Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by madrox on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @05:11PM
(#21468071)
I worked at Disney for many years. Fun fact: Disney has no CTO...just EVPs per division. This is, in part, because Iger considers himself the CTO Of Disney. That may seem funny to HN, because you’ll never hear him say anything about Kubernetes or Cloud, but he’s made some pretty big technology bets in his tenure that have delivered on Disney’s goals. Disney+ is actually the product of a 2B acquisition of BAMTech. Disney also has a pretty huge chunk of high end graphics tech thanks to investments in ILM, Pixar, and Animation. XLab is another source of tech innovation.
Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company because to them tech takes a back seat to entertainment in the public eye. That can be frustrating and humbling as an engineer, at times, but its definitely enlightening.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by Razengan on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @05:21PM
(#21468182)
> Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company because to them tech takes a back seat to entertainment in the public eye. That can be frustrating and humbling as an engineer, at times, but its definitely enlightening.
Weren't Bob Iger and Steve Jobs close or at least friends?
That kind of echoes Jobs' sentiment about "technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by tboughen on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @05:33PM
(#21468312)
Bob Iger and Steve Jobs were very close friends. I heard an interview of Bob Iger on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon where he spoke at length about his friendship with Steve Jobs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b0c9#play
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by ksec on Thursday November 07, 2019 @09:04AM
(#21473242)
Which makes me think back about Steve Jobs's reference on his tens ( and now hundreds ) of billion in cash pile, waiting for one big bet. I wonder if this bet would be to acquire majority stake in Disney if Steve is still alive.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by grawprog on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @10:31PM
(#21470160)
>Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company
I think more in the early days of film they were more highly regarded for this. Especially among animators. Disney pioneered a lot animation and filmmaking techniques. Though their acquiring and Hmmm 'lifting of source material and content' has always happened. Take a look at Disney's Aladdin vs the Popeye version, the story elements changed from the original story are eerily similar between the two.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by Traster on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @05:22PM
(#21468194)
To be honest the reputation I see in Disney is they just buy everything - and they're very good at that. However, I don't think it's the same thing for Disney to create fantastic to CG animation, and Disney to buy Pixar.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by FillardMillmore on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @07:43PM
(#21469287)
They are of course proficient at worthwhile acquisitions (Marvel and Lucasfilm come to mind) but they also still make movies that rake in the cash. Their recent remake of the Lion King had a box office of 1.655 billion. It is of course debatable whether or not these remakes are as good as the originals or whether they maintain the creativity and originality that Disney has become known for, but it doesn't seem to be debatable that they are successful financially.
Not to mention, Disney is excellent at marketing. Top of their class, I'd say.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by WillPostForFood on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @07:06PM
(#21469017)
I don't think it's the same thing for Disney to create fantastic to CG animation, and Disney to buy Pixar.
They are doing both (creating and buying). They bought Pixar, but are also making movies internally that are comparable in quality like Frozen, Big Hero 6, Moana, and Wreck it Ralph.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by dragonwriter on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @07:14PM
(#21469073)
> bought Pixar, but are also making movies internally that are comparable in quality like Frozen,
Frozen was done after the Pixar acquisition and helmed internally by the same director from Pixar that Disney had sought to have do it when they wanted to do it with Pixar before the acquisition, so, while it wasn't organizationally within Pixar but at Disney Animation Studios, I'm not sure you can really describe it as not independent of the Pixar acquisition.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by WillPostForFood on Friday November 08, 2019 @01:31AM
(#21480368)
Frozen was written by Jennifer Lee and directed by Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck, and produced by Peter Del Vecho. All three were from Disney Animation, none of them ever worked for Pixar.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by aidenn0 on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @06:19PM
(#21468663)
Nice article. One point:
> Disney will have to lose money it could otherwise make in order to differentiate its streaming service.
> Such a move cuts against much industrial organizational economic theory. Theorists posit that corporations like Disney tend not to intentionally lose money just to acquire market power, because foregoing revenue is not, apparently, rational. This theory is nonsense. After all, if Disney is willing to tolerate losses just to drive competitors out of business, then vertical foreclosure is deeply problematic, and perhaps illegal.
The reason it's not typically rational is that you have no guarantee of being able to maintain your monopoly once you've cornered the market. As soon as you raise prices to recoup your losses, competitors will come out of the woodwork. This is not the case with media companies though, because they have a government enforced 95 year monopoly on their content.
If Disney were to put Netflix out of business, buy Netflix's content, and then raise their Disney+ service price, I cannot legally setup a competing service to stream Netflix's old content.
TL;DR: The economic theory that says predatory pricing is usually irrational assumes fungible goods, but media is not fungible.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by echelon on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @11:26PM
(#21470379)
Imagine a world where you could.
