I heard from somebody here who worked for
you at one time, when she came into the office
at 6:30 in the morning, you said, "Good afternoon."
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: The line was, I don't
think that I actually ever said it, but it
sounded actually pretty good. So I -- "If
you don't come to work on Saturday, don't
bother coming on Sunday."
[ Laughter ]
>>Maureen Orth: I see. Okay.
[ Laughter ]
>>Maureen Orth: Another little thing you said
last year I think you said that movies suck.
Do you still think they suck?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: Last year they did for
sure, no question about it. A little bit better
this year. You know, it's -- you know, movies
are as much an art as they are a business.
It's show business. And so I do think they
run through cycles. And, you know, when they
are great, there's probably no more rewarding
experience. I actually saw a movie on Sunday
night called Argo. I have to say, if you haven't
seen it, go see it. It's a wonderful movie.
And when you see something that really, you
know, you go in, you have that shared experience,
a couple of hundred other people, there is
really nothing, you know, as an entertainment
experience, there's almost nothing more rewarding.
When they're not so good, it's not such a
great experience.
>>Maureen Orth: And they cost a lot of money
to make.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: They do.
>>Maureen Orth: You have also been one of
the biggest proponents of 3D in film and you
also said that you thought that 3D was going
through its terrible twos. But I was interested
in reading that in China 3D has about 65%
of the market in theaters.
So what are you -- talk to us a little bit
about these big plans for China? You are like
Nixon going to China for Hollywood.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: Bite your tongue.
[ Laughter ]
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: First just on the 3D
is you know if you look at 3D as an artistic
tool, which is how we try to approach it at
DreamWorks, I went into a movie theater totally
unexpected now, I think in 2004, and in an
IMAX theater, I saw this movie Polar Express
and I was so -- so just completely fascinated
by the sense of a version that I had never
felt in a movie theater before, which Bob
Zemeckis had created with what really was
the first mo-cap experience. And I came out
of that feeling that this was an opportunity
to have a new storytelling tool. Something
to put in the hands of great artists, actually
could be wonderful. And as I think, you know,
the entire world experienced, when you put
the tool in the hands of, you know, Jim Cameron
and does a movie like Avatar, you know, it
really was a remarkable innovation. Unfortunately,
which, you know, has -- not the first time
this has happened in Hollywood, there are
people that took the high road and there were
plenty of people that took the low road. And
went out and produced sort of cheap ripoffs
of it, didn't really treat is as a storytelling
tool and delivered pretty crummy experiences
and I think that's the terrible twos that
it really set it back.
There are places in the world where it has
had enormous traction, international marketplace,
China in particular. You know, my dealings
in China have just been incredibly exciting.
It is really a whole different frontier. It's
a -- it's a different world in terms of how
you do business. How you think about business.
It's -- you know, it's almost like every time
I'm there, I feel like I have to do this complete
reset because the marriage between, you know,
a -- a capitalist government in which government,
bank, law, commerce are all one, is so antithetical
to every ounce of training that all of us
have had in the West. To go there takes a
complete reset. And, you know, went there
with a big idea that got them very excited.
Certainly Kung Fu Panda opened --
>>Maureen Orth: I was going to ask you.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: -- the door in an extraordinary
way because they saw that as something -- they
didn't understand how a western company could
actually take their culture and their heritage,
the icon of their country, and do such a wonderful
job of getting it right. Our artists really
got it right.
>>Maureen Orth: As opposed to so many things
that they take offense to.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: You bet.
>>Maureen Orth: Like Steven Spielberg redrawing
from the Beijing Olympics. Things like that.
Tell me something, what are you planning to
do actually in China?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: We're going to build
a studio there. We're going to make animated
movies that are at the level and quality of
what we do here in the States. It will take
us some time to do that. You know, making
an animated movie takes about four to five
years, just to give you the level of complexity.
When you look at, again, the marriage of,
you know, technology and great storytelling,
an average movie has 130,000 frames. Each
frame goes through 12 departments. You think
about it in the process of making them from
the first storyboard all the way to the final
special effects in it. So in each department,
each frame goes through between as few as
10 and as many as 100 iterations within that
department. So it's between 3 and 4 billion
individual objective or actually I should
say subjective creative judgments that are
being made along the way.
>>Maureen Orth: But you are actually going
to create a whole new industry in China, right?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: I think so.
