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Earlier this month, it was announced that DreamWorks Animation had purchased the YouTube channel AwesomenessTV for $33 million in cash. Factoring in earning and performance targets, the sale has a maximum earnings potential of $117 million.

An online aggregrator-network aimed at young male entertainment consumers, AwesomenessTV was founded as collaboration between TV producer Brian Robbins (Smallville), United Talent Agency and law firm Ziffren Brittenham. According to the May 1st press release, it “has already signed up over 55,000 channels, aggregating over 14 million subscribers and 800 million video views”.

“Awesomeness TV is one of the fastest growing content channels on the Internet today and our acquisition of this groundbreaking venture will bring incredible momentum to our digital strategy,” said DreamWorks head Jeffrey Katzenberg. “Brian Robbins has an extraordinary track record in creating family content both for traditional and new platforms and his expertise in the TV arena will be invaluable as we grow our presence in that space.”

Under the new partnership, the network AwesomenessX, that will offer “original sports, gaming, comedy, pranks and lifestyle content” targeted toward males in their teens and 20s. Robbins, who has stayed on to run the company, has also been rewarded with an executive position at DreamWorks to develop a DreamWorks Animation-branded family channel.

AwesomenessX will pick up some AwesomenessTV faves like The City – Basketball, Sk8 Spotterz, That Was Awesome and How To Be Awesome as well as launch a new series around Winter X-Games gold medalist David Wise and videos of choice game moves and swimsuit model photo shoots. Shows like Frank the Dog, Baby Gaga and Fingerlings – which provide pop and web culture commentary from a dog, a baby and finger puppets, respectively – will also be featured.

“[AwesomenessX] will attract some girls as well,” Robbins added.

Author: James Dillehay
Publisher: Warm Snow Publishers
Genre: Small Business / Arts & Crafts
ISBN: 978-0-9710684-7-6
Pages: 132
Price: $12.95

Author’s website
Buy it at Amazon

Being profitable in a small arts & crafts business is not a matter of luck. There is a system to pricing merchandise to encourage people to buy your crafts. While covering your own cost to produce the item is important, there are other factors involved in making sure you get the best price for your merchandise.

James Dillehay is a craft artist, gallery owner, and author of nine respected finance books on this subject. In this book, he offers suggestions for an arts & crafts business owner to be successful. Topics such as studying the market and pricing your items appropriately, increasing perceived value, determining the cost per unit and your target profit margin, where to sell your merchandise, how to buy your supplies more cheaply, and working more efficiently are all covered in depth.

As an accountant, I reviewed the financial calculations and strategies closely, and Dillehay is accurate in his advice. However, in the realm of taxes, I would advise caution and the guidance of a tax professional, before implementing some of the suggestions offered. How to Price Crafts and Things You Make to Sell is a wealth of information that can ensure your small business is successful and profitable.

Reviewer: Alice Berger

The new print issue of Mother Jones (May/June 2013) has a fascinating piece about DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and his central role during the 2012 U. S. Presidential elections. The article will be an eye-opening read for anyone who considers the animation business to be detached from American politics. It makes clear that Katzenberg’s involvement in Obama’s Presidency has opened doors for him at the highest levels of both U. S. and Chinese government, and given him the ability to more quickly expand into the Chinese film market, whose box office returns are expected to overtake the American film market within the next decade.

The six-page Mother Jones piece by Andy Kroll isn’t online so here are some of my takeaways from the piece:

• Katzenberg, who is worth an estimated $800 million, donated $3.15 million to Democratic super-PACs during the 2012 election cycle. (He potentially donated more to other groups which aren’t required by law to disclose donor lists.)

After writing feature articles in magazines, newspapers, and online magazines for over fifteen years, J.Q. Rose entered the world of fiction by crafting cozy mysteries published by MuseItUp Publishing. With Girls Succeed she returns to her first love, writing about real people.  Blogging, photography, Pegs and Jokers board games, and travel are the things that keep her out of trouble. Spending winters in Florida with her husband allows Janet the opportunity to enjoy the life of a snowbird. Summer finds her camping and hunting toads, frogs, and salamanders with her four grandsons and granddaughter. 

