Dan Satterthwaite
Adam Burns:
So, in a recentspeech you spoke on motivating and inspiring a culture of creativity andinnovation; I'm wondering what are some of the few, the two to three keycomponents of that culture.
Dan Satterthwaite:
Yeah. Well, at DreamWorks first and foremost westart with incredible stories and incredible characters, and you put them inenvironments where a narrative develops and incredible visuals develop. And that naturally takes a creative processto envision and then ultimately execute on creating a feature length film or atelevision special, or a short that comes on a DVD. That inherently is a very, it’s a naturallycreative process, and there’s all kinds of creative processes in the world andall kinds of different creative environments in the world. But the way that we think about it atDreamWorks is that it’s above all else collaborative, and creating anenvironment where people can come together in a really comfortable, safeenvironment and collaborate creatively to make the films and tell the storiesthat we do is at the forefront of our thinking.
So there’s a numberof different things that we do to sort of create and maintain thatcollaborative environment. And it’s theset up of the campus, which you’ve seen, it’s the way that we structure thecompany from a management standpoint, and having both, which has some humanresources challenges which we can talk about. But the structure of the company from a administrative managerstandpoint, but then also a creative leadership standpoint and making sure thateach artist has great leadership and great supervision, but at the same timegreat inspiration. Sometimes that’s notall incumbent in the same human being, and so building a management team aroundpeople that can both manage folks really well, but then also inspire theircreativity has its challenges. Itdefinitely has its challenges from a management standpoint, from a humanresources standpoint, but that’s something that we focus on. So I’d say that’s one thing.
So the physicalenvironment, the way that we sort of structure ourselves organizationally tocreate and environment where collaboration happens. And the third is we use a tremendous amountof technology to help all of our artists and production teams collaborate witheach other. Because not only do we havepeople on the campus here in the Los Angeles, but we have a campus up inRedwood City near San Francisco, we’re developing a group of artists andproduction folks in Bangalore, India. And from a theatrical standpoint we have Shrek, The Musical on Broadway,we’ve got a theatrical team sitting in New York, we’ve got a sales team sittingin London to handle all of our European distribution and sales work. And so how do you keep all of these folksconnected in real time?
People principallymaking films here are in Los Angeles, up in the Bay Area, in NorthernCalifornia, and in Bangalore, and having a technology infrastructure set up sothat collaboration can happen in real time, face-to-face, looking at the exact samevisuals, in some cases on the other side of the planet in real time, to makesure that when a character’s being animated or when a camera is moving throughan environment and a director needs to give notes or direction on a particularlook or particular aspect of that sequence, that the crew who’s listening tothat director talk can also see their face when they’re speaking. So it’s not a conference call, it is videoconference like you’ve never seen before. And hopefully we can show this to you on the tour, but it’s a very, veryincredible piece of technology that was actually co-developed betweenDreamWorks Animation and HP, a video conferencing capability, this was a number of years ago now, that wasand still is state-of-the-art and really fits into the innovation component ofwhat we focus on here in so many different ways.
But using innovationand technology to make sure that we can really carry forward the collaborativeenvironment that ends up making our stories and our films so unique andspecial. So there’s a lot of things thatwe do to focus on developing the environment for creativity andinnovation. The other thing that we doon the creativity side is constantly inspiring and developing the creativity inour artists. It’s one thing, as you andI were saying, that it takes three to three and a half years to produce one ofour films, and most of our artists spend anywhere from 18 months to 2 yearswithin their particular department working on a project. How do you keep them constantly inspired andsort of thinking about the next thing and how to make the shot as unique andemotional and special as possible?
We do all kinds ofprograms, artistic development programs. We take artists out on field trips to different places so that they canexperience things outside of the normal workplace where sometimes if you’re toofamiliar, which all of us become very familiar with our workplace, you start tosort of, it’s very easy to lose focus on what kinds of new things are out therein the world.
