What will come out of this meeting, I don't know. No one really knows if a deal will be closed when they go to any meeting- they just go, do what they do best- and pursue it in one way or another until it turns out positive. (I've not heard from these guys, but hey, not giving up!)
What is absolute about these meetings though is that the business of entertainment is a very serious business.
People often (erroneously) assume that us who are in the entertainment industry, especially the animation studios, are immature, childish, frivolous, playful, mindless types who don't do real work, and have no understanding of the serious s*** that takes place in the world.
They would think very differently if they knew what goes on in the production pipeline, the calculated effort that is required to actually get from one phase to another, who the investors are, what sort of software and hardware is utilized to get from one phase to another, what happens simultaneously, what happens progressively, the necessity of understanding humanity, the discipline of communicating that understanding to the WHOLE WIDE WORLD, and then there's the task of chopping up that WHOLE WIDE WORLD into segmented audiences before refining the message all over again etc.
No, this business isn't just a serious business.
It is an obsessive, possessive one.
It is a business that once you step in, you don't step out. It is a business that consumes your time day in, day out, and whether or not you're away from the desk, whether or not you're away from the phone, even if you're in nature, there is always something that inspires and influences you. I kid you not.
The entertainment industry is an all-encompassing, all-enveloping one. You don't escape from it. You can't. Whether it is a book you read, a picture you draw, a photograph you take; whether it is a stage play you attend, a poetry reading you go to, or even any other non-entertainment related activity, why, it's there. Go to the gym- what's playing over the loudspeakers? Bake a cake- there're the social media posts and the cooking shows. Hike outdoors- you get the sound of the birds and the crickets and the leaves that move in the wind, oh, and now, with 5G coming in, there's the 6DoF to consider about.
If you thought that content creators- like the creators of SpongeBob SquarePants- didn't have to think about technology, you'd be so wrong. And if you thought that the people in Pixar Animation Studios didn't give a hoot about technology but only about toys and cars, and child-friendly dialogue and happy looking pictures, you'd also couldn't be more wrong.
Toy Story came out in 1995.
And so did Windows 95.
Toy Story came out in 1995.
And so did Windows 95.
And just in case some still don't get it... Steve Jobs and Pixar Animation Studios are intricately linked.
You get the picture.
And with content creation and licensing and franchising being such a critical part of the whole business, it is also not an industry that you can simply just hop over from one company to another at the twiddle of a thumb- because there are lots and lots and lots of rules- and restrictions- and you would do well to follow.
You get the picture.
And with content creation and licensing and franchising being such a critical part of the whole business, it is also not an industry that you can simply just hop over from one company to another at the twiddle of a thumb- because there are lots and lots and lots of rules- and restrictions- and you would do well to follow.
That's how this industry is, but there's also satisfaction in this industry. Not so much as to see your work on the big screen, but the realization that whatever it is you do, whatever genre it is you do, or whatever theme it might be, whether you be in music, animation, comedy, live-action, console games, mobile games, video games, television, computer games etc, it is a world you're connecting with, it is an audience you're speaking to, and that what you do can definitely bring people together through communities, which, by the way, have always been around, even before the days of social media.
The entertainment industry is like a cycle of life. Regardless what age you are, regardless what stories you prefer, even if you be the serious sort who goes for classical music and operas and documentaries and newsreels, or historical stuff, or English-literature-based films from the libraries of the BBC, to us behind the scenes, to us who treat it like any corporate structure and as seriously as we do any corporate business, it is all the same.
Yes, that means, to us, in terms of the business, Vivaldi and The Corrs are the same, Lil Wayne and Bach are the same, and so are Handel and Lecrae.
Likewise Cesar Milan's The Dog Whisperer, anything you see on Discovery Channel, Frozen, Paw Patrol and SpongeBob SquarePants.
To us, they are all the same.
And if you like them, well, so do we.