Former ILM General Manager and Digital Domain Founder Scott Ross broke news on twitter:
DD sold for $30.2M to Galloping Horse (75%) and Reliance (25%).
Variety followed with their report.
Now there might be some in the industry that routinely engage in boogeyman rhetoric that VFX jobs will eventually go to India and China.
The Animation Guild’s Steve Hulett had a very good response to the “Will It Go All Overseas?” question that points to recent research into China’s animation industry:
the quality and production value of these products remain far below those of similar products made in developed countries.
The rhetoric reminds of the late 80’s when the media rhetoric then was “It’s all going to Japan!”. The US was running a trade deficit with the expanding economy of Japan and Sony’s purchase of Columbia Pictures in Culver City caused “Yellow-Peril Journalism” pieces like the Newsweek cover above.
Frontline also did a series called “Losing The War With Japan”:
So after all the rhetoric what happened? Well Sony went on to make record-breaking films, Culver City was rejuvenated, and they even started a little VFX company called Imageworks.
Will the future be as bright for Digital Domain? Time will tell.
Soldier On.
VFX Soldier 
Excellent analogy and use of history, great post, and perfect last sentence.
and now it looks like the studios involved are trying to pull Enders Game and take it elsewhere
http://blog.endernews.com/2012/09/enders-game-vfx-work-likely-to-be-moved.html
Damn this heavy!
This is just bullsh*t. What was the point of Marvel stepping in and speaking up for DD, if they were just going to pull out anyway? Additionally, the way I read this article is that they’re going to take DD’s proprietary assets, and possibly their software, and hand it over to someone else even though they have over a year to do this movie. There hasn’t been a single day the studio has been closed or a single delay in the post-production process as far as anyone knows. How can the current production schedule be in jeopardy? Stop pulling the movies/ money and the company will be fine! Idiots.
Ender’s doesn’t look likely to move. But IM3 has.
If there was karma and justice in the universe, then this should be the case. But there is a sound business reason.
Weta pay their staff. Venice DD office fired over three hundred workers with no notice, no back pay, no severence, no holiday accrued pay, just to save their own skin due to over expansion financial woes of recent years, taking on loss making work for iron man 1 + 2, transformers, tron, etc., So to keep the plates spinning a bit longer they screwed the artists. On the other hand, weta has been able to keep in business, profitably, at the very top level, for a very long time and have never resorted to such cheap tricks.
So, if you wanted to get your movie made, what would you do?
And what is the source of this information?
Ion, do you know what you’re talking about? DD in Venice did not layoff 300 people without notice. You’re confused with DDMG in Florida, which did layoff 300 people in Port St. Lucie, Florida. DD in Venice and Vancouver is now it’s own separate entity from DDMG (Florida) and is now owned by a partnership of Galloping Horse of China and Reliance Mediaworks of India.
ok, can you tell me where the CEO who announced the decision, in person, Mr. Ed Ulbrich, is based?
Ed Ulbrich, is and has always been based in Venice and Playa. He had NOTHING to do with DDMG down in Florida. He is well respected by the artists of DD in Venice.
Yes, Ed is based at the Venice location. Your post could be interpreted as 300 Venice employees being laid off. That’s how I read it. That said, Textor resigned as of end of business on Sept. 6th, presumably because the decision had already been made to close down Florida against his wishes by the DDMG board of directors, who were based out of Florida. This board of directors replaced Textor with Ed. DDMG in Florida closed shop in the morning the next day. Now, I don’t know who stood up in front of the Florida employees and broke the news. I can ask some of them and find out. But it’s really not fair to imply that Ed laid those people off.
@Ymir, just to clarify, Ed didn’t replace Textor. Ed became the CEO of DDP not DDMG, two different positions. I’m not sure that the Florida board had anything to do with his placement. I think that was the independent committee that became involved once the whole bankruptcy was put into motion. However, I can’t confirm that right now.
Thanks for the clarification! Along with the dubious reports coming out, too many “DD’s” to keep straight.