So a few examples ofthat are we have a department at the studio called the character effectsdepartment, and character effects deal with the way that cloth lays on acharacter. So an animator will animatethe character, the character effects artist will go in and make sure that if acharacter has long hair, when they turn their head the hair falls over theirshoulder the right way. Or when acharacter raises its arm that the folds in the cloth fold like natural clothwould fold in real life. And they alsodeal with animals, birds for example, and the mechanics of how a bird flies andthe way that their feathers flutter in the air and the way that their feathersfold when they put their wings down. Allof that work comes from the minds of a character effects artist.
And so we had somethings coming up that we needed the character effects artist to reallyunderstand the nature of birds, and we had 2 people in the department of 50 whoreally, really got it and we needed to sort of spread the wealth of thatknowledge. So we actually organized asession for the whole department to spend a half a day with an ornithologist tocome on campus with birds and really get into the description of bird flight,the way that feathers really work and the way that feathers really lay ondifferent kinds of birds so that they could really weave in the naturalelements of the way birds really interact with their environment in ouranimated characters. So we do manythings like that throughout the year, every year, to really not only educate,but also inspire the artists that we have working here.
And so there’s adozen other things that we could talk about, but from a creativity andinnovation standpoint those are some of the things that we focus on.
Adam Burns:
You talked about theHR challenges of having these creative leaders and then these, I suppose moretechnical leaders or standard work productivity leaders; how do you get thebalance between who is in control there, who directs the staff member?
Dan Satterthwaite:
Yeah, it’s prettywell defined. I think that you separatedthe responsibilities well in the way that you just asked that question, that wehave a position called a production supervisor and the production supervisor isreally the person who’s responsible for the productivity, for the performanceof each of our artists and employees, and will work with them, you know, makethem feel great when they’re exceeding expectations, and work with them whenthey’re maybe following a little bit short, either need a little bit ofadditional training or a little bit of additional coaching. When it comes time to do performance reviewsand things like that the production supervisor is really the lead on makingsure that that artist gets the feedback that they need to really be successful.
The actual work thatthe artist is doing, whether it’s an animator or a character effects artist asI was describing, or a lighter to make sure that all of the lighting in each ofour scenes is really highlighting the action and drawing the audiences eye tothe right area of the scene, giving that kind of direction. Wanting a facial expression to be every soslightly different, or wanting action to be faster, that comes from the creativelead. So they’re really giving thecreative direction to that artist on their shot or the work that they areworking on in the moment, and then the partnership between that creative leadand the production supervisor in really making sure that that department isreally, really working at the highest possible quality, at the highest possibleproductivity, that’s very much the partnership of those two people.
And each of thedepartments across all of the various projects that we have going on has thatkind of partnership in place.
Adam Burns:
How much do you thinkthen this, this is taking it slightly outside of DreamWorks, I know you talkedabout it before, but do you think there’s some lessons there then for widerbusiness? Because that’s an unusual way,in wider business terms, to run the department, but it actually seems likequite an effective way.
Dan Satterthwaite:
Yes, it is. It is an environment where you have to bringcreativity, productivity, and innovation together in a way that really allowspeople to do their best work. In anenvironment where, say in a manufacturing environment or as you said atBlockbuster, in more of a retail environment there are elements of creativityand innovation and productivity incumbent in every company, in every job, butit’s more a matter of balance. So in myexperience at Blockbuster on the retail side of that business, it was very,very focused on customer service and productivity. So you put a management structure in place,you put role descriptions in place, you put training and performance reviewsand compensation programs and ways to recognize good behavior and recognizeperformance that sort of pull that behavior out of people.
At Blockbuster whenthe online business was being developed and we were creating a online rentalcompany within a company, and that’s literally what was done at the time, is wevery much wanted this to be a very innovative, very, very nimble, very, veryfast moving, very creative small organization, almost a startup within a large,very, very large corporation. How do youdo that? And what we decided to do atthe time, and at the time it proved to be very successful, is we carved it awayfrom the corporation and we set up a completely separate entity. If you can imagine, Blockbuster’s corporateoffices were on 10 floors at the top of a 50 story building in downtown Dallas,and we set up the online business in a rented out, empty warehouse milesaway. Because we very much wanted it tohave a separate feel, we very much wanted it to have a separate structure, andwe very much wanted the people that we brought in to not feel like they werebeing brought into a large corporation. Because many of those creative, innovative thinkers, particularly in Webdesign and in online businesses, don’t, aren’t appealed, they’re not asattracted to being in a large corporation as they are to being in a very small,almost startup feel. So we set it upthat way and we were able to attract some of the best of the best in terms ofWeb design and online business analytics that we were able to hire in andcreate this environment for them that ultimately had all the benefits offunding and structure that a corporation would offer, but also had all thebenefits of a very small intimate feel with very fast decision making model, whichhelped that business get launched within a very short period of time.