Connect with J.Q. Rose online at

J.Q. Rose blog http://www.jqrose.com/

Girls Succeed blog http://girlssucceed.blogspot.com/

Author website http://jqrose.webs.com/

J. Q.  Rose Amazon Author Page http://tinyurl.com/aeuv4m4

Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/jqrose

Pinterest http://pinterest.com/janetglaser/

 Where did you grow up?

I grew up in a small town in Central Illinois where the rich, fertile soil of the plains yields productive corn and soybean crops. My dad was the town undertaker and my mom taught second grade. That means I had to be a very good girl or everyone in town would tell my parents about me. There was lots of pressure to be good too because I felt if I messed up, it could ruin my father’s business.

When did you begin writing?

My mother was my teacher when I was in second grade, so in order to stay out of trouble, here I go again, I started writing stories. When I was in seventh grade I wrote my first “novel” which suspiciously echoed my favorite book, Black Beauty. My grandmother typed up the story I had scawled on a yellow tablet. The moment I saw my “manuscript,” in neatly typed paragraphs, I envisioned myself as a writer.

What is this book about? 

Girls Succeed: Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women, a non-fiction e-book about careers, includes interviews with fifteen remarkable women who have achieved recognition for accomplishment in their occupations. This diverse group of careers encompasses women in the arts, business, science, medicine, ministry, entertainment, and sports. Stories include women who have stamped out disease, made people laugh, earned Olympic and Paralympic gold medals, crossed the country in the cab of an eighteen wheeler, and many more chapters to inspire and empower girls to reach for their dreams.

What inspired you to write it?

I was stirred to write a book for girls after working four summers at Camp Newaygo, a girls’ residence camp in Michigan. I met the most amazing young women who were counselors and energetic campers. They kept my life interesting! I marveled at the potential for the futures of these smart, enthusiastic girls. Faced with so many possibilities for careers, I wondered what choices they would make. This e-book is a good reference for them to learn about a career, and the women’s stories inspire and empower girls to follow their dreams.

How is it similar to other books in its genre? How is it different?

Girls Succeed is similar to other career books for children because the chapters discuss various careers and the responsibilities of the job, but very different because the women I interviewed also told me about the careers they dreamed about when they were little girls. They share how they made the dream come true. I purposely chose women who are respected in their fields of work, but they are not nationally known celebrities. (Unfortunately this was cited as a reason for publishers not to accept the book for publication. So I published it myself.) I include their advice about perseverance, determination, and dreaming big.

This e-book is different in many ways. Each chapter begins with an inspirational quote. Many books include books and magazines for resources, but my little twist is possible because it is an e-book. I  added live links to websites about each woman and her career. With one click the reader, if she is connected to the Internet, is linked to a cyberspace filled with facts, guides, and articles. Not only can the reader discover horse woman Pati Pierucci’s story in the e-book about how she became a horse trainer and an award winning dressage competitor, but she can also click on a website to watch the Olympics dressage competition, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0te-vc_O04k&feature=related and learn about riding at the Young Rider site http://www.youngrider.com/ .

What is the most important thing readers can learn from your book?

Besides learning about a career, the reader may identify with the situations in the childhood stories. Living in a home with alcoholic parents, fighting illness, being smart and trying to hide it, or being a star athlete were some of the difficulties for these now successful women to overcome. Even with obstacles in their paths, the women did not give up on achieving their dream careers. It is my hope readers will be inspired and empowered by their stories.

Where can readers purchase a copy?

Smashwords Link http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/241825

Amazon Link  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009NY6ZAS

Kobo Link http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Girls-Succeed/book-myLEkD3MME6d8UiRBgthtQ/page1.html?s=lrOG8bTJ60qkeMkE-Y96Vg&r=3

Barnes and Noble Link http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/girls-succeed-jq-rose/1114041658?ean=2940045118033

Sony Link https://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/j-q-rose/girls-succeed-stories-behind-the-careers-of-successful-women/_/R-400000000000000883970

What is up next for you?

