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Running an animation studio can be very profitable...especially if you destroy the studio.

The post Former Digital Domain CEO John Textor Wins $8.5 Million For Bankrupting The Studio appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Yesterday the State of Florida sued the principals of Digital Domain to recover tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded incentives that they claim were "fraudulently" obtained from the state.

The actions of scummy venture capitalist John Textor, the disgraced former CEO of Digital Domain, are finally under investigation by the state of Florida.

Evidence has emerged that even as Digital Domain was running on fumes and had no cash to operate its Florida studio, they continued hiring people from around the United States. That leads us to the tragic story of the Alberts family, who arrived in Florida from New Hampshire on the day DD shuttered its Port St. Lucie, Florida-based Tradition Studios. Now, the family of five is homeless with no job and just $200.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Digita Domain, John Textor, Tradition Studios

Related posts:

1. Commentary: Digital Domain May Be On The Brink Of Disaster
2. Comment of the Day: Digital Domain Should Avoid Missteps of Others
3. Digital Domain Sets Up Florida Shop, Aims To Be Next Pixar

Fang said, on 9/8/2012 9:31:00 AM

Wow, a moving company ad before this bad news, i bet this is not a coincidence…

Good luck to the people that lost their jobs

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Deaniac said, on 9/8/2012 9:31:00 AM

It’s tragic that people are losing this jobs because of this whole fiasco, but I think this article could do without the “OOPS” in the title. It just seems kinda disrespectful.

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Amid said, on 9/8/2012 9:37:00 AM

This is a story about a family that is struggling to put food into their children’s mouths and you’re debating whether the use of the word ‘oops’ is appropriate to describe their situation? Time to grow up dude.

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Toonio said, on 9/8/2012 9:53:00 AM

Like many other companies, Digital Domain was managed on speculation but they got tangled on their own web of lies. Which is fair because the cost of incompetence should be failure.

However seeing how the execs get a tax sponsored windfall while families get hammered and left homeless without a penny in return, makes me crazy mad.

Something had to change yesterday on corporate mismanagement. Time to write your representatives or consider vote them out if they don’t push for more criminal laws for white collar weasels.

May the Alberts come back on their feet soon to make this awful situation a thing of the past.

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JM WALTER said, on 9/8/2012 10:19:00 AM

It´s so ironic and sad that when I clicked play to watch this video. I got an instant commercial advertising a Luxury yacht cruise.

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Satorical said, on 9/8/2012 11:00:00 AM

Textor and members of the board should help this family.

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Funkybat said, on 9/8/2012 11:04:00 AM

I think Deaniac’s point was that the “OOPS” seems like a bit of out-of-place levity, if not indirect blame, being cast upon some innocent people who have just been truly and royally screwed.

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Funkybat said, on 9/8/2012 11:06:00 AM

If there were any justice, the folks who made out like bandits on this would be forced to forfeit the money Florida gave them back to the state of Florida and/or the people laid off because of this fiasco.

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Evidence has emerged that even as Digital Domain was running on fumes and had no cash to operate its Florida studio, they continued hiring people from around the United States. That leads us to the tragic story of the Alberts family, who arrived in Florida from New Hampshire on the day DD shuttered its Port St. Lucie-based Tradition Studios. Now, the family of five is homeless with no job and just $200.

You can read the resignation letter of former Digital Domain CEO John Textor below. In his final glorious act of assholery, Textor refused to accept any responsibility for his gross mismanagement that led to the closing of Digital Domain’s Tradition Studios. In his parting shot, he describes the company’s board of directors (who are tasked with the thankless job of cleaning up the mess Textor created) as uncompassionate and unwise.

To the Directors of Digital Domain Media Group:

I hereby resign as a director of Digital Domain Media Group, Inc. (the “Company”) effective as of the close of business on September 6, 2012.

As you are aware, I am in profound disagreement with the decision to close our animation and visual effects studio in the wonderful community of Port St. Lucie, Florida. The people of Florida welcomed us with open arms and we certainly owed them greater consideration. We were able to hire and train local residents and have them mentored by the very best of our industry. Our incredibly talented artists and filmmakers were building something truly special in Port St. Lucie, not just our favorite first film, The Legend of Tembo, but also our first home, Tradition Studios. I am deeply saddened and heartbroken by this decision.

