It's interesting how all of the actors trash the movie now, but they sure as heck don't complain about the paycheck. Stick it in your grandma Sienna and learn how to act first then you can come to me and complain about a movie you were in being bad. Look at yourself first.
Do you realize how out of place that sentiment is? Do you love every day at work? If you do, hey that's great, but its sure not universal.
I've worked on a lot of shitty cartoons in my time, but some of them are favourites of people ( kids, adults, whoever) that watch them.
However that simple fact doesn't make the cartoons any less shitty. I'd be dishonest if I played up the turds just because someone else likes them. They are still turds. I know the kind of sentiment Miller speaks of very well.
I don't complain about the pay-cheques either, by the way.
Let's face it, sometimes at the end of the day this stuff is just a job that people do for pay and little else. Yeah, it "means something" to the fans, but THAT is all in the fan's head. For those that do it professionally, this stuff isn't always the kind of thing they are fans of, or even like, and YES they are just there to do the job they are asked to do and to collect a pay-cheque.
The difference here is; I don't go around to the media and publicly trash a multi-million dollar property after being handed a large six figure paycheck and I doubt you have ever done the same. Complaining to friends and co workers is one thing. It's not to the extreme as Charlie Sheen but to me that is just as unprofessional and in poor taste. In my opinion that can not be excused my friends. Hollywood's biggest problem is these actors feel they are entitled to say what they please because they hit it big.
That doesn't fly with me.
So its just a matter of scale?? What's the difference then? 6 figure income means anything different from a 4-figure income?
Crap is crap, and denying that is absurd.
Because one is paid to do something doesn't mean they divest themselves of an opinion, public or private. The profession is to do the work to meet the needs of the product or the client..........not to cheerlead it when it doesn't really deserve it. Oh, sure, sometimes one is paid to cheerlead as well, to sell the darn thing--but to cheerlead it forever? Nah, the payout only goes so far and then, imo, the personal opinions can kick back into play. An actor's profession is to play the part of a role, and when that role is done to move on and play another different part. If/when they are cut loose from obligations to continue the part, then sure--they can speak their mind.
If they have done their job, made their client/employer happy, then that is all that really matters. What the audience thinks isn't relevant.
Couple of years ago, I was discussing cartoons with a store owner I know, and I mentioned that I had worked on Yvon of the Yukon. As I said that, a lady came out from behind some of the racks in the store and proceeded to rant and berate me for working on this "insulting and horrible" cartoon. She just wouldn't let up.
I let her go at it, let hre rant until she was finished and then calmly told her that it was just a job I was hired to do, and that her reaction was all out of proportion to what the thing was, and what my involvement in it was. That and if she didn't like it, or did not like the work done on it, there was NOTHING stopping her from changing the channel and watching something else.
That is the gist of it.
The folks that make this stuff are NOT beholden to the audience in ANY WAY. Believing that they are is a bizarre myth that a lot of fans and audiences seem to perpetuate. The actors do not have to be likeable or even personable off-camera--or even like the show they are on because they are just hired to play a part--and the audience isn't the one signing the cheque.
The only thing Sienna Miller is "guilty" of is having an opinion that fans don't think she should have, but its one she is perfectly entitled to have.
Oh, and I have gone around and trashed multi-million dollar properties--and I'll do it right now. I just finished storyboard work on Speed Racer: the Next Generation. This thing is the biggest piece of monkey dung I have worked on in a long time. Go check it out on Youtube--its there. Its a FLASH animate cartoon, with wretched CGI--this thing is just awful. Reason: it done on the cheap. Yeah.....a 6 million dollar budget for the 26 episode season and its done like utter manure.
Part of the problem is that there's greedy fingers pinching dollars all along the way on this thing--so much so that by the time the money trickles down to the production level, the pay-outs are dismal. They have to get some incompetent hack shop in India to animate this garbage because they cannot (or refuse to afford) anything better.
In a word, this stiff is pap. That is ALL it is. Its nothing special.........its riding the coattails of the movie and cashing in on a brand name.
There is NOTHING about this cartoon that will set the world on fire.
And so much so that some of the investors in the show figured they could play Bollywood mogul--until it came time to actually invest money into the production.
Then they balked.
It was fun playing bigshot, I'm sure..until it came time to put their money where their mouth is
Preproduction on the show was supposed to have been finished 4 months ago--but that came to a screeching halt when these Indian "investors" refused to cough up their obligated cash injections to keep the production going. I was unpaid for 4 months and withheld my last few storyboards until I got assurances from the production that I would be paid--and every other storyboard artists on the project did the same.
Apparently its all been sorted out and production has resumed as we speak.
Now, that might sound like a bitter rant, it might sound inprofessional........but its not. THAT is business as usual, in one of many variations on a theme that plague the animation business. It happens......not all the time, not even often........but it happens.
Its the reality behind the fantasy of the making of cartoons--something that a LOT of viewers think are just some innocent little things.
Ho, far from it.
Their misperception doesn't hide the fact that crap is crap. Some kids might LOVE Speed Racer the Next Generation. It might ignite the fire in their souls, fuel their imagination......but that is on them. I've shared this snippet to justify the opinion I have of this specific example, and to give insight into WHY such opinions come about.