It's a tooling problem more than a budget one.
In fifty years I think we'll be telling the machines what stories we want to experience. But between now and that dreamy future, there are intermediate points along the path that empower individual or small groups of creatives to lift mountains - I think of it much in the same way as languages and tools and libraries make it so we don't have to string together vacuum tubes to solve our problems. Think about the kinds of problems filmmakers face: writing a cohesive narrative, finding and lighting a scene, editing massive amounts of video. It's all just a problem of tooling.
When there is a way that lets you or anyone with an ounce of creativity turn their dreams into polished, watchable content, it will democratize storytelling.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by apatters on Thursday November 07, 2019 @01:01AM
(#21470819)
The tools and even the content itself don't really seem to be the fulcrum of a content business. As thousands of derivativr pop songs and mediocre AAA video games attest, it's all about distribution. Those are industries where the tools are already democratized and it doesn't matter. Building, acquiring, partnering with, monopolizing the largest distribution channels wins you the revenue war.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by acdha on Thursday November 07, 2019 @09:25PM
(#21479502)
Not without his first wife (Marcia Lucas, also known for editing Taxi Driver) — I increasingly suspect most of these Great Man narratives are simply omitting the rest of the team.
Re:Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
by woander on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @10:20PM
(#21470108)
Why is it that every post about a company ( Disney today, Stripe yesterday, Microsoft, Gitlab, Bloomberg, , etc ), the top comment is always a PR-style praise of the company?
It's always "I used to work at and so and so is great" or "I know someone who worked at and so and so is great".
Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company because to them tech takes a back seat to entertainment in the public eye. That can be frustrating and humbling as an engineer, at times, but its definitely enlightening.
Weren't Bob Iger and Steve Jobs close or at least friends?
That kind of echoes Jobs' sentiment about "technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”
Tech to these guys is a means to a goal.
I think more in the early days of film they were more highly regarded for this. Especially among animators. Disney pioneered a lot animation and filmmaking techniques. Though their acquiring and Hmmm 'lifting of source material and content' has always happened. Take a look at Disney's Aladdin vs the Popeye version, the story elements changed from the original story are eerily similar between the two.
Not to mention, Disney is excellent at marketing. Top of their class, I'd say.
They are doing both (creating and buying). They bought Pixar, but are also making movies internally that are comparable in quality like Frozen, Big Hero 6, Moana, and Wreck it Ralph.
Frozen was done after the Pixar acquisition and helmed internally by the same director from Pixar that Disney had sought to have do it when they wanted to do it with Pixar before the acquisition, so, while it wasn't organizationally within Pixar but at Disney Animation Studios, I'm not sure you can really describe it as not independent of the Pixar acquisition.
I don't know. Most people who have an inkling about engineering generally regard the theme parks with nothing short of awe.
> Disney will have to lose money it could otherwise make in order to differentiate its streaming service.
> Such a move cuts against much industrial organizational economic theory. Theorists posit that corporations like Disney tend not to intentionally lose money just to acquire market power, because foregoing revenue is not, apparently, rational. This theory is nonsense. After all, if Disney is willing to tolerate losses just to drive competitors out of business, then vertical foreclosure is deeply problematic, and perhaps illegal.
The reason it's not typically rational is that you have no guarantee of being able to maintain your monopoly once you've cornered the market. As soon as you raise prices to recoup your losses, competitors will come out of the woodwork. This is not the case with media companies though, because they have a government enforced 95 year monopoly on their content.
If Disney were to put Netflix out of business, buy Netflix's content, and then raise their Disney+ service price, I cannot legally setup a competing service to stream Netflix's old content.
TL;DR: The economic theory that says predatory pricing is usually irrational assumes fungible goods, but media is not fungible.
It could be. Imagine a world where movies don't cost millions of dollars to make.
It's a tooling problem more than a budget one.
In fifty years I think we'll be telling the machines what stories we want to experience. But between now and that dreamy future, there are intermediate points along the path that empower individual or small groups of creatives to lift mountains - I think of it much in the same way as languages and tools and libraries make it so we don't have to string together vacuum tubes to solve our problems. Think about the kinds of problems filmmakers face: writing a cohesive narrative, finding and lighting a scene, editing massive amounts of video. It's all just a problem of tooling.
When there is a way that lets you or anyone with an ounce of creativity turn their dreams into polished, watchable content, it will democratize storytelling.
If you have ever seen the prequels, neither can George Lucas....
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/the-secret-we...
https://www.webfilmschool.com/independent-filmmaking-the-7-m...
It's always "I used to work at and so and so is great" or "I know someone who worked at and so and so is great".