I believe that each of you as directors, and specifically those on the Strategic Alternatives Committee, have tried to do your very best to deal with the unfortunate consequences of our life as a public company. I also know that, in making your decision, you relied on the counsel of highly qualified advisors and legal representatives. That said, I think the outcome was not only unwise, but also without compassion. While I understand and support the effort to streamline costs, I believe this to be the wrong path. It is never a bad time to reconsider a bad decision. This can be reversed immediately.

Although I will no longer be a member of the Board, I intend to stay actively involved as a shareholder of the Company, and a believer in Florida. This decision will hopefully give me greater flexibility to independently consider other strategic alternatives for the Company, the Port St. Lucie studio and the people affected.

God bless you and thank you for your service.

Sincerely,

/s/ John C. Textor

You can read the resignation letter of former Digital Domain CEO John Textor below. In his final glorious act of assholery, Textor refused to accept any responsibility for his gross mismanagement that led to the closing of Digital Domain’s Tradition Studios. In his parting shot, he describes the company’s board of directors (who are tasked with the thankless job of cleaning up the mess Textor created) as uncompassionate and unwise.

To the Directors of Digital Domain Media Group:

I hereby resign as a director of Digital Domain Media Group, Inc. (the “Company”) effective as of the close of business on September 6, 2012.

As you are aware, I am in profound disagreement with the decision to close our animation and visual effects studio in the wonderful community of Port St. Lucie, Florida. The people of Florida welcomed us with open arms and we certainly owed them greater consideration. We were able to hire and train local residents and have them mentored by the very best of our industry. Our incredibly talented artists and filmmakers were building something truly special in Port St. Lucie, not just our favorite first film, The Legend of Tembo, but also our first home, Tradition Studios. I am deeply saddened and heartbroken by this decision.

I believe that each of you as directors, and specifically those on the Strategic Alternatives Committee, have tried to do your very best to deal with the unfortunate consequences of our life as a public company. I also know that, in making your decision, you relied on the counsel of highly qualified advisors and legal representatives. That said, I think the outcome was not only unwise, but also without compassion. While I understand and support the effort to streamline costs, I believe this to be the wrong path. It is never a bad time to reconsider a bad decision. This can be reversed immediately.

Although I will no longer be a member of the Board, I intend to stay actively involved as a shareholder of the Company, and a believer in Florida. This decision will hopefully give me greater flexibility to independently consider other strategic alternatives for the Company, the Port St. Lucie studio and the people affected.

God bless you and thank you for your service.

Sincerely,

/s/ John C. Textor

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 17 comments | Post tags: Digital Domain, John Textor, Tradition Studios

Related posts:

1. Digital Domain’s John Textor Is A Meme
2. John Textor Made $16 Million In 2011 While Digital Domain’s Revenue Dropped
3. Digital Domain’s John Textor Brags to Investors about Exploiting Animation Student Labor

Liam said, on 9/7/2012 6:40:00 PM

He’ll just start from one circle, dropped to the next appropriate level, and then fish hooked back to the previous level when all his corresponding circles have had their fun.

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Christy said, on 9/7/2012 7:16:00 PM

A very tragic day everyone…. We are all heartbroken by this mess. Damnit, friends are going to have to leave now, not know how to feed their kids, or pay their rent… Someone should have said something months ago. It went from a ‘family company’ to ‘we don’t give a shit’.

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Steve M. said, on 9/7/2012 7:30:00 PM

Quite a fitting end to his reign as CEO.

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Trevor said, on 9/7/2012 8:37:00 PM

The animation community is with you. Keep an eye out. I know for a fact that at least two studios will be coming to Port St. Lucie next week to meet with you guys. Get your stuff together. You’ll be back on your feet very soon.

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Mac said, on 9/7/2012 8:44:00 PM

What is it with Hollywood and animation’s obsession with moving to Florida? Florida comes up a lot in the history of animation. Is there some unique confluence of tax breaks and property values or something?

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Skip said, on 9/8/2012 12:43:00 AM

Glad that Textor is out, feel sorry for all of the staff. I suppose you could call this the best bad Animation news of the year.