>>Maureen Orth: Are you going to build theme
parks, are you going to have DreamWorks Land
like Disneyland or what's going to happen?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: No, I think we will
let them do that. I think we have an idea
to do something a little bit different from
what they are doing there, which is frankly
of equal value and equal need there, but not
really theme park related. But, you know,
China five years from now will be the largest
movie market in the world, will surpass the
United States and ultimately be many times
larger than the United States. Movie-going
there is something that has quickly become
broadly popular and continues to have incredible
enthusiasm there.
And so again it's just a place of great opportunity,
if you can figure it out.
>>Maureen Orth: Are you going to help your
fellow studios try to get in since they've
been barred by the Chinese so far?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: Well, they haven't been
barred.
>>Maureen Orth: Well, effectively.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: No, they're not. I mean,
it has gotten better, you know, when -- when
Vice President Xi was here in March, our Vice
President Biden actually did a fantastic job
of getting them to expand the market.
I mean, here's the thing, which is -- in every
-- you know, every country in the world experiences
this. In the last six months, the first six
months of this year, the movie business in
China was pretty much 50/50 domestic productions
and international productions. Now with the
change of quotas, as well as the success of
the western product there, in the first six
months of this year it has now gone up to
over 70%. We have seen this in other countries
around the world, in which they are happy
to have our product there, but they also want
home grown and they want to encourage their
own industry and to have their own filmmakers,
generate their own commercial success. So
some people, you know, you would say, well,
I think if you left it unfettered, you know,
maybe it would be 90% and no industry would
grow there. So here is a -- you know, a government
that is -- has a very obviously strong hand
in the way commerce works there, who has said
we need to ensure that we actually have a
great, local filmmaking economy.
>>Maureen Orth: Do you feel that your closeness
with the Obama administration helped you make
that wedge into China?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: For sure not.
>>Maureen Orth: No?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: No. I don't mix the
two. I literally have never asked our government
to do anything on our behalf there. The ambassador
to China actually is someone who is a friend
of mine. I actually -- first time I met Jeff
was at the -- at the U.S. embassy in Beijing
last year, we happened to be there at the
same time. I literally was going by making
a social call on our ambassador. He was there.
He has a beautiful art installation there.
So no.
>>Maureen Orth: The short answer is no. Okay.
Talk to me a little bit about why animation
became your passion so much? Because before
you were at Disney and Michael Eisner gave
you that job, you go revive this moribund
place.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: So the first day I came
to work, 1984, I'm not a student of animation.
I've probably seen a couple of these movies
as a kid growing up like most people. I went
to Michael's office. We had worked together
for 11 years at Paramount, 10 years at Paramount.
I went to his office and sort of had my to
do list. He had hired me to be the head of
the studio, the movie and television. And
came in with my little buck slip of my to-do
list and spent an hour with him and said,
you know, kind of here are the things that
I was thinking about as the sort of first
priorities. And, you know, went through it.
He said great, you know, here were some things
that were important to him.
I was literally one foot out the door, literally
at the door going out. He said, "Jeffrey,
one thing before you leave, I forgot to mention
to you."
I said, "What's that?"
He said, "Come over here, I want to show you
something."
And he pointed out the window of his office
to a building just across the street. He had
Walt Disney's old office is where he was.
He pointed across the street to this building
and he said, "You know what they do there?"
I said, "No, I have no idea."
He said, "Well, that's actually where they
make the animated movies."
And I went, "Oh, that's interesting."
And he said, "And it's your problem."
And that was my introduction to animation.
>>Maureen Orth: So what got you so involved?
Was Walt Disney the visionary just something
that --
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: Oh, yes. There is no
-- so first it was a job. And a responsibility.
And I didn't know anything about it. So I
figured that I would learn. The great thing
is that Walt Disney had the most amazing archive
of his work and his work product and his work
process that you can imagine. Every single
thing that he did on his classic movies was
archived in sequence in the process of making
the film. I had stumbled upon this. I always
say Walt Disney left bread crumbs the size
of Volkswagens, you would have to be deaf,
dumb and blind not to be able to follow that
path.
And so I really consider myself 100% a student
of Walt Disney. I learned pretty much everything
that I know about it.
But to answer your question, for me what started
as a job became a love and a passion, because
in the world of creating art and storytelling,
unlike anything else I -- I have experienced,
it is a team sport. In that it really takes
a village of people, of artists, with a shