Stuart Brown says play is more than fun

http://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html

A great talk about how play is necessary for our everyday lives and the lack of play starves us creatively.

Quick update

It's been ten months since the announcement of the demise of Collideascope Digital Productions Inc. Technically, the company is still around as we wind it down and take care of final accounting, asset allocation, all that corporate jazz... Anyhow, in the wake of the quiet and dignified passing (not the spectacular failure that many had falsely predicted for so many years) of Collideascope, something had to happen, didn't it? After all, though CDP was successful and everything, it wasn't successful enough to let us saunter into the sunset for time immemorial.

So, it's with very little fanfare at this point that I will let slip the news of Neato Entertainment.

Neato is my little chunk of What M-A Is Up To, post-Collideascope. It will occupy the 4th floor, as Collideascope did. It will have the yellow walls, as Collideascope did. It will just focus on things that are smaller than what Collideascope did.

Anyhow, no new email. No new website. No new business cards as of yet. I'll post here when it becomes something more than just a name I'm doing new work under. Just thought that anyone who follows this thing might like to know.

M-A

M-A is up to new things

There is a neato new project a-brewing in M-A land. Or rather, a project of projects. Stay tuned. Interesting things might be afoot...

Collideascope T4s

Hi, all. Not sure if anyone is still checking this space out since things have been quiet lately. However, I've gotten several inquiries about Collideascope T4s. They were mailed out last week, so if you don't get yours by next week, email me and I'll check into them for you. Either way, worry not. Collideascope may have closed, but we didn't flame out, so we will meet all of our commitments to that end. I am always available to any of our former employees to contact about such matters.

All the best,
M-A

And now, what everyone's been waiting for...

Yep, we finally figured out when the party is happening. So, come one, come all! Denizens, friends, and supporters of Collideascope, I cordially invite you to:

OUT WITH A BLAST!

Please join us in celebrating
Collideascope’s great accomplishments
& contributions to the animation
industry as we say our goodbyes
to a great company!!

Date: November 8, 2008
Time: 8pm – 1:30 am
Location:
LOCAS www.locasbar.com
5430 Doyle Street, Halifax
Corner of Spring Garden & Queen Street
Lots of food, drinks & great laughs

For more information
please email
grace@collideascope.com

So, the cat has been let out of the bag

Just so we can keep those crazy ol' rumours at as low a roar as possible, I'm writing this posting to announce the winding down of Collideascope.

Yep, you heard it here first, folks. Well, not really first. We announced to the general community on Monday and things like this don't take long to disseminate. We're closing the company. Why? Well, there's never just one reason for things like this, is there?

Collideascope recently celebrated 13 years in operation. We started out as a little, 2 person shop cranking out web pages for people who wanted to put their businesses onto the "information superhighway", and thereby become multi-bazillionaires in the process. We also made commercials and broadcast graphics for the local TV business. It seems we came a long way since. At our peak last year, Collideascope was employing about 120 people on long term full time contracts. To me, that's a lotta people, eh?

13 years of running any one thing is a long time. Reason #1 is that I'm just ready to go off and find something else to do.

Reason #2 is more related to the timing of this announcement than the decision itself. I'd been working for a long time on a project that was slated for a Fall '08 start date. The project has experienced a delay that meant the start date was now delayed indefinitely. As this project was my main one slated for the fall, I decided that I really wasn't interested in putting Collideascope into hibernation, pending what might come through later on.

There are, of course, lots of things that go into making a decision like this. These 2 points are just some good ones to toss out to satisfy people's curiosity. Just know that the decision wasn't made quickly, though it looks like it was.

Of course, when bad news comes, there's inevitably the search for who the bad guy is, and the rumour mill has a surprisingly efficient way of magnifying conjecture in order to cast that role. In this case, there's the temptation to have Steve take that place on stage. However, even though both he and I have occupied our good cop and bad cop roles over the years, it would be wrong to lay the closure at Steve's feet. He's been a huge reason for Collideascope's success over the years, and his contacts brought the steady stream of work in that we enjoyed. However, as I said, 13 years is a long time to be running any company (plus almost 3 years for a company we ran immediately before Collideascope), and the truth is at this time, we're both pretty tired and neither of us has the energy anymore to want to deal with the latest moves made in the industry. Between the shift in broadcasters' more aggressive approach to CRTC regulations and a quite sudden and surprising shift back to Asian studios last year, these were changes that, while not insurmountable, require a retooling that we didn't want to go through.