You don’t have to guess any of it. It all published in the current Delaware court case (still on going) and the company accounts for the past five years or so that breaks down DDP, DDMG, etc.,
The bankcuptcy was triggered by a liquidity clause, not overall profit/loss situation per se. The ‘independent’ commitee was the restructuring team reprersented by the investors who triggered the clause (hudson bay fund), who were already invested into DDP and enders game, and their partners ‘searchlight capital fund’ are the folk who put up the bid process as stalking horse. The case is being printed up as the various stages go through. The Judge Brendan Shannon of Delaware district has expressed extreme reservations about the nature and speed of the bancruptcy petition and the links between various players in the process but sanctioned the sale while investigations and judgements are made. Infact, the judge even said that such a case had never been seen before at the Federal Bankruptcy Court. There are also separate Florida State, NYSE and Financial Authority Services investigations and class actions in progress around the timeline and procedures.
@ion, Yes, I know all of that. What I can’t confirm is the actual timeline of events. Ed was actually being called interim-CEO at one point. So, I don’t know if that was because he was put “in charge” right before the chapter 11 filing or not. When he took the reins matters and would shed light on who picked him.
Also, so you know DDMG and DDP are completely separate at this point and DDP is not part of any of the pending lawsuits.
Plus, you can’t just read filings and think they represent what’s really going on. Take the whole Ender’s Game filing. People were typing that it was getting pulled, etc. Guess what, it’s not, and Oddlot never intended to pull it. It was simply a save your ass move in case the the auction was a complete bust, which we knew it wouldn’t be since Searchlight had already made an offer. You wouldn’t know that unless you spoke with people who knew what was going on. That’s when being about to call your contacts at a studio is golden.
OK, my last comment.
@ashes : whooa there fella. You’re putting alot of assumptions and words into the replies that aren’t there. Take a breath, take it slowly. Ender will certainly not be pulled – quite the opposite. The new owners have gained the biggest asset there and will make a big profit on that. And the people behind the petition were already backing it. IM3 certainly has been punted around the scene, post-sale. All should be clearer in a few weeks.
And I wouldn’t always put 100% faith in what ‘golden contacts’ tell you – you **may*** actually be getting some real firsthand experience here – not just what ‘golden’ people want you to believe to fit their agenda. Like the hundreds of DD workers who were saying “I don’t know about relocating to that studio, I’ve heard ……” or “I’ve been offered another job and thinking of leaving because I’ve heard some things …..”. Of course, the ‘golden insiders’ were telling them, “nonsense! All sunshine, lollipops and unicorns here!” If some of them had listened a year ago and starting thinking for themselves, when people were discussing things here … We still have freedom of speech, within limits, to communicate with each other. But that is slowly going, day by day, with the assaults on bloggers, independent journalists, public access television, and so on.
Whatever variety tells you (and any mainstream TV channel or newspaper), reverse the story 100% and consider it from that perspective first, then look into what they are saying stacks up, then basically engage in some critical thinking if the story may have some bearing on your life. Part of the sale deal included covering employee wages by the buyers – but not for the sacked workers, so as to reduce costs. The lawyers are clinging onto a rare case scenario of inside information affecting finance, in order to ‘break’ employment laws. Of course, in court so far, they have not come up with evidence of this, making only a reference to funding from the same people who triggered the petition – so they were apparently negogiating with themselves behind closed doors! But they will get away with it because they have wrapped up the sale in a different corporate entity now, so there is nowhere to get the money. Very common practice. Artists are often ignorant of such things but you should always think about you situation.
Often the weather men warn you of impending eartquakes and tornadoes coming and they are 99.9% wrong most of the time that it will hit you personally. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make provisions – y’know, stock some food, water, gas, even think about moving to another place where there aren’t so many earthquakes or tornadoes. Artists are expendible and not held in high regard at the board level so make sure you can cover all eventualities, think about your personal position regarding your employment. You have to look out for yourself because we have seen, the corporate and legal systems are stacked against you.
You are quite right that the new company is not part of the ongoing legal case per se. that is the whole point of bankruptcy protection. Everyone can just move on fine and dandy. A company entity is granted equal rights to a person in corporate law, but not in every respect. For example, You cannot go and murder someone, then change your name by deed, then say to a judge “no, I didn’t murder that person, that was someone else, we don’t even have the same name!”