Adam Burns:
Absolutely, thank youvery much. So we were going to talkabout the effects we communicate in companies, but I think you did that withthe, your lovely explanation of the state-of-the-art video conferencing so I’lljust move on. How do assessinterviewees, or do you in fact assess interviewees for that sort of attitudeversus aptitude? And then how do theirfirst couple of days, what do they look like culturally?
Dan Satterthwaite:
Yeah. That’s one of the hardest things to do, forsure. It is, it’s infinitely easier,although challenging, it’s infinitely easier to look at a person’s resume ortheir portfolio or their demo reel and assess their work or assess theirexperience. Making sure that someoneculturally is going to fit into the organization, work really well with theircolleagues and with their team, and really kind of be additive to theenterprise is a huge challenge. Andthat’s a challenge everywhere I’ve ever been, every business leader and HRprofessional in the world deals with that as one of the utmost challenges. And it is among one of the most importantthings that the HR community can do to sort of contribute to the success of anorganization is to make sure that the cultural fit of the people coming intothe company and their introduction to the company is second to none.
The way that it’sdone, we do a number of things at DreamWorks to help in that regard, and by nostretch of the imagination do we hit it 100 percent of the time, I don't thinkanybody does. But I would say that wehit it higher than most.
The interview processhere is extensive. It is not an easyplace to land a job. One is because it’sa desirable place to be, two is there’s a tremendous community of very, verytalented people out in the world to talk to and to consider joining theDreamWorks team. But once someone doescome in and we spend time talking to them about their background experience andwhat it’s like working at DreamWorks, there’s a lot of people internallyinvolved in meeting that person. Onaverage most candidates for jobs here meet between 10 and 15 people, and we tryto do that within a fairly short timeline. They don’t have to come back to the campus 15 times, usually. Sometimes, rarely.
But we schedulethings in a way that they might come by once, meet five or six people, if thatall seems to really go well then they’ll come back and meet about that samenumber of people again. The reason thatwe do that is because when a person joins the company, particularly into theproduction environment, they will work with many, many people over their careerhere. It’s not as much like working in atechnology department or in the finance department or the marketing departmentwhere you’ll come in and you’re part of a team and you have a department headand you work together for a long period of time. In a production environment, as I said, althoughit takes three, three and a half years to produce a film, each person isworking on that film between a year and two, and then they’re working on theirnext project. And they could workingwith an entirely new team of people, and so really making sure that everyonethat joins the company knows the full brush of people that they might work within the future but that we have lots of points of view on how that person willnot only do from a work quality productivity standpoint, which usually thesupervisor assesses, but also how they’ll interact with the team and how goodthey’ll be to the team of people that they’ll be working with. And getting multiple points of view we foundto be a really successful way to help with that.
So we do that. We also do cross site interviews. So the collaboration technology, the videoconferencing technology that we use we also use for the interview processbecause in many cases, because between the Los Angeles campus and the NorthernCalifornia campus we could be producing a Shrek Four, for example which we’rein the middle of production on right now, is primarily in Los Angeles, here inGlendale, but we have a crew up in Redwood City working on the same film. So making sure that people in Redwood City,supervisors in Redwood City and supervisors in Glendale feel good about the crewthat they have working on their particular project is really important. And so we’ll use cross site interviewing allthe time, all the time in the process.
So there's a numberof things that we do to help make sure that the people who join the company notonly are great in terms of the quality and caliber of their work, but they’rereally going to feel great about being part of the DreamWorks team.
You also asked aboutso in their first couple of days here then how do you make sure that you knowthat you made a good choice. Usually youdon’t know within a couple of days, you’ll know within maybe a month orso. But most of our folks start onMondays and we go through the morning of new hire orientation, making sure thateverybody comes in and understands what DreamWorks is all about, many of ourphilosophies, principles, what the culture is here. The way we think about creating anenvironment for people and our expectations not only of employees, but ofmanagement and supervision, about the way that we maintain our culture and thethat we treat people. We spend a lot oftime talking about that.
We also spend a lotof time talking about our projects because out of the incredible physicalenvironment and the very, very employee friendly policies and benefits andthings that we offer, career development and training, what tends to be thebiggest attraction and the most inspirational thing for everybody that workshere, regardless of what department they work in, are the projects themselves. So when people see beyond what the publicknows that DreamWorks is working on, we’ve announced our film slate through2012, so we talk with every new employee about the story and the characters ofall of those projects that we’re doing on their first day. We reinforce that over time, but we talkabout it starting on the first day.
We also share withthem some of the things that are in the hopper that aren’t publicly releasedyet because we still haven’t greenlit, but they’re ideas that are indevelopment and they’re hugely exciting for people to hear about those kinds ofthings. Whether they’re going todirectly work on one of those projects or whether they just know that they nowwork for a company who is developing these kinds of unique stories andcharacters, it’s very, very exciting for someone on their first day.
And then they gothrough a bunch of training over the course of that information and intoTuesday, and then every person that joins the company has a mentor that theywork with. Sometimes that mentor iswithin their department, sometimes the mentor is in a different department, andthat’s someone beside their own supervisor who can really help them getacclimated to the environment, ask questions of if their supervisor isn’taround or isn’t available or it’s something that they want to ask about. So we do a number of things that make surethat new employees really have a level of support, especially in their firstcouple of months here as they learn their job and they learn the newenvironment and they learn the way that the company operates.
Adam Burns:
Absolutely. When you talk about telling them the filmsthat are upcoming, I suppose in a way, I know it was one of the first questionsI asked was how long does it take to make a film.
Dan Satterthwaite:
Yes.
Adam Burns:
You’re letting theminto the club, aren’t you?
Dan Satterthwaite:
Absolutely.
Adam Burns:
You’re creating that,taking away the veil and allowing them behind the scenes.
Dan Satterthwaite:
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Adam Burns:
Right. Tell us then a little bit about you, if youdon’t mind. Obviously there is a cultureabout DreamWorks which was here, DreamWorks Animation, which was here when youstarted. But it’s very much, I imagine,your job to keep an eye on that culture, to test its temperature and to enhanceand add stuff to it. Does that mean thenyou have to very much walk the walk? Doyou have to be the way that you want DreamWorks to be?
Dan Satterthwaite:
For sure. Yeah, for sure.
Adam Burns:
So, how does thatimpact your daily business? You know,because we all have a bit of a grumpy day.
Dan Satterthwaite:
Oh, of course, ofcourse. Yeah. And what belies the beautiful campus and evenif you were to walk around our campus up in Northern California or even walkthrough the studio in India, there is an air of excitement and an air of almostpeacefulness in a way. And what thatbelies is that making films is really hard work and it can be very, verystressful, and it takes a tremendous amount of people working incredibly hardfor a very long time to do the things that we do. So none of this doesn’t come without baddays, and bad days will come along, but I think that what’s most important andstays at the forefront, certainly of my mind, and quite frankly of the rest ofthe management team’s mind, including our CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg who very much demonstrateson a daily, hourly basis his dedication and commitment to the people that workhere. you can have a bad day, but veryquickly remind yourself of the bigger plan, and the bigger plan is that peoplehave a place to be where they feel like they can do their best work and thatthe decisions that get made that affect people that work here always have theaffect of those decisions on people at the forefront. I can tell you that in my two plus years hereso far, which in the scheme of things is not that long, that’s beendemonstrated time and time again.
