Katzenberg Walked in Walt's Footsteps

[lrodk]

Chud.com has an interesting interview with James Baxter and Jeffrey Katzenberg. In it Jeffrey says some very interesting things about how he learned all about animation after Disney dropped Feature Animation, which was in serious trouble in 1984, in his lap for him to turn around. He claims that he learned about the art of storytelling ,and how it relates to animation, by walking in Walt's footsteps. Here's an exerpt of the interview, followed by a link to the entire article:

When asked about where animation was these days, as part of his reply, Katzenberg said, "In 1984, I showed up at the lot at Walt Disney and somebody said, 'that building over there, that's animation. It's your problem.' And, it started as a problem and I can't explain it to you. I have no idea, but I loved it. From the moment I understood and I became an incredible student of Walt Disney's. I went back and read every single thing I could out of the archives there. Really re-traced his footsteps. He left breadcrumbs the size of Volkswagen Beetles, so it wasn't that hard to follow. He had a great mission statement for the company: I make movies for children and the child that exists in every one of us. And it was all there, frankly, to be rediscovered, I think."



http://www.chud.com/news/april02/april15sinbad.php3

 

[airlarry!]

That's the way I think of The Walt Disney Company (tm).

A company that must be led by someone who understands, who gets The Idea: that this company is driven by creativity made for the children in us all.

The company does not need a financial wizard at the helm; that can be someone else behind the scenes.

It needs someone at the top who can smell a good story. One who cares about the artist, but understands that the art must sell.

I don't think that person is JK. I think it is John Lassiter.

I wonder if my 54 shares of DIS is enough to vote Ei$ner out and Lassiter in?

 

[DisOrBust]

Personally I think you can tell that the quallity of Disney animation went down after Katzenberg left and all his projects were completed. Dreamworks animation gets better every year! My family can't wait to see "spirit" this summer. Eisner goofed booting Katzenberg!

 

[stanley]

Obviously, in the world of superegos, the wrong guy won the battle and we are all the worse off for it.

 

[Bstanley]

Jeffery Katzenberg resigned from Disney.

If you believe Michael Eisner's book - JK felt he was ready to be President of Disney and after Frank Wells untimely death he expected to be offered the job. When the Big ME told him he wasn't going to get it he resigned and then started his own company.

Based on how things have gone since then for Dreamworks and Disney you have to wonder whether ME wishes he could have another chance at that decision...

 

[Galahad]

All this may be true.....probably is. But the little midget does have the luxury of not working within a publicly traded company. There is a huge difference between being a creative talant (which JK unquestionably is) and being a business talant (Yes, I know that ME's business talant is under suspicion, but I think it is a leap to conclude that JK would have "run" the company better just because he was great at feature animation.)

 

[Another Voice]

The one thing that Mr. Katzenberg did learn is that it’s easier for a good filmmaker to build a successful entertainment company than it is for a good businessman to build a profitable studio. In the end it’s all about the product, not the business skill, which makes a successful company. I have never heard anyone in a theater said they want to see a film because they’ve heard the studio has a pack of really great MBA’s running the place. And headbutting is a natural problem when you have one person who understands that quality matters, and another that doesn’t understand the concept of quality at all.

Sure Mr. Katzenberg didn’t have the problems of running a large public company – but he didn’t have access to untold billions of dollars flowing in from theme parks to support flop after flop after flop after flop. Nor did he have control of a major network to hype, cross-promote or resell his products. Nor did he have a world-renowned brand name that seemly guarantees a level of consumer purchase, no matter what the product. Katzenberg has pulled off an amazing accomplishment after some initial missteps. Trying to belittle to accomplishments at Dreamworks won’t make Disney’s self-inflicted problems go away.

Building a company from scratch is far more difficult than running an ongoing company. Katzenberg took Dreamworks from nothing but a press release and has turned it into a major power in Hollywood. Eisner has taken a major player in town and turned it into a sideshow. Mr. Katzenburg’s ability to run Disney can certainly be debated. But given Eisner’s performance the real question should be would Katzenberg have done any worse.

