and we quickly got down to work. Our plan is to volley the pitches back and forth, each one changing and improving the other's work until they are as a good as can be or until we run out of time (which ever comes first!). One thing is certain: whenever you invest in self-development you have nothing to lose.

You never forget the first time.... you feel old. I had a flash of my actual age while attending this past Ottawa International Animation festival. Looking around the room, I wasn't the oldest, but I wasn't the youngest either. There's a name for that: middle age.

Even more evidence of my age arrived last week in the form of a dvd release: Mighty Mouse, The New Adventures. This groundbreaking saturday morning cartoon series first arrived in 1987 when I was a 14 year-old kid, too old for Saturday morning cartoons despite the fact that I still ate sugary cereals. If you could see my bedroom wallpaper, not that anyone was lining up to, you would have seen a gaggle of animation articles torn out of the newspaper and stuck all over the place. There were clippings about Roger Rabbit, An American Tale, and Oliver & Company. I figured if I surrounded myself with animation it might rub off on me, not knowing that silly putty would have picked it up just well.

I was very aware of Ralph Bakshi. Growing up, my dad and Bakshi shared the same Brooklyn street and possibly a can of soda. The pair later attended The High School of Industrial Art (now the High School of Art and Design) where they might have shared another can of soda. Bakshi went to work at Terrytoons, and my dad earned a scholarship to attend Cooper Union––heading for a career in advertising. Despite the fact that Bakshi still owed him a soda, my dad retained a life long interest in the man, making a point to see all his films.

And then one day there was the article in the paper announcing Bakshi's new TV series, a fresh take on Mighty Mouse. I watched every episode, taping some of them using an early form of TiVo called a VCR. The show featured jump cuts, random gags, paint splatter BGs, characters changing model, obscure references, inside jokes, and lots of breaking the fourth wall. It was a brilliant mess. The words "game changer" are thrown around far too often these days, but that's the only way to describe this cartoon series.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Click here to read a review from The Onion.

Because of Mighty Mouse, The New Adventures coming out on DVD, someone who wasn't born when the show debuted can now better understand what came after this series. For instance, The Ren and Stimpy Show didn't drop out of the sky. Many of its ideas were first tried on Mighty Mouse and by John K, himself. While Mighty Mouse didn't invent the many elements that made up its humor, the innovation was in their combined effect.

More important still, is that this release helps celebrate a different side of Bakshi's legacy. The controversial filmmaker is usually associated with his groundbreaking feature films such as Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic. As a result, we don't automatically credit him with sparking the creator-driven TV animation era. But, as John K says in a bonus documentary included on the DVD, "None of this would have happened without Ralph."

It's absolutely essential that independent animators promote their own films. An interesting by-product of this is that the more successful indies get, the likelier they will have opportunities to curate screenings and programs where they become the barometers of taste, deciding which filmmakers make the cut and which one's don't. Is this an ethical dilemma? I know a few filmmakers who believe so, but, I'm not so sure.

On the plus side, when an indie develops the clout and connections to create new venues to screen animated films, it throws a spotlight on the other included filmmakers who benefit from the exposure. This is a gain for the programming filmmaker too, because by including other indies in the event, it helps ensure a larger audience.

Part of me asks, if not an indie filmmaker programing such an event, who would? Who else would have such a knowledge of animators and their films? A festival programmer is the easy answer. But, festival programmers already do that, through the more democratic and less biased method of a jury or selection committee. There are a few other non-filmmaker and non-festival programmer types who know the scene well enough to program screenings of indie animation, but without having a film in the mix themselves, it's not as likely that these folks could devote the time and energy to doing so on a regular basis.

On the negative side, some argue that the animators producing and programming their own events are playing favorites or shutting some artists out. But, I think that's too easy a criticism to make. To program such an event is to automatically narrow down selections. The top (most prolific and most awarded) independent animators in New York City happen to work with adult themes, making edgy films with subjects of humor, sex, and violence. So, when they program events, you can be sure that they are going to round out the film list with similarly themed works. That seems pretty natural to me. Besides, it would be quite odd to wedge in an indie children's film into such a program.

