Archive for March, 2010

Clifford Meth’s column, Welcome to Hollywood, from Comics Bulletin has been posted at ComicMix. An interesting turn of events which seems to suit everyone just fine, as the article is receiving its due coverage in the comics scene. It’s an important piece that tells how the game is being played with many creators and the type of spunk needed to level out the playing field from time to time.

The article also tells of IDT Entertainment’s foray into producing its first film, Everyone’s Hero, while Clifford (and myself) worked there. As the comments at ComicMix have started opining on the film, I’ll take the opportunity to also add my two cents.

Everyone’s Hero was a colossal box office failure that was a childhood fantasy of IDT founder Howard Jonas, who established DPS Studios (Digital Production Solutions), driven by his childhood dream to produce this particular movie. My interest in it is that I worked at both the Israel and New Jersey branches of DPS before and during its production, and have a few thoughts as to how this fiasco came about and why so many good resources where ultimately cast to waste on it.

For anyone remembering my article on The Sudden Death of Christopher Reeve, this is the movie discussed there which was the last work Christopher was involved in directing before he departed from us. I produced a hefty amount of initial character and set designs for this film, little of which was ultimately used in the final production.

The original vision of DPS Studios was a noble one. Unfortunately, it was born within a corporate enterprise in which creative direction was not considered to hold much value. The people heading the operation in Israel were given a great deal of capital to found an infrastructure for 3-D animation film production. However the main thrust of management was to produce cheap grade B movies and try to realize a low but steadily rising profit from such productions. This was the first nail in the coffin of this enterprise and ultimately the reason why Everyone’s Hero had little creative and public appeal in order to compete with other animation films proliferating the market at the time.

For nearly 18 months, DPSI (the Israel subsidiary) labored on preparing its infrastructure for a hefty production output, and on producing a few minutes of animation that would show off its abilities. As a visual designer working on such a wide scope vision of the company, which refused to appoint an overall art director and overseer, I warned management time and time again that the results we were achieving were not up to par in order to sustain the company. The main reason for this was that there was a lot of competitive managerial squabbling over appointing such a position. Most of the managerial staff felt they were able to make the artistic decisions themselves and didn’t need an art director. All my warnings and attempts to convince of the folly in their thinking fell on deaf ears.

The same was also true for the script. By the time Christopher Reeve took over the directing, it was virtually too late. As Clifford Meth recounts, none of his warnings about the script were heard. The end result was that a movie was fully produced which had little basic plot thrust and which was not delivered in any coherent way that would make it an appealing or competitive product. The script ultimately became a collection of cliches and jokes trying to wrap themselves around a shaky foundation which was the initial treatment based on the boss’s childhood fantasy. From the very start, there was virtually no good professional creative intervention allowed to try to improve this project.

The final stretch of production was handed over to an outside studio as DPS and DPSI were shut down by IDT Entertainment due to their realization that the studios were not producing good enough work to carry the movie.  It was too late however, as the problems facing production went so deep, that nothing short of starting over again with a new script and production designs had any hope for saving it.

I don’t know the official amount of capital spent by IDT Entertainment for the couple of years that DPS and DPSI were in operation. I’ve heard the numbers wander somewhere between $75 Million and $150 Million. This range may be high or low but it doesn’t much matter. The Israel branch employed nearly 200 people for more than two years, purchased state of the art equipment and rented a large expensive facility within which to produce the work. All this doesn’t take into account additional costs expended on outside sources contracted to finish the film. The end result sadly speaks for itself and for the utter waste of time and creative talent that could have been otherwise put into a worthwhile project.

More disheartening is that being affiliated with this film was a sad way for Christopher Reeve to depart from this world. I remember his unending efforts to transform the debacle into a worthy film, but it was out of his hands. He passed away during the early stages of pre-production and had virtually little input into the final work. That my own name is also attached to it is likewise no small discomfort.

It is a sad legacy about big money gone blind. About the contempt that corporate mentality can sometimes hold towards creative talent. Much in the same way that Saperstein tried to sap Clifford Meth, the IDT Entertainment corporate guzzler sapped every positive creative input that was needed to salvage DPS, DPSI and Everyone’s Hero.

Comics creators can learn a big lesson about their true worth to comics and Hollywood from these two affairs. We can likewise hope that comics publishers, through them, come to more humbly appreciate the contribution of writers and artists towards the success of properties on the rise in Hollywood and the entertainment world.