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Fooksie said, on 9/8/2012 2:49:00 AM

@Mac, yes. Property is more of a bargain, and there is no state income tax,making Florida a good place to start a business. Although you will be living in the “Land of the Hanging Chad”. : )

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Jonathan said, on 9/8/2012 7:35:00 AM

Lovely, so he gets to leave with millions dollars while other hard working decent folks leave with nothing. That is dispicable.

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Awful news out of Florida this morning. Digital Domain announced today that as part of “a strategic realignment that will enable it to focus its resources on its core business,” it will shut down its new Port St. Lucie, Florida studio Tradition and halt production of its first animated feature The Legend of Tembo. Per the studio’s press release:

As a key part of this strategic realignment, DDMG has begun the cessation of its Port St. Lucie operations by reducing virtually its entire Port St. Lucie workforce, retaining approximately 20 employees who will remain as part of the wind-down.

According to a Cartoon Brew commenter, 300 people lost their jobs this morning. The breakdown: “About 100 on Tembo, 50 or so on VFX, 100 or so doing Stereo Conversion work, and about 50 or so misc. employees.”

One artist who was let go tweeted, “A very sad day for the Digital Domain Tradition studios family. I’ll miss the whole Tembo crew,” and followed up with, “In related news, I’m looking for work! I’ll have an updated portfolio online later today.”

Other Digital Domain studios will remain open according to the same press release: “DDMG’s studios in California and Vancouver intend to continue to operate without interruption, as will the Digital Domain Institute, based in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Further, John Textor is stepping down:

John C. Textor has resigned, effective immediately, from his positions as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of DDMG, as a member of the Board of Directors of DDMG, and from all positions as an officer and director with all subsidiaries of DDMG.

Digital Domain executive Ed Ulbrich has been promoted to Chief Executive Officer of Digital Domain Productions. Ulbrich has been with the company since its founding in 1993. According to DD’s corporate website, Ulbrich is “the chief architect of its commercials business, including Mothership.” He has exec-produced the vfx for over 500+ commercials, as well as the studio’s Academy Award-winning vfx in Titanic and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I wrote at the end of August about how Digital Domain was on the brink of disaster due to Textor’s reckless management. What was written then is appropriate to reprint today:

There are already many victims in this situation. I feel awful for the artists who are working on Digital Domain’s first (and potentially last) feature The Legend of Tembo, as well as for all the other Digital Domain employees. I feel bad for Florida citizens who handed $132 million of their taxpayer dollars to a reckless and clueless businessman. I feel outraged for the incoming students of Digital Domain Institute who may have to perform slave labor because Digital Domain doesn’t believe in federal labor laws.

But you know who I don’t feel sorry for?

John Textor.

UPDATE (2:10PM ET): TCPalm.com has spoken to multiple artists who have been let go in Florida:

“Today’s the last day, there wasn’t much to be said. Just everybody apologized and said this is something that’s very hard for everybody,” said Philip Rosado, a digital artist. Rosado said he moved here from Vancouver, Canada, and had been working for Digital Domain for about a year. “Gotta get on the horn and find work,” he said. “I got two babies to feed, a wife to take care of, a roof to put over our heads. It’s not about me. It’s about my family.”

They also have a statement from Scott Ross, who started Digital Domain in 1993 with James Cameron and Stan Winston:

“It really breaks my heart when a company is started, and a company moves employees 3,000 miles away to a new home with a promise of a great future with the knowledge that there’s a strong possibility that the company would be out of business or that it would shutter its doors. It’s unconscionable to me that you can upset a human being’s life and a family’s life in the way that this company has.”

This photo taken by TCPalm photographer Will Greenlee is captioned: “A Port St. Lucie Police Department officer is stationed Friday at the gates of Digital Domain Media Group Tradition Studio as workers leave the building with their possessions.”

UPDATE (3:40PM ET): Watch local news coverage from WPTV:

UPDATE (4:05PM ET): Read the resignation letter of CEO John Textor.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 44 comments | Post tags: Digital Domain, Ed Ulbrich, John Textor, Legend of Tembo, Scott Ross, Tradition Studios

Related posts:

1. Douchey Digital Domain CEO John Textor: “Free Labor is Much Better Than Cheap Labor”
2. Digital Domain’s “The Legend of Tembo”
3. Digital Domain’s John Textor Is A Meme

Jason said, on 9/7/2012 2:51:00 PM

Has nothing to do with the crew or ‘Hollywood’ and everything to do with freebie top heavy tax credits and a race to the bottom.

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akira said, on 9/7/2012 3:17:00 PM

paying 350k per year to a director of a film that has potential to gross over 100 million is not too outrageous.

the outrage is hiring a full crew without having the money required to complete the film.

don’t blame the director, only the producers. otherwise you can reason that every crew member was overpaid

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Sarah J said, on 9/7/2012 4:05:00 PM

I don’t know much about the business, but… Don’t such large salaries mostly just go to directors with experience, or directors in big studios like Disney? Feel free to correct me, again, I don’t know much about the business, but Digital Domain is a small studio and so far, they haven’t made a big feature film and they don’t have a lot of money. If you’re running a studio that has never released a feature length film and the directors you’ve hired don’t have any big directorial names under their belt, it’s probably not a good idea to give them huge salaries.

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Sarah J said, on 9/7/2012 4:08:00 PM

That’s a shame, but I guess we should’ve seen it coming. Really sucks for all those people losing their jobs, and it’s too bad that The Legend of Tembo got shut down, I would’ve gone to see it. Hopefully the other workers can find jobs.

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Mike Inman said, on 9/7/2012 5:20:00 PM

Good point Matt. I wonder if it’s possible for the FSU students who paid for the privilege of working at Textor’s boondoggle to now get their fall tuition payment back? Maybe a lucky few can transfer over to a legit animation school such as RCAD/Sarasota or CalArts

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Mark Mayerson said, on 9/7/2012 7:18:00 PM

I was being ironic.

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Steve M. said, on 9/7/2012 7:45:00 PM

A real shame all those artists had to lose their jobs, all because of one reckless, idiotic CEO.

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Robert Redford said, on 9/8/2012 5:48:00 AM

I’m not blaming the director only, read what I said in all my posts. But the reality is everyone is responsible one way or another. I’m an artist but the day of artists placing the blame only on the suits, producers and other non creatives are over. Again the problem was the whole venture was underfunded and when you have two directors calling a venture that had over 100 million a start up shows how ignorant to the process everyone was. If it was a start up why be paid 350k, take a lower pay. In start ups you have individuals that put in their own money, don’t always get paid , or even pull their own money to make payroll. No matter how you slice it it a waste a of money. Funny how you talk about the potential of a movie making millions, well this one won’t even see the light of day because of greed and irresponsibility.

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Awful news out of Florida this morning. Digital Domain announced today that as part of “a strategic realignment that will enable it to focus its resources on its core business,” it will shut down its new Port St. Lucie, Florida studio Tradition and halt production of its first animated feature The Legend of Tembo. Per the studio’s press release:

As a key part of this strategic realignment, DDMG has begun the cessation of its Port St. Lucie operations by reducing virtually its entire Port St. Lucie workforce, retaining approximately 20 employees who will remain as part of the wind-down.

According to a Cartoon Brew commenter, 300 people lost their jobs this morning. The breakdown: “About 100 on Tembo, 50 or so on VFX, 100 or so doing Stereo Conversion work, and about 50 or so misc. employees.”

One artist who was let go tweeted, “A very sad day for the Digital Domain Tradition studios family. I’ll miss the whole Tembo crew,” and followed up with, “In related news, I’m looking for work! I’ll have an updated portfolio online later today.”

Other Digital Domain studios will remain open according to the same press release: “DDMG’s studios in California and Vancouver intend to continue to operate without interruption, as will the Digital Domain Institute, based in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Further, John Textor is stepping down:

John C. Textor has resigned, effective immediately, from his positions as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of DDMG, as a member of the Board of Directors of DDMG, and from all positions as an officer and director with all subsidiaries of DDMG.