A company? Well, that’s a different situation with additional ‘rights’. In 1984, the indian subsiduary of the US corporation Union Carbide caused a environmental chemical spill that devasted the village of bopal, causing thousands of deaths and untold environmental destruction. Before the full results of a negligence investigation and case, they were sold quickly to another US corporation, DOW chemicals. So, despite culpability charges, compensation was never paid because the old company no longer existed. See how this works?
Reliance, one of the new owners, is based in India, and has even helped on production of several of the documentary films and TV productions inverstigations involving this bopal case. This is the world we live in, the best we could have hoped was for legal safe guards to keep natural human behaviour in check, to some degree.
Keep on solderin’
@ion- read between the lines when I say contacts. I don’t mean the average artist. It’s first hand info and not from any media source. I’ve worked on and off at DD for over 10 years, which ou tell from my posts to Throb and Scott Ross. I don’t consider an artist a contact. I consider a dfx sup or higher one.
So, maybe you should be the one to calm down. I’m merely responding to false information other people seem to be posting. DDP and DDMG are two different entities run by two different groups. Textor hardly ever set foot in Venice and almost no one from Venice had anything to do with Florida. Hardly anyone from Venice went down there from the artist pool. The Venice artists didn’t have much of a connection with Florida.
@ashes lordy,lordy…. I am assuming english is your first langauge, that you don’t just skim read with a preset opinion already registered, but …
you said :
“DDP and DDMG are two different entities run by two different groups. Textor hardly ever set foot in Venice and almost no one from Venice had anything to do with Florida”
But then you also confirmed earlier on that it was a venice CEO that announced and signed off on a florida shutdown. How does that stack? You know that all hiring for those employees was sanctioned through venice also? And that it appears the florida board was overturned entriely by a venice CEO. and please see my previous notes about the classification of corporate entities when you say DDMG this and DDP that .. it’s all pretty meanigless in the world of corporate finance and corporate law. That’s the beauty of it – you can do whatever you want and anything else will just disappear down the memory hole at some point. Look at union carbide! Look at MF global! Don’t sweat it, your pay masters are 100% clear from a legal perspective. Now the moral perspective …. well, that’s another story.
The point being, in relation the usefulness of blogs – is that artists – many who come here searching for opinions, should think about their current situations and prospects to protect their interests. You shouldn’t put them down, you sound like you consider them ‘bottom feeders’. They are humas with needs and wants and families. This is one of the few places to get perspectives. Be sure they will be the last peoplpe to know about their employment prospects from anywhere else. Read the blog title “charting the downward march to the bottom’. That sounds like an artist’s perpsective. Business has never been better for CEO’s and inside investors.
Um, I never confirmed that a Venice CEO shutdown Florida. The only CEOs that DD Venice has had recenetly, Cliff, who everyone in Venice disliked, Texor, who again everyone in Venice disliked, and finally Ed, who the artists applauded when it was annonuce. None of those guys shut down Florida. What part of the Venice and Florida didn’t have much to do with each don’t you understand? If you looked at Julie Miller’s post on fxguide to the list of board memebers, you’d see where people were from. That’s a nice easy way for you to find out some info since it’s obvious that’s how you get for info, just places you can look up online which in an industry like entertainment is not very usefully. The media is generally wrong and a step behind. Your best bet on getting info is from people who are actually part of the decision making.
A board came in and looked at that books and made the decision that Florida was a huge hole sucking money out from the other assests and to cut costs shut it down. While it’s horrible for the Florida people, it save Venice and VC. DD is the core group in Venice. So, I’m happy they might survive this.
While I get you love spouting off like a Monday morning qb about law and the vfx industry doesn’t mean you have any idea about the inner workings of the industry, the law, or DD. Your notes, quite frankly, pretty useless and nothing that anyone else could cobble together. Oh, yeah one more nugget for you, Ed signed the paper work, the only entity that can use the name Digital Domain, will be DDP. So, DDMG is going to have to change their name pretty soon.
As for your artists comment. No, I don’t think they are “bottom feeders.” While I value their opinions on artwork and moral, most, especially freelance, have no idea what’s going on behind closed doors. They aren’t involved with bids, client meeting, staffing, etc. You can clearly see this especially when they post wrong info which can be read by other artists. Giving people wrong info is one of the worse things you can do to someone.