 

[EUROPA]

Lets not forget that its SKG....there are two other Gems making that company run.

 

[lrodk]

Mr. Katzenburg’s ability to run Disney can certainly be debated. But given Eisner’s performance the real question should be would Katzenberg have done any worse.

I've often wondered the same thing myself AV. And the sad thing is that things are probably going to get a lot worse before they get much better. I do find solace however in the fact that from every ash springs forth new life, and with it a chance at a new beginning.

 

[Bstanley]

When the Bass brothers and Roy Disney Jr. 'took over' the Disney Corp in the early eighties and installed ME and FW as the CEO/COO part of the reason that they wanted FW was because ME was viewed as being too much a 'creative' mind, and not enough of a 'business' mind.

During the 'Disney Decade' (1984 - 1994) ME and FW, along with very capable assistants like JK - and others, proceded to demonstrate an almost unreal ability to choose projects and make movies, add theme parks and new attractions, and basically be the leaders of their industry.

Then suddenly the 'business' guy is gone and lo and behold instead of the corporation suddenly tilting toward the 'creative' it becomes almost singularly focused on the 'business'...with the end result being less corporate success (profits, market share, etc)!

I suspect it must be easier to hire good corporate management talent than it is to hire people who know how to tell a good story, and that's what it really takes to run a corportion like Disney IMHO - Walt was well known for being able to not only identify a good story, but also to be able to stand up in front of people and verbally run through the story for an upcoming movie/theme park/attraction and have them actually 'see it' in their minds.

 

[Galahad]

Persuasive Bstanley. So do you see Iger as too weak to fill the FW role now. Who is your "dreamteam"?

 

[Bstanley]

Well Sir Galahad it's probably a bit premature to lay too much on RI's shoulders - it took a couple of years for the FW-ME team to get rolling along. BUT having said that, RI doesn't strike me as a FW replacement, whatever dynamic that FW-ME had is stony-cold and gone, RI and ME are working out their own.

But I must say I worry that the attitude at Disney lately seems to be more of a "how can we make a [profit]" versus a "how can we make a [something that people love]".

If you "make a [something that people love]" - people will show up and willingly, joyously, hand over their wallet so that they can get/see/ride [something].

The result of "how can we make a profit" are things that range from tantalizingly close to greatness (Emperor's New Groove) to downright appalling (Pop Century).

No-one has stopped by my doorstep lately to invite me to be the COO of a multi-billion dollar media corporation, but if I were going to pick a couple of guys to run one for me JK would be on the short list fer shure...

 

[Another Voice]

Mr. Scoop, I completely agree with you that the quantity of product in the pipeline seriously hurt the Feature Animation efforts. Too many films such as ‘Tarzan’, ‘Empire of the Sun’/’Emperor’s New Groove’ and ‘Atlantis’ where rushed into production long before they were ready and were released simply to meet a schedule. Again, the current management mindset doesn’t see these as films, they are simply products that have to hit the theaters based on a marketing schedule.

The live action features are a different animal. Disney has been decreasing the number of released for the last few years as a cost savings measure. And this year Eisner promised a $600 million dollar production cut too. While we are very fortunate that good little films like ‘Princess’ and ‘Rookie’ were in the pipeline, you can feel the pressure to churn out “big hits” instead of good films. A sequel to ‘Sorority Boys’ is already in the works, Disney’s just handed the group that made ‘Corky Ramono’ even more money to make similar films and sequels/remakes are stacked up in a holding pattern.

But instead of nice small profitable movies, the studio is “ensuring their success” as marketing vehicles. Take the ride movies. They were supposed to be a line of nice pleasant family films with very low production costs and a built in audience. They would have made a ton of money. Now we’ve got Eddie Murphy in ‘Haunted Mansion’ for his “box office appeal” and he does not come cheap. ‘Pirates’ is being rewritten to out Pearl Harbor ‘Pearl Harbor’ in terms of both explosions and budget. Instead of a nice $35 million movie that would turn a nice profit, Disney is gambling $125+ million on a blockbuster.