The Girls Succeed book is published, but I continue to find stories about careers and about women both past and present who are considered trailblazers breaking down barriers for women. I feel I have to share their stories, so I began blogging about them on the Girls Succeed Blog. http://girlssucceed.blogspot.com/  I enjoy doing the research on these amazing women. I have a few trailblazers which I plan to feature in another book. Of course I will continue writing mysteries…one about an undertaker’s daughter perhaps???

Is there anything you would like to add?

Readers who are interested in obtaining a study guide for the e-book can email me for a FREE guide this month. My e-mail addy is jqrose02 at gmail dot com

Thank you so much, Cheryl, for hosting me today so I can get the word out about this inspirational book. If anyone would like a copy to review, please email me at jqrose02 at gmail dot com

The NY Times offers an infuriating and detailed article about the recklessly stupid Rhode Island politicians who gave $75 million to baseball player Curt Schilling so he could launch a video game company. Predictably, Schilling’s company, 38 Studios, not only failed to deliver the online role playing game it set out to make, it accrued $150 million in debt in just two years before the company collapsed last spring and left the state’s finances in ruin. With so much discussion about government subsidies and incentives for VFX and film production, there’s a valuable cautionary tale in here somewhere:

And yet, you don’t have to dig very hard into the record to find that there were plenty of serious-minded advisers who tried to warn state officials away from 38 Studios. Among them, apparently, was the corporation’s own financial portfolio manager, Sean Esten.

According to the state’s pending lawsuit, Mr. Esten was alarmed that 38 Studios’ worst-case projection for its business seemed to rely on releasing a successful game every two years — a track record that most gaming companies can only dream of.

“I don’t think I can support a $75 million guarantee to any single company in this industry due to the wide volatility in commercial success of game releases,” Mr. Esten told his bosses in an e-mail. “Perhaps we should develop a toolbox of incentives (including loan guarantees) to attract companies into a cluster and not rely on a single company to build the cluster around.” According to the state’s complaint, Mr. Esten’s bosses decided to bury his analysis.

Another skeptic was Gina Raimondo, a Democrat who was running for state treasurer at the time and now holds the office. Ms. Raimondo spent the previous decade working in venture capital, and after reading about the proposed investment in July 2010, sent an unsolicited and eerily prescient e-mail to Keith Stokes, who was then the corporation’s executive director and the deal’s main architect.

“In general, I would proceed very carefully on this,” Ms. Raimondo wrote. The company “is in the Boston area where there are 200 venture capital firms, and it is in a very hot area of gaming so if it were in fact a compelling investment I would have to think it would be well funded already by venture capitalists; the fact that many have looked at it and passed is a red flag.”

Whew, for a second there, we were worried that DreamWorks Animation was struggling, but if their executive pay is any indication, they’re doing just fine. The Hollywood Reporter reports that executive pay at DreamWorks rose significantly in 2012.

Jeffrey Katzenberg’s compensation rose 31% from $4 million to $5.24 million. Katzenberg, who has typically taken a $1 annual salary and has waived option awards in the past, still earns a pittance compared to other major media honchos, like Viacom’s Philippe Dauman who took home $33.45 million last year and Disney’s Bob Iger whose pay package totalled $37.1 million.

The same Reporter article also offered numbers on other DreamWorks execs:

As for other executives at the company, COO Ann Daly’s compensation increased from $3 million to $4.6 million and CMO Anne Globe’s compensation was upped from about $2.3 million to $2.8 million. Losing out was Lewis Coleman, president and CFO, whose compensation package decreased from $3.7 million to under $3.2 million.

DreamWorks Animation is moving into live-action. At a Beijing news conference last week, Jeffrey Katzenberg announced a co-production agreement between Oriental DreamWorks and the Chinese state-owned China Film Group Corp. The deal will result in a movie franchise based on the bestselling Chinese book series Tibet Code.

Katzenberg said that the film will become “China’s Indiana Jones,” while China Film Group chairman Han Sanping proclaimed that the film’s “characters represent traditional Chinese culture and Chinese morality.”

