In this post I will go over Bloop Animation’s 3 core tenets, and expand on each of them individually.
Why is this important?
Companies often have what they call their “Core values” or “Mission statement”. These values could be just a bunch of corporate sounding words, or they could be a creed the company lives by. Bloop is a relatively new company, and a rather small one, but I felt it’s important for myself and for the future of the company to have some core principles written to guide the direction the brand is going to.
It’s something I can look to when facing a difficult decision.
While this list is short compared to most companies’ core values (and constructed mainly of what NOT to do), I felt it touches on issues that matter to me. I will probably add more to the list over time, as sparingly as possible, but here is the list as of today:
1. Bloop Animation Will Not Take Any Client Work
A lot of smaller animation or VFX studios live off of client work. Some of them decided to be a commercial studio from the get go, while some do it to pay the bills, and pursue their own creative endeavors on the side. Often by producing animated shorts whenever they can. This is not a flawed business model, but it is not the one we at Bloop Animation are going for.
All projects created at Bloop Animation will be created for the studio’s own goals, and will never be dictated by outside entities. That includes commercials, ads, short films etc.
While great offers could be tempting, as they might bring in an influx of fast cash for the company, we aspire to be a brand associated with things you love to watch, read, or learn from. We want to create characters that people will remember, and not temporary work that helps other companies sell their own products.
We want our creations to be long lasting and special.
2. Bloop Animation Will Own All Its Products and IPs
All the rights for the different books, courses, shows, films, characters and any future intellectual properties we produce in the future will always belong to the company.
We have a publishing department at Bloop Animation, bringing in outside authors to publish through us. While the deals we make with those authors are really good for them in terms of profit share, we retain the rights to the book itself, and its content.
There are too many stories about people who lost their own characters, and the importance of owning IPs is very clear to us. Walt Disney lost his own creation – Oswald the rabbit, and he was fired from the studio in which he created him. He then swore to never let it happen again, and went on to create Micky Mouse.
Pixar brought Disney to help fund the distribution of their first film Toy Story, and gave away a lot of the rights to the movie and characters. When they later on refused to create a sequel – Disney threatened to do it without them. And they could. Pixar had no choice, not wanting to see their own creation handled by someone else, and they made the sequel. While later on that relationship turned out to be a good one (mostly due to a change in CEOs), it could have easily been a disaster.
George Lucas, on the other hand, managed to negotiate all the rights to his Star Wars universe from the studios, which enabled him to create an empire, which he solely owned.
If bringing in investors means giving up the rights to our future intellectual properties, we will not do so. It might slow the company down, but in the long run we believe it will pay off. However, bringing in investors could very well happen, on different terms.
3. Bloop Animation Will Not Crowd Fund Its Projects
We will not use crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarted or Indigogo to raise money for our future projects. We do not believe in asking for money from our audience, unless we provide them with value in exchange. We will create something, and then sell it to them, instead of the other way around.
We will consider raising money through investments from qualified sources to fund our projects, as long as they resonate with our other values, but we do not consider crowdfunding as a way to raise money.
Where should I send the tools list to?
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