The Feature Animation Pipeline is Hemorrhaging Dollars
I had such high hopes for the Lilo & Stitch filmmaking model when it first came out. Low budget, compared to the typical $100,000,000 plus feature animation price tag, creator driven, small personal films with a solid story worked out in pre-production looked like the wave of the future.
Yesterday I talked about an animation feature that brought in only $34 million in its first 2 days as a sad box-office failure. It wouldn`t be a failure if the production price tag was around $25 million.
Ghost in the Shell 2 came in for about that. Not easy to tell by looking at it, because it looks rich and beautiful just like all those $150 million features. Or how about Gen 13 by my old Kubert School schoolmate Kevin Altieri, a good solid feature done for $1.5 million in 1999. A feature animation for $1.5 million.
What is the difference between films like Ghost in the Shell 2, Lilo & Stitch or Gen 13 and the normal monster budget animated films that cost 10 or 20 times as much?
Story planning is happening in pre-production where it belongs. These films had their story created in pre-production and then were animated during production. What a concept?
The difference in cost rarely making it to the screen because the big ticket movies are being animated 3 or 4 times over. Just look at the deleted scenes.
Animated films today are rewritten and reanimated right up to their opening with changes coming out of test screenings and everybody second-guessing everybody to death. And people left on payroll when there is no work to do because of yet another rewrite.
John Ford use to film just enough scenes to make his movie his way. Hitchcock had the film all made in his head and on his storyboards before the first day of shooting. In fact shooting the film was just a boring task that had to be done so that he could plan the next one in his head.
But today`s creators refuse to trust themselves (or the studio refuses to let them trust themselves) and indecision costs.
The Feature Animation Pipeline is hemorrhaging dollars in pursuit of blockbuster status. Once your production costs top $100 million then you have got to have that blockbuster or you are dead. Nobody is making B pictures anymore and nobody ever makes an animation B picture (even if they are making The Bee Picture).
Low production costs, that is the answer. Then not every animated feature would have to top $50 million in the first weekend to make its money back. Proper planning could free up the animation pipeline by closing up those costly reanimation holes.
Kevin Altieri, Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois, and Mamoru Oshii have proved it can be done and done well. The only difference between Oshii-san`s animatic and his finished film was that he flipped 2 scenes. Pre-plan twice animate once.
Yesterday I talked about an animation feature that brought in only $34 million in its first 2 days as a sad box-office failure. It wouldn`t be a failure if the production price tag was around $25 million.
Ghost in the Shell 2 came in for about that. Not easy to tell by looking at it, because it looks rich and beautiful just like all those $150 million features. Or how about Gen 13 by my old Kubert School schoolmate Kevin Altieri, a good solid feature done for $1.5 million in 1999. A feature animation for $1.5 million.
What is the difference between films like Ghost in the Shell 2, Lilo & Stitch or Gen 13 and the normal monster budget animated films that cost 10 or 20 times as much?
Story planning is happening in pre-production where it belongs. These films had their story created in pre-production and then were animated during production. What a concept?
The difference in cost rarely making it to the screen because the big ticket movies are being animated 3 or 4 times over. Just look at the deleted scenes.
Animated films today are rewritten and reanimated right up to their opening with changes coming out of test screenings and everybody second-guessing everybody to death. And people left on payroll when there is no work to do because of yet another rewrite.
John Ford use to film just enough scenes to make his movie his way. Hitchcock had the film all made in his head and on his storyboards before the first day of shooting. In fact shooting the film was just a boring task that had to be done so that he could plan the next one in his head.
But today`s creators refuse to trust themselves (or the studio refuses to let them trust themselves) and indecision costs.
The Feature Animation Pipeline is hemorrhaging dollars in pursuit of blockbuster status. Once your production costs top $100 million then you have got to have that blockbuster or you are dead. Nobody is making B pictures anymore and nobody ever makes an animation B picture (even if they are making The Bee Picture).
Low production costs, that is the answer. Then not every animated feature would have to top $50 million in the first weekend to make its money back. Proper planning could free up the animation pipeline by closing up those costly reanimation holes.
Kevin Altieri, Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois, and Mamoru Oshii have proved it can be done and done well. The only difference between Oshii-san`s animatic and his finished film was that he flipped 2 scenes. Pre-plan twice animate once.
posted by Larry Loc @ 8:13 AM
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