So yes, we certainlyhave stressful days, certainly cranky from time to time. And in the moment if you treat someone badly,you apologize and you move on, but more often than not it’s very easy to walkoutside, look out the window, or to talk to one of your colleagues who’s doingsome incredible work and sort of forget about that and remember why we’rehere. That ultimately the bigger pictureis making sure that employees here fee secure, safe, and that they have anenvironment where they can really do their best work. That’s one of the things that we really setout about this time last year when the economy in the U.S., and certainly verysoon thereafter the economy globally was in complete turmoil, and companiescertainly across the U.S. and particularly in California which is principallywhere almost all of our employees are, was extreme uncertainty and extremeanxiety and stress about what the future was going to hold. And we held a company wide meeting, which wedo on a very regular basis, again using the cross site technology to letJeffrey, the rest of the management team literally talk to all of the employeesat the same moment.
We’ll talk aboutupcoming films, we’ll talk about what’s going in the company generally. We’ll talk about new programs and projectsthat are coming, but in that moment, January of 2009 when we got everybody inthe company together, connected all of our facilities cross site, we talkedabout what was going on in the world. Atthat moment no one really knew exactly what was going to happen and no one knewhow long whatever it was that was going to happen was going to last. But the messages that we sent to our peoplearound the things that were of the utmost importance to the management team atDreamWorks was to make sure that people here felt secure and that whatvirtually every other major company was doing in the state and even across theentire country was mass layoffs, or at least the threat of people losing jobs,and we wanted to make sure that people knew that if that time ever came atDreamWorks it would be the absolute last resort. And that everyone here knew that we wouldmake every other choice available before we had to make that choice, and wehave not made that choice.
We have not laid offin mass anybody over the course of this incredibly tumultuous year globally andwe feel very fortunate about that. We’vemade some very, very tough choices, and that doesn’t exclude the normal comingsand goings of people as they come and go in terms of working here. But that is a commitment that we made becausekeeping people focused on creative work and keeping people focused oninnovation which inherently requires people to take risks, you can’t haveinnovation without people taking risks. In an environment where people are fearful they will start not takingrisks, and we just cannot afford to let the creativity or innovation thatdrives this entire company in any way be affected by the uncertainty and fearthat the outside world has created over the last 18 months here.
So that was a reallyimportant signal that we’ve sent, probably one of the most important thingsthat we’ve said to people all year.
Adam Burns:
Absolutely. I noticed that, I’ve had a bit of a nosearound, not a terribly big nose around, I’m not going to give away any secrets,but it’s interesting because on the walls you have these big posters, they’reall motivational. Pluck makes luck, andthey’re all work ethos based. Which isinteresting because you’re getting across that message that you do have towork, that this is a place of work, but in it perhaps a more friendly way. Do you think then that there is a good way tocommunicate, to get that balance between you’re here to work, but there issecurity.
Dan Satterthwaite:
Yes. Yeah. And that comes through in the day-to-day doings of what we do, andeveryone here knows that they’ve got a particular project that needs to be doneand it’s got a hard deadline in place. Or they’ve got a particular shot or sequence that they’re working onwhich have deadlines attached to them, quotas even in some departments attachedto them. Which you wouldn’t think offilm making in a really creative environment involving quotas, but in fact itdoes because to produce 85 minutes of animation, which is the average length ofone of our feature films, over the course of 3 ½ years takes an enormous amountof precise scheduling. Because over thecourse of that 3 ½ years 350 people would have worked on that film, and so youreally have to manage the schedule, the budget, and productivity along with thecreativity with as much precision as you can possibly muster.
So you can walkaround the halls and talk to people who work here and more often than not theyare rushed to get something done because there is definitely a sense of urgencythere. So that’s the nature of the work,that’s operationally how the work gets done at an animation studio. I don’t think DreamWorks animation is muchdifferent than most other animation studios in that respect. But what we do in addition to that I think iswhat actually make us unique. The breaksthat we let people take, the events that we host on campus for employees, thekinds of opportunities, like bring an ornithologist in to talk to our charactereffects artists; those are the kinds of things that I think make DreamWorks avery different, unique environment. Thebalances, the extremely hard work with some really crazy fun things to do.
I mean an example ofthis is that, I’m not sure if you’ve seen the campus expansion work that’sgoing on, but we are building an entirely new building on campus because we’veliterally outgrown the space that we have. As large as the place is, we’ve outgrown it. And so we’re building an additional 150,000square feet by adding on space to one of our existing buildings here on campusbecause we’ve been staffing up over the course of the last few years andliterally outgrew the space that we had. Well, an important thing in environment in Los Angeles when you bring innew people to work is where are you going to park, because everything in L.A.is based on your car. So you transportyourself to work, where are you going to park your car? So we needed to expand the parking lot thatwe had.
