All this madness with DD was the perfect opportunity for people to get the hell up and do something. Instead we as a community continue the nonsense of anonymous blog posting and the frat boy mentality by strangely “flying flags” of support for a company and not the back bone of industry, the talented, struggling workers.

Textor and the massive shit ball that was Florida was a festering boil that is this industry. No matter what feeling of belonging you may get by working at “company x” the truth is, the only people that care about you, the artist, are basically, no one. So I am just baffled, time and time again at the overall contempt, disrespect and passive aggressiveness that permeates the community. Personalities aside, the general “I got mine” tone is ultimately the demise of our field.

As I’ve said for a LONG time, the problem isn’t the institution, it’s the community and the large blinders we wear. Everyday this business gets worse, not better. Who’s fault is it when people are just letting it happen?

When will people stand up? Ah, fuck it.

Ive seen the enema and it is us.

Because the real one wasn’t there.

http://www.studiodaily.com/2012/09/digital-domain-closes-florida-studio-ceo-textor-resigns/

“DDMG issued another press release to clarify that the company’s board of directors and the interim COO, Michael Katzenstein, who was named earlier this week are running DDMG. “The company is weighing its options with regard to appointing a new chairman and CEO,” the release said. Digital Domain Productions, which is now headed by Ed Ulbrich, is DDMG’s VFX-services component.”

If you have any further doubt please reference the publicly filed court document here: http://www.kccllc.net/Docket/SearchResults.asp?T=3376 dated 9/11/2012 “Declaration of Michael Katzenstein” which states (for the record) “I am the Chief Restructuring Officer of Digital Domain Media Group, Inc. (“DDMG”), et al., the debtors and debtors in possession in the above-captioned cases… On August 29, 2012, I was appointed Interim Chief Operating Officer of the Debtors.

Julie Miller is a straight shooter, you can take what she says to the bank.

YOUR PREVIOUS STATEMENT IS INCORRECT.
(“incorrect” is a polite term used here)

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_st_lucie_county/port_st_lucie/former-digital-domain-employee-sues-company-citing-warn-act

“When we were all gathered together and the new COO said we were not getting severance, immediately in my head, ‘Why don’t I ask about the WARN Act?’ I didn’t, because the anger in the room was already at such a high level, I was actually worried about physical violence happening if anybody brought anything else up at that time,” she explained. “I was more concerned about personal safety for everyone there because we were very closely knit together and I didn’t want anyone to catch on to something and just get so angry that a violent situation could happen. So I kept it to myself, I waited until we had all broken apart in our individual groups. Then I asked, ‘What about the WARN Act?’”

Read more: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_st_lucie_county/port_st_lucie/former-digital-domain-employee-sues-company-citing-warn-act#ixzz29Q58l7dd

(The new COO mentioned here was Ed Ulbrich).

Former employee Minnie Frye and another former employee are the people citing the WARN class action through Outten & Golden LLP law firm in New York. You should consult them because you have been fed incorrect information.

The securities class action involves John Textor and other, former executives. The Florida state class action involves again the same executives, investigating appropraition of taxpayer funding, some of which may have been used to prop-up the ailing west coast operations. The WARN class action is unditified to individuals as of yet. The court investigations are identifying any other executives, officers or representatives who may have been compilicit in a conspiracy to pursue a rushed sale in a personal profit self interest and break federal employment laws. That does not affect the new post chapter-11 coporate entity but could affect individuals as they can then be pursued by civil action for personal wealth assets (property, invetsment holdings, etc.,).

Of course, these are investigations at this time and the court and law firms have some months yet to establish the timescales and events, complicated by the fact that soon afterwards much paperwork seems to have gone missing from the original operations.