The Creators Society Leadership

I'm proud to have been voted as the Chief of the Associates Branch of The Creators Society.  I'm excited to be a part of this amazing group of professionals and excited to see where the next year takes us.  Learn more (and join) at The Creators Society website HERE

Animax Visit

Last night Heather and I had an amazing opportunity to go visit Animax Designs here in Nashville.  The meeting was set up by a former student of mine, Henry Kiltpatrick, who works there now.  They are working on some super amazing stuff, of which almost nothing I can talk about - but they have announced recent work includes the T-Rex from Jurassic World Live and creating Hagrid and the Screwt for the new Harry Potter attraction at Universal Orlando.

We met some awesome people and saw some incredible things. Pretty great to have a place like this in our backyard...

The Creators Society

I'm excited to join The Creators Society! I've heard about it through it's founder Eric Miller, who I worked with at DreamWorks and on his Bink webseries pilot. It's grown like crazy over the years. I had hoped to make it to one of their monthly gatherings during our summer in L.A., but sadly the timing never worked out. I even overheard attendees at the CTN Storyboard Workshop I attended talk about going to The Creators Society monthly gatherings, it's getting that big and noticed. I'm excited to be a part of the group and expand it's influence out here to the middle of the country a little bit :)

Heather and Disney Bagel Friday

Friday is free bagel day at Disney Feature Animation.  So each Friday, Disney Animation posts an employee's bagel recipe.  This Friday they feature Heather's!

Crowds Dept Meetup

Today is our last day hanging out for the summer in California, and I was so excited to see a bunch of the old DreamWorks Crowds Dept come out for a last minute lunch at one of our old hangouts. In the last five years, this team is now part Disney and part DreamWorks - and one of the first times many of us have seen each other since the era of Dragons 2! When people ask if I miss DreamWorks or living in L.A., I really don't. But I miss getting to spend my days with these guys.

Disney Animation Studio Visits

We had lots of funny visiting Heather at work as much as possible this summer! We had lunch at the lighting departments "Snuggly Duckling" bar (from Tangled) to the commissary at the ABC Building to coffee on the main old Disney Lot. And lots of shopping at the Disney Employee Store. And LOTS of playing the Wreck-It Ralph arcade machine!

Disney Animation BBQ

In the time Heather previous was at Disney, we never were able to make it to the annual Family BBQ. The first year she was on maternity leave, and we left for Tennessee about a week before it was held the second year. But finally we made it! We had lots of fun, the kids lost their minds getting to see a sneak peak of Frozen 2, and I found out that Lewis and I together have GREAT taste in Hawaiian shirts.

Eric Miller Animation 5 Years

Today marks Eric Miller Animation Studios 5th anniversary. It was very nice to see my name included in the social media posts. It's also fun to see this pose of Bink that I created several years ago pop up again! 

Eric's company was one of my first big freelance gigs after leaving DreamWorks, and was one of the most satisfying projects I've done. It also gave me confidence that I could be successful and enjoy this new teaching/freelancing life I had chose. I can't wait to see what Eric accomplishes in the next 5 years...

Heather's Disney Summer

Today Heather takes off for a huge adventure - she has been hired over the summer to head back to Disney Feature Animation and be a Set Extension Artist on Frozen 2! The boys and I will join her in a few weeks when they get out of school. I'm so proud and excited for her and can't wait to see what the summer will hold!

FLASHBACK: DreamWorks B.O.O.

I really wish DreamWorks B.O.O. had made it over the finish line.  DreamWorks killed the project, and that (along with the very recently also canned Monkeys of Mumbia) started a chain reaction that changed DreamWorks as I knew it.  Long the refuge for artists wanting stability, ownership, and believing in the studio (something in very short supply in the freelancing vfx world) - now DreamWorks would cut a third of it's Glendale studio, close the northern branch at PDI, and usher in an era of uncertainty that led many other artists (including myself) to leave on their own accord.  Eventually this leads to the company being sold to Universal and the shuttering or selling of the India and China branches as well.

But for a moment, I was animating on B.O.O.  I'm still credited for it on IMDB.  I initially did some under the table help with hand animating some midground characters that weren't holding up in crowds.  The Head of Anim and the Anim Supervisor were impressed with my work and wanted to start handing me full character shots.  So I was doing cycle work for Home during the day, but over lunch and staying a bit late I was handed some full shots.  In order to make the release date, the Anim Dept was going to have to ramp up and I was going to be brought out of Crowds and into Animation proper.  They were just waiting for one last screening to get the green light on the third act - but alas that screening didn't fare well (with even Spielberg rumored to have watched it and pondered it over the weekend).  Then word came that they were scrapping it.  Some folks had spent years on it and by some estimations over a third of it was already animated.