Digital Domain executive Ed Ulbrich has been promoted to Chief Executive Officer of Digital Domain Productions. Ulbrich has been with the company since its founding in 1993. According to DD’s corporate website, Ulbrich is “the chief architect of its commercials business, including Mothership.” He has exec-produced the vfx for over 500+ commercials, as well as the studio’s Academy Award-winning vfx in Titanic and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I wrote at the end of August about how Digital Domain was on the brink of disaster due to Textor’s reckless management. What was written then is appropriate to reprint today:

There are already many victims in this situation. I feel awful for the artists who are working on Digital Domain’s first (and potentially last) feature The Legend of Tembo, as well as for all the other Digital Domain employees. I feel bad for Florida citizens who handed $132 million of their taxpayer dollars to a reckless and clueless businessman. I feel outraged for the incoming students of Digital Domain Institute who may have to perform slave labor because Digital Domain doesn’t believe in federal labor laws.

But you know who I don’t feel sorry for?

John Textor.

UPDATE (2:10PM ET): TCPalm.com has spoken to multiple artists who have been let go in Florida:

“Today’s the last day, there wasn’t much to be said. Just everybody apologized and said this is something that’s very hard for everybody,” said Philip Rosado, a digital artist. Rosado said he moved here from Vancouver, Canada, and had been working for Digital Domain for about a year. “Gotta get on the horn and find work,” he said. “I got two babies to feed, a wife to take care of, a roof to put over our heads. It’s not about me. It’s about my family.”

They also have a statement from Scott Ross, who started Digital Domain in 1993 with James Cameron and Stan Winston:

“It really breaks my heart when a company is started, and a company moves employees 3,000 miles away to a new home with a promise of a great future with the knowledge that there’s a strong possibility that the company would be out of business or that it would shutter its doors. It’s unconscionable to me that you can upset a human being’s life and a family’s life in the way that this company has.”

This photo taken by TCPalm photographer Will Greenlee is captioned: “A Port St. Lucie Police Department officer is stationed Friday at the gates of Digital Domain Media Group Tradition Studio as workers leave the building with their possessions.”

UPDATE (3:40PM ET): Watch local news coverage from WPTV:

UPDATE (4:05PM ET): Read the resignation letter of CEO John Textor.

I admit it, it’s hard to look away from the unfolding drama of animation/vfx shop Digital Domain‘s financial woes. Earlier today, Digital Domain stock sank nearly 32% to a new low of $1.41. The drop happened after the company defaulted on a $35 million dollar loan.

The Palm Beach Post has plenty of not-so-nice details on Digital Domain’s long-term prospects. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Digital Domain said it now owes $51 million to an investment group led by New York-based Tenor Capital Management. That amount includes $16 million in interest and penalties. The company also hinted in its filing with the SEC that it may seek bankruptcy protection: “An inability to quickly access additional sources of liquidity to fund the company’s current operating cash needs would materially adversely affect its financial condition and would require it to seek relief or protection from its creditors.”

Digital Domain CEO John Textor, who apparently doesn’t just create holograms but also constructs entire alternate universes that have no foundation in reality, doesn’t think $51 million is a lot of money nor does he even think the company defaulted on its loan.

In the video posted above, he told WPTV, “We, in my opinion, owe a very small amount of money to the banks versus the value of this enterprise. This is all about a disagreement with a lender. There was no missed payment or financial default. This is about a contractual dispute.”

One would assume that with Digital Domain’s financial troubles, Textor would be dedicating all his energies to saving the company. Not so. While hundreds of his employee’s livelihoods lay on the line, Textor has been spending some of his time trying to get Florida courts to go after the real villains: random people writing comments about him on the Internet.

According to a report published today on the website GossipExtra, Textor and his wife Debbie have asked Florida courts to force Yahoo! to take down message board posts about his financial dealings because they are causing “extreme emotional distress” to his family. Says Gossip Extra:

Textor, meanwhile, tried to have his complaint against cyberstalkers John Doe No 1 and No. 2 shielded from the public. His motion was denied by the judge in Stuart [Florida]. John Doe No. 1 posts under the name investedjp and No. 2, flypapernhoney. Both, according to the paperwork, have been writing statements that Textor described as “increasingly desperate and hostile” on a Yahoo Finance message board.