IM3 at DD, the deal behind that was that they wanted a specific sequence. That sequence was delayed. So, they took on what was supposed to be a small part to hold them over, then that sequence ballooned. Suddenly they were going to have too much work if they added in the original sequence they were going to work on. Then there was another delay. That’s it, that is basically what happend. The bankruptcy hadn’t even happened at that point. I can’t going ito anymore detail because I promised I wouldn’t. But as I said before, the shot count was influx before, during and after the bankruptcy.
So, I’m not going to sit back and say nothing when people start post wrong info that could hurt DD by starting negative rumors, even if that wasn’t the intent, it can hurt DD. I’m those guys have been through enough without having to deal with this.
Marvel is already out. Iron Man was pulled Friday.
Source?
Marvel
Which Marvel comic book were you reading when you came up with that info? 😉
well, his name *IS* vfxlies 😉
If Prime Focus is any example of what can happen when foreign owners buy a north American VFX company, this can’t end well…
IronMan 3 gone to Framestore London
all of it?
I heard WETA got the bulk of the shots.
Again, source for either?
Not at Framestore – gone to Weta. Source? Marvel. How do I know? Part of one of several teams that was bidding against Weta.
Then you should also know that DD still has several hundred shots on IM3. Seriously people, all you have to do is contact anyone you know over there to find this out. It’s not helping to publicly post misleading info, whether on purpose or not. If you can’t confirm something is gone than don’t say it is, just say you don’t know what’s it’s status is.
But they don’t have what they originally had and Weta now does – that’s a fact.
But that wasn’t related to the bankruptcy. Google search: digital domain iron man 3:
Marvel ended up pulling work from DD anyway, but not because of the bankruptcy. Robert Downey Jr.’s ankle injury forced the pic to use more digital doubles than originally planned, so some vfx were shifted to Weta Digital.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118059222
Thank you VFXsoldier! I cannot understand why people won’t do simple basic research about topics before posting about them. The shot count for IM3 at DD was always influx, before, during, and after the bankruptcy.
Believe what you want – of course every press release in Variety is gospell.
The info is not only from Variety, but from DD sups, execs, and artists over there. Go ahead, contact anyone you know working there and they can tell you .
You are the one claiming DD got work pulled because of the bankruptcy, but have present zero proof. Just because you bid on a sequence does mean all other sequences are going to be removed. This happens all the time in the industry.
Shot counts go up, things get delayed, and schedules have to shift. If a shop finds out they won’t get plates until 2 months after they thought they’d have them, then they might have to back out of the project. It depends on what else they have going on.
Framestore London have some of Iron Man 3, not just Weta.
Guess who else is working on ironman 3? scanline
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1300854/fullcredits
The show is huge, I think everyone is going to end up working on it, especially with their tight schedule. I think it’s a great thing that so many places are going to get work on it. It’s going to keep a lot of places busy.
I work at DD and on Ironman 3. It did not get pulled, we are working hard on some cool shots
Love this post! It brings a tiny bit of hope.
I’m so sick of all the nay-sayers to unionizing cowering behind the idea that all our jobs will go overseas if we stand up for ourselves. If that were 100% viable, it would have happened already. There are so many reasons why the jobs will stay here in the US, or come back here, that I don’t feel like its a valid excuse anymore.
I don’t wish to be confrontational but may I ask what those reasons are?
We’ll all find out in five years. If we end up like the animation industry, Los Angeles will own a smaller slice of the VFX pie, but the pie will be so big that we’ll have more people working in VFX in Los Angeles.
Reblogged this on TNG Visual Effects and commented:
VFX News
Follow the paper trail:
http://www.kccllc.net/Docket/SearchResults.asp?T=3376
I am a former shareholder who lost a significant investment in the DDMG stock and subsequently joined a class action investigation.
You may draw your own conclusions about DD. I have drawn mine. They are as follows: I stand on the sideline having wholly invested in a VFX vendor that failed on all levels and got away with it.
Believe what you want.
this is a VERY complicated matter.. it’s multi layered and complex.
vfxlies… I feel your pain… it sounds like you invested a bunch of money in DDMG, and it seemed that given the statements made by its CEO, Mr. Textor, the financial analysts covering the stock, the press releases of DDMG, and frankly… you’re inability to understand what was happening and your lack of knowledge about the company, the industry and Mr. Textor’s past…. you got screwed. And because of the laws in the US about bankruptcy reorganization, you will most likely not see one red cent.