I ran across this Viz Dev reel by an artist from the studio Danny Williams - it's the best look out there at what the movie would have been like.

It was a really great concept, one that I personally loved involving amateur ghost hunters, a dad by Seth Rogen, a ghost cop by Melissa McCarthy and the big bad was none other than Bill Murray himself.  It seemed like a great setup and the production design was pretty wild.  You can google and find some of the toy concepts and tie ins that were going to launch with the film.

What could have been, both for the film and my tenure at DreamWorks.  Somewhere I still have my B.O.O Crew Patch....

FLASHBACK: PDI/DreamWorks Siggraph Interview

The annual Siggraph convention was this past week, and as I saw posts from lots of friends and former co-workers who were there I realized it has been 10 years since I last attended...

I'm often asked about how I got the job at DreamWorks.  Well it starts at Siggraph 2007 with one of my worst interviews ever. I had just graduated from the Academy of Art University that summer (literally turning in our thesis mere weeks before).  Heather stayed behind to keep working for a gig at Matte World Digital.  A bunch of us from the graduating class all planned to head down to San Diego and hit the convention floor - schmoozing with every recruiting booth we could manage.

Look at us - freshly graduated, slightly desperate, excited folks venturing forth into the "real world" for the first time.  They recruiting booths were busy and the convention floor hectic.  Luckily, I had a friend in Adam Ely who was already at PDI/DreamWorks in Redwood City.  He talked to one of the head recruiters, Debra O'Keefe, about me and I was able to get an interview during Siggraph.  DreamWorks wasn't officially taking reels/applications, but they had a giant interview suite built up on a balcony of the convention hall.

Excited and nervous I walk up to the interview suite and sign in - I even get a swag bag (with a shrek journal and Flushed Away dvd).  I was trying to become an effects artist at the time, so I interviewed with the FX Supe of Madagascar 2 along with one of the fx leads.  It was...a disaster.  The FX Supe - who would eventually turn out to sit behind me for about a year - liked to be blunt and kept asking about all the problems with my student reel.  For about half their questions I had no answer and admitted as much.  By the time I left (swag bag in hand) I called up Heather and just had to laugh.  "It was horrible" I told her on my cell phone from the second floor balcony, "There's no way I'm getting hired there"

About a month after Siggraph, I get a call that DreamWorks would like to do a followup interview at their PDI campus.  I'm beyond excited and terrified at the same time - I stayed up late the night before googling the answers (level-sets!) to everything I failed to answer in my first interview about effects work.  But I wasn't that nervous - I figured the interview couldn't go any worse than the first one.  So they day comes and I drive the hour south to Redwood City and arrive at the very silicon-valley style campus.  

I sit down for my interviews with Justin Onstine, Jono Gibbs, and Kevin Vassey (all who would eventually become my boss).  The first question comes from Justin who asks "So, why do you want to be a Crowds Artist?"

Crowds?  At no point did I realize this was an interview for crowds - I thought I was still going for an effects TD role.  Now crowds...I didn't even know there was a job just creating digital crowds.  And crowds work I knew - I had lucked into doing some crowds work for element fx, which led me to implementing crowds into our thesis.  I even wrote a MEL crowd script.  So I had a LOT of ideas and insight into crowds work.  It was a fantastic interview and within a week I was accepting a contract at PDI/DreamWorks.  

So you never know where life will take you.

Colie Wertz Visits APSU!

This week Austin Peay hosted Colie Wertz who spent a day on campus with a a public lecture in the evening.  I had never met Colie before, but we have a ton of mutual friends in the industry, including the fact that he was my wife Heather's supervisor back at The Orphanage in San Francisco.  He's still in the Bay Area, recently having worked on Star Wars Rouge One and Episode VIII.  He actually is flying out this weekend to London to help out on set with Episode IX.

Class visit

Colie was also generous enough to visit my Animation II class, where everyone is just starting to learn modeling and texturing in Maya.  He was a huge inspiration to the students and was an invaluable resource - talking about creative process, workflow, and practical modeling tips.