In one comment, investedjp — who claims to be a Palm Beach investor — threatens to link to negative Securities and Exchange Commission filings about Digital Domain. In early August, another posting warned Textor that he could end up in a federal prison cell with Madoff. Some have mentioned his children, and one his comely wife Debbie.

No other major animation website has been covering Digital Domain’s story besides Cartoon Brew, but there are other fine sources to look toward for coverage including the business section of the Palm Beach Post and VFX Soldier, the latter which has Digital Domain co-founder Scott Ross participating in the comments section.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 2 comments | Post tags: Digital Domain, John Textor

Digital Domain artists—past and present—can now vent their frustrations via the Pirate Textor meme.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 19 comments | Post tags: Digital Domain, John Textor

Remember the CGI 2Pac “hologram” that Digital Domain created for Coachella earlier this year. The gimmick was well received, but Digital Domain CEO John Textor (above, right), who we’ve already established isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, somehow convinced himself that animating CG versions of dead celebrities was an actual business model.

A couple weeks ago, Textor boasted to investors that he was trying to “tie up the real estate” of virtual humans. How could anyone miss with such an obviously sure-fire business, Textor claimed, “as long as we’re the only people in the world that can do this work.” It was just a matter of “getting the contracts, securing the rights, negotiating with the families, making sure that the likeness rights line up with the music rights and the venue rights and that’s what we should be doing.”

What Textor didn’t tell investors is that there are literally hundreds of other high-end VFX/CG companies that can create computer-animated human characters nowadays. Textor’s scam unfolded when rumors began floating around of a Ronald Reagan hologram that would appear at the Republican National Convention. Textor quickly told the Wall Street Journal “that rumor isn’t true.” Except it is true. Today, businessman Tony Reynolds, confirmed to Yahoo! News that he is indeed working on a Ronald Reagan hologram, and he’s not using Digital Domain to make it.

Holograms of dead people are the least of Textor’s worries though. Since DD’s stock peaked on May 1st, the company has been in freefall. Today, Digital Domain’s stock plunged 21% to a 52-week low of $2.31. In the past four months, the company has lost $300 million in value.

It gets worse. Textor owns 24 percent of Digital Domain. He took out a $12.5 milion loan to buy the shares in the company, and now he can’t pay back the loan. But here’s where it gets Lehman Brothers-style sketchy—and downright insane, if you ask me: Textor got the loan from Digital Domain’s largest shareholder, Palm Beach Capital. The Palm Beach Post has the sordid story:

Corporate governance experts said it’s rare for a shareholder to lend money to a CEO to buy shares. “It’s just not a smart idea,” said Charles Elson, a finance professor at the University of Delaware. “If you can’t pay it back, what happens?” If Textor were to default on the loan from Palm Beach Capital, his annual interest rate would go from 12 percent to 19 percent, Digital Domain said this week. Collateral for the loan includes 8.5 million shares of Digital Domain stock owned by Textor and mansions in Stuart and Mountain Village, Colo.

Executive compensation expert Paul Hodgson of GMI Research said such arrangements are “not very usual. It’s kind of generally been frowned upon because it tends to complicate relationships and undermine situations from a governance point of view. That would raise a red flag with us.”

There are already many victims in this situation. I feel awful for the artists who are working on Digital Domain’s first (and potentially last) feature The Legend of Tembo, as well as for all the other Digital Domain employees. I feel bad for Florida citizens who handed $132 million of their taxpayer dollars to a reckless and clueless businessman. I feel outraged for the incoming students of Digital Domain Institute who may have to perform slave labor because Digital Domain doesn’t believe in federal labor laws.

But you know who I don’t feel sorry for?

John Textor.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 3 comments | Post tags: 2Pac, Digital Domain, hologram, John Textor, Ronald Reagan, Tradition Studios, Tupac

This past Monday, John Textor sent a letter to Digital Domain employees, saying that he chose his words poorly, but didn’t make any indication that he was backing away from his plan to charge students to intern at his studio.

Textor’s rationale for making students pay to work at Digital Domain is that he felt strongly about keeping jobs in North America. That’s why yesterday he announced a co-production deal with Chinese company Beijing Galloping Horse Film Co., Ltd. which will serve as co-producer and distributor of Digital Domain’s first feature The Legend of Tembo.

