Butch Hartman and his movies.
February 6th, 2009
Eric, Kevin and I went over the Casa Butch at Nickelodeon Studios where Butch Hartman told us a little about some of the movies he’s been developing. Thanks Butch.
Fred Seibert's Blog
Archive for February, 2009
Bill Burnett and his movies.
February 6th, 2009
Yesterday, Bill Burnett came by Frederator/West to tell Eric and me about some animated movie ideas. I’ve known Bill since we worked together in New York advertising together, and it’s always good to see what he’s up to. Thanks Billlll.
Why movies?
February 4th, 2009
As I was thinking exactly what to tell you all about wassup with Frederator Films, it occurred to me I ought to fill in a bit of backstory. Or, more specifically–Why does Frederator want to make movies anyhow?
Without belaboring the obvious, Frederator’s an animated film producer –a non-writing/creating producer– and producers need to produce to keep their doors open. The films we’ve made to date are primarily cartoons for television and specifically, animated series for kids. We’d like to make adult series (actually we have, twice, with The Meth Minute 39, and Nite Fite), but it’s expensive for a small company like ours to develop, and there just aren’t that many adult series that are bought each year. We could go out of business, like many others have, if we concentrated on adult series.
So, we’ve done OK for ourselves by developing and selling kid series to cable networks. For 12 years Frederator was an exclusive, independent producer (parodox alert) for Nickelodeon, and now we’re “first look” at Nickelodeon, and we’ve sold our first series in many years to Cartoon Network. The problem for Frederator, as an independent is that the cable networks don’t really like dealing with production companies (Disney Channel will not make a deal with a non-creator producer at all), and ironically, the more successful we are in television, the less likely we are to sell a future series. Hmmm, guess we need to find more markets to produce for.
International television is a natural option, but truthfully, Frederator’s got absolutely no advantages when it comes to the world markets. And, as most of you know, and I mentioned above, Frederator’s been innovating on the internet for a few years now, but there’s no business model to keep our bills paid yet. (Yet.)
OK, so movies are a potential market for Frederator where we might be able to produce films. Might.
(More to come.)
The doo-wopping of television.
February 4th, 2009
Frame grab from “Top of the Hour”, by Marv Newland/International Rocketship
“The Fred/Alan television branding execution often started with defining a network’s sound.”
Slowly over the last few years I’ve been putting some of my archives online. For me it’s easier to organize than shelves and drawers.
Anyhow, one of the things I uncovered was this fave that I think regular readers of Frederator Blogs are going to love. My partner Alan Goodman and I took one of our favorite doo-wop groups, Eugene Pitt’s The Jive Five, and built the on-air Nickelodeon brand around them.
Frame grab from “The Jive Five”, by Jon Kane/Optic Nerve
With the help of our producer Tom Pomposello, and animators/production companies Eli Noyes & Kit Laybourne, Joey Ahlbum, Colossal Pictures, David Lubell, Jerry Lieberman & Kim Deitch, Marv Newland/International Rocketship, and Jon Kane/Optic Nerve, we established Nickelodeon’s identity at a moment they were teetering on complete and abject failure. And, we had a righteous ball doing it. (You can get the whole story here.)
Fred/Alan IDs 1985-1991 from fredseibert on Vimeo.
Randy Saba, filmmaker & artist.
February 3rd, 2009
Year of the Ox. Series 11, 2008, painting by Randy Saba
Randy Saba’s a filmmaker and artist who’s been a FOF (Friend of Frederator) since he worked as a production assistant on Oh Yeah! Cartoons and ChalkZone in the late 90s, and as he continues as production manager on The Fairly Oddparents. His film Wishy Wormy was featured on Episode 24 of Channel Frederator.
For the last couple of years I’ve been honored to receive his wonderful, annual paintings dedicated to the Chinese New Year. This year Series 11 is the Year of the Ox. Thanks Randy!
Wassup with Frederator Films?
February 2nd, 2009
Frederator Films logo designed by Floyd Bishop
It occurred to me today that since we first announced Frederator Films I haven’t been as forthcoming as I’ve tried to be with everything else around here. So I’m going to try to start being a little more active and let you all know what’s what on our quest for the movies.
(More to come.)
