4 ms·

TV/Movies talent is a winner-take-all business right now. If people start making cheaper productions the talent payment tail would get heavier. And/or talent w

by ntoshev 18y ago

TV/Movies talent is a winner-take-all business right now. If people start making cheaper productions the talent payment tail would get heavier. And/or talent would be payed with equity.

froo 18y ago
I know I'm biased towards 3D animation, but I can give you examples where thats simply not the case. Take Pixar, It's the highest profile of the 3D animation studios and can you name any of the voice talent for WALL-E? There was no "top talent" there in any notable role, in fact, apart from one of Pixar's 4 main directors (Andrew Stanton of Finding Nemo fame) I'm pretty sure anyone would be hard pressed to name anyone of note in a major role. Now lets look at Dreamworks Animation, Arguably number 2 (even though they are more profitable than Pixar and also have the highest grossing animation film of all time in Shrek 2...) Apart from voice talent in their films, can you name any of the talent in the films? Its a difficult task. The talent is shared among the many people that work there. The reality is that voice talent is the "draw card" for 3D animation and is one of the minor expenditures for any 3D film. So let's go back to Pixar, when Pixar was first producing their films, their distribution deals with Disney had them giving up 50% of the profits for the film.... They do all the hard work and only get back 50% of the money. On that same business model, If you figure out a way to only monetise your film 50% of the the time and not care about it being pirated (even welcoming the filesharers as pseudo distribution/marketing) - you're off to a good start. If you start reducing the workload on your animators/modellers (using limited cast/sets, animating more with mocap, scripting "extras"... essentially adopting a sitcom format) you can get away with doing episodic content with a significantly smaller team. Keep voice acting internal (even Pixar directors do voices on their films occasionally)... you're reducing costs further. This I think is one of the ways out to cheaper productions and since online video has been notoriously hard to monetise - its a start. I've also got a couple other ideas on ways to continue monetising off the model I'm proposing, but yeah, there is potential there.
- boredguy8 18y ago
  Ratatouille: Peter O'Toole, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm, Brian Dennehey Cars: Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Cheech, George Carlin Incredibles: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson Finding Nemo: Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, Allison Janney, Monsters, Inc.: John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi I don't know why you think animation means you don't need actors. And your 'argument' on WALL-E is HUGELY flawed: Ben Burtt (who 'voiced' WALL-E) is literally the go-to guy when you need incredible sound effects. Not only would that movie have failed without him, he got the job because he's THE best sound fx guy in the business. For something like WALL-E, you need even more exacting quality, not less. And the few voices they did have went to John Ratzenberger (of "Cheers" fame: he has 95 acing credits on IMDB), Kathy Najimy, and Sigourney Weaver. Making good content requires good content producers. I'm not trying to discourage you: there are good people out there. But you seem to be saying that since its animation, you can have lower standards. No: you need higher ones.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    Not only that, but Pixar type animation is extremely expensive in terms of non-talent expenses. I won't say that you won't ever be able to produce a Wall-E type film on a Woody Allen budget, but we're very far from that now, even if you were to use unknowns for voice actors (which the top ones rarely do).
    - froo 18y ago
      Except that I'm not talking about producing films. Yes, Pixar films are expensive because they are swinging for the fences. That means they have many, many models, sets, textures etc that go into the production of any film, which of course increase your cost of production considerably. That's just a matter of fact. What I have been saying is that if you take a different view, don't start out by trying to swing for the fences (you can always scale up later), essentially limit some of these choices you could probably get away with a smaller team in the beginning. For example, lets move away from films for a second and talk about sitcoms. One of my favourite is Frasier. Frasier has (for the most part) a very limited series of sets and characters. You have your 5 main characters, your 6 occasional supporting characters and for the most part these back and forths take place in 4 locations... That's about 6 seasons of entertainment there for a sitcom, or about < 1 minute of Pixar animation. That's really the kind of difference we're talking about in terms of cost of production.

by ntoshev 18y ago

TV/Movies talent is a winner-take-all business right now. If people start making cheaper productions the talent payment tail would get heavier. And/or talent would be payed with equity.

froo 18y ago

I know I'm biased towards 3D animation, but I can give you examples where thats simply not the case. Take Pixar, It's the highest profile of the 3D animation studios and can you name any of the voice talent for WALL-E? There was no "top talent" there in any notable role, in fact, apart from one of Pixar's 4 main directors (Andrew Stanton of Finding Nemo fame) I'm pretty sure anyone would be hard pressed to name anyone of note in a major role. Now lets look at Dreamworks Animation, Arguably number 2 (even though they are more profitable than Pixar and also have the highest grossing animation film of all time in Shrek 2...) Apart from voice talent in their films, can you name any of the talent in the films? Its a difficult task. The talent is shared among the many people that work there. The reality is that voice talent is the "draw card" for 3D animation and is one of the minor expenditures for any 3D film. So let's go back to Pixar, when Pixar was first producing their films, their distribution deals with Disney had them giving up 50% of the profits for the film.... They do all the hard work and only get back 50% of the money. On that same business model, If you figure out a way to only monetise your film 50% of the the time and not care about it being pirated (even welcoming the filesharers as pseudo distribution/marketing) - you're off to a good start. If you start reducing the workload on your animators/modellers (using limited cast/sets, animating more with mocap, scripting "extras"... essentially adopting a sitcom format) you can get away with doing episodic content with a significantly smaller team. Keep voice acting internal (even Pixar directors do voices on their films occasionally)... you're reducing costs further. This I think is one of the ways out to cheaper productions and since online video has been notoriously hard to monetise - its a start. I've also got a couple other ideas on ways to continue monetising off the model I'm proposing, but yeah, there is potential there.

boredguy8 18y ago
Ratatouille: Peter O'Toole, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm, Brian Dennehey Cars: Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Cheech, George Carlin Incredibles: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson Finding Nemo: Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, Allison Janney, Monsters, Inc.: John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi I don't know why you think animation means you don't need actors. And your 'argument' on WALL-E is HUGELY flawed: Ben Burtt (who 'voiced' WALL-E) is literally the go-to guy when you need incredible sound effects. Not only would that movie have failed without him, he got the job because he's THE best sound fx guy in the business. For something like WALL-E, you need even more exacting quality, not less. And the few voices they did have went to John Ratzenberger (of "Cheers" fame: he has 95 acing credits on IMDB), Kathy Najimy, and Sigourney Weaver. Making good content requires good content producers. I'm not trying to discourage you: there are good people out there. But you seem to be saying that since its animation, you can have lower standards. No: you need higher ones.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Not only that, but Pixar type animation is extremely expensive in terms of non-talent expenses. I won't say that you won't ever be able to produce a Wall-E type film on a Woody Allen budget, but we're very far from that now, even if you were to use unknowns for voice actors (which the top ones rarely do).
  - froo 18y ago
    Except that I'm not talking about producing films. Yes, Pixar films are expensive because they are swinging for the fences. That means they have many, many models, sets, textures etc that go into the production of any film, which of course increase your cost of production considerably. That's just a matter of fact. What I have been saying is that if you take a different view, don't start out by trying to swing for the fences (you can always scale up later), essentially limit some of these choices you could probably get away with a smaller team in the beginning. For example, lets move away from films for a second and talk about sitcoms. One of my favourite is Frasier. Frasier has (for the most part) a very limited series of sets and characters. You have your 5 main characters, your 6 occasional supporting characters and for the most part these back and forths take place in 4 locations... That's about 6 seasons of entertainment there for a sitcom, or about < 1 minute of Pixar animation. That's really the kind of difference we're talking about in terms of cost of production.