The Wall Street Journal offers the most in-depth piece I’ve read about the new Tibet Code deal. In the same article, they report that Oriental DreamWorks is taking the lead on the production of Kung Fu Panda 3.

Controlling creative people appears to be a popular topic in the mainstream media nowadays. Following on the heels of Harvard Business Review’s incendiary article “Seven Rules for Managing Creative People”, Bloomberg Businessweek has published a short piece titled How to Manipulate Creative People. Unlike the HBR article which sounded as if it was written by someone who had never met a creative person in their life, the Businessweek piece (which is part of their annual how-to issue) is written by Matt Selman, an exec producer on The Simpsons who has run the writers’ rooms for over a decade.

Agree with what he says or not, Selman’s advice clearly stems from experience:

If your team is still irritated with you, badmouth anyone not in the room. Dumping on an unseen third party or revealing tantalizing office gossip always takes the heat off for a few minutes. Though if you’re going to make fun of people who work for you, be prepared to be made fun of by them. No matter how mean it gets, have the thickest skin in the room. Reward the completion of assignments with YouTube clips: Key and Peele, octopus vs. shark, bank robbery fails. If nothing else works, stall till lunch. It’s hard to be full and angry.

Copyright Tonia Allen Gould, All Rights Reserved

 What’s an idea? The mere concept of an idea is difficult, maybe even impossible to perfectly define. Even notable philosophers couldn’t seem to agree on what an idea truly means. The Free Dictionary Online indicates that according to the philosophy of Plato, the definition of an idea “is an archetype of which a corresponding being in phenomenal reality is an imperfect replica.” The web source goes on to say that according to the philosophy of Kant, “an idea is a concept of reason that is transcendent but nonempiral.” But, even Hagel said it differently. He claimed that an idea means “absolute truth; the complete and ultimate product of reason.” In the dictionary, the definition of an idea reads “something, such as a thought or conception that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity.”

To me, an idea is something that begins as a glimmer; a mere flicker in the mind that can suddenly grab hold, and unfold through any period of time, like the single root of the ivy plant that grounds itself deeply into the soil before it grows upwards, clinging to a wall with its tiny tentacles, reaching out and hanging on, until it forms its own shape and dimension. The ivy grows and grows, like no other ivy plant in existence, and reaches for the sun in a way that suits itself in order to flourish. Like an idea, the ivy didn’t plant itself. Someone had to place it there. The gardener of the ivy had to have foresight to buy or rent the house, invest in the fertilizer and the soil and the tools; he had to invest in the plant and spend his time digging the hole and planting it in the hopes that it would grow.

Like the gardener; creative professionals must make an investment in time, be committed to the outcome, and diligently work to understand and meet the project objectives.  That’s a lot of footwork and fancy dancing already.  But, what about the ideas you generate…those tiny seedlings of thought, that grew and took shape and added a dimension to the project that were unlike every other idea before it…those absolute truths…those nonempiral transcendent concepts of reason…those imperfect replicas…what about those? Those ideas, my friends, have value and they are your greatest asset. Sometimes, we forget that and give them away too freely, as if they have no value.  So if you’re questioning your creative worth, maybe you should start looking first at your assets.  #yourideashaveworth

Ogres are so yesterday. DreamWorks Animation just announced that they have acquired the IP for the Trolls franchise from the Dam Family and Dam Things of Denmark. DreamWorks now becomes the exclusive worldwide licensor of the merchandise rights for the humorously-deformed Don King-hairstyled Troll Dolls, with the sole exception of Scandanavia where Dam Things will remain the licensor. The studio had previously announced that they were developing a Trolls feature.

DreamWorks also announced that they have tapped American Girl veteran Shawn Dennis to lead the Trolls brand development. “Trolls is a brand with over fifty years of deep heritage and we are thrilled to bring this iconic, multi-generational property to DreamWorks Animation,” said Chief Operating Officer Ann Daly. “We have big plans for this franchise and Shawn Dennis is uniquely suited to lead this charge. She helped grow the American Girl brand into a household name and by bringing this expertise to Trolls she will introduce these characters to legions of new fans around the world.”

