The animation studio with the boy in the moon is no more

[Shaka Zulu]

The beleaguered DreamWorks Animation just announced in a written statement that it will eliminate approximately 500 jobs at its company, far exceeding the previously anticipated number of layoffs. Many of those five hundred layoffs will come from the unexpected shutdown of one of its main studios, PDI DreamWorks, in Redwood City, California.

The closing of that studio will begin immediately. The studio is expected to begin holding private one-on-one meetings with PDI artists as early as tomorrow, and offering some of them an opportunity to relocate to the southern DreamWorks campus in Glendale, California.

The layoffs at PDI and Glendale will be structured as “equal force reductions,” according to a report by the Animation Guild. That’s possible because of the PDI artists who are being offered the opportunity to relocate. Any artist who leaves the studio will be paid an additional sixty days of wages after the layoff.

The animation studio with the boy in the moon is no more

So, no more How To Train Your Dragon movies, No more Kung Fu Panda, and no more adaptations of Classic Media properties into CGI movies.

This Friday, I will rent a copy of Mr Peabody & Sherman and a copy of How To Train Your Dragon II from the local Redbox, and mourn. Anybody with me?

All of the haters of commercial animation (in particular commercial CGI animation) can crow now-but I won't be crowing with you.

(Apologies if this has been already posted.)

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Well, I think that the thread title is off, as is the title ascribed to the link the OP.

Dreamworks is not dissolving. They'll still exist as a corporate entity, they'll still employ animators at other studios, and they'll still produce films. They're just radically restructuring, by downsizing and closing PDI Dreamworks, one of its major studios. They'll be reducing their production load, and they'll also start outsourcing on certain projects.

Kung Fu Panda 3 is scheduled for release on March 18, 2016, which I'm very much looking forward to.

 

[Tosk]

Where the heck is Antz on Blu-ray already?

 

[Christopher]

Well, I think that the thread title is off, as is the title ascribed to the link the OP.

Dreamworks is not dissolving. They'll still exist as a corporate entity, they'll still employ animators at other studios, and they'll still produce films. They're just radically restructuring, by downsizing and closing PDI Dreamworks, one of its major studios. They'll be reducing their production load, and they'll also start outsourcing on certain projects.

Kung Fu Panda 3 is scheduled for release on March 18, 2016, which I'm very much looking forward to.

Whew, that's a relief. The total lack of journalistic standards on the Internet strikes again. All they had to do was read their own article more closely and they would've known the headline was wrong.

Still, Dreamworks has done some really good stuff, particularly the Kung Fu Panda and Dragons franchises. I hope this doesn't impact those too badly, either the movies or their spinoff shows. Although there are other Dreamworks properties I have no interest in at all, like that Madagascar/Penguins thing.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

^Sorry everybody, but the Cartoon Brew story sounded major, especially to those of us who love animation (and that's a lot of people here on this board.)

I also hope that they will be able to continue dipping into the well of Dreamworks Classics to revive more old properties with new CGI toons just as they did with Mr. Peabody & Sherman (I'd love to also see revivals of properties from Filmation and Harvey, in particular a movie of Casper and the Spectrals as well as other things they own.)

 

[publiusr]

"I hate change. It is never good."

 

[EnriqueH]

I love that intro!

I used to always see it before playing WWII games like Medal of Honor.

 

[Forbin]

I have an online friend who's a CGI artists there, who's apparently lost his job. He'd just started work on Kung Fu Panda III.

 

[Trekker4747]

I thought Dreamworks folded a while ago.

 

[Morpheus 02]

Hmmm...animation is a rough business. Phil Vischer lost Big Idea & Veggie Tales a while back...not because of the "usual" suspects...but small ways of thinking I deserve this", and getting some priorities mixed up.

But he came out of it with a lot of wisdom....any new animators (and really anyone being "successful") should take heed.