So one of the thingsthat we came up with last summer was we’re going to open this new, expandedparking lot, we’ve got no other reason to celebrate at the moment, so why don’twe celebrate the opening of our parking lot? So we decided to have a party on the roof of the parking lot. And then we decided to get an even a littlebit crazier and said, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a live band perform on theparking lot?” And Jeffrey suggested thatwe have Hans Zimmer, who is a world renowned composer, and in fact does most ofthe composing on the scores for our films.
I said, “Jeffrey, areyou kidding? Would he do that?” He said, “Of course, I’ll call him.” So he called him and Hans, Steve Jablowski,John Powell, I mean these are incredible musical composers, award winningcomposers. Hans Zimmer has performed forthe queen of England and other royalty worldwide, these are world renownedcomposers who we’re fortunate to have work on many of our films performed forus live with a 25 piece orchestra on the roof of our parking garage one eveningduring a sunset for all 1,000 employees that work in Glendale. And it was a spectacular event, it wasabsolutely spectacular.
Then, of course,people go home having wonderful thoughts about that event and they get back towork first thing the next morning and they’re back to work again. So it’s those kinds of things, that’s a grandscale event. On a more day-to-day basis,as you’ll see when you walk around campus, we have table tennis tablesscattered, we have foosball games, we have a game room so that when people doneed to take a step away, because much of the work that they do is veryintense. Much of it is either at a padof paper or in front of a computer screen, and if you do that for too longwithout a break you lose the juice.
Adam Burns:
How would you defineyour leadership style, and for you what were the defining moments in thatleadership style?
Dan Satterthwaite:
I would say thatthere’s, a number of facets to what I try to do as a leader, and first andforemost having the best possible people in jobs on the team is the mostimportant thing that I can do as a leader. Making sure that they each have feedback, direction, and inspiration todo their best possible work. My ultimategoal is to bring the best possible people into the roles within the HR team atDreamWorks and then allow them to go for it and not micromanage unlessmicromanagement is needed. I find thatmicromanagement is needed usually only in cases where a person’s learningsomething new, or they’re a little bit lost in their role, or they’re just,they’re not cutting it. They’re notfocusing the way that they need to focus.
So my leadershipstyle is more of a situational one, where given the circumstances and thesituation and the person that I’m working with, I’ll give different types ofleadership and management to. Myultimate goal is to be able to step back and let a person shine and do anawesome job, and to be there for them to help break down any barriers, or toescalate issues and challenges that they can’t do on their own. Ultimately let them really succeed.
In other cases whereI need to get a little bit more involved in something, for the reasons I said,then I’ll step in and I’ll get a little bit more involved. So I don’t believe in a single leadershipstyle other than to be able to know how to address a diversity of differentkinds of situations and tailor your style to solve that kind of situation asbest as it can be solved. So that’s whatI would say is probably the principle leadership style that I aspire to. By no means am I there. I’m constantly learning, constantly makingmistakes, constantly trying to do better; as I think all leaders ultimately do.
But early in mycareer I didn’t do those things at all, I attempted to manage everyone the sameway which tended to be too closely and to cause people to push away. I lost sight early in my career of theimportance of the face-to-face conversation and trying to deal with somedifficult conversations over the phone or through e-mail; it’s an entirelyineffective way to deal with sensitive, important conversations with people. They have to be face-to-face, and as hard asthat might be, especially when you are geographically dispersed, that’s themost important way. That is the mosteffective way to talk with people, both in terms of giving recognition for aphenomenal job as well as coaching someone or guiding them in a differentdirection because their current direction is not working.
Face-to-faceconversations, without question, is something that I didn’t have in my sightsearly in my career; I certainly do now. But from a human resources standpoint and beyond the leadership of thehuman resources team, providing leadership to an entire organization, whichevery human resources leader has to take responsibility for ultimately andmaking sure that the tone of leadership across the whole enterprise isconsistent and of a very, very high level and a high quality. The most important thing that I’ve learnedover the course of my career is regardless of the circumstances, regardless ofwhat’s going on, treating people with the utmost respect and dignity andempathy is the single most important thing that any human resources leader canensure for the people that they’re responsible for.
