A little more about MIPCOM why not?

I’m currently in Toronto, the city with many nicknames. They call it T.O. They call it T-Dawg. They call it T-Ball. I just call it “the city with delicious hot dogs on every street corner”, and bless them for that.

Would probably be better to wait til I can get some pics up or whatever, but people are asking “how MIPCOM went” and I’m not sure how to answer.

Something that’s very clear to me now, if it wasn’t before, is that if we are going to produce this series with an overseas studio (which seems the likeliest way to go. Working with an overseas studio can get us inroads into overseas broadcasters, cut down the amount of work OUR team has to do, makes for potential tax/budget benefits etc), that studio needs to GET IT.

By which I mean, they need to understand the humour and contribute their own inspiration.

By which I mean, make my shit better.

In my short travels as an animator I’ve seen (and been on) remote teams who made the output better and teams that made it worse. Nobody likes purposely screwing the pooch, but sometimes you are not given the time, the money or the inspiration to “value-add” to your stage of the production.

I try to do my best no matter what, as do most of us in this business. But people do better work (I think) when they’re working on something that means something to them (something that isn’t just a job). People at Pixar seem to feel that way about what they do. It shows, doesn’t it?

Part of that is hiring the right people. And working with the right people. Which brings me back to co-production. Woody and I met guys who started computing budgets at the lunch table. But I know (there wasn’t time!) they didn’t GET where we were coming from and decide “Yes, that’s a project we would put our name to.” They saw the potential for work and bullcrapped. Which, of course, is what I would do too.

But we also met more discerning types, who had thoughts and suggestions about how such a co-production might work. Even if I don’t necessarily agree with their first thoughts, what we need are people who HAVE them!

Next time: maybe some links to studios whose work I thought was neat and impressive.