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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, Florida-based Tradition Studios. Now, the family of five is homeless with no job and just $200.
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
Like - 1 others like this comment
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.
Like - 6 others like this comment
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.
Like - 3 others like this comment
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.
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.
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.
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’.
Like
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?
Like
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.
Like
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”. : )
Like
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.
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.
“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:
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.
Like
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
Like - 1 others like this comment
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.
Like
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.
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.
“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:
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 Posthas 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.
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.
Digital Domain CEO John Textor (pictured above with his wife) envisions big things for his company’s new feature animation studio in Port St. Lucie, Florida called Tradition Studios. While we’ve written about the studio’s ambitious feature film plans, what wasn’t known until recently is how Textor intends to create the films. His plan is to convince students to pay Digital Domain to work on its films for free.
The blog VFX Soldier has obtained a speech that Textor gave last November to investors in which he revealed how the company’s new animation school Digital Domain Institute will be integrated with the Tradition studio. Textor told the audience:
Classes starting in the education space, what’s interesting is the relationship between the digital studio and the college. Not only is this a first in a number of ways that we’ve talked about, but 30% of the workforce at our digital studio down in Florida, is not only going to be free, with student labor, it’s going to be labor that’s actually paying us for the privilege of working on our films.
Now this was the controversial element of this and the first discussions with the Department of Education, ’cause it sounds like you’re taking advantage of the students. But we were able to persuade even the academic community, if we don’t do something to dramatically reduce costs in our industry, not only ours but many other industries in this country, then we’re going to lose these industries .. we’re going to lose these jobs. And our industry was going very quickly to India and China.
Students, in other words, will pay up to $105,000 for the “privilege” of working on Digital Domain’s features, the first of which will be The Legend of Tembo. As VFX Soldier points out, “It’s one thing to work for low pay, it’s another thing to work for free, but it’s unfathomable to be expected to pay to work for free.
If all of this sounds a little fishy, that’s because it is. The Animation Guild in Los Angeles is exploring whether Digital Domain might be in violation of state and federal labor laws. They’ve tried to communicate with multiple Florida government agencies, including the state’s Department of Education, with no luck yet. Federal labor laws, however, would appear to be in favor of artists as they clearly stipulate that interns cannot “perform productive work” (i.e. work on the production of a film) without being compensated with at least minimum wage and overtime pay. (Minimum wage, by the way, is $7.67 per hour in Florida.)
As animation education programs proliferate around the United States and competition intensifies for a finite number of jobs, studios find themselves in a position to exploit young artists more aggressively than ever before. Whether it’s Titmouse relocating its studio nearly 3,000 miles away to avoid paying its employees union wages or Digital Domain making people pay to work on its films, there are plenty of legal loopholes that studios can exploit to save a buck on the backs of their production crews. And some studio CEOs are so proud of themselves that they’ll publicly boast about how they’re getting away with
To the Directors of Digital Domain Media Group:
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Textor and members of the board should help this family.
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.
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.