Fred Seibert's Blog

There’s a great interview with Pendleton Ward on ComixTalk, a catch up from when he did a lot of web comics.

A sample:

Are you still creating new comics?

I took down those old comics because they were terrible.

My inspiration and friend Steven Heller has written what seems like his 1000th book on graphic design called Becoming a Digital Designer (with David Womack). He conducted an interview with NNN founder Tim Shey (which was particularly inspirational to Tim, who’s been a Steve fan himself for years) and one with me.
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The New Golden Age of Animation
An Interview with Fred Seibert, president of Frederator, New York City

Q: There was a golden age of animation with Ren and Stimpy and Beavis and Butthead back in the 1990s. Are we still in the golden age?

Fred: I guess I might refer to a “silver age” of animation we’re in; it’s hard for me to believe — as good as the creative period we’re in — anything could be as good as the years that gave us Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, Felix, Donald Duck, Pinocchio, and all the others. That being said…

It’s been an amazing fifteen years, and there’s no end in sight. Original cartoons are still on the rise. First The Simpsons, then R&S, B&B, and Rugrats. South Park, Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo. And just within the last four years: The Fairly Oddparents, Jimmy Neutron, and the first megastar of the age, the modern Bugs Bunny, SpongeBob. In the wings: My Life as a Teenage Robot, ChalkZone, and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. And many people would think I’m narrow-minded if I ignored features like Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

The business of television began a seismic change in the eighties, which really became mature in the nineties, and that maturity created the circumstances that allowed for a revival of animation as a powerful commercial art form. In 1983, the average home in America has four channels of television; by 1988 that same home had twenty-seven channels (and many had fifty or more). Competitive pressures to launch mass-appeal programming forced cable networks to create, and then create some more; the traditional broadcast networks were fiddling while their symbolic Rome burned.

Q: Actually, weren’t new viewers roaming over to an increased number of more interesting stations?

Fred: The broadcasters still had the largest audiences and made the most money, so there was laughter at what they thought were amateur efforts from the upstarts; the loss of audience share the traditional networks were experiencing were considered negligible. Meanwhile, the cables were learning the new craft of show business, saving their money for programming production war chests, and realizing that innovating past the stale network fare was the way to capture the audience attention.

All in all, the ambitions of a creatively pent-up creative community, and the force of new cable-centric capitalism, met in an explosion of innovation we’re still feeling today.

Q: The bar seems to have been pushed higher on TV and film. Kids’ fare is much more adventurous. Does this mean that the market for challenging animation is large?

Fred: The audience isn’t stupid, no matter what executives think. Given the choice between Hanna-Barbera’s The Snorks and Hanna-Barbera’s Dexter’s Laboratory, they can recognize the superior comedy.

That being said, I’m not so sure the market is actually larger than it was before the cable age; the population is marginally larger and still watching the same amount of TV weekly. But the competitive environment — jeez! An average of more than one hundred channels are trying to get a piece of your viewing time. In the past, a network looked forward to a 30 percent share of the audience for a hit; now it’s happy with 5 percent (and 1 percent or 2 percent for cable!). The result is that each program and each channel has to fight harder and harder with every character and every story.

Before 1980, the viewer has no choice; if you wanted to watch cartoons, maybe watching crappy ones was better than nothing. Today the audience must be satisfied, they truly can watch another show, or watch a DVD, or go online and find cartoons there.

Q: You’ve been in the forefront of new animation. How do you find new talent?

Fred: Isn’t that the magic question? Ten years ago I didn’t need to look far. In the trenches of the animation business were hundreds of classically trained animators who were toiling on the Yo Yogi! (the adventures of a teenage Yogi Bear, hangin’ at the mall) or Fish Police. These folks were dying to save the business they had trained their whole lives to join. We would put out the word we were seriously interested in the animator’s stories (for forty years the creative people were merely the hands of management’s ideas); over five thousand pitches were presented for our first set of forty-eight short films. And dozens of world-class hits were launched.

Today, our net has extended significantly wider because our competition has caught on and also scooped up the most available talent. There are many American and international cities with centers of cartooning that haven’t participated in the new hit boom. We’re busy setting up development centers all around the world.

Q: How did the artists of the golden age achieve their successes? And does this open the door even wider for students today?

Fred: As you might imagine, there are lots of parallels, but plenty of differences between the golden age and today.

In the first half of the twentieth century, it was a dog-eat-dog world in animation, though it had a true innocence. Many artists looked to animation as a career because it employed so many more men (it was primarily men, white men at that) than any other cartooning outlet. But there was no formal training, so he had to find a job at a studio that was willing to train him, teach him the rudiments of a new art form (actually, sometimes he needed to invent the steps). He had to figure out how to draw, animate, sure, but also how to tell a story, a funny story, with characters that were better than the competition.