It’s easy to understand why Textor is so enthused about China. The Chinese government is giving him free land and Chinese investors are handing over $50 million for Digital Domain to build a motion capture facility. With a deal like that, students will have to pay Textor a lot more money to work for free if they want those jobs to stay in North America.

Keep reading for the full text of Textor’s email sent to Digital Domain employees.

From: John Textor

Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2012 16:22:37 -0700

To: John Textor

Subject: My Comments On Our Education Program

Hi everyone,

I want to take a minute to speak to the discussion happening around the industry that started with comments I made about our education program. I chose my words poorly and the industry took me to task. More importantly, though, my remarks threw a negative spotlight on Digital Domain that the company doesn’t deserve, and I want to apologize to all of you for that. I regret if I have tarnished in any way the reputation you have built over two decades with your amazing work.

I do want you to have the facts about our education model because it does a lot of good. It’s a four-year program. Students dual-enroll in an accredited BFA program at Florida State University and a diploma program at the Digital Domain Institute. In their third and fourth years they have the opportunity to intern on real projects in a real studio in exchange for college credits.

We’re still in the early days. The first BFA class starts this fall. The studio on the DDI West Palm Beach campus where students will have a chance to intern will open in 2015. The internship program will also expand as other companies and studios come on board.

I understand where people’s reactions are coming from. It’s not the program, but my glib comment. I wish I could take that back, but I can’t. I can just apologize to you for it, and assure you that I know interns can never take the place of skilled artists and production professionals. What first attracted me to Digital Domain was your work, and when I came here in 2006, I realized that it was your pride in that work and in each other that makes the place special.

I have no intention of replacing workers with students and I can talk to you more about that in person. I hope that one Joe Biden comment doesn’t erase a lifetime of caring about people. I acknowledge that my ideas are different, and I can’t promise you that I won’t say something crazy again in the future. What I can promise is that I will keep trying to help. In early 2006 Digital Domain employed about 400 people. Today, with your help and some different ideas, Digital Domain employs 933 people in North America (669 in the US) and we’re growing. I believe we’re part of the solution — not the problem.

I owe you answers to your questions. I know that the public discussion has gone beyond internships to issues of overseas expan

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Outrage over comments by Digital Domain CEO John Textor continues to grow and has now spread across all corners of the animation community, from Motionographer to Canadian Animation Resources.

Textor’s comments, which were made last November but leaked online last week, center around Textor telling investors that 30% of Digital Domain’s workforce would be comprised of “student labor that’s actually paying us for the privilege of working on our films.” Artist Scott Benson dubbed it the Reverse Paid Internship. Today the story gained renewed momentum when the LA Times published a story about the controversy surrounding Digital Domain’s plans.

In the LA Times, Textor claims that his earlier comments were taken out of context and says, “Find me another visual effects company that is as committed to growing jobs in North America as Digital Domain. If this is taking advantage of kids, I wish somebody would have taken advantage of me when I was in school…. For $28,000 a year, you get an FSU degree and get to work at one of the leading visual effects companies in the world.”

The anonymous blogger at VFX Soldier rebutted those statements, pointing out that plenty of other vfx houses are building jobs in North America: “Sony, Rhythm & Hues, Zoic Studios, Image Engine, and many other companies have opened shop in Vancouver where there has been a huge growth in VFX jobs.” Furthermore, even with $132 million in cash, land, tax credits and financing from the state and the cities of Port St. Lucie and West Palm Beach, Digital Domain is still aggressively pushing forward on building studios in India and China. So much for North America.

Textor is clearly on the defensive, going so far as posting a comment on VFX Soldier, the site that initially broke the news about his comments. His rambling and combative commentary (“I was probably a 3D programmer before you were born.”) doesn’t address the ethical and legal issues raised by his pay-to-work idea. Instead, Textor claims that, “The VFX business model, as a pure services model, is broken,” and somehow that justifies students paying him to work at Digital Domain. Textor also states, “I cannot fix the VFX industry. I am definitely not smart enough for that.” That is something becoming increasingly clear to anybody who’s been following the story.

(Photo of Debbie and John Trextor via TCPalm.com)

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