Time will tell whether Mr. Textor willfully mislead you, the cities of PSL and WPB, other shareholders, the employees of Tradition Studios, FSU, the employees of Stereo Group and private investors. But, I will tell you this.. IMHO ( and I’ve no direct inside info)…but the executives in Venice most probably had nothing to do with the decisions made in FLA… the decisions that placed this great company in grave danger.
I did invest in DDMG’s stock, and I falsely believed Textor’s forward looking statements were sound. I felt strongly that diversification was a good strategy for this company and that short term losses would be made up in long term gains.
After they finish work on Ender’s Game, new investors will have no fiscal use for a company like DD. That is my honest, unbiased opinion.
Your assumption that I lack knowledge about this particular industry, the company, Mr. Textor’s past, etc, are all wrong. I knew full well what I was investing in. I went long on DDMG and came up short. This is part of investing. You take risks. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose.
vfxlies…. given your statements…. you didn’t get screwed…. you were just wrong. Then go home… lick your wounds…. and stop crying about making an “informed”, yet truly stupid investment.
Wow Scott. It was probably truly stupid because , as far as I know DD NEVER made money. Is that true? Wasn’t it always running at a loss? If so, then yes.. buying it and taking it public was indeed truly stupid. And I would have to say that anyone familiar with the VFX industry would have made a very bad investment. That includes Florida.
You insert your foot in mouth on your own. You cashed in on DD, watched the company spiral downward, and yet you somehow think your opinion is valid in all of this. Where is that $100,000 Textor promised you? I thought you had “his word”? Did you not trust him as well?
When a man gives you his word, whether it’s a $100,000 promise, or a forward looking statement that affects your position in the market, you tend to trust that person when they are a CEO of a big company.
Well, that’s the focus of the incresing securities class actions;
Did DD present a false picture on the run up to the IPO(s)?
As as standalone movie studio and lesser extent advertising unit, DD was pretty much finished anyway, prior to Textor. Without Textor, DD would have to have maybe tried to slog it out in the advertising vendor industry in a bigger fashion, setup shop in New York/London against the big established commercials vendors. Not easy either. The movie vfx operation was partly dangled as the IPO carrot, despite being unprofitable, that would provide vertical and horizontal integration into areas that could generate revenues, such as rights and distribution, hologram, movie production, marketing, so on. In the same way similar sized vendors rely on movie vfx as a store front but pull company revenues from other activities such as ILM/Lucas Film, Pixar, Dreamworks, Sony/Columbia Pictures. Maybe they just ran out of time. Maybe pre-IPO DD was like the chicken fillets at the grocery. The ones that are puffed up with injected air and water but maybe only contain 25% actual meat when it hits the pan. The court still has alot of paper trails to follow that one.
It will be interesting to see how the new owners handle things. Galloping Horse maybe have time to develop DD into their other markets, already being established in the East in many areas of production. Particularly if China and India continue to assimilate western-globalized culture. But they are a very young company and they borrowed 20M from communist party funds to cover operational costs going forward. And the source of those funds are ordinary citizen wages – those same folk locked into factories 18 hours a day to make cell phones and sneakers to the West. There
has already been increasing revolts there in the past couple of years, so who knows if such funding may be so ubundant going forward? Depending on communist Police and military suppression would not be a good longterm business plan, so DD may need to start generating profits sooner than later.
That’s the one problem with the fit as-is. Galloping Horse has all the attributes to achieve in the areas where IPO DD failed but so far, Chinese and Indian forays into
North American Markets seem to consist of targeting bulk DVD-duplication, digital film restoration and stereo conversion. High-volume low-margin business that generates
solid revenues. Quite a departure from DD as-is but would bring you into competition, on a big scale, with the biggest players in the field like deluxe and technicolor. With
eyewatering capital cost outlays to boot. There are quite a few differences between then-and-now, looking at that old magazine from Japan/Sony/Columbia. Back then,
sony was truely cash rich (didn’t need to borrow from a dictatorship government), was one of the world’s leading technology inovators, with ready made parallel markets, right
at the start of this whole technology wave. Very different situations. It will be fascinating to see what the new owners have planned, whether its US focused or eastern focused. Still, good luck to everyone. Interesting also to see how long the case will drag on.
jonavark…. and you would know that because? DD did make money… not a great deal… not anything to take public but when I ran DD and after Cameron left… DD was profitable.
vfxlies…I did what? And you would know this because? I cashed out? You have no idea what you are talking about. And I watched it spiral downward? I was not part of the Company when it spiraled downward.
