tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post114849207380870283..comments2024-03-24T16:25:05.751-04:00Comments on Mayerson on Animation: Customers, Waiters and CooksMark Mayersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00065971589878678848noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post-1148602349040639782006-05-25T20:12:00.000-04:002006-05-25T20:12:00.000-04:00Very well put. As an animation developer I have to...Very well put. <BR/><BR/>As an animation developer I have too often seen a studio pass on my idea only to buy something almost exactly the same a year later. Or even more likely to take the elements they sparked to and use those in a new show where I can not sue. <BR/><BR/>Most studio's preferences for what they want changes so often that by the time you actually get to the meeting you set a month ago, their needs have changed and you are back at square one yet again. <BR/><BR/>How can you possibly know what you want if you change your mind so often?!?! I agree with your statements. Let the artists do what we do best and let the networks just program what we make. Guaranteed it would work out better. Look at all the hits that were creator driven and left alone only to soar to the top. Dexter's Lab, Cow and Chicken, Sponge Bob, Fairly Odd Parents, Powerpuff Girls, Ren and Stimpy, I was a Teenage Robot, Beavis and Butthead... the list goes on. <BR/><BR/>All of these films were done as shorts without much executive interference and they have gone on to be huge hits.<BR/><BR/>Even Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs was the vision of one man. And he wasn't a "suit".<BR/><BR/>Case in point: Cartoon Netwrok launched their network on this policy and since they have scrapped it their ratings have gone down while Nickelodeon has continued the "short" approach and is consistantly number one.<BR/><BR/>Bottom Line:<BR/>If you can't physically MAKE a film you should not be dictating how it should be MADE even if you did take that one writing class in college.<BR/><BR/>Just my 12 cents.<BR/>great blog by the way!Mike Milohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10274860642943109102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post-1148509374782728272006-05-24T18:22:00.000-04:002006-05-24T18:22:00.000-04:00A friend of mine who, like Mark, is also a very kn...A friend of mine who, like Mark, is also a very knowledgable animation historian, came up with another restaurant analogy to Disney under the Eisner reign of error. <BR/><BR/>He compared Disney Feature Animation to a fine restaurant that specialized in elegantly prepared meals by master chefs. This fare was a long-standing tradition and had garnered many loyal customers with a taste for fine food who kept coming back for more.<BR/><BR/>Unfortunately, one day the management changed and the chefs were told not to make anything too fancy anymore. Eventually, the management decided they could have all the food cooked at various greasy-spoon diners much cheaper and just brought in each day, thereby providing no further reason to keep the chefs employed and thus let them all go and closed down the kitchen.<BR/><BR/>While some newer customers didn't care and couldn't tell the difference in quality, long-time clientele bemoaned the end of the wonderful food and gradually just stopped coming altogether.<BR/><BR/>(Interestingly, this analogy can apply to other businesses too, and I would suggest to my fellow Canadians on this board that we are also starting to see this happen at my beloved CBC. Rabinovitch is the CBC's counterpart to Eisner, and is currently dumbing down this great institution to appeal to the idiotic masses.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post-1148507158879070552006-05-24T17:45:00.000-04:002006-05-24T17:45:00.000-04:00When we subscribe to a newspaper, professional new...When we subscribe to a newspaper, professional news reporters research and write the stories and a paperboy delivers it to us daily. The paper succeeds or fails based on two things... 1) The quality of the news reporting and 2) The dependability of the newsboy.<BR/><BR/><B>The professional news reporter is the filmmaker.</B><BR/><BR/>An animation director is a professional, whose job it is to produce a program that people will enjoy. If he doesn't do his job, people don't subscribe and the newsboy delivers someone else's newspaper to readers. No creator wants to force his program on audiences. All he asks is a fair chance to present his program to the people the way he feels is best. After that, it's up to the audience to decide if they want it.<BR/><BR/><B>The subscriber to the paper is the audience.</B><BR/><BR/>Audiences don't know how to make great animation. That isn't their job. They can't tell you what to make or how to make it. They just know great programs when they see them. If you asked audiences in 1938 what sort of cartoon they would like to see, do you think they would say, "I would like Warner Bros to make me cartoons starring a wise cracking rabbit."? Nope. Tex Avery, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones- animation professionals- gave that to audiences without being asked, and they created one of the greatest cartoon characters ever.<BR/><BR/><B>The newsboy delivering the paper is the network.</B><BR/><BR/>It's absurd for networks to tell filmmakers how to make films. Imagine if your paperboy started telling the professional reporters how they should write the stories that go in the paper! Fred Quimby and Leon Schlesinger didn't tell their directors <I>what to make and how to make it...</I> They told them <I>what sold</I> and left filmmaking to the filmmakers. The networks should do what they are qualified to do... deliver the product and collect the payment for it.<BR/><BR/>"I've never seen a network revision note that made the show better." -Joe Barbera<BR/><BR/>See ya<BR/>SteveStephen Worthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01047366337202801862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post-1148497013404299612006-05-24T14:56:00.000-04:002006-05-24T14:56:00.000-04:00What a fun analogy! At the risk of pushing it too...What a fun analogy! At the risk of pushing it too far, I'd say that if you feel like a gourmet chef trapped in a fast food joint, maybe you just need to find yourself a better restaurant to work in.<BR/><BR/>There are fine restaurants where, as a customer, I expect the chef to surprise me with something original, unexpected, and entirely delightful. In such a place, I wouldn't dream of asking for a substitution. Not just because it would insult the chef, but because I trust that the chef made the best possible choice, and changing it would only make my meal taste worse.<BR/><BR/>Of course, if your business is about catering to the widest possible audience, I guess it's fair to expect a lot more demand for ketchup than <I>foie gras</I>. ;-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com