Dennis joins DreamWorks from American Girl, where she was Senior Vice-President of Marketing (Product Development and Publishing). Prior to that, she was group head of global branding at Dell, and Chief Marketing Officer and Vice-President of the NFL.

Calle Ostergaard, CEO of Dam Things, said, “DreamWorks Animation is renowned for telling wonderful stories about imaginative worlds while bringing characters with universal appeal into the hearts and homes of families everywhere – I can think of no better future for Trolls. We are confident that the time-honored legend of the Trolls, which holds such special significance to the Dam family and the people of Scandanavia, will now live on in new and exciting ways with DreamWorks Animation.”

More workforce cuts are coming to Disney. Following the closure of LucasArts, Reuters news service reported yesterday that Disney will begin a new round of layoffs within the next two weeks. Most of the cuts will come from the marketing and home video units, but layoffs in the animation department are also expected. The staff reductions are the result of an internal audit that happened in late-2012 to identify positions that were redundant or no longer necessary thanks to technological advances.

The Animation Guild doesn’t know where the animation cuts will come from. Their take on the news:

Since there are multiple divisions (Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Disney Toon Studios, and Disney Television Animation) they could be anywhere…Walt Disney Animation Studios has been hiring of late, putting staffers on Frozen and Big Hero Six as they ramp up into full production.

The image at top was sent in by a Cartoon Brew reader. The chalk outline of Mickey Mouse allegedly appeared this morning at the studio’s Glendale campus.

The shake-out from Disney’s $4 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm continues. This morning, Disney shut down LucasArts, the 31-year-old gaming division of Lucasfilm. They gutted the whole division with approximately 150 employees losing their jobs. The only question that remains is what inspiring piece of photography Lucasfilm exec Colum Slevin will post on his Tumblr to commemorate the shut down.

The Hollywood Reporter confirmed today that the Berkeley-based VFX studio Tippett Studio has laid off 40% of its workforce, or approximately 50 employees. The 30-year-old vfx/animation studio, which was responsible for the animation in Seth MacFarlane’s Ted, has indicated the possibility of additional layoffs. Its full-time staff currently numbers around 100 people.

Variety is reporting that bankrupt American animation/visual effects studio Rhythm & Hues has been acquired at auction by Indian company Prana Studios. The Variety article mentions that Prana’s credits include Hoodwinked and Disney’s upcoming Planes.

Prana also created the animation for Koochie Koochie Hota Hai. The film, which its producer has described as a “love story between three dogs,” has been finished for over three years, but it is filled with so much amazing that it cannot be released into theaters without sending audiences into a dangerous state of ecstatic euphoria. In the meantime, Prana should spend some time getting their new Rhythm & Hues subsidiary up to speed on how to create mindbending computer-generated visuals.

Last week at SXSW, Vimeo announced that Don Hertzfeldt will be among the introductory group of filmmakers to use their new Vimeo On Demand platform. Hertzfeldt has always been very selective about how he distributes his work online, which may be the first sign that Vimeo is doing something right with this new service.

The new platform allows anybody who has signed up for Vimeo PRO to distribute their films online. Hertzfeldt is selling his new feature It’s Such a Beautiful Day for $2 (to view the film online for one week) or $6 (to download a DRM-free version).

Vimeo’s On Demand set-up is fully customizable. Films of any length can be distributed, and prices can be set by filmmakers as can viewing periods for films. Here are some of its key features:

90/10 revenue split: You keep 90% of revenue after transaction fees, and we cover all delivery costs.

Your audience can watch anywhere: Your work is available online, as well as on mobile devices, tablets, and connected TVs, all in gorgeous HD quality.

Customizable design: You can completely personalize your Vimeo On Demand page to match your work and bring it to life.

Flexibility + control: Sell films, episodes, and more at the price you want, anywhere in the world you want — including on your own website.