Q&A after the lecture

The lecture was great and the room was full a half hour before it even started.  Colie was an amazing speaker and just a joy to be around in general.  We had a great time going out to dinner afterwards and catching up.  I feel so fortunate that he was able to come out and share his art with everyone.

Michael Dickins, his son, Heather, and Colie

You can follow his awesome work at:

• http://coliewertz.com
• https://www.instagram.com/coliewertz
• https://twitter.com/coliewertz
• https://www.facebook.com/ColieWertzDesign

More DreamWorks Layoffs

News finally broke this week of additional layoffs happening at DreamWorks Feature Animation.  This actually occurred several weeks ago, the day I flew into Burbank for the CTNx Conference - so I heard about the news that night (appropriately over several beers).

This round is 170 employees, notable hitting the production artists hard, who had been spared in the last round or two.  Overall I'm told the company has reduced it's staff by about 400 in the last several months.  Even the Animation Dept, which usually is the last to get hit, is taking some losses - including the notable voluntary departure of several supervising animators.

Some major news that is the direct cause of this is that Croods 2 has been cancelled, and possibly other film in production going back into development mode.  Also, some big unspecified changes seem to be happening for the studios in India and China.  I actually really dissapointed that we won't be seeing Croods 2.  The initial story pitches I saw looked really fun and already there was some great animation tests under James Baxter being done.

I remember how stressful times like this are in the company and the industry.  It was very bittersweet to be back in Burbank the other week and see all the old friends, co-workers, neighbors and hangouts.  But this waiting-nervously-for-news cycle seemed to be coming more often and more dramatic each year.  It was an interesting weekend to visit, and reminded me of all the stress I've left behind in that world.  It was also interesting at the conference to see what all the amazing artist that were let go when they closed PDI have done.  Many are working on their own projects, and VR studios in Silicon Valley have sucked up most of them.  At the studio it always felt like there was nothing outside those walls, which amped up the stress level among everyone.  But honestly, most artists are thriving post-DW and creating amazing work.  It's just a shame such a talented pool or artists was broken up.

Rumor is more layoffs might hit in January and I'll be hoping for the best for my remaining friends and DreamWorks.

Starts and Endings

Old Art + Design building on left, new one under construction on right

APSU Fall Semester Starts

Well, it's a heck of a few milestones today.  I'm beginning my second year as an Animation Professor at APSU.  It's interesting that it feels normal now, not like I was just taking a vacation from the industry for awhile.  Speaking of vacations - having a summer off is pretty damn amazing.  We got a family trip to Walt Disney World in to cash in Heather's free passes from Disney that were going to expire.  I still taught an online class, but I spent almost all of each day hanging out with my two boys.  A rare and amazing and exhausting opportunity that I am so, so lucky to be able to indulge.  It also allowed for my wife to take on an insane amount of awesome freelance work.

It also marks the end of comparing everything to what we were doing "a year ago".  The past year all the big milestones seemed like ones showcasing the change we made.  How was Halloween different in Burbank than here, and the constant assurance to ourselves we made the right choice.  Marking the week that was our last ones at DreamWorks and Disney.  Thinking that it's been one year since any of us were on a plane.  Remembering all the anxiety of starting a new profession in those first few weeks exactly a year ago.  So, the transition is over.  This is our new normal.  And it's been a great life so far.

DreamWorks End of an Era

Interestingly, the other milestone happening the same day is that Comcast/Universal officially took ownership of DreamWorks.  It's ultimately a good thing, but one of uncertainty for all my friends back at the studio - and I can't help but think how I would be feeling if we had stayed the course in California.  It seems the new owners are keeping the status quo so far, but being part of a conglomerate is a double-edged sword in animation these days.  Even though out the downturn at DreamWorks, and seeing longtime friends and co-workers getting let go, I felt that Jeffery would have our backs better than a giant corporation that sees us as just another asset in the toolbox.

But now the man himself, Jeffery Katzenberg has also stepped down from his little-studio-that-could - the last remaining independent movie studio in Hollywood.  He apparently spent the last week meeting with all the departments at the studio and getting to say goodbye to everyone one-on-one.  Katzenberg was the reason DreamWorks was such an amazing home for all those years.  I always believed that he wanted the best for his artists and staff.  He was direct, honest, and would always drop a few f-bombs during company updates - he always remained an amazingly accessible CEO.  I could go on, but I'll defer to my ol' coworker from DreamWorks - Nigel Tierney (we did muppet class together!) He wrote an amazing piece on Facebook, that Cartoon Brew picked up that does justice to JK's influence on all of us.  I'll just leave my thoughts at this:

Jeffery will be remembered in the industry for the big things...us DreamWorkers past and present will remember him for all the smaller (and arguably more important and meaningful) things.