That’s in the best ofthe times and in the worst of times. Soin the best of times it’s easy to recognize, recognize, recognize, andsometimes lose sight of each individual person’s contributions anduniqueness. In the worst of times when acompany is shutting down or a company is contracting and people are losingtheir jobs or they’re being asked to do more than they can do as a human being,treating every individual as an individual and with dignity and respect, hugelessons learned early in my career. Without a doubt that is the thing that is always top of mind for me isreally making sure that the compassion for the people and the recognition forthe work that they do and treating people with respect and dignity at all costsis without a questions one of the most important things that an HR leader cando.
Adam Burns:
Absolutely. The filmmaking industry, I’m guessing, ishugely competitive. How do you make surethat your staff are happy at DreamWorks, but at the same time acknowledge andrecognize that competition?
Dan Satterthwaite:
Yeah, there’s a lotof competition out there, but competition maybe in not the way that mostbusinesses think about competition. Because there’s Pixar, there’s Disney, there’s Blue Sky, there’s manycompanies out there that are doing computer generated animation work. What’s interesting is when you think about thegeneric form of competition where you are literally going head to head withanother company for the same customers, for the same dollars, it’s not exactlythe kind of competition that we experience with other studios. Because rarely do two of our films open up ontop of each other, if you think about it. they’re generally paced out a little bit, there’ll be some overlap butit’s not certainly that kind of head to head competition.
So I think thecompetition that you’re referring to and that many people who watch DreamWorksAnimation and some of the other studios think about is the critical acclaim andthe ultimate money that’s made on the films, and comparing those kinds ofthings between different studios’ films and projects. I think that’s how most people think aboutcompetition in this space. We thinkabout it that way too, but we don’t think about it in terms of we’re looking toone up another studio on a piece of work.
You think about thework that’s out there right now. I meanPixar does phenomenal work, we’ve got a high degree of respect for the workthat they do. Disney is the same. Sony Animation the same. They tell uniquestories with great characters in really unique environments, and DreamWorksdoes too.
I think what manyemployees and artists that work at DreamWorks feel and what many of the peoplethat we talk about joining the company feel is that there is a uniqueness tothe look and feel of DreamWorks films and TV specials and projects that is veryintriguing. The days, years ago, tenyears ago when almost every animated film that would come out from any studiocentered around fuzzy animals that talked. Most stories centered around fuzzy animals that talked and then Shrekemerged, so there’s a green ogre that talks, and so you fast forward five, tenyears from those days and the diversity of characters and stories andenvironments is extremely high.
When you think aboutthe kinds of things that DreamWorks Animation has done just in the last fewyears from the Shrek franchise to the Madagascar films, which are talkinganimals. To Kung Fu Panda which, although is a talking animal, has such a heartand such a rich, deep environment that that story was told in, and such amorality tale in a way of someone finding themselves, it speaks to such a broadaudience. To Monster versus Aliens,which couldn’t be more different, but it was unique and fun and very actionoriented in its own way.
To our next movie Howto Train Your Dragon, which again will come back to a very action oriented,it’s not a comedy. Most of our films areprincipally comedy with some action. Howto Train your Dragon is an action film and almost dramatic in many ways withsome comedic elements in it. Butultimately it is a very, very heartwarming; coming of age kind of story withthe most incredible visuals and the most incredible characters you’ve seen inan animated movie.
Then comes Shrek theFourth and then Megamind later next year, the diversity of those kinds of filmsand the number of projects that we have going on is unlike any other studio outthere. So from a competition standpointI don’t necessarily think about it as head to head competition as much as I doas the kinds of projects that we’re doing and the diversity of those projectsis extremely attractive and exciting and inspirational for the people who workhere and the people who want to work here. so that’s what I think about when I think about competition.
Adam Burns:
Dan, thank you verymuch indeed.
Dan Satterthwaite:
Thank you.