And there’s one rule about Disney blockbusters – they all flop. That hasn’t been a single “blockbuster” movie from Disney that actually turned out to be a blockbuster. You think they would have learned, but they’ve been blinded by greed once again.

P.S. As for Dreamworks, off the top of my head they’ve had ‘Almost Famous’, ‘Cast Away’, ‘Gladiator’, and ‘Meet the Parents’ recently. Not bad, is it?

P.S.S. Mr. Bstanley – everyone one of your points is straight on. Mr. Iger is a network person (he came from ABC). Given what’s happened there, his only chance for promotion is limited to being Eisner’s Scapegoat.

 

[raidermatt]

I agree that there are different ways to determine whether a studio is successful. Certainly we'd like to see ever film be a high quality production worthy of Oscar nominations. But we know that's just not going to happen. Still, Disney did garner the most Oscar nominations for 2001.

Its been said that being the number one studio in box office take is extremely important to a studio's ability to draw top talent. If so, a film like Pearl Harbor must be considered a huge hit. Certainly Armageddon with its $201 million domestic take in 1998 was a big contributor. In the war to be the number one grossing studio, budget does not matter.

Profitability? Well, PP2 cost $20 million and brought in about $47 million domestically. Certainly a great return, but is it an example of where we want feature animation to go? And if Disney is to be the number one grossing studio, it would take 3-4 of these to replace Pearl Harbor.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is I don't think its realistic to expect Disney to retract into a studio that produces only two types of films: High quality medium/big budget aniamted films, and low/mid budget family films.

 

[Another Voice]

What turned the studio around when Eisner, Wells and Katzenberg took over was a simple rule: every movie had to make money. It was a good rule and somewhat revolutionary for a Studio. There was a whole string of very low cost but highly profitable films that made Disney a player again: ‘Down and Out in Beverly Hills’, ‘Ruthless People’, etc. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with making a movie on a budget (in fact I think it’s vital for to make a good movie). It’s the way Hollywood should run – but too many egos usually get in the way.

All’s good, but Michael is hooked on The Big Hit. He likes the big wad of cash that a giant hit brings in (a different issue than legitimate profit). He wants to go back to the Wall Street darling days when the headlines screamed out the b.o. take for ‘The Lion King’ or ‘The Sixth Sense’. It’s part ego, it’s also a lot of greed. Good smaller movies can make a good profit, but a mega hit can churn out a friggin’ fortune.

There are two ways of making a mega hit – you can make a good movie or you can make good marketing. Making a good movie takes time and talent. Making good marketing just takes money. Eisner doesn’t have patience and he sure doesn’t have a lot talent, so he’s choosing money as the solution.

‘Gangs of New York’ is hitting $120 million in production costs. The ‘Haunted Mansion’ cost soared thanks to Mr. Murphy. It’s rumored that the budget for ‘The Alamo’ is at $150 million and climbing. No one has any idea what the final ‘Pirates’ budget is going to tally after Bay and Bruckheimer get through milking Disney, but it’s rumored to be a minimum of $100 million.

Why is the Studio pursuing this costly mega hit mentality when it’s already proven that it can make enormous profits from smaller films? There is no logical reason. Sure it may take three ‘Rookies’ to make up the box office of an ‘Armageddon’. But the upside is you don’t bet the farm on ‘The Princess Diaries’ so if you loss you don’t have a ‘Pearl Harbor’ size disaster on your hands*. And the profits from the very small ‘The Sixth Sense’ dwarf anything that ‘PH’ could possibility ever have done in the studio’s best dreams.

Bloated budgets are a sign of bloated egos that rarely pay off. Disney ought to check the egos and worry about making good movies.