Nigel and JK 

“Thank You, Jeffrey Katzenberg”
by Nigel W. Tierney

Today, I watched from a distance as Jeffrey Katzenberg left the DreamWorks Animation campus for the last time as our intrepid and beloved CEO. There was no pomp and circumstance; just a lonely JK, who slowly meandered over to his Tesla with a backpack hanging loosely over his shoulder. Please excuse the emotional stream of consciousness to follow.

Tomorrow will kickoff our first "Town Hall Meeting" with our new NBCUniversal leadership. This new replacement for our old "JK D-briefs," makes it difficult to not feel uncertain of the changes ahead. The only thing that I know for certain, is that the NBCUniversal leadership has some very large, white sneakers to fill.

I initially started writing this wanting to write something brief to thank Jeffrey for all he has done for the movie industry, but I couldn’t talk about his accomplishments without selfishly personalizing it. For the past eight years that I have worked at DreamWorks; I have always known that Jeffrey fostered the most compelling environment that a corporation could offer.

Jeffrey was always accessible and it is his accessibility that I will miss the most. I appreciated it and tried to never took for granted. Whether it was from his daily JK Blog emails, to more impressively just being able to stop and talk to him in the cafeteria about anything that this silly Irishman could conjure. I still can’t believe that I would easily and often send one of the most influential men in Hollywood emails that would immediately be met with a personal response. Emails such as a poorly photoshopped flyer with Jeffrey as a Leprechaun for a St. Patrick’s day party I was throwing, gleefully asking if he found the flyer “too cheeky” and if he wanted to come? Even now on his last day, he happily obliged me by doing another snapchat with me using the puppy filter. (I know I should have did the face swap filter instead, but that puppy filter is a classic.)

DreamWorks has both directly and indirectly been responsible for some of my biggest life moments. Moments like marrying the woman of my dreams, becoming the father of the coolest son, and creating some of the strongest friendships I have ever had. I have been at my heaviest weight from eating so much free food and have been at my healthiest weight from on-campus bootcamp & the on-campus nutritionist (I'm currently somewhere in the middle). I helped organize one of my best friends engagement as Jeffrey let him fly a helicopter on campus. The fact that I could stay late after work with fellow DreamWorkers and subversively build a comedy club is not only a ridiculously exclusive perk, but is a true example of a “fun place to work,” hence why it is called the J/K Comedy Club (JKComedyClub.com).

DreamWorks has allowed me to learn and sculpt new passions, from taking my first improv class provided by artistic development program, to filming my first comedy sketch on campus with the film group. All of which sent me down a rabbit hole pursuing a life of Comedy. I dressed as "Burning Man" Jeffrey while hosting a Halloween costume contest. I have tasted some of the finest whiskeys in the world thanks to the on-campus Whiskey Society. I have worked alongside artists who shaped my childhood. I witnessed President Obama address us and the nation. I have met a plethora of heroes/icons through Jeffrey's hosted DreamTalks, Movie Premieres, Artistic Development Talks, and just directly working with them. I rocked out to Hans Zimmer on a parking lot roof. I walked the red carpet with Dustin Hoffman & Jack Black, and even stole one of Justin Timberlake’s cookies. All thanks to Katz. Speaking of cookies, I will miss looking at Jeffrey’s signature on the card that will accompany my future birthday cookies.

Now as a husband and a dad, the DreamWorks family spirit is what matters to me the most. Dreamworks provides me with far much more than the fundamental finances I need to support my family. The fact that I can take my wife and son on campus for a movie screening, to walk around exploring the koi pond, or just to grab a coffee and a cake-pop, has just been so important to me and growing my relationship with my family. Even the most recent moment of joy I experience with my three year old son this past weekend; where he didn’t want to turn off the Kung Fu Panda 3 credits until he saw his Daddy’s name appear.

This post couldn’t possibly contain all the moments that I cherish, nor would you want to read them, but if you made it this far; I would like to finish by saying that all of this is not only because Jeffrey allowed it to happen at DreamWorks, but because he pursued it to happen. JK cultivated this type of engagement and culture, for which I am sincerely grateful. Thank you very much Jeffrey Katzenberg, you truly are admirable and I will greatly miss having you around.