I haven’t delved into all the particulars yet, but Vimeo On Demand appears to be quite filmmaker-friendly. The system isn’t perfect: for example, they might be better off with a credits-based system instead of the currently cumbersome pay-per-view model. But such issues are resolvable over time. The important thing is that Vimeo has spent years building a solid foundation including its elegant video player and a large userbase interested in independent filmmaking. Their On Demand service is a positive development, and has potential to be a game-changer for indie animators and filmmakers.

A little over a month after Life of Pi VFX studio Rhythm & Hues declared bankruptcy and laid off hundreds of employees at its Los Angeles studio, the China Post reports that its new Taiwan outpost is offering 200 job openings.

Rhythm & Hues recently had a booth at a job fair at Taichung’s National Chung Hsing University, where it was recruiting special effects engineers, 3D animation artists and other creative personnel. Starting salaries for new graduates at the Taiwan studio are roughly in the range of $250-per-week, according to the China Post.

The Kickstarter campaign to produce an animated series based on the online comic Cyanide and Happiness concluded a few minutes ago with a grand total of $770,309 from 14,242 backers. The amount of money raised obliterates the previous animation crowdfunding record held by David Fincher and Blur Studio’s The Goon animatic, which raised $442,000 last November.

Last month when the Cyanide and Happiness campaign was at its midway point, Cartoon Brew wrote about how well the effort was doing. The four creators of C&H—Kris Wilson, Rob DenBleyker, Matt Melvin, Dave McElfatrick—had set their fundraising goal at $250,000. They exceeded that amount by 300%, and with the money they’ve raised, their team will now produce eleven 10-12 minute episodes, as well as weekly short-form pieces for an entire year.

Should you register a copyright for your unpublished work? 

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2013/02/why-not-to-register-copyright-for.html

By Colin Mayer

The corporation is the most important institution in the world – an institution that clothes, feeds and houses us; employs us and invests our savings; and is the source of economic prosperity and the growth of nations around the world. At the same time, it has been the cause of terrible poverty, deprivation and environmental degradation, and these problems are set to increase in the future.
Over the last few years alone we have endured:

• The accounting scandals in Enron and WorldCom
• The Libor scandals
• The underpayments of corporation tax
• The misselling of mortgages, payment protection insurance, and derivatives
• The financial crisis
• The environmental disasters in the Gulf of Mexico and Fukushima

Each of these is thought to have their own cause and to require their particular solution. This is fundamentally wrong: the problems are not specific and the solutions are not individual. There is a generic problem that requires a common solution. The problem is the corporation and the solution is to fix it and not everything around it.

Fixing the corporation involves addressing its failures of ownership, values, governance, regulation and taxation. This requires:

• Corporations taking responsibility for their actions and consequences, and having long-term committed shareholders;
• Corporations having clearly defined values and principles, and truly independent boards of directors responsible for their implementation;
• Tougher enforcement of public laws regarding bribery, corruption, environmental damage, fraud, insider dealing and market abuse;
• More stringent protection of our financial systems and ecosystems;
• Less intrusive regulation elsewhere and greater use of the corporate tax system to align interests of corporations with society at large.

Implementing these changes involves a reform of business education and a redefinition of the roles and responsibilities as well as rights and rewards of executives and investors.

This is not so much a reinvention as a rebirth of the corporation. Historically it was established by royal charter with a defined public purpose to undertake voyages of discovery and promote trade. The family firms that succeeded it were frequently established by founders with strong ethical principles and visions. Two corporations that illustrate that are Lehman Brothers and Barclays Bank, not today’s versions but those of the 19th and 17th centuries respectively. Mayer Lehman, the founder of Lehman Brothers, took his children every Sunday to the Mount Sinai hospital to see the plight of the less fortunate members of New York society. John Freame, the founder of Barclays Bank, wrote Scripture Instruction, a principle text used by the Quakers for more than a century. Over time those strong values have contracted into a single one of maximizing the short term earnings of shareholders.

That is not universally the case – some of the world’s most successful corporations and best performing economies have very different purposes and values. Bertlesmann one of the world’s largest media companies, Robert Bosch the automotive company, Carlsberg the brewing company, and Tata the conglomerate owner of Jaguar Land Rover are all structured as industrial foundations with boards that are responsible for the values and principles of their organizations. The Nordic and Scandinavian countries, which are currently being upheld as models for the rest of the world, emphasize a broader set of corporate principles encompassing a wider set of stakeholders than their shareholders.