* - yea, yea, yea, more corporate spin about how “successful” ‘PH’ has been. People in town know the truth. It’s a major failure for the company and a major embarrassment for those involved. And for attracting talent to the studio????? One day we’ll talk about the saga of how Disney lost Bruckheimer’s ‘Black Hawk Down’ (a really profitably movie).

 

[larworth]

I'm confused.

Didn't all last year they tell the street they were consciously moving away from big buget movies. They even framed it at one point by saying "while these big buget projects are not totally out of the question, they will definately be the exception".

Are $100-150 million budgets big, or just run of the mill projects now?

 

[PKS44]

A few points-

The Disney Decade may have taken place on ME and JK's watch but whether their actions created the phenomenon is debatable. Is it a coincidence that the target audience for most things Disney just happened to balloon as the Echo Boom reached the toddler/young kid age at the same time as the Disney Decade? Give ME and JK credit for not fumbling the ball when they were in the right place at the right time.

Watched a movie on Turner Classic Movies the other day- Executive Suite- and the climactic scene really resonated with the situation at Disney. In the film two execs are vying to take over the company- Frederic March- the very efficient bean counter and William Holden- ther research and development guy. March talks up the responsibility to earnings and profit and shareholders and Holden gives a great speech about what REALLY drives a company to succeed and stay alive- not money nor the drive for money, but a feeling that they are succeeding at doing something...a feeling that goes throughout a company from top to bottom...(In the film- he shows how they are making a crappy piece a furniture and that the men who make such a thing eventually lose their soul and desire to work when they see they are turning out crap. This kills the company eventually even if the balance sheet looks good in the short run.)

The film's message could apply to a company making furniture or films or fish sticks. I really encourage everyone to check out the film or at least the last 15-20 minutes of it to hear as good an argument against the "bean counter" mentality as you will ever hear. (Looks like it is on TCM again on 4/24 at 2:30 AM EDT)After seeing inferior product after inferior product, people start to associate inferior product with your name. Disney used to stand for more than just making money, and in so doing, they made oodles....Now they make money,....for now.

Paul

 

[PKS44]

FIRST POST DID NOT REGISTER IN THE SYSTEM- SO BUMP!

 

[Bstanley]

I've got to acknowledge his good decisions...

Disney Corp was not wildly successful for the '84 - '94 timeframe merely because of demographics. There were tangible, obvious choices made that resulted in turning what had been a company on the brink of collapse into - if not the most successful company of the period - at least ONE of the most successful companies (ask The Bass brothers, Gary Wilson, and Roy Jr - all of whom it turned into Billionaire$).

ME, FW and JK - AND MANY OTHERS - made decisions that met the 'needs' of their audiences better than anyone else at the time. They made movies 'better', they arranged corporate financing 'better', they built resorts 'better', they built attractions 'better', etc, etc. - Where better = met customer 'needs' better. And as a result people lined up to hand their cash to Disney in droves, and voila' Disney was successful as a company.

The movie "Executive Suite" sounds like something that all corporate management teams should watch every year at their "brainstorming" sessions at Tahoe Good financial practices are critical in enabling a company to be successful - BUT good financial practices will not MAKE a company successful - Good Products make a company successful.

And it should be noted that making an inexpensive product is not the same as making a cheap product. A quality product can be made for a modest price - But ... for that matter a quality product can be made for a not so modest price. Pearl Harbor is getting dinged not because it was expensive to make, but because it just wasn't that good of a movie. Beauty and the Beast is loved not because it made back 5 times it's production costs, but because it's an excellent movie.

I read that JK used to go to 4-5 movies a week when he was responsible for making films at Disney and that FW and ME used to take their families to WDW/DL with fair regularity. Maybe it's just that simple - find people who really love movies and hire them to make movies. Find people that really enjoy theme parks and hire them to run theme parks. Surround them with the support teams they need and then step back and watch the money flow in!