Kung Fu Panda 3 Opening Weekend

Well, Panda 3 is officially released today.  Everything I'm hearing so far is that it turned out to be a great movie.  My old co-workers who saw an early screening have all loved it.  It's currently at 80% on Rotten Tomatoes (and critics rarely give DreamWorks a pass).  So it looks like a lovely end to the Panda trilogy.  Of course, if it does well at the box office, I'm sure we'll see more of Po in the future.  Actually, I'm positive of it - I don't think DreamWorks has their "new" franchise yet, so they will need to keep this property going for awhile.  But it's really nice to see this film getting such positive reviews, and I can't wait to see the final product for myself!

It's a little bittersweet this week.  It's the first release since I've left the company.  So I'm seeing everyone on Facebook post pictures of the crew screening, wrap party, the release day celebrations at the studio, and the awesome crew gift maquette.  Even seeing pictures of people in line waiting to get their Art of Kung Fu Panda 3 books signed - a time honored way to not work for about 2 hours in the middle of the day - brings back memories.  These were always the best weeks at the studio, and everyone looks forward to the next one.

But then...this week also marks the one year anniversary of that fateful company update where Katzenberg announced the closing of the PDI office up in Redwood City.  So I'm reminded of the studio mismanagement, of seeing some of the brightest and most creative co-workers being let go, and the general uncertainty that this industry breeds.  As I said, a bittersweet week.

But - did I mention my names in the credits?

FLASHBACK: PDI Closing

PDI tombstone on San Francisco Bay shoreline. Notice the Shrek ears.

Today is one year since the all-company meeting was held at DreamWorks that announced the closing of the PDI office in Redwood City (where I had started at the company) and estimated layoffs of about 20% across the company.  We all knew things were going bad, and something had to give.  But we never thought that PDI - the studio that saved fledgling parent DreamWorks with Shrek, that built all the pipeline and tools used at the company, one of the pioneering CG companies that dated back to the 80s, would be on the chopping block.

Well, we had a slight idea.  Those few months at the company was rumor mill central.  Every day someone would have heard something from a supervisor, or an old friend in the Starbucks line, about films moving around, being put on hold, etc.  All things that would lead to a change in staffing.  The biggest one going around was that Spielberg himself was weighing in on one of the films - one that was just about to ramp up and need a massive staff.  Everyone felt like that was the saving grace, if that movie stayed green-lit we would all be spared this rough patch and hopefully the company could course correct in time.  Unfortunately, the rumor I heard is Steven stewed on it over a whole week and weekend, and came back with a solitary note that he couldn't solve the problem of that film.

Within about a week, an all-studio company meeting was set up on our calendars.  Everyone knew it wasn't good.  To ease the tension we all started taking bets on how many of us would be fired by the end of a given day.  But the day before the meeting, word started going around in Glendale that they might shutter PDI.  It was hard to believe, and I don't think anyone dared to reach out to our PDI friends to share the rumor.  Why stress out if it wasn't even possibly true?  But about 1 minute into his speech, Katzenberg dropped the news: PDI would close.  They would offer some of that workforce the chance to relocate to Glendale, the rest would be let go.  Glendale would also have the largest layoff in company history.  Two problematic and weak films were cut from the production schedule entirely.  To his credit, Jeffery took the blame, said he had turned his attention to other aspects of the company, and took too long to start course correcting it when he saw it going south.  But it's hard when that hindsight still means 500 employees being let go from one of the rare "safe" companies in the industry.

Eventually our Crowds Department, which had numbered 23 during production on Dragons 2, would be cut down to 11.  And we weren't even as badly hit as lighting and fx were.

I took this photo leaving the studio that week.  The near empty courtyard and the moody weather seemed to sum it all up.

Bink - Freelance Animation

I have spent my winter break doing some freelance animation for Eric Miller Animation Studios.  I worked with Eric back at DreamWorks, and he's a great guy who has spent the last few years getting his very own company up and running.  He is keeping a very interesting blog about the experience, and if you're interested in the business side of animation and vfx he goes into some great detail.

