Studio News from John, Part 7: Let's Learn About Latvia!

Most everything I know about the country of Latvia - which I admit, is not much - I only know because I've known Signe for so long.  I know that the capital of Latvia is Riga, and it's located between Estonia and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, and that it was part of the Soviet Union from the start of World War II until it declared independence in 1990.  

I joke around with Signe by telling her that if weren't for a certain basketball player on the New York Knicks, Kristaps Porzingis, she'd have a real shot at being the most famous Latvian in NYC.  Who knows, maybe someday he'll be traded to another team and she can move up in the local rankings.  

Kristaps Porzingis, at 7'3" the most famous (and tallest) Latvian in NY. (Sturgis Warner added to photo for size comparison)

If you've been following Signe on Facebook, then you know she and Sturgis have been in Latvia for the last three weeks, and she'll be back in New York just in time for Christmas.  But it hasn't been a vacation, they've been supervising the Latvian recording of the dialog and songs for "My Love Affair With Marriage".  

If you remember Signe's film "Rocks in My Pockets", there were two versions released theatrically, one with English dialogue and the other with Latvian dialogue.  Her film was so successful in Latvia that it won Best Screenplay and Best Animated Feature in the Latvian National Film Competition, and also the Best Feature Film Prize at the Riga International Film Festival. Then it was chosen as the official Latvian entry to the Academy's Foreign Film category, which was a great accomplishment for an animated film. 

Obviously, with a story based on Signe's family history, which was set in Latvia, that film had a strong connection with the people of Latvia.  Since part of Signe's next film is set there, too, it makes sense to see if lightning will strike twice, and make a Latvian version of "My Love Affair With Marriage" also.  

This means that the dialogue and songs that were recorded in English earlier this year have to be re-worked and re-recorded with Latvian actors and singers.  So that's what Signe and Sturgis have been doing in Latvia, working with the film's Latvian co-producer, Locomotiv Productions.  

At MUTE Studio in Latvia with Arnis Racinskis and LMND / Limonade

For the songs, they called on the Latvian trio known as LMND/Limonade, which consists of Ieva Katkovska, Kristine Pastare and Iluta Alsberga.  They filled the roles of the Mythology Sirens, who sing advice to the main character about how to behave and fit in with society.

Signe and Sturgis in the studio with voice actor Kaspars Znotins

And now they've moved on from the songs to recording the dialogue.  From what I hear, the work schedule has been very intense, but it's also been very exciting to hear the film's soundtrack coming together, now in two languages. 

So while we've all been rushing around here in New York., getting ready for the holidays, Signe and Sturgis have been hard at work!  I hope that they've allowed themselves a little time to relax and enjoy the trip, and I wish them safe travel back here on Christmas Eve.  

There's always time to play a little game of "Fetch" with a dog.

Studio News from John, Part 6

I'm sorry if I got you all excited with photos of sets and props here at the studio.  Today's topic is going to be a LOT more boring - it's time to talk about accounting, specifically taxes and insurance.  No, I'm not trying to sell you a policy, so don't worry.  But part of running an animation studio is making sure that everyone there is properly paid, and covered by insurance policies in case something bad happens.  You hope that you never have to use these policies by filing a claim, but that's something you can never predict, so in the end it's better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.  

Part of my job when I signed on as office manager was to make sure that the studio was in compliance with all of the payroll and insurance requirements, even though I was the only employee, that meant that Signe had to be registered as an employer with all of the federal and state agencies, so that payroll taxes could be withheld from my pay, and deposited in the proper ways.  And then Signe needed to get worker's compensation and disability policies for her one employee, because those are required by law.  Again, you hope that you're never going to need them, but you still have to have them.  

There's general liability insurance for the studio, which covers property damage and things of that nature, but it doesn't specifically extend to employees who might get hurt while at work, or even on the way to work or the way home.  And that's where worker's compensation and disability come into the picture.  They're not only required by law, but they're worth the extra expense to get piece of mind, just in case there's ever some kind of accident in the studio, where there are things like power tools and electrical equipment, or through a basic slip-and-fall, which can happen anywhere.  So I had to make sure that the studio was in compliance with the law by having these policies. 

Fast-forward a year or two - when production began on "My Love Affair With Marriage" I got to do this whole set-up again for The Marriage Project, LLC so that the same withholdings and insurance coverage could be extended to the film's voice cast (I covered this back in Studio News Part 3).  Even though each actor worked in a recording studio for just a day or two, it's not worth taking any risk, in the event an actor could get injured while in the studio, or even on the street while traveling there or going home.  In the worst-case scenario, if someone filed a claim against the production, it could be up to a judge to determine whether someone was under the supervision of the film's director or producer at the time they were injured, and therefore able to collect compensation for their injury.  

Thankfully, no actors were harmed during the recording of "My Love Affair With Marriage".  (See, we told you guys that everything was going to work out OK...)  Now, the problem with a lot of insurance policies is that you have to estimate the number of employees you're going to have in the first year, and the premium gets based on that.  However, the insurance companies will likely base their premium for the second year based on what happened in the first year - and in this case, with 26 actors employed in the first year, and zero expected to be hired in the second year, this could mean paying a lot for unnecessary coverage.  So, the solution is pretty simple and elegant - just cancel the policy after the first year is over.  Anyone working on the production after that point - on editing or sound, for example, would probably fit the definition of an independent contractor, rather than an employee, anyway.  

We do have three new hires in the studio - though they're all working on the new film, officially they're employees of Signe Baumane, not the LLC.  So for the purposes of payroll and insurance policies they'll fall under the policies that cover the studio, not the production, and this will allow us to keep their salaries, liabilities and coverage separate from that of the actors.  But what goes into hiring new people and then paying them from month to month?  

If you've got a (legal) job somewhere in America, you're no doubt familiar with the fact that you don't get to keep all the money you make at your job - somebody has to make sure that all the correct taxes get withheld from your check, for federal tax, social security, medicare, state and local (NYC) tax.  Years ago, when I was just starting out in the film business and working for a small production company, a wonderful office manager showed me all of the ins and outs of running a payroll, and how to calculate each employee's net from their gross, and then how to make all the correct deposits to the federal and state governments.  What an tremendously valuable gift she gave me, because I've been doing this consistently for 27 years for a variety of companies.  Since every company needs to do this, once you learn how to run a payroll you can find work just about anywhere - it's a valuable skill, sort of like knowing how to type. 

Now, way back in the day, deposits were paid by check and we used little coupons to make the federal deposits at the bank, or send them in the mail to NY State - the coupons looked like this: 

These days, of course, the whole process takes place on-line, so there's no chance of losing the little coupon in the mail or dropping it on the way to the bank.  It's so much easier to make the monthly deposit deadlines this way, too.  (You kids today don't know how good you have things.)  So now at the end of every month I add up the various amounts that were withheld from each employee's pay, log on to two web-sites, and the money gets sent straight from the company's bank account - we don't even have to write checks any more.  

Then at the end of each quarter, there are forms that reconcile the amounts that we DID withhold against the amounts that we SHOULD have withheld.  Now, most of the time these amounts are the same, assuming I did everything right - but just in case there was a slight mistake made, there's this opportunity to correct it every three months.  For the Feds, this means filling out form 941, and for NY State, it's form NYS-45.  Both essentially serve the same function, to reconcile and double-check the last three months of withholding, and make sure everything adds up right.  But on this state form, we also calculate the New York State unemployment due for each quarter, which is based on a small percentage of every employee's pay, or the first $10,900 of it at least.  

(Federal unemployment tax, or FUTA, works a little differently.  Each company owes a small percentage of the first $7,000 each employee makes during the year, and you can deposit this quarterly, or at the end of the year with Form 940 if your company doesn't have a large payroll.  I prefer to do this every quarter so ideally, there will be nothing due at the end of December.)  

Beyond the taxes and contributions withheld from each paycheck, and then the state unemployment and the federal unemployment, the next items that the employers have to be responsible for are worker's compensation and disability.  I mentioned these above, and these are in case anyone gets injured while working, or on the way to or from work, and again, you hope that nobody ever needs to file a claim against them, but the company still needs to have the policies, just in case.

Staying on top of these policies is a constant battle - it seems one of them is always sending a bill for an installment that has to be paid, or at the end of each policy year there's some kind of audit procedure for verifying the actual (not estimated) payroll during that year.  And just the other day we got a notice in the mail asking for both an audit AND a payment on one of the policies, but there was no bill showing the correct amount to pay.  So I called their customer service line, and I was told there was a balance due, and they would e-mail me the audit statement to fill out, and that would determine the billing amount. 

That's all fine, but when they sent me the audit form, it was for the previous year, and I had already filled that exact form out and sent it in over 12 months ago with a payment.  (This is why it's always good to keep a scanned copy of every filled-out form on your computer.)  The customer service rep asked me for the check number of the payment, then confirmed the payment was made, and that there really WASN'T a balance due on the account, that the letter had been sent in error.  But since it had been more than 12 months since that payment, I asked "Shouldn't there have been a new payment due in October, which was last month?"  Yes, but in fact they didn't send out the new bills when they should have, because they're making some kind of adjustment related to the Family Leave Act.  So this year's disability policy payment is now two months late, but it's not our fault, since the insurance company can't seem to get their act together and send out audit statements on time.  Instead they (apparently) decided to bill us again for the year ending October 1, 2016, even though we already filled out that audit form, paid the balance and have the cancelled check to prove it. 

Now, for these three new employees in the studio, working on various aspects of the production of "My Love Affair With Marriage", I've been handing out those W-4 forms which help me calculate each person's withholding, and also the I-9 forms, which are the ones that verify each employee's identity and prove that they are legal to work.  It just so happens that all three new employees are resident aliens (the kind that come from another country, not another planet, come on now....) so this is another part of employing people that is often very confusing.  If they have foreign passports, are they allowed to work in this country, and what do we do if they don't have a Social Security Number?  

Thankfully, technology has now made this part of the process much simpler as well.  We found out that the U.S. Census and Immigration Services has now put this whole process online, with a service called eVerify.  Back in the day, I guess you would just sort of photocopy someone's documents and put them to work, and cross your fingers in the hope that you weren't breaking any laws - but now I can sign on to this eVerify web-site, type in their document IDs and in just a few minutes, I get an on-screen confirmation that this person is cleared to legally work in the U.S. - so no more guesswork is involved, and that's great. 

We're getting close to the end of the year, and that means I'll have to generate W-2 forms for myself and the other employees - if you've never been employed, these are forms that break down exactly how much each employee earned during the calendar year, and also has totals for how much money was withheld for each federal and state tax or contribution item.  This way when each employee files their tax returns next year, this document shows how much money has already been put aside to pay their federal or state tax.  If everything was done correctly, then they shouldn't owe very much tax or get too big of a refund - either of those results could mean that the right amount wasn't withheld, either too little or too much.  

Essentially, what all of this withholding is designed to do is allow people to pay their taxes in advance, if they want to.  Let's say I withhold $300 from the year for federal tax for an employee, then when they do their tax return in April and they find out they owe $300 in tax, it's already taken care of.  That's how it's supposed to work in theory, but it almost never works exactly right, the odds against this are staggering.  To get this right, you'd need to have a crystal ball to know all your deductions, somehow be able to calculate what you owe 12 months in advance, and then be incredibly lucky on top of that.  So nobody ever, ever hits this right on the nose, they either withhold too much and get a refund or withhold too little and have to make up the difference.  But if your situation is somewhat stable from year to year, you can tweak this process, little by little, to get pretty close.  

Then there's the matter of personal preference, some people would rather have a little bit more taken out from their check each pay period to guarantee they get a refund, while other people would rather have more of their money now, and risk having to pay money with their return in April.  Over time it all tends to even out, but that's the beauty of accounting, its debits and credits, checks and balances.  I've come to appreciate it as something of an art form, especially in those cases when all the numbers line up and there's nothing owed and nothing due back.  On those days, math starts to look a little like something magical.

Studio News from John, Part 5

I'm back with another update on the production of "My Love Affair With Marriage".  Last time I took things really easy, I just re-printed what Signe and Sturgis wrote for their Kickstarter update, called "Anatomy of a Set", which was a great breakdown of everything that goes into making just ONE of the approximately 50 sets that will be built for the 150 scenes that will make up this feature film.  (This is a very rough estimate, right now we're assuming that each set could be used for about three separate scenes, but this is just an estimate, and is likely to change.)  

While I was on vacation, my wife and I spent a couple days in Dallas and on our way out of town, we stopped at the famous Southfork Ranch, which is where they shot the TV soap opera "Dallas" back in the 1980's.  Do you remember the Ewings - J.R., Bobby, Sue Ellen, Jock and Miss Ellie?  From 1978 to 1991 (and again on a recent re-boot) these characters lived in a big house on this ranch outside Dallas - but it turns out that they only filmed the exterior shots there, since they didn't have permission to shoot inside the house.  All of the interior scenes were filmed months later, on a soundstage in Los Angeles.  

We were a little disappointed, I mean, we got to see where the Ewings ate their breakfast on the patio next to the pool, but the other rooms of the house didn't look familiar at all.  I got to thinking about how much of a hassle it must have been to shoot this TV show, and to keep track of what each character was wearing, or how they styled their hair, because if a character was seen outside and inside in the same episode, those two scenes were filmed several months apart, and in two different cities, hundreds of miles from each other.  Plus, it seemed like a very inefficient and expensive way to make a TV show, especially since they had to fly everyone from L.A. to Dallas and back, and then keep track of what everyone was wearing every day, for the sake of continuity.  

What does all this have to do with "My Love Affair With Marriage"?  Well, you might think that the easiest way to make a movie or TV show is to start at the beginning, film the first shot first, and the last shot last, like a staged play. And some productions may do that to make things easier for the actors to have real reactions to things, but in most cases movies film their scenes out of order, to either work around difficult actor or location schedules, or just because it makes more sense logistically.  The mysteries of scheduling are probably different for every project, and nobody wants to waste time, money or materials any more than they have to. 

For "My Love Affair With Marriage", Signe is going to be filming background plates for the animation, and since these are real physical sets, with real (miniature) props, it's going to require an incredible amount of organization to keep track of everything.  What if Sturgis builds that hallway scene and they film the backgrounds for two scenes there, and then after breaking down the set they realize that there were really THREE scenes that needed to use that set?  That's a lot of work to have to re-build sets, again and again.  So once that hallway is built, it just makes sense to shoot all of the scenes that use it, and then the set can be broken down and those materials can be used for another set-up. 

Then each scene is going through a number of different phases which involve drawing and animating the characters, doing line-testing, scanning, coloring, compositing and editing.  I'll try to cover these steps as topics in later posts. 

But the point is that we've got to be very careful about what we're doing, because things could get very confusing very quickly.  To make sure that everyone will know what's been done and what hasn't been done, Signe made this chart:  

For every scene from 001 to 150, thanks to the filled-in colors, everyone can now see the progress, what stage each scene is at in the production process.  And slowly over the next two years we'll watch the chart fill up with color.  When everything is green, then the movie will be finished.  

There are a few more sets that have been built recently, in addition to the classroom set that we posted before on Facebook and Instagram, and the hallway we showed you last time.  Now there is also a train car set:

Currently in front of the camera is a carousel in a park with trees:

And the most recent set under construction is what will become Zelma's apartment:

Hmm, I wonder what she pays in rent for that space.  It looks like it still needs a little bit of work.  But at least she's got hardwood floors, maybe she just needs a little bit more furniture, maybe a painting or two would really brighten up the place. 

Every set needs a few props, it turns out, and we now have three people (Margarita, Fiona and Masha) building them, so let's take a look at a few that have been built in the last couple of weeks.  Some of them are self-explanatory, while others are a lot more mysterious....

In addition to the small carousel horses, we now have this larger black horse: 

And this large cat's head, which looks like it's eating a television set - but that's just an image on some paper.  

Here are some rocks - (whatever you do, don't put them in your pockets...)

And this looks like it might become a bathtub, but you never know...

This person looks like he's got a split personality - 

And here's a big fellow with spiky hair, carrying a suitcase and another bag:  

And here's a rather bleak tree, with no leaves: 

But wait, what are those things around the tree that look like bones?  Ah, that would be a life-sized skeleton kit, which Margarita began assembling on Halloween, coincidentally.

I like to call him "Mr. Bones", after a character in the Star Wars: Aftermath novels, but Signe's been calling him "Good Will", which I think is a reference to the guy from the music studio next door who plays a lot of music very loudly.  Sort of like wishful thinking.  Anyway, Mr. Bones is almost all assembled now, and he looks like this: 

I can only imagine what might happen if someone in the building across the street should happen to look over into Signe's studios, like with a pair of binoculars or something, and see Mr. Bones lying on the table.  What would they think is going on over here?  

But what IS going on here?  Why does an animated film need a real (OK, fake) skeleton on a table?  What does this have to do with marriage?  I've read the screenplay, so I have a few theories but I think most people will have to wait to see where Mr. Bones will appear in the final film.  Stay tooned...

Studio News - Anatomy of a Set

Signe and Sturgis recently wrote an update for the Kickstarter backers of "My Love Affair With Marriage", which is all about the process of building the sets for the film.  Since that was going to be the next logical topic for me to cover anyway, it makes sense for me to just reprint that Kickstarter update here, and we can stay right on track.  Here goes: 

Today we would love to share with you our "My Love Affair With Marriage" set-making process. There are 145 scenes in the film and often many shots within each scene. We build and photograph background sets for most of them, creating a 3-D environment on which Signe can animate her 2-D characters. 

One recent set is the hallway of a Soviet school which Zelma, our leading character, attends. A total of 7 scenes take place in and around this hallway. Signe wanted it to be long with doors on each side. And staircases going up and down. Here is her drawing explaining her thoughts. It is about as sophisticated as our set designs get.

                Shaky because it was drawn on the subway

In the carpentry department, Sturgis builds the initial structure - 8 feet long by 16 inches wide with adjoining hallways at each end:

                       Sturgis interprets Signe's sketch with carpentry

Signe glues paper-maché over the wood to create texture and paints a black undercoat:

     Doesn't it look like Signe is messing up Sturgis' beautiful carpentry work? 

5 coats later and this section of the hallway is complete:

                   The black paint underneath helps to bring out the textures

Meanwhile, Sturgis builds the stair unit. The pink stairs were part of a set from a previous scene. We recycle set pieces whenever possible:

                            Sturgis builds with an environmental conscience

One reason we don't spend much time designing sets is that good ideas come to us while we build them. Here we decided to double the length of the up staircase, the unpainted white piece connecting the two previously built sections. We also decided not to put railings on the stairs. Despite potential hazards to animated schoolchildren, we like the simple look:

                            Stairs will be more than just stairs in the film

We move the set to the photography room. To accommodate the staircase unit we have to elevate the whole hallway:

               Like a bride at her wedding, the set is now ready for lighting

Signe wanted a moody look for the first scene in our new hallway. Light and shadows mixed together. The box in the lower left corner is our dimmer board, crucial for sculpting the light:

                                The set is lit and ready for the camera

We have a saying: what does the camera like? Sometimes our Nikon doesn't care for lighting that we think is beautiful. Sometimes it surprises us by liking lighting that to us seems ordinary. Here is an early test shot taken by i-Phone, not the Nikon:

            Test 1: Notice how sharply angled light accents the walls' textures

Another test:

              Test 2: Compare the smoothness of the steps with the textured walls

And another:

Test 3: This shot is from Zelma's point of view - it's what she sees walking to her classroom on her first day at her new school.

In this scene the Boy With Green Eyes, whom 7-year old Zelma is madly in love with, walks out of the boy's room at the end of the hall. As he comes closer (she will be where the camera is) the hallway explodes in glorious colors. They quickly fade when he passes by without acknowledging her:

Orange light was our choice for Zelma's fantasy moment (check out the gels on top)

Once a hallway scene is shot, Signe starts animating that sequence. The small tree on the table behind her is made of paper-mache. We will use it as part of our next set: the carousel in the park, where another 5 scenes will be shot:

When Signe is on a roll (uninterrupted by calls, e-mails and petty life problems) she can do 70 animation drawings a day.

Sometimes we despair at how long animation takes. Sometimes we get plagued with doubt. But seeing the animated-on-paper characters come to life and inhabit our backgrounds is always quite thrilling. 

THANK YOU so much for your support!

Signe, Sturgis and "My Love Affair With Marriage" Team

Studio News from John, Part 4

Before I go forward with more news about the production of "My Love Affair With Marriage", I want to take another step back in time to give some background about the studio, with specific regard to the physical space on 41st St. in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood. 

When I started working for Signe in 2015, her studio was on 53rd St. in Sunset Park, in a converted space very close to the water.  She'd been in that space since leaving Manhattan in 2011 and crossing the river into Brooklyn.  "Rocks in My Pockets" was created in that studio space that had no heat in the winter and no air conditioning in the summer.  And every time it rained, water would leak in from the windows and Signe would have to empty these buckets of water like it was a sinking ship.  The best thing I can say about that space is that it had an absolutely killer view of Staten Island, and if you went up on the roof you could get a panoramic view of New York Harbor.  

View of New York Harbor and Staten Island from the old studio on 53rd St. in Brooklyn

But in 2016 she watched her neighbors moving out one by one, and then when the landlord chose not to renew her lease, it was clear that the building was being cleared out, for what purpose nobody really knew.  So Signe and Sturgis started to read the real estate listings and meet with landlords and agents to find a new studio space.  They found a new space just 12 blocks away - because it turns out that Brooklyn is full of these old warehouses and factories that are being converted to either luxury condos or studio spaces.  You just have to find one and be in the right place at the right time. 

Packing up everything in the old studio on 53rd St. 

So they began the arduous but necessary process of packing up everything in the studio and getting ready to make the trek 12 blocks north to the new space.  Signe had a ton of these paper-maché sets and characters from "Rocks in My Pockets" - they take up a lot of space, and they're relatively light, but still pretty bulky to move.  The most time-consuming and labor-intensive project was probably dismantling the entire laminate floor, board by board, and loading pile after pile of floorboards into a rented truck.  Then the floorboards and shelving had to be moved over in the middle of the night, when nobody else was using the freight elevators in either building

The truck loaded up with floorboards, shelves and sets

Laying down the laminate floorboards in the new space

Slowly the crisis of losing one space also presented itself as an opportunity, a chance to design a new animation studio, literally from the ground up, starting with the floorboards.  Once the floor was put in place, then the furniture could be brought in (Signe wants me to add a plug here for Excellent Quality Movers in Brooklyn) and shifted around to find the best possible arrangement.  Smack dab in the middle of the space, though, was an old conveyor belt left behind by whatever manufacturing company had been in that building before.  Since it couldn't be removed, Sturgis' solution was to build a giant box over it, which would help to separate the new studio into different room-like areas, and also provide some more storage space on top for some of the props from "Rocks".  

Insulating the box covering the old conveyor belt

Building the walls to create the space for the shooting room

A couple of furniture pieces helped to define a small kitchen space (refrigerator, stove, microwave) in one corner and a couple of new walls and curtains closed off another space to create a shooting area, a place where the light could be controlled once photography started on the new feature.  The front area near the door became a place for my desk and another desk, and also a place to put shelves to store DVDs and supplies.  The back area, furthest from the door, got divided into a set-building workshop and a place for Signe to draw.  

The new studio's kitchen area

Studio workspace area with storage space near entrance

In the middle of everything now is a little bit of common space, there's a table where everyone can eat lunch together, and also a couch and a coffee table if anyone should ever have a bit of time to relax.  I know, it's not likely to happen, but it might.  That may be the only couch I've ever seen that doesn't face a TV set - I often wonder how Signe gets by without a TV in her vicinity, but then I remember that she wasn't raised in the U.S., so she doesn't build her life around television like I do.  I have three TV's at home so I can watch in just about every room, it's a lifestyle choice. 

Common area with couch in front of the covered-up conveyor belt

The completed photography room, with curtains that keep out the light from outside

There's plenty of storage space in the new studio for all of Signe's artwork from her previous films, the paper-maché sets and props from "Rocks in My Pockets" and even a few plants.  Maybe the view's not as good as it once was, but there are still plenty of windows to let in natural light.  And there's a heating unit, so we didn't have to wear heavy sweaters and coats all day this past winter, like the year before. 

The studio's heater, named after our favorite actor.

The studio's back area with animator's drawing table and set-building workshop

So far the space has been very productive, even though the move happened very quickly, and there wasn't much time to think about things like workflow or feng shui.  All we had was a floor plan and a rough idea about what should go where, and after that it was all trial and error until everything seemed to be in the right place, or at least close to it.

The biggest problem at the studio right now is the music recording studio that's in the space next door, because they don't have the proper insulation to cancel the heavy bass noise from the hip-hop and dance music that's produced there.  It seems like a lot of their clients must be hard of hearing, because they apparently have to turn the volume up ALL THE WAY while they're working on this music, and it's so loud that the vibrations from the bass make the walls in Signe's studio shake.  She usually has to have one computer devoted solely to playing sounds of nature, like crickets or running water, turned up really loud, just to counter-act the music seeping in from the other studio.  

This is a big problem when you're engaged in a creative activity like animation - and many hours in a row listening to the THUMP-THUMP-THUMP coming from next door is enough to mess with anyone's sanity.  On one level, this is all just part of living in a city and dealing with neighbors, but there's just got to be some kind of legal limit on this.  Signe is now complaining to her landlord and trying to find a solution that will allow her to concentrate on her drawing work for the new film.  Stay tuned for updates on this. 

Studio News from John, Part 3

Before I get on with another update on the production of "My Love Affair With Marriage", I wanted to take some time and describe the process of using SAG actors in an independent animated feature.  I mentioned this in passing last time, but I think the topic deserves a full examination, because it's something of a complicated process with a lot of intricate rules. 

I happen to have a history with the Screen Actors Guild where independent animation is concerned.  I was an associate producer on Bill Plympton's film "Hair High", released in 2004, which was quite possibly the first-ever animated feature that qualified as a low-budget feature according to the rules of what was then SAG (now SAG-AFTRA).  What does this mean?  The union obviously exists to protect the actors, and works to ensure that they are paid what they deserve, but it also allows for high-profile actors to work on smaller independent films if they want, as long as they agree to a smaller salary.  So if Tom Cruise wants to waive his usual $20 million paycheck and go appear in a small indie film, he could do that, assuming that SAG-AFTRA would grant the production a waiver. 

For "Hair High", Bill wanted to hire a number of well-known union actors (Sarah Silverman, Dermot Mulroney, Keith Carradine) but also pay them as cheaply as possible, to keep his overall production costs down. Even though the SAG rules typically allow for low-budget live-action features to use union actors, they seem to have something of a blind spot when it comes to animation.  

I remember my first phone call to inquire about this, and I was told by the Screen Actors Guild that there was no such thing as a low-budget animated feature.  This didn't make sense to me, as I knew Bill had made several of them before ("I Married a Strange Person", "Mutant Aliens").  I realized that SAG was used to dealing with Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar, with production budgets in the millions, and Bill's usual total budget for a feature was more like $200,000.  After some time on the phone explaining Bill's process, my contact at SAG finally agreed that it WAS possible to make an animated feature for six figures and not seven.  

But in order to afford that cast, we needed two things - a waiver from the SAG Advisory Board, and signed statements from the actors stating that they understood that the project was low-budget and therefore they would not be receiving their typical day rates.  The waiver from the board was crucial to this, because it turned out that SAG's production agreement for low-budget films specifically states that it does NOT apply to animated films - unless, of course, the board decides to issue this waiver.  Once we got the waiver, and all of the actors signed their documents agreeing to the lower rate, we could proceed.  

(Bill ended up paying the actors more than he was required to, but I think for most of the cast of "Hair High", it wasn't about the money.  They were either eager to work with Bill Plympton, or perhaps just looking to gain some experience in the world of animation voice-overs.  I know some actors from that cast went on to do more animation work, like Sarah Silverman voiced characters in "Wreck-It Ralph" and "Bob's Burgers", and Justin Long became the voice of Alvin in the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" movies. Also, Dermot Mulroney provided the voice of Green Lantern in the Batman animated series just a couple years later.)  

Time went by, and Bill didn't have a reason to work with union actors on another feature until recently, with his new film "Revengeance".  With actors like Matthew Modine and Dave Foley interested in doing voices, Bill's studio applied for another waiver in 2015, only to be turned down.  The paperwork was re-submitted with a more detailed request, and it was turned down again.  It seems that in the time since 2004, SAG had merged with AFTRA, and a different set of board members was in place, one that was more likely to stick to the letter of the law and less likely to issue this waiver to allow an animated feature to follow the terms of the low-budget agreement. 

Bill's solution to this problem was to make "Revengeance" without any union actors officially involved, and the film's talented co-director, Jim Lujan, provided most of the character voices, with non-union actors completing the other roles.  (I even did the voice for one character in "Revengeance", a DJ named "E-Money", so I may get my 15 minutes of fame yet...)

A year or so later, Signe and Sturgis started casting the voices for "My Love Affair With Marriage", and though I wasn't part of this casting process, I know that Sturgis called on some contacts he had in the theater world, plus other connections put them in touch with Matthew Modine. Other actors, like Emma Kenney and Cameron Monaghan, signed on during the Kickstarter campaign.  Since these actors are all registered members of SAG, going the non-union route was never a possibility for "My Love Affair With Marriage", in order to use the best voice talent available. 

But, we also knew that SAG-AFTRA would be very unlikely to issue a waiver to allow the film to follow the terms of the low-budget or modified-budget agreement - and we were right, they flatly refused to even consider it. So the only recourse was to follow the same rules as any Hollywood film and pay the actors full scale, which they no doubt deserved for their talents, even though the union rules dictated that an hour in the sound studio would equal a full day's pay.  Besides being more expensive in the long run, what else did working with the union entail?  

For starters, this meant that the actors legally became employees working for The Marriage Project, LLC, even though each actor may only have worked for an hour or two.  (The days of the "freelance actor" are a thing of the past.) All federal, state and local taxes needed to be withheld from their checks, and deposited to the proper government accounts.  The production also needed to make contributions to each actor's health and pension funds, as per the terms of the SAG-AFTRA agreement.  And even though their voice-over work would be performed in the relative safety of a sound studio, the production needed to get a workers compensation policy, just in case an actor got injured on the job.  You never know when someone could get hurt by a falling microphone, I guess. 

Now, some of the actors were recorded in New York, while others were based in California.  So for those on the West Coast, the LLC needed to be registered as a California employer, since that's where the work was being performed. Then we had to calculate withholding and make deposits for California state taxes and also disability insurance in that state.  (Again, falling microphones, you never know...)

An interesting side note is that while all of the actors were treated as employees, some of the actors were also incorporated, which made calculating the withholding taxes much easier in those cases.  Remember those weird government laws everyone was talking about a couple of years ago, where according to the law some companies have the same rights as people?  Well, it turns out that works both ways, and some people are also companies.  Some actors have incorporated themselves, so that meant we could pay them their full rate and their "company" would be responsible for all of the taxes and also the contributions to Social Security and Medicare.  I guess that makes financial sense for some actors, who can work on many different films and TV shows over the course of a year.  

I won't bore you with the details of filing quarterly payroll reports, because that's certainly not one of the more glamorous parts of my job - still, it needs to be done.  And then at the end of the year, we'll have to send out those pesky W-2 forms (and 1099 forms to the people who are also companies) but then the process will be complete.  In the end it's kind of satisfying to know that all the paperwork is being filled out properly, and that the states of New York and California are happy, the union is happy, and the actors are happy.  Now Signe just has to animate a film with these voices that will make the audience happy!  

Studio News from John, Part 2

I'm back with part 2 of my look behind the scenes at what goes in to making an independent animated feature.  Last time I talked about getting grant money and running a successful Kickstarter campaign, but what comes after that?  What happens after some production money comes in?  

I think most people might be familiar with the plot of "The Producers", where a Broadway impresario and his nebbishy accountant raise a ton of money to produce a play, then realize they'd be better off in making the worst play ever, and keeping all the money when it fails.  As tempting as that may seem, thankfully the world of filmmaking is not like that.  I imagine that there's more of a responsibility to spend the money wisely, because now that there's a community that has expressed interest in contributing to a film's success, the real-life producers now have a renewed determination to make the best film that they can. 

Some of the Kickstarter rewards packed up and ready for mailing...

The first few months after the Kickstarter campaign were spent mailing out as many of the rewards as possible.  I've seen other campaigns take months or even a year to start sending out rewards, but Signe wanted to get going on that right away.  So some of the pledge money that came from Kickstarter went to creating the reward items and buying mailing supplies and postage.  Then it was time to focus on production, getting things into a higher gear.  

The "LOVE CARDS" that were part of the Kickstarter Rewards sent to backers.

Most of the money raised on Kickstarter was spent on recording the film's soundtrack, which will be a combination of spoken dialogue and songs.  So there were costs for recording studios, sound engineers, the composer's fee for creating the songs, and then the actors' fees. Some of the cast members were based in Los Angeles, so that meant travel expenses for Signe and Sturgis to supervise the recording of their parts, as well as the costs of a second studio and recording engineer in California.  

Signe Baumane and Sturgis Warner during the West Coast actor recording sessions.

The production went through the Screen Actors Guild to secure the best possible voice talent for "My Love Affair With Marriage". (I could probably write an entire blog post about dealing with SAG, that should probably be my next topic...) And part of hiring union actors means payroll taxes, contributions to pension funds, workers compensation insurance, and so on.  I'll get into more detail on this next time.

Sound designer Jeffrey Roy during the voice recording session at 3rd St. ADR in Santa Monica.

18 actors recorded their roles in April 2017 in New York, another 6 were recorded in May in California, and the last two in June and August.  Signe and Sturgis were on hand for the entire sessions, to give the performers direction and the background information about the story to get all of these pieces of dialogue right, and then came the task of assembling all of these pieces into a soundtrack, much like a giant jigsaw puzzle. 

It took several weeks of working with editor Arjun Sheth to select the best takes and put them together with the temporary versions of the songs composed by Kristian Sensini (who also created music for "Rocks in My Pockets") but as a result, it seems that the film's English soundtrack is nearly complete. (A Latvian version will come later...)  

Editor Arjun Sheth putting the best dialogue takes together at Final Frame.

It's a little strange to think that right now, you could listen to the whole film of "My Love Affair With Marriage", and not see anything.  Film is a visual medium first, but the sound also plays an important role, and I guess you've got to start somewhere, right?.  Now the arduous task of creating images to go with all of these sounds can begin, but that's a good thing to talk about next time. 

Studio News from John, Part 1

Hello to all the fans of Signe Baumane and her animation!  I'm John H., her office manager and she's asked me to help her update her blog once (or maybe twice) a week while she's in production on "My Love Affair With Marriage".  I'm sure she'll still post on this blog when she can, but her main focus right now is to keep animating her new feature so that it can be completed in a relatively timely manner.  

That's partly how I came to work for Signe, though we've known each other for over 20 years. We worked together for Bill Plympton for several years, with Signe on the production tasks like painting cels and helping to shoot the animation, and me taking care of the office work, like dealing with film festivals, accounting, e-mail and other day-to-day tasks.  A little over two years ago Signe called me up and asked me to come in for a day and do some consulting.  I was only working part-time then, three days a week since one of my two part-time gigs had folded up shop.  

So I went to visit Signe in her studio in Sunset Park, Brooklyn - she told me that she was planning to start production on her second feature, but she was concerned because her day tended to fill up doing a lot of other tasks, leaving little time for animation.  So I asked her what these tasks were - answering e-mail, dealing with festivals, accounting - and it started to sound really familiar.  I've done all of those things as an office manager, so I suggested that she get herself an office manager. "Great idea!" she said, "But I can't afford an office manager."  So, why not get a part-time office manager - and that's when I realized that I was an office manager, and I was available part-time, so it just sort of made sense. 

It could be just like the 1990's all over again, I figured, with Signe on production and me taking care of the paperwork - though now we're in the digital age of filmmaking and I'd have to learn some new things, like how to send files with new-fangled things like FTP and WeTransfer and Dropbox.  But things like payroll and accounting are still the same, no matter where you go, so I volunteered to get involved on her new, independent animated production, "My Love Affair With Marriage".  

My first task on the production end of things was to copyright the script in October 2015, which at the time was just called "The Marriage Project" and it was not much more than a rough treatment then, without dialogue.  In January 2016 I started re-typing it all with the help of screenwriting software into the proper format, while Signe was writing dialogue for the characters, so that each time we made a new draft, there was more dialogue to add, replacing the story beats in the treatment. By June of 2016 we were on the 20th draft and the script was essentially completed and ready to be copyrighted again. 

By then it was also time to apply for some grants, like the NEA Grant, the Sloan/Tribeca Fund and the U.S. Artists Fellowship.  And while we were unsuccessful in getting funding from those sources, the project had received funding from Women Make Movies and NYSCA, so there was paperwork to be done in order to give those organizations reports on how their funding was being spent.

By the time January 2017 rolled around, Signe and Sturgis had begun the Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the production of "My Love Affair With Marriage", and I helped however I could, whether it was spreading the word on social media or just watching the pledges coming in, and trying to reassure them that the campaign was going to succeed.  Once it did, I began packaging and addressing the rewards that we could fulfill right away, while making notes about the ones that we'd have to send out later on.  

Next time I'll bring you up to speed on all that's happened since the Kickstarter campaign, which is recording all of the actors, completing the soundtrack, building the sets and starting the animation.  Catch you then!

Caption Contest #5

CAPTION CONTEST! What does the woman say to the man? Post your caption in the comments below and get a chance to WIN the caption contest! We'll post a poll of the finalists on the Facebook page for "My Love Affair With Marriage" in a few days. Thank you!

Birthday!

After all night of hard labor on a morning of August 7th, 1964 my mother delivered a baby in a small town's hospital. The first thing the midwife noticed about the baby was that the baby was extraordinarily fat. She put the newborn on a scale and her empirical assessment was confirmed with cold numbers. The baby weighted 4 kilograms and 500 grams. The baby's skin inflated with fat like with air, organized itself in beautiful folds and creases, accenting the daintiness of the baby's fingers and toes. Inspired by the beautiful sight of such wealth, the midwife took the baby around the hospital showing it to other women in various stages of labor as a standard of how a baby should look, as if through this example they could will themselves to a similar achievement.

The moment I learned I to balance my fat body on my dainty feet I started to walk, the moment I got good at walking I started to run. Soon I lost my fat and my feet grew larger and more crude. From time to time my mother would look over my skinny body with ribs showing and would dreamily say:

- You were such a beautiful fat baby. 

And would continue to recount the story of my birth that she was trying to turn into a legend, while I felt she was trying to embarrass me.

Now I start to think that being born fat may have made an impact on the rest of my life. A fat baby is feeling sure that it can survive and may not be as greedy as a skinny one. What if that early contentment of having a source of energy stored all around my tiny bones affected my decision later in life not to hoard wealth and possessions, but focus on more etherial, fleeting things like Love and Success? 

And how much of my personality is affected by being born in August, under a Zodiac sign of Leo? Ambitious, self centered, passionate, driven and strong. Here's to all babies born in August - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!