This bears not only on the positive aspects of what corporations could do but also on the normative ones of what they should do. While notions of morality are well developed in relation to individuals, they are not in respect of corporations. Indeed, the idea of a moral corporation would generally be regarded as an oxymoron. It is not. What gives it substance is the ability of the corporation to establish levels of commitment to which we as individuals can only aspire. What makes it credible is the coincidence between the normative goals of doing good and the positive ones of making goods because ultimately the moral corporation is a commercially successful one and the competitiveness of nations depends on the moral fibre of its corporations.

Restoring trust in corporations is one of the most important policy issues of the 21st century. Without it economic policies will fail, environmental degradation will intensify and financial systems will collapse. With it, we can achieve levels of economic prosperity and well-being that far exceed what we have experienced to date.

Video: Colin Mayer on fixing the broken trust in corporations

Click here to view the embedded video.

Colin Mayer is the author of Firm Commitment: Why the corporation is failing us and how to restore trust in it (OUP, 2013). He is the Peter Moores Professor of Management Studies at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, an Honorary Fellow of Oriel and St Anne’s Colleges, Oxford, and a Professorial Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford.  He is a member of the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal and the UK Government Natural Capital Committee, and a Fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute.

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Does the publisher lose money if you're book doesn't sell well enough to cover your advance? 

http://chipmacgregor.typepad.com/main/2012/02/does-the-publisher-lose-money-if-my-book-doesnt-earn-out.html

What is the most funded animation campaign currently running on Kickstarter? Is it:

• A short film by animation legend Ralph Bakshi

• An animated game by Oscar-winning Moonbot Studios

• A proof-of-concept film by Celebrity Deathmatch creator Eric Fogel

The answer is none of the above.

The most successful live animation campaign at the moment is Cyanide and Happiness, a long-running webcomic that aims to branch out into a series of long-form animated episodes. In the eleven days since the campaign was launched, over 7,300 backers have contributed $362,000, easily surpassing the project’s original goal of $250,000. It is already the third-highest funded animation campaign in Kickstarter’s history, and could break more records before it’s all over.

The four twenty-something creators of Cyanide and Happiness—Kris Wilson, Rob DenBleyker, Matt Melvin, Dave McElfatrick—are no strangers to animation. Before coming together to make the comic in 2004, they met each other as teenagers doing animation on Newgrounds. In 2009, they began creating brief animated segments based on their comic. Their YouTube channel has amassed neary 200 million pageviews with short-form bits and pieces of animation.

Now, they aim to do something more ambitious: a series of 10-12 minute episodes. Initially, they attempted to negotiate a TV series deal with cable networks. They wrote about the fruitless effort on their blog:

We walked away from the first two [networks] due to rights and creative control issues. We thought that we could settle those issues in the third deal, but things didn’t quite work out as we hoped. We’re starting to realize that TV as an industry just isn’t compatible with what we want to do with our animation: deliver it conveniently to a global audience, something we’ve been doing all along with our comics these past eight years. That’s just the nature of television versus the Internet, I suppose.

Now they’ve turned to Kickstarter to appeal directly to their fanbase:

We firmly believe the entertainment industry is changing, and the Internet will eventually become the only way people watch shows. Especially the people that make up our awesome fanbase. The Internet is already the largest network, available when you think about it. Why go anywhere else? By reading our comics over the years, you folks have given us the careers we dreamed of having as kids, and turned our silly cartoons into something much, much bigger than ourselves. The prospect of doing an uncensored, unaltered Cyanide & Happiness Show and giving it directly to the fans is an incredible opportunity. We’re really excited to see how far we can take things.

Besides the amount of money raised so far, there’s another noteworthy aspect, and that’s that the C&H artists developed their careers entirely online. This is different from many other high-profile animation projects on Kickstarter launched by mainstream artists whose reputations were established in entertainment mediums outside of the Internet.