And clearly, you do not understand sarcasm… when I said I had his word… it was very tongue in cheek. John Textor’s “word”? Really? You know the old joke of how do you tell when a salesman is lying? When his lips are moving.
As for trust… I’m from NYC, I don’t trust anyone until they prove to me that they are trustworthy.
ion… you said “As as standalone movie studio and lesser extent advertising unit, DD was pretty much finished anyway, prior to Textor.”
Why would you say that? Prior to Textor DD was a marginally profitable VFX facility like R&H, ILM, WETA etc..
And guess what? DD version 3.0 is basically the same as DD version 1.0 only with a fractional amount of more working capital , different owners, and different management. But all in all, the same business.
Now DD 2.0 prior to the IPO and DD 2.5 after the IPO were the Textor years, as I like to call them, from 2006-2012. The dark ages…. and time will tell, hopefully, and justice should be done, hopefully, to bring any of those involved in any possible wrongdoings to light.
Scott. I didn’t say I know anything. I asked if DD ever made money. You aren’t the only one who was there. So the stories are out there. And while your stories are full of trips to speak in other countries, limo rides and lots ego fluff I’ve never heard you discuss whether it was a complete financial failure or not. Understandably.
SOMEONE made DD look like a golden goose and someone else took the bait and people lost money, jobs and their homes.
Frankly, knowing what I know about this business I would love to have been there to advise anyone thinking about building it into some kind of mega entertainment entity just how bone stupid that idea was.
jonavark… Thanks for reading my blog. I enjoy writing it and many have told me that they enjoy the read as well.
Here is a time line primer… From 1993-1998, Mr, Cameron and Mr. Winston sat on DD’s board and Mr. Cameron was a client having done TRUE LIES, T2/3D, STRANGE DAYS and TITANIC at DD. During that period of time DD was not profitable.
From 1998-2006, DD was a profitable business, albeit, barely. Cameron and Winston, though shareholders had no involvement with DD whatsoever.
In 2006 DD was sold to Wyndcrest (Textor).. From 2006-2012, DD and its subs lost well over $100M .
As to your involvement as an advisor… please let us know who you are, and what you do? I’m always looking for world class talent with great expertise.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/business/fti-consulting-to-collect-15-million-for-sale-of-d/nSNjp/
Mike Katzenstein ordered the closure of the DD Florida studio. Now he’s making big money off the bankruptcy.
Yup, the fees he’s taking, and that does not include the other similar fees by members of the restructure team, are individually greater than the back pay, severence and benefits they wouldn’t pay the fired workers or smaller unsecured creditors. I believe the rare loophole they are trying to use to break employment laws was printed on pink slips as to the decision to fire (made in less than 20 hours). Again in court they couldn’t offer any evidence of ‘closed door’ investment negogiations that were supposed to back this up. But pretty much after a week or two on the project, it sounds from the paperwork that he had already decided on a closedown, about six weeks or so earlier. So that wouldn’t stackup for that story anyway. The interesting one to watch is for October. They are still unravelling some very murky cross-accounting, appears to be some cross accounting between Vencie and Florida and don’t forget, that could involve tax payer money. Given how the venice movie operation hadn’t been profitable for a longtime, things could start to get very interesting around then, if its pursued and links established from the fla to la direction. But that is a big ‘if’ in corporate Amerika. Last week of October and last week of November to be the activity time in the case schedules.
I personally would like to book mark this particular post,
“Digital Domain Purchased by Galloping Horse &
Reliance | VFX Soldier” on my very own site. Will you care
if perhaps I personallydo? Thanks -Dominic
[…] someone in Asia. It’s called Yellow Peril and I’ve pointed that out a few times before here and […]
I love your blog.. very good colors & theme. Did you design this web site yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz reply as I am looking to design my own blog and would like to know where u got this from. thanks
minecraft games for kids