Blue Monday

As promised, I am going to get into my epic post about what amounted to a really, really bad Monday. After you slog through it, it will be followed soon thereafter by a lighter post about my reactions to the “Lost” season finale.

First I am going to talk about my strange day at work on Monday. I have to be somewhat vague in this part of the post, because I don’t want to talk about people by name, and I am not allowed to talk about any game concepts we’ve worked on publicly. But hopefully, dear readers, you’ll get the idea.

I came into work on Monday morning ready to see what my last full week of work at BVG would bring. I was ready to dig in at the Think Tank and put together any presentations my supervisors needed before my time was up in the middle of next week. The rest of the Think Tank Interns and I spent most of our morning just waiting for word on what we were supposed to do, as none of our supervisors came in until 11.

Then they dropped the bomb.

My boss had been fired. There was a big shake up in the production department and he was one of the victims of “restructuring” (one of those safe sounding corporate words that means people’s lives are being ruined.) He came in Monday morning and they told him he was being “let go” (another one of those phrases.) The executives who fired him told him that they were not happy with the fruits of our labor in the think tank for the last few months, and that they wanted to go in a new direction in which game play was the main focus of our new concepts. As my boss gave a humble and heartbreaking speech in front of all of the Think Tank, I felt numb, shocked. My boss did not deserve to be “let go.” He is a genuinely creative thinker who always asked for the best out of our work. There are not a lot of people in the entertainment industry who really want to nurture the creative people and just let them be creative, let them innovate, but he was one of those people.

I understand the desire of the executives to want to take the company in a new direction- it’s strange to see how slowly the gears grind in a big place like this company, which is just a small cog in the Disney machine. But it just seems unfair to blame creative people who really want to try new things for the fact that nothing is happening here. My boss supervised two very successful concepts to the greenlight stage, and those games have gotten a ton of mileage in the Disney company overall. They games have not been made for various reasons, and have been stalled for awhile. But my boss did his job and got them as far as his job would allow- is it that the execs blame him because nothing is happening in the company as a whole?

The Walt Disney Company is going through major changes right now. When Bob Iger approved the purchase of Pixar, he was not just buying the rights to their movies they release every two years- he was saving the Disney’s soul. John Lasseter and his team of creative wizards have been brought in to totally revamp all of Disney animation and Disney Imagineering. Current projects like “Meet the Robinsons” are being overhauled and improved, the lame pop culture references (the ones that have become so popular in almost every animated feature released since “Shrek,)” are being pulled out. Weak projects, like “Gnomeo and Juliet” have been given the axe and creators are being given more freedom to do what they want. Glen Keane was given the option to direct his “Rapunzel” film in 2D (he chose 3D because he’s excited by the possibilities- but it’s cool that he was given the choice,) and people seem very excited about “American Dog.” At E3, I met a guy from Disney Feature Animation who told me how ecstatic they all are working there now, and how the Pixar guys have really created a wonderful creative environment in which most of the executives who give notes begging for Jay Leno references have been swept aside. Meanwhile, ABC has built it’s way to huge profits on the shoulders of innovative shows like “Desperate Housewives,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and my beloved “Lost.” ABC has also taken risks by being the first network to put their shows on ITunes, and now they are giving away episodes of some of the shows for free on ABC.Com. BVG is the company’s video game wing, which means they should be on the bleeding edge of new technologies, not falling behind the rest of the company. If BVG is to thrive, a shake up like the Pixar deal needs to happen. A John Lassetter is desperately needed here, and soon. The creatives need to be allowed to create, and the executives need to trust them. If that doesn’t happen, this company is doomed to make nothing but “Kim Possible” handheld games (not that there’s anything wrong with “Kim Possible” games. They’re fun and sell very well to a certain demographic, but it’d be nice to diversify a bit.) There are a lot of creative people at BVG who believe this company can do great things, and my boss was one of them. It would be nice to prove them right, but his dismissal is a step in the wrong direction.

I was pretty upset when I got home, but the “24” finale lifted my spirits a bit- well, except for the fact that Jack was kidnapped, but I’ve talked about that enough- and ready to go to bed early after a weird day. But while I was on the phone with my friend from the Bay Area (talking about, yes, “24,”) my girlfriend started to complain about sharp abdominal pains. It got worse over the course of the evening, and I looked up what it could be on the internet. We were worried that it was her appendix, and I convinced her we should go to the hospital to get her checked out. After a somewhat tense drive in which I sped a bit more than I should have, we pulled up to the emergency room. After a seemingly endless period of worry and agitation in the waiting room in which a repeat of “The Drew Cary Show” blared loudly from a wall mounted tv, my girlfriend’s name was finally called and we went back to the exam room…to wait some more. When the doctor finally arrived, he was very nice and quickly eased our fears. I’m not gonna go into detail on the internet, but the important thing is she didn’t need surgery and she’s going to be fine. I’m glad we went in to make sure everything was okay- I was pretty worried for a little while, but things turned out fine. I’ll say that I really don’t like hospitals (I don’t think a lot of people love them,) but the people who helped did a good job of easing our fears and making us feel comfortable while we were there.

We got home at around 2:00 AM. After a day that started with my boss getting fired and ended with me driving my girlfriend to the emergency room, I was exhausted. I decided to sleep in a bit the next day, feeling I’d definitely earned a bit of rest. Seeing somebody who I admire as much as my boss, who has had a career I’d be lucky to emulate, lose his job because of corporate concerns was tough. Coupling that with taking my girlfriend to the hospital, and the fact that my own time at BVG is ending and I have no idea what I am going to do with my life next- things are pretty damn weird right now. I’ve had to sort through a lot of stuff this week, and, as an overly introspective, overly analytical wanna- be writer, it’s made me overthink a lot of things.

Nothing is certain in this world, but that just makes it more imperative, at least to me, to try to do what I am passionate about. You only have one shot at life, one shot to make yourself happy, so I’m gonna give it as good a go as I can, try to find something that I’ll be happy doing, try to find a place where I can create things I love and where creativity is valued. For the last few months, I saw my boss struggle with figuring out what to fight for and when to give the executives the more conservative, safe approach just to appease them. But flattening things you believe, taking the life out of them just because you believe executives will “get it” that way, is not going to make for good results in the end. This whole week has just made my resolve stronger for what I want in my future. I’m going to find a place where I can aim for the stars and fight for what I believe in, and where I am respected for that. And I hope my boss, whenever he gets where he is going next, (and I don’t doubt it will be very soon, maybe even in the aforementioned, insanely creative environment being built at “Disney Animation,”) gets to do the same.