And until the 1940s there was not even any geographic center; New York and California had the most successful studios, with Chicago and Miami weighing in, too. The employment network was fueled by friendships, often started in childhood or nurtured at the entry-level studios, and often an artist friend dragged in a completely untrained, talented friend and helped him become a story man, or a production manager. Additionally, all aspects of an animated film were made on-site, so there was a lot of room to train as an in-betweener, a model or layout artist, or as an animator before debuting as a director, trying to take a shot at the golden ring.

Q: What’s the role of the school today, as opposed to the old apprentice system?

Fred: Now there are schools to do the initial training, so few studios use their scarce resources to start talent. And while we do most of the creative production in the studio, layouts and animation are often done off shore, so there are fewer opportunities for artists than in the day. And we expect even entry-level artists to have a minimum standard of skill.

But the market is more open to more kinds of people than ever before. While it’s still a white man’s world, walk through any major studio and you’ll see men and women, African-Americans, Latinos, and Latinas, Asians, Africans.

Q: What must a student have in his gut to be a great cartoon creator? Is it enough just to have skill?

Fred: You know, then and now, the elements of success are pretty similar in cartoons:

Talent: You’ve got to have “it.” I’ll let biologists and psychologists explain what “it” is.

Skill: Animation is an exacting proposition, commercial animation even more so. If you can’t draw, you can’t play. And if you can’t draw, storytelling and directing in cartoons is all that much harder.

Ambition: The most ephemeral, the most ignored, the most misunderstood element of a great creator. The person who wants commercial success brings an extra oomph to his or her films. Trying to appeal to an audience, communicating with their hopes, dreams, and funny bones, is the magic of the modern world. I’ve always admired the Beatles because they had the desire to create great art that didn’t intrude with their craving to amass great fortunes. Great cartoons are motivated by no less.

Q: What does the future hold for kids who are studying cartooning and animation today?

Fred: Whatever they want.

“If I could just take a brief moment of your time. I am a second year animation student currently studying at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication in the U.K. As part my course I have to complete a case study report on a company of my choice, and I have chosen Frederator. I think your company is terrific and I have visited your website frequently. Your motto for why you make cartoons, because there fun is an inspiration to me. You have been responsible for some of the best cartoons on television.

“The purpose of the unit is to explore the internal and external structure of a company, to understand it’s market position, operational processes and professional role.

“If you would be so kind and complete the enclosed questionnaire, it would be of great help to my report.

“Thank you so much for your time.”

I’m sure some of you might feel like I’ve sugarcoated the answers here for this student. I’m hoping my colleagues would agree I’m being as true to life as possible.
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Please briefly explain why the company was created and what is the main purpose of Frederator?

After a 5 year run as President of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, developing the studio’s first slate of hits in over a decade, Nickelodeon asked me to bring my development approach to their network. Frederator believed that children’s animation had devolved into an endless stream of animated situation comedies where concept and writers had become more important than animators. And we believed animators wanted to make ‘cartoons,’ not unlike the great films of the 30s and 40s like Looney Tunes.

Our motto is “Original Cartoons since 1998.” Primarily, we’re interested in making cartoons that spring from the vision of an animation artist, and would rather avoid adapting books, movies, comics, or live-action television shows. We just want to make funny cartoons.
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What are the main departments of Frederator?

We do not keep an active full service studio. Instead, we work in multiple fashions, often with production partners who provide studio space and overhead.

Currently, in Hollywood we keep development offices at Nickelodeon’s animation studio and Film Roman. In New York, we have a development office that also produces Flash cartoons.
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How do you go about commissioning projects and what happens afterwards?

This question is probably too long to go into in detail but briefly:

We don’t ‘commission,’ or ‘develop’ in a traditional way. Generally, for television and the internet, we start with making shorts, cartoons under seven minutes long. We call on the animation community around the world (through our blogs and newsletters, through Channel Frederator, and in person) to create a storyboard of the film they’d like to make with us. They pitch us in person at one of our offices in Hollywood or New York. If our team (three to six people) agrees to go forward, we immediately negotiate a budget and royalty participation and begin production. All our shorts are “creator driven,” that is, they are the result of one artist’s (or creative team’s) vision, and are produced under that creator’s direct supervision.

We produce our children’s cartoons for Nickelodeon and adult cartoons for Channel Frederator.

For feature films, we identify projects from a variety of sources, but all films are also a direct result of a creator’s vision. The movie might be a result of one of our original shorts, or from a filmmaker we’ve worked with over the past 15 years.
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On a project, what are the usual production costs?

There are no “usual production costs.” Each medium, each company, and each filmmaker establish a budget level appropriate to their needs.
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Do you feel that you have much competition, seeing as that you partner exclusively with Nickelodeon?

Our competition is enormous, mainly with ourselves. There are hundreds of cartoons made every year, and each one of them has the potential to successfully compete.

To be clear, our “exclusive” with Nickelodeon is only for children’s television in the United States.
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What work ethics do you value most important at Frederator?

Gee, that’s a big question, so for now I’m going to avoid the ethical values implicit there, since I believe they’re what you’d hope (honesty, integrity, respect, etcetera).

