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Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

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Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#81

Post by petecooper »

Lio wrote: post #78
relix wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either it's hard to create the content, or it is not. If it's not hard, the studios don't need to buy Aardman. The IP they have is negligible, and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman (99% of the people would not know who they are anyway). If it is hard, the studios would need to keep the employees who manage to do this hard thing, and it would be in the purchaser's best interest to manage it as if it…

This sounds like exactly the attitude that Pixar bet against and won, as described in Lawrence Levy's book[1]. At the time it was thought that animation from anyone other than Disney had no goodwill attached to it. Pixar was able to disprove that with their franchises and I think the same is true for Aardman with Wallace & Grommet and the spin off Shaun the Sheep series. Aardman have a look to their work that people…

>Lawrence Lessig's book

Which book, please? Thank you.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#82

Post by relix »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #80
relix wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either it's hard to create the content, or it is not. If it's not hard, the studios don't need to buy Aardman. The IP they have is negligible, and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman (99% of the people would not know who they are anyway). If it is hard, the studios would need to keep the employees who manage to do this hard thing, and it would be in the purchaser's best interest to manage it as if it…

> no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman That's exactly why we took the kids to Chicken Run, having seen no trailer.

If it looked exactly the same, but was not made by Aardman, would you not have gone seen it? How much is that marginal extra chance worth, ceteris paribus, that you would go see it because you recognize the name, exactly? Now multiply that by the proportion of people who would actually recognize Aardman as a brand name (i.e. less than 1.0).

Note that we're not talking about just the style of how the movie and the figurines look like, because the assertion which we're discussing stems from the axiom that it's easily reproducible. If it is not, then it drops to assertion #2 which does not talk about IP.

That is the value of the IP of Aardman, and I'd wager it's not worth an amount that would make a transaction worth it for the big studios talked about by the grand-OP (>$100MM).

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#83

Post by jillesvangurp »

starbeast wrote: post #28
refurb wrote: post #21

Not to be a cynic, but the owner can get a lot of benefits (including tax benefits) from selling to their employees versus an outright acquisition by an outside party. Basically, the owner sells their shares to a trust, which then pays the owner and the employees gain ownership over a period of time as the financing is paid back.

I rather suspect that someone like Pixar or Dreamworks would have offered more money than Nick Park is able to get from his employees.

You mean Disney & NBCUniversal. Both have been acquired and lost most of what made them famous (creativity) in the process. I think that's what Nick Park is trying to avoid. I'm assuming he'd get more satisfaction out of seeing Aardman thrive independently while he rides out his retirement.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#84

Post by Lio »

petecooper wrote: post #81
Lio wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like exactly the attitude that Pixar bet against and won, as described in Lawrence Levy's book[1]. At the time it was thought that animation from anyone other than Disney had no goodwill attached to it. Pixar was able to disprove that with their franchises and I think the same is true for Aardman with Wallace & Grommet and the spin off Shaun the Sheep series. Aardman have a look to their work that people…

>Lawrence Lessig's book Which book, please? Thank you.

My bad, should have been this book by Lawrence Levy: http://lawrencelevy.com/book/

I've corrected my post, thanks.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#85

Post by relix »

Lio wrote: post #78
relix wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either it's hard to create the content, or it is not. If it's not hard, the studios don't need to buy Aardman. The IP they have is negligible, and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman (99% of the people would not know who they are anyway). If it is hard, the studios would need to keep the employees who manage to do this hard thing, and it would be in the purchaser's best interest to manage it as if it…

This sounds like exactly the attitude that Pixar bet against and won, as described in Lawrence Levy's book[1]. At the time it was thought that animation from anyone other than Disney had no goodwill attached to it. Pixar was able to disprove that with their franchises and I think the same is true for Aardman with Wallace & Grommet and the spin off Shaun the Sheep series. Aardman have a look to their work that people…

> Aardman have a look to their work that people know and love.

Which is either easily reproducible (my point A) or not (my point B). But the style of their movies is most likely not a protectable IP.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#86

Post by NeedMoreTea »

relix wrote: post #82
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman That's exactly why we took the kids to Chicken Run, having seen no trailer.

If it looked exactly the same, but was not made by Aardman, would you not have gone seen it? How much is that marginal extra chance worth, ceteris paribus, that you would go see it because you recognize the name, exactly? Now multiply that by the proportion of people who would actually recognize Aardman as a brand name (i.e. less than 1.0). Note that we're not talking about just the style of how the movie and the fig…

Without seeing a trailer how would we know it looked exactly the same? Looking the same counts for nothing without script, voice acting, production values etc. Just look at some of the cheap junk Disney have turned out.

Aardman had almost complete 100% awareness in the UK thanks to Wallace and Gromit, and use of a national treasure or two for voice acting. The Creature Comforts ads that must have run for a decade or more - and still get voted in the top 5 best ads 30 years later, along with their other shorts and films. So it's difficult to generalise for areas that don't have the same love and awareness.

After 30+ years of Wallace and others, along with their production values and including plenty for the adults make it a safe bet. Like you'd also expect from Pixar. Thoroughly good it was too.

Taking the kids to a Disney movie is far more likely to give nothing to the parents, or turn out to be one of their cheapie efforts.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#87

Post by Angostura »

relix wrote: post #82
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman That's exactly why we took the kids to Chicken Run, having seen no trailer.

If it looked exactly the same, but was not made by Aardman, would you not have gone seen it? How much is that marginal extra chance worth, ceteris paribus, that you would go see it because you recognize the name, exactly? Now multiply that by the proportion of people who would actually recognize Aardman as a brand name (i.e. less than 1.0). Note that we're not talking about just the style of how the movie and the fig…

> If it looked exactly the same, but was not made by Aardman

Probably not, because we wouldn't know it is up to Aardman quality. In the UK particularly, Aardman is the Pixar of stop-motion.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#88

Post by Angostura »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #70
fabianhjr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, essentially this means that stakeholders are now the shareholders. In other words, they now became a worker-cooperative; they are the 1 in 8 worldwide that don't sell their time and surplus value. Union-Cooperative Strategy: https://newsyndicalist.org/2017/09/30/union-cooperative-stra... International Cooperative Alliance: https://www.ica.coop/en Mondragon Cooperative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwwq3ujkfkU

Possibly its not clear mentioning John Lewis is a bit of a warning flag - JL being the black sheep of the uk coop movement.

Black sheep in what way?

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#89

Post by williamdclt »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #59
relix wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either it's hard to create the content, or it is not. If it's not hard, the studios don't need to buy Aardman. The IP they have is negligible, and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman (99% of the people would not know who they are anyway). If it is hard, the studios would need to keep the employees who manage to do this hard thing, and it would be in the purchaser's best interest to manage it as if it…

> no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman (99% of the people would not know who they are anyway). Speak for yourself, I know I certainly do.

He has a point that it is very niche though (I never heard of them for example)

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#90

Post by C1sc0cat »

neves wrote: post #3

I've already loved these guys, now my admiration just increased. Reading HN we start to think that life is to get bigger and richer. These guys spend their time spreading intelligence, art, and fun.

That is the point of a worker coop just that the rewards are distributed equitably :-) an d yes that does mean the cleaner / office admin get as much as the CTO
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