Nonetheless, I think now is the time for Collideascope to be able to make a graceful exit, for Steve and me to finish it on an up note, and to be able to do right by the people who are finishing the projects on the slate. I've got to say, since the news came out, I've been gratified by people writing to say how they've enjoyed their experience at or working with Collideascope. It hasn't always been an easy ride, but we've always made it the priority to do business in an upfront and honest manner, so it's nice to see that acknowledged. After all, being the boss, I don't get performance reviews. It's nice to see that at the end, some people think I've done a good job.

And of course, this message wouldn't be complete without thanking everyone who's been a part of the Collideascope experience, whether that was working at the animation studios, being part of our small but mighty new media crew, helping keep the infrastructure of the place running, or everyone on the outside who helped and cheered us on. That's what made this a great 13 years for me. Of course, I must single out Ron, who may just be the best person who ever ran an animation studio. His dedication to the place has inspired everyone who ever worked with him, and was a huge factor in giving Collideascope the reputation we gained as a place people wanted to come to work at. Thank you, Ron.

One last thing - it's not Collideascope unless there's a party involved, so everyone is invited to our last blowout. I don't have the exact date yet, but I'm planning for early October, and I'm shouting out to recent employees, alumni from far back, and all of our friends in the extended community to join me for the send-off. I'll post more details here once it's firmed up.

All my best,
M-A

LA is an interesting place

I participated in a trade mission of Nova Scotian producers to Los Angeles last week. Went everywhere from Burbank, where the major studios are, to Santa Monica Boulevard, where the more boutique operators live. I had 12 meetings over the course of 3 days. Great people down there, and some interesting opportunities presented themselves, both to pitch and to partner. Of course, as is standard in such things this was an exploratory mission, set up to shake hands and meet new people. No one was waiting at the airport with a contract and a bag of cash, ready to say “animate!” However, it’s a true cliché that relationships are what make this business (any business, really) work, so the more people we meet, the more opportunities we have at developing new properties and getting them picked up. As is my recent mantra, “development, development, development” will pay longer term and more sustainable dividends in terms of work. Did I mention that we’ve got a treatment together to pitch our first feature? I did not? Well, we do. Exciting times!

A quiet summer

So yes, things are quite quiet overall in the Canadian animation industry, and Collideascope isn't much of an exception. We found out recently that our friends at Story City, who did some amazing board work on Johnny Test, have decided to pack it in. Very sad news. I'm getting reports of far less production activity in all sectors of the country than there was last year, when you couldn't find an animator in the country for love nor money. Amazing what difference a few months makes.

We're currently working on Speed Racer until the end of August. We're busily working on getting another production through the door after that, which I won't mention until we're further down that road. These things are months to years in the making, and are often down to the wire in terms of whether they are greenlit or not. As always, getting the job in the door requires a calm demeanour, a steady hand, and a few bottles of pepto-bismol. ;)

More when I get it. Have a good summer.

Wither Johnny?

Poor ol' Johnny Test. He's off to another home, somewhere to the west of us. We got the call last week that we were unsuccessful in our bid for Johnny Test Season 4. Though we put in what was generally considered to be a very competitive bid, we were outbid. To whomever got it, I wish the best of luck. For our part, I'm very proud that we were integral in earning Johnny a Gemini award and a finalist place in the Shaw Rocket prize with the work we did on seasons 2 and 3. Now, on to other things for Collideascope. And yes, there are other irons in the fire.

Now, a short break from what I'm up to...

...to go over what others are up to. Specifically with regard to a rather poisonous piece of federal legislation called Bill C-10. This bill seeks to impose a set of standards that any government can use to decide what they consider to be “moral” and to deny tax credits to Canadian productions based on such standards. To hear some people talk, you’d think Canadian producers are getting tax dollars to make porno films, when in fact, the financing of Canadian film and television is subject to probably one of the most rigorous systems of review in the world, in which anything that is financed must clear the provisions set forth in standards documents of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Canadian Criminal Code.

What burns my ass is people like “Doctor” Charles McVety, an evangelist who supports this bill and says that it doesn’t go far enough. He argues that films that even show homosexuality in a positive light should have their funding yanked as well. It is exactly this quality of human being meddling with what they think you should be allowed to watch and to think, why we should be extremely careful about subjecting our content to arbitrary rules based on the personal comfort levels of supporters of the Government of the Day.

Full article here: http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/415391