Clearly, we believe in the supremacy of a filmmaker’s vision of a project and its execution. We primarily work with animation artists who create, write, design, direct and/or produce their own characters and stories.

The audience is the master we’re most faithful to. Our films are not “art” in the sense of pure self expression, but meant to be enjoyed by a wide audience of viewers. Their happiness and love for our characters is the most important thing of all.

And, we’re respectful of our distributors, exhibitors, and financial partners and their investments in our cartoons.
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What is the work environment like at Frederator?

I’ve always said that in business I’d like to:

• Have fun.

• Make money.

• Feel great about the colleagues I work with every day.

When we’re doing well at our job, our environment reflects those three things.
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What skills do you look for in employees?

That’s a tough question, because it’s actually pretty vague. Different jobs require different skills and skill levels. Basically, I like the magical and sometimes paradoxical combination between motivated self starters and smoothly collaborative team members.
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Generally, how many employees do you hire in a year and are they permanent staff, or just freelancers for the length of a project?

Currently, the permanent staff at Frederator Studios is five, counting me (Channel Frederator is part of a separate company and is staffed independently of the studio). Everyone else comes and goes with the needs of productions.
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What kind of incentives and rewards do you offer employees?

None of your business.

Seriously, we look for every way we can to reward our colleagues. Creative latitude tops the first 100 spaces on the list. Then, generous health benefits (very important in the U.S.), relaxed vacation schedules and work hours, and competitive salaries and participations.

But mostly, we thrive on our abilities to let creative people, whether they’re executives, creators, or production staff, to optimize their working environment to be as productive as they can possibly be.
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Frederator’s main outputs are children’s animated television programmes for Nickelodeon’s core audience of 2-11 year olds but I read that you are also entering other fields, such as feature films. What is the current progress of this?

We launched the original cartoon podcast, Channel Frederator (http://channelfrederator.com), primarily targeted at adults in November 2005. And the world’s first pre-school video podcast, The Wubbcast (http://wubbcast.com) in March 2006.

In July 2007, we announced the formation of Frederator Films, with three animated movies to go into production: Samurai Jack (stereoscopic 2D; written and directed by Genndy Tartakovsky), The Neverhood (claymation; written and directed by Doug TenNapel) and Seven Deadly Sins (Flash; written and directed by Dan Meth).

In September 2007 we launched our first cartoon series of shorts for adults, The Meth Minute 39, which is distributed through our sister, Channel Frederator.
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Frederator has a thriving Internet community with Channel Frederator and the Frederator blogs. What are the reasons behind this form of communication?

The community of Hollywood animators has long been limited by geography and constituency (primarily the US television networks and movie studios). After spending the first 20 years of my career working with the independents of the world, I was feeling a little constrained by the kinds of films Hollywood limited us to. I have a family and a business so traveling throughout the world meeting new people was a bit impractical, so I realized blogging was a perfect vehicle to “meet” new people. it’s exceeded my expectations.
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You encourage student animation, with the online Channel Frederator and the annual Nicktoons animation festival. Do you feel very passionate about animation students and do you encourage them in any other way, if so how?

I vividly remember starting out and looking everywhere for inspiration, advice, and direction. I felt like I could conquer the world with the right push. Many people stepped up to help me (<a target=”_blank” href=”http://frederatorblogs.com/frederator_studios/2007/09/22/bob-altshuler-rip/here’s a remembrance of one of them) and the only way I’ve been able to pay them back is to offer the same encouragement to as many young people as I can fit into my life. I talk at as many school classes as I can visit, in any city I can get to, and to dozens of individuals who come by the office to visit.

Aside from the stories I can offer, I’m well aware students are my colleagues of the future. The first classes I spoke to when I entered animation are still poplulating my productions, often with the most talented and advanced members of our teams. And right now there’s a storyboard artist on one of our shows I befriended at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2005.

Alex Kirwan was a high school student in Duluth, Minnesota, when he entered a storyboarding contest we ran. He chose not to enter university and became an apprentice for us a Hanna-Barbera and became the first artist on our staff at Oh Yeah! Cartoons) at 18 years old.

Our most stunning student-to-professional success was from a Rhode Island School of Design student one of my executives met in 1994 and brought to Hollywood right after graduation. He made his first professional short for us and his second one too. During the production of the “Zoomates” short, Seth MacFarlane started work on “Family Guy.”
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Finally, do you have any other information to add; that you feel could help with my case study report?

I think you’ve about got it covered. Good luck.

Best, Fred Seibert

I mentioned Eric and I were going to the first Pixelodeon at AFI a few weeks ago. I met founder/organizer/force of nature Irina Slutsky whose day job is the very cool video blog you may have seen: Geek Entertainment TV. She anointed me one of the fanciest people at Pixelodeon on the beautiful AFI patio.

Click To Play

If you think of it, buy her ultra-swift I Was Internet Famous Once t-shirt, you’ll be glad you did.