The project I'm helping on is a web series he's creating to help showcase the company.  It's called Bink and features this adorable little alien captured in a testing lab.  The team Eric has put together is top-notch, full of folks I know from DreamWorks.  Which is to say, it's great to have nice proper rigs, and professional work going into this project.  The original animator on this was Jacob Gardner, who's a great guy I worked with as well.  He was transitioning from a cycles animator to full time character animator as I was helping out crowds on Shrek 4.  Jacob got busy with the Kung Fu Panda 3 crunch, and they needed to bring someone else on board.  Luckily it worked out schedule wise for me to join up.

It's been really fun to get some character animation time in.  Teaching (and the after effects of moving cross country) took up most of my time in the fall, and I really missed getting to spend some evenings back at the ol' graph editor tweaking animation curves.

Last Days at DreamWorks

Well, here it is...my last few days at DreamWorks Animation.  It's been almost 8 years at this company, and there's been lots of great times there - but what I'm going to miss are all my great co-workers.  Of course, the last year has been a tough one, so of all the fine folk you see gathered in these photos only 2 actually remain employed at DreamWorks.  So it truly is the end of an era.

I was lucky to have the Crowds Dept all meet up for one last big hurrah.  Spencer, my supervisor on Monsters vs. Pumpkins and Kung Fu Panda 3 has been trying to get me to go out to the Tiki Ti (where he's a regular) for years.  Well, with only days left to spare it finally happened.  It was a great chance to see everyone last last time.

Leaving Los Angeles

Jon Jackson's work "Adios LA"

The title is a bit misleading - we're actually leaving all of California!

Around the end of April I went to Clarksville, TN to interview at Austin Peay State University. I had actually applied way back in Jan when I could tell DreamWorks was in for a rough spell. Well, the University reached out recently and it was followed by an on-site interview.  The job is Assistant Professor of Animation within the Art Department.  What's really exciting is that they want to create a brand new animation program, so this role also comes with the chance to create this from the ground up.

Heather and I have been looking to escape the industry for a while.  We love our co-workers, and have each landed at great companies...but it comes at a cost.  Both our kids are in daycare 9 hours a day, we don't eat dinner till after 7, and we are so exhausted from it all we don't want to go out on the weekends.  And this is being at the two most "family friendly" companies in the industry.  It's a tough world out there these days - and if we were younger and didn't have kids (or a dog), it'd be a great adventure to be had.  But when the focus shifts from career ambition to a quality homelife - something has to give.  It's a frustrating industry in many ways.  We see the flood of old co-workers who have to sacrifice all their homelife and move away from their kids to another country for months at a time.  We don't want to ever be stuck in such a situation - so it's time to get out while the getting is good.  Something we actually see many former colleagues doing...

Heather's family is in TN, and will be just about 2 hours away.  My family is a (long) day's drive away.  So this means our two kids will see their grandparents more than a few times a year.  It means we can have a night off of parenting here and there.  It means our kids will get a giant backyard filled with trees.  It means Heather can stay home with the boys (never an option in crazy-housing-market LA) and I can be home for lunch each day with them.  It means being able to take family vacations.  It means a good life that we never have figured out how to have in Los Angeles.

I've always aspired to go into teaching full time.  It was always my 10 year plan...we are just bumping up the timetable a little bit.  And Heather and I always are up for a little adventure!

R.I.P. PDI

Standing by the tree on the right, with Adam Ely, who helped me land the interview at SIGGRAPH

Well today's the final day for a vast number of my co-workers.  The shockwave of closing the PDI branch is still being felt.  PDI alums across the industry are posting alumni-photos in a show of support.  Down here at the Glendale campus we did the same.  Crazy to see how many of us got our start up at scrappy PDI.

Having been at PDI, I know what a precious environment that was for everyone, and how close-knit that studio was as a whole.  Breaking that up - where Shrek was born and saved DreamWorks Animation - is heartbreaking.

Today we're losing some amazing talent and some rare friends.  The cuts were across the board.  Senior artists, executives, promising recent hires...a huge trove of talent that will now get disseminated to other companies and locales.

My department, which had 29 people in it this summer, is down to just 19 - if all of the PDI people decide to move (which is unlikely).  It's just a tough time in the industry, and at least DreamWorks held off longer than most.  But there's just not enough work to go around anymore.  Most folks are having to look to new cities or countries for work - or just get out of the industry all together.

Wish there was a silver lining to end this post on.  But times are just rough.  Even though I feel fortunate to see what DreamWorks 2.0 will become, I just keep thinking about all my co-workers (and their families) and hope everyone can land on their feet...

GoodBye PDI from SIDE FILMS on Vimeo.