Chapter 242 Negotiations Begin (2)

Yang Cheng has a clear understanding of himself. He knows how to play with skills and experience. Even if there are two, he can't beat Jeffrey, a thousand-year-old fox.

But he also has his own advantages. Shi Shiran sat back, loosened his suit and tie, put an elegant and calm smile on his face again, and stretched out his hand to signal, "Give me a reason, in my opinion, the current DreamWorks is not worth it at all." $40! Especially the distribution ability that I value the most. DreamWorks Pictures, which was responsible for the distribution, was sold to Paramount as early as 2006. After that, all the film distribution of DreamWorks Animation is no longer in its own hands, and it needs to rely on the six big Hollywood The media group has greatly increased the risk of your content production, and based on this alone, it is not too much for me to cut 20 dollars down the middle."

Jeffrey is not stupid, and he evaded the important and said sophistry, "But you can't deny the powerful p resources and animation production capabilities of DreamWorks Animation, and all of us understand that after the acquisition of DreamWorks, the compensation is not only The absence of the animation section can further reduce the cost of producing blockbuster special effects, and this part of the invisible income cannot be counted!"

The corners of Yang Cheng's mouth turned up, revealing a scheming smile, leaned back, and retorted relaxedly, "Jeffrey, don't think I'm young and easy to bully, I did a thorough investigation before I came here.

During the ten years from 2003 to 2013, a total of 21 animation and special effects production studios in Hollywood filed for bankruptcy. Together with many similar companies, they were either on the verge of bankruptcy, heavily in debt, or could not escape the fate of being acquired and acquired.

In my opinion, this is mainly related to the business model of animation production studios.

Animation special effects production has always been operated in the form of receiving orders and taking into account originality. This is a labor-intensive industry, and it is also a technical activity. The technology and experience often come from a large number of work projects. The more projects, the more people. , each project requires a large number of technicians to manually operate each frame of animation, which cannot be replaced by computers or any other high-tech fixed costs at one time. "

Jeffery was a little restless. He faintly sensed Yang Cheng's intention to start a long speech, and interrupted pretending to be impatient, "Jason, this is a business negotiation, please don't talk about things that have nothing to do with the negotiation."

Yang Cheng didn't mind either. She spread her hands and replied in a neither humble nor overbearing manner, "What I said has a lot to do with this acquisition, please don't interrupt me, this is not a polite way, don't you even listen to others patiently, Jeffrey?" Don't you have the grace to speak?"

Jeffrey Katzenberg concealed his embarrassment by pushing his glasses. He was really anxious, but what Yang Cheng said was reasonable. He couldn't stop him, so he pinched his nose and stretched out his hand to signal Yang Cheng to continue.

Yang Cheng secretly smiled inwardly, but remained calm, took a sip of coffee and reorganized the language and continued, "I want to say that the business model of the animation production industry is genetically similar to other manufacturing factories, and the top studios will Scaled by constantly taking orders and creating their own projects, such as Pixar, Digital Realm, DreamWorks, etc.”

The silent flattery made DreamWorks negotiating team members look proud, and the next step was the reversal, "But when the studio gets bigger, scheduling becomes the most important link, like Just like a factory, if it is fully capable of supporting people, as long as there is a gap of one to two months, it will face the danger of breaking the chain of funds.

The order-receiving mode or self-research project of animation production is exactly the same as that of a manufacturing factory. However, what is different from a manufacturing factory is that although the Hollywood animation industry has been moving in the direction of industrialization, animation and special effects still have a certain creative component, rather than Clothes, shoes, or teacups that can be reproduced on a large scale through prototypes, although to a certain extent, it is a process operation, but to a certain extent, it requires animators to express creatively, so it is difficult to replicate production on a large scale like ordinary manufacturing . "

Jeffrey's anxiety intensified, and he interjected again, "Jason, what exactly are you trying to express?"

Regardless of Yang Cheng's disregard, he continued his seemingly illusory, but in fact poignant discussion, "Then spend money on high-quality original projects like DreamWorks,

Can it guarantee the continuous development of the studio? "

Everyone in the meeting room, except Jeffrey Katzenberg, all entered the rhythm of Yang Cheng, unconsciously following the train of thought and falling into thinking.

"Other studios were born from a certain project. After the studio enters the production mode, it needs to continue to produce uninterruptedly, which is similar to the problem of factory scheduling.

However, for DreamWorks’ own creative projects, it takes a lot of time to develop and approve projects in the early stage. Generally speaking, the mid-term and post-production processes of the animation production team have not yet started during this period. As a result, during this gap period, most of the Animators are not producing value.

If DreamWorks can save face, it is also a way to choose to accept external production orders when it is unable to speed up the original pre-development speed.

But this will cause contradictions. In a highly competitive market environment, external orders will naturally dominate the scheduling and employment of the company's animators. Small orders cannot support the company, and large orders mean that it will affect the original progress.

From a commercial point of view, only by mastering the top ideas of the content industry can the long-term prosperity of DreamWorks Animation be possible. However, even God cannot guarantee that every idea of ​​DreamWorks is top-notch. After several failures, it will cause Given the current predicament of DreamWorks, you have no money! "

That's right, Yang Cheng spent a lot of time talking around, almost swallowing his saliva, and the core point he wanted to express in the end was, you guys are almost starving to death, why are you pretending to be a master? Honestly bowing your head, putting on a pitiful gesture and begging for help from others is the kingly way, face or death?

But he didn't do his work for nothing. If he said that you have no money at the beginning, with Jeffrey Katzenberg's ability, he could instantly make up dozens of reasons to refute Yang Cheng.

It's different now. Yang Cheng painstakingly researched and collected information on the changes in the Hollywood animation special effects industry in the past 15 years. After some well-founded and well-quoted discussions, Jeffrey couldn't resist.

Because what Yang Cheng said was the truth, he couldn't hide it or deceive him.

But Yang Cheng wasn't going to take a break, took a sip of coffee, and added fuel to the fire, "And you all have to recognize the fact that the threshold for this industry is getting lower and lower, as hand-painted 2D animation is being produced by CG step by step The CG technology is also being upgraded day by day, and the price is also plummeting.

Not only that, the governments of various countries around the world are increasing subsidies for the animation industry, from tax benefits in Canada to subsidies for production studios in various Asian countries, a large number of studios have been spawned around the world, especially in country Z, South Korea, and India These cheap production labors have gradually become a competitive advantage. Animation special effects companies all over the world are vying for orders from the six major media groups in Hollywood. When they accumulate experience and start to realize their ideas, what will DreamWorks do? "...