It still means something to be Ralph Bakshi, John Kricfalusi or Bill Plympton—that is, being the director of numerous theatrical features, the creator of a groundbreaking TV series, or the king of American indie animation has an incalculable advantage over being an upstart. But as the Cyanide & Happiness campaign has shown, lofty reputations from other mediums can’t match the support of a well-established online following.

The C&H Kickstarter already has more backers than the combined totals of the three aforementioned animation legends, and will also achieve a higher pledge dollar amount before the campaign ends. With this success, as well as the success of webcomic campaigns like MS Paint Adventures and Penny Arcade, the once-maligned webcomic is re-emerging as the unlikley foundation of entertainment empires.

DreamWorks Animation announced yesterday that they will layoff 350 employees by the end of 2013. The news of the layoffs become public in early-February when the studio told employees that it was reshuffling its production and release schedule.

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg talked about the layoffs with \The Hollywood Reporter:

“These things are very, very difficult to do. I would say it’s the hardest thing I’ve had to do since we started DreamWorks. We’ve never had to lay anybody off. It was against our culture. But it’s the right thing for us today, and it makes DWA strong going forward.”

Yesterday, the reduction of the book value of an asset.

If you read just one article this month about short film distribution, make it this piece at Short of the Week. Written by filmmaker Ivan Kander, the piece is ostensibly about the changing game of short film distribution, but it also contains a sharp critique of short film distributor Shorts International.

Nobody denies that Shorts International works for a handful of high-profile short films—think Oscar-nominated—but, as the article makes clear, their model simply doesn’t work for the average animation filmmaker, a complaint that I’ve heard often throughout the years. Their business model might have been relevant as recently as five years ago, but in 2013, they are an anachronistic presence on the short film circuit. They take far too many rights for the limited financial reward and exposure they offer in return.

Solutions exist, but companies in the short film community have been slow to implement them. Firstly, filmmakers need something like Bandcamp that facilitates the sale of digital downloads and merchandise, the latter of which is a major part of the income stream of established indie animators like Don Hertzfeldt and Bill Plympton.

Vimeo, by virtue of its name-recognition and user base, is perhaps in the best position to make a major impact in the film distribution game. Their recent introduction of the “tip jar” was a step in the right direction, but what I’d really like to see them do is introduce a micro-payment system. For example, a filmmaker on Vimeo could charge 5 cents per film view. As a viewer, I’d purchase a $5 credit from Vimeo, and then everytime I watch a film that requires payment, the site would automatically deduct a nickel from my account. Vimeo could charge 10% for the service (that’s half a penny on a five-cent film). A film with 500,000 views at a nickel apiece would earn $22,500 for the filmmaker and $2,500 for Vimeo. Add in downloads for 25 cents, and you’ve instantly created a more effective model for short filmmakers than Shorts International, iTunes and YouTube’s Partner Program combined.

(Rich man smoking money photo via Shutterstock)

Good long-read in Businessweek about how Disney bought the Star Wars franchise and Lucasfilm. The article is short on major revelations, but contains some cute stories, like an overview of the meeting in which Disney CEO Robert Iger first asked George Lucas if he’d be interested in selling Lucasfilm:

In May 2011, Iger flew to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida for the opening of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, an upgraded Star Wars ride offering patrons the illusion of traveling through space to visit planets like Tatooine. Lucas was deeply involved in the attraction, personally reviewing its progress every two weeks for several years.

On the morning of the Star Tours opening, Iger met Lucas for breakfast at the Hollywood Brown Derby, one of Disney World’s restaurants. It was closed for the occasion so the two men could speak freely. Fresh from his daily workout, Iger ordered a yogurt parfait. Lucas treated himself to one of the Brown Derby’s larger omelets. The two exchanged pleasantries. Then Iger inquired whether Lucas would ever consider selling his company. Lucas replied that he’d recently celebrated his 67th birthday and was starting to think seriously about retiring. So perhaps the sale of his company was inevitable. “I’m not ready to pursue that now,” he told Iger. “But when I am, I’d love to talk.”