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Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

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Re: Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

#71

Post by aaronbrethorst »

ninkendo wrote: post #34
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

I now avoid jobs that pressure everyone into thinking a good show or project can only be created at the expense of everyone’s well being. Even if the IP they’re offering you a chance to work on is exciting (and unfortunately I’ve seen way too many times now how this can be used as a bargaining chip to mistreat people). It doesn’t have to be that way. You can make something great without killing your crew. hear hear.

Was this in the article somewhere? I searched and didn’t see it (and I’m most interested in why she left, and haven’t found anything on it.)

Weird, I think the link changed. I was quoting from part 3, I believe, and it’s been changed to part 1.

Edit: yeah part 3 https://goodsniff.substack.com/p/creating-bluey-tales-from-t...

Re: Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

#72

Post by AstroBen »

dahart wrote: post #64
AstroBen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Startup investors often treat this like an odds game Yeah, it's not free profit though. If you're not good at choosing investments you end up with 9 out of 10 failing, and 1 only making 2x. That's what I mean by there are no guarantees of it It's very easy to look at an isolated case where they made 10x and see it as unfair.. and miss the 9 other shots they took which lost money. Or hell the 90 other shots, and the…

I agree, and it’s objectively true, that there are no guarantees on investment. I don’t think GP was making any arguments that implied otherwise. > It’s very easy to look at an isolated case where they made 10x and see it as unfair “Unfair” is subjective and an insanely deep topic we can’t even begin broach here thoughtfully. It’s always true that a profitable company has incomes that exceed its costs, by definition.…

Yeah unfair was the wrong word. I mean just to focus on exploitation in the Marxist sense suddenlybananas was using it

The economics are the same for a startup and established company, no? I was just talking about that because that's what Bluey was. Walmart was also once a tiny business and the returns are still happening today. We're all free to own part of them through publicly traded stocks. Of course the returns are a lot lower now simply because there's less risk

If they're extracting so much extra from employees that they're overpriced in the market, that leaves room for a competitor to offer lower prices. "Your margin is my opportunity"

If they're getting outsized margins by paying tiny salaries, it opens up room for a competitor to get the best people to work for them by paying more

Worker co-ops are still an option under capitalism, also

It's not a perfect system but it seems to work fairly well?

> those people had money to begin with

Well.. are we not posting this on a VC firm's website? There are options to getting money if you're starting with none

I can very much get behind removing generational wealth. That benefits no-one

Re: Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

#73

Post by lotsofpulp »

dahart wrote: post #65
lotsofpulp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t mean capital in the accounting sense, I meant receiving capital as remuneration as opposed to a salary. The more accurate word would have been equity, but I was using the term polotics used: >it was about capital ownership granting full access to work-created value.

What do you mean? @plotics wasn’t talking about remuneration for products or services, nor equity. “Capital ownership” in the sentence you quoted is referring to the company, the ol’ ownership of the means of production. “Granting full access to work-created value” means the owners (investors, CEO, etc.) would split profits among workers rather than keep the profits for themselves.

That is called equity (at least in the USA).

> Granting full access to work-created value” means the owners (investors, CEO, etc.) would split profits among workers rather than keep the profits for themselves.

This is remuneration, the reward in exchange for your effort/wares/risk.

In this case, the artist would have had to ask taxpayers (or the taxpayers’ representatives) to sell them a piece of the taxpayer’s equity. Or some type of royalty/revenue sharing agreement.

Obviously, that was not going to happen for a small time artist (that kind of stuff is reserved for well connected people when it comes to government assets).

But the second best option the world has come up with is public equity markets, where the common people can invest and gain access to equity, which is also very liquid.

Re: Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

#74

Post by jdgoesmarching »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #42
namdnay wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if Bluey (like most shows people will work on) hadn’t been a huge success, he would still have kept his 88k That’s the inherent trade off in a salaried position - you are trading potential wealth for guaranteed security

It's not like she was offered equity and chose a meagre salary. Don't paint exploitation as a trade-off.

This is not a forum that is capable of factoring in power dynamics in any economic discussion. The market is always perfect, everyone has equal opportunities to capitalize on their own labor as an entrepreneur, just negotiate with your employer, etc.

Re: Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

#75

Post by fuzzfactor »

>there’s a huge amount of calculated work and effort that can put yourself in a position for luck to occur.

>I truly realised that if you create what YOU want to create, the jobs and opportunities that will creatively satisfy you the most will come out of exuding that energy into the world.

This is all about the commercial application of art, but I find it can work for science as well.

Re: Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

#76

Post by overfeed »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #27
z2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all familiar with animation or the broader industry but could they have at least offered the potential for royalties or some sort of sales based bonuses?

I believe most of the value of Bluey is captured by the BBC. The whole thing is a real shame for Australia. We’ve had a couple of the best children’s entertainment ever: Wiggles and Bluey. Don’t know why they didn’t negotiate a bigger piece of the pie with Bluey.

Why didn't ABC fund the whole shebang? I suspect the BBC has a much bigger warchest to deploy - recalling the ludicrous amounts invested into Top Gear or the numerous David Attenborough nature shows.

Re: Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

#77

Post by marbletiles »

brookst wrote: post #53
suddenlybananas wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a technical term. She produced immense value and she didn't receive it, someone else took it. That's exploitation in Marxism. I also don't get where you get these idea that there's this huge glut of artists producing work that's unpopular and getting paid for it . If you're at the point you're getting paid 90k a year, you're working in studios that almost certainly turn a profit.

What studios consistently turn a profit? They have years where they make hundreds of millions, years when they lose hundreds of millions. It is weird to want the security of a paycheck, participation in unlikely huge successes, and no exposure to much more likely flops.

It’s not weird at all; in other circumstances we call it a bonus.

You get baseline security by trading away the unlimited upside, but you are still incentivised to produce your best work by knowing if you help create a huge success you’ll get additional compensation for it.

Re: Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

#78

Post by throwup238 »

phreack wrote: post #66
brookst wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is! You can negotiate a lower salary and higher participation. Obviously they have to want you, but when a show like this is starting up and not at all sure to even make it one season, an art director who would work for 25% pay and 1% of future profits would be snapped up.

Pessimistically, I'd then imagine they get burnt by Hollywood accounting and end up fully empty handed

The way around Hollywood accounting is to negotiate points on gross revenue or royalties rather than profit. That’s SOP in TV/movies for people with decent representation and the leverage to ask for it. Points on profit are largely seen the same way tech people view startup options.

Re: Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

#79

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

danielvaughn wrote: post #38
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If you’ve seen the show, you’d know that this artists’ work was deeply instrumental to the creation of the wealth. It would be one thing if the author was an associate grabbing coffees and scheduling meetings. In this case, not getting a royalty for their contribution is shameful.

I agree it is shameful. This is however not the issue that is being discussed here.

Fyi, George Lucas made sure everyone involved in Star Wars got taken care of.

Re: Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director

#80

Post by bobxmax »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #49
bobxmax wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exploitation? Thousands of people are getting paid $90k to paint pointless characters nobody will ever see. It's not exploitation because one of them succeeds.

It's a technical term. She produced immense value and she didn't receive it, someone else took it. That's exploitation in Marxism. I also don't get where you get these idea that there's this huge glut of artists producing work that's unpopular and getting paid for it . If you're at the point you're getting paid 90k a year, you're working in studios that almost certainly turn a profit.

She didn't produce value. Someone else created value out of what she created.

You ironically and accidentally stumbled onto the very reason Marxism has always failed so miserably.

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