Howard Beckerman - "Onward and Upward" - "Animation Spot" - Back Stage (Archive: 1960-2000); New York Vol. 23, Iss. 49, (Dec 3, 1982): 42.

 Onward and Upward

When things get slow in the animation business, the harrassed studio owner looks to whatever available means there is to bring work into the shop. Naturally, advertising is one of the ideas that looms as the surest way to bring attention to you and your work. So the question arises, have you ever considered doing your own television commercial? 

All those years that you have been creating 30-and 60-second spots that lavishly praise this toothpaste or that deodorant, you never once made a spot telling the world about what a great studio you have. Just think of it, your own commercial. But what would you say? It would have to be something to the point, something significant and at least as good as the slogans that go with the nation's top consumer goods. 

You could say that "Animation's The Real Thing," or you could invite people to become part of "The Animation Generation," except that you would have problems explaining it to Coke and Pepsi. The answer is to hire a copywriter. 

Now with a copywriter creating a knockout slogan, you can move onto the visuals. Since that's what you have been doing for all of those national advertisers, it should be easy to figure out some snappy logo or character that will extol what it is you do. Then you realize that your own design style is hopelessly dated, so you do the only natural thing. You hire a designer to develop the theme that the copywriter has been diligently working on. 

Then you hire an assistant copywriter and you make the designer the art director and then hire an assistant art director. Now, while the chief copywriter and the head art director are having important meetings, the assistants can develop the ideas to enhance your commercial. 

While all of this is going on you decide to check out the marketplace so you contact the various television networks to see what sort of time buy would be set to your spot. Since there is so much to learn about so many stations you find it beneficial to hire a time buying specialist to decide on all of the pertinent information. This is smart because it leaves you time to get the animation ready for the commercial. That is if you can get into the meetings that are now going on between the head art director, the chief copywriter, the assistant art director and the assistant copywriter. 

Eventually, the time buyer brings in a young assistant to help with the load, and they join in the meetings with all of the other department heads and assistants. Since you have a small studio with inadequate conference space, the meetings move to a convenient-restaurant across town where the food is good but the service is slow. 

Meanwhile, you are all alone at your desk eating a cottage cheese sandwich which you brought from home. Feeling left out, you hire a secretary to answer the phones and you begin attending these lunchtime meetings. 

At one of the meetings, it is decided that it would be more beneficial to have the studio situated closer to the advertising business, since so many decisions on the proposed commercial relate to that field. The next day you begin the necessary negotiations to move your desks and materials to Madison Avenue. 

Once settled, you can't get over how fine your new place looks. The secretary, who has by now hired a receptionist, has an office for herself. She's using a new copying machine to duplicate the storyboard. Most of the copies are for your new legal department, four lawyers who will determine if your commercial will get past the FCC, FTC, the NAACP and the B'nai B'rith.

At last the fateful day arrives; the storyboard is complete. You are aghast at what has been agreed on by your entire staff, including the new office boy who had always wanted to get into films. They have voted unanimously that the spot should be done in live action! 

Your first thought is to fire the whole lot of them, but then you have second thoughts. You look around and realize that you are now no longer an animation studio. Instead, you have become an advertising agency. 

So you gather your crew together and explain that now you are an advertising agency. You tell them you are going to sell the storyboard to another animation company and then begin soliciting work from national advertisers. It is unanimously decided to have a high level meeting on the subject, after lunch, of course, at a restaurant across town where the food is good and the service is slow.