If the top indie animators have a certain power over the scene, it is one that they have earned simply by working harder than everyone else. And, not just harder in that they make more films more often. They also work equally hard promoting those films.

So, is this an ethical dilemma? Whatever the answer, nobody can deny that some stellar filmmakers of yesterday and today have not received the attention they deserve. There's no single easy way to fix that injustice, but as a move in the right direction, ASIFA-East is planning at least two retrospective screenings per year (from now on) to help re-introduce the community to some amazing talents. Stay tuned for more details.

*above art and design by Elliot Cowan for one of my 2009 Electric Company spots.

It's 2010 and the local animation "industry" has many of us (hopefully) scratching out a living (typically) by freelancing for a variety of employers during the course of a year. Think of it as high-stakes musical chairs with animation artists leaping from one gig to the next, sometimes working at home, sometimes in a studio. This reality makes me think of a cautionary tale, one that might help somebody navigate this challenging situation.

At the start of this story, a young animator is working at a new studio on a six-week animated pilot production. At the conclusion of the pilot, the studio chief tells the animator he'd like him to come back in four months to start on a two-year project. Good news indeed, but this animator took the "we want you to come back in four months," to be a firm contracted obligation. In his eyes, it was an official start date.

The following week, a different studio contacts this same animator and offers him a five month contract to animate on a series––starting immediately. Over the phone the animator tries to accept the new offer, but decides to honor the other studio by mentioning that he can only work up to four months (not the full five) because he's due to return to the other studio. On learning of this, the person trying to hire him reneges the offer. After all, why hire someone who plans to leave a job early when you can find someone who will stay the whole run? When someone leaves early it causes problems on a production. It means finding a replacement at the eleventh hour, someone that has to be trained from scratch.

So, instead of this animator having a job to report to until his two-year contract comes up, he has nothing. Shortly after this experience, another studio tries to hire this same animator to work from home on a series. It is a seven month job, but just as in the other story, the animator turns it down because of his "start date" on the two-year contract.

What happens next? After the four month wait for the two-year job, that project is delayed by two months. And, after that? It is delayed another two months. And, finally, when the two-year job does start, it lasts only one month because the whole studio tanks when investors pull the plug on the series.

With hindsight, we can see that this animator turned down two real jobs while he waited eight months for a job that was supposed last two years, but that only ended up lasting one month. Nobody has a crystal ball, but the lesson is that, especially (in times such as these) where jobs are precious, we have to be our own advocates.

This animator's mistakes were many. One, he took a far off job offer as being a firm commitment, not realizing that it was a one-sided commitment. When that studio had to keep changing the start date, they did. It didn't bother them to know that they had originally told this animator four months. That had just been an estimate. It was not a written contract. The studio, as a business, did what it had to do. Second, when the next studio tried to offer him a five month contract, he could have taken it. He never needed to mention the two-year job's start date, especially since he had no reason to believe that date would stay firm. He could have started the seven month job in good faith, with the plan to give them at least two weeks notice if the two-year job started as planned.

Third, he could have taken the seven month job offer after the mistake was made losing the five month job. And, although the salary and span of that job still didn't compare to the two-year gig, the project was for an older audience––so taking on the job would have given the animator important new samples for his reel, which was full of only preschool series samples.

Don't get me wrong. I respect that the animator was trying to do the right thing in honoring his original employment offer. He had good intentions and was bending over backwards to be honest. My message is that someone can be honest to a fault. Besides, you can't really be honest by holding true to a start date by which you have no control over. Experience in this industry shows the opposite––that start dates almost always get pushed by two weeks or more. A bird in the hand is worth more than a two-year job in the bush. These are tough times for this industry, but we can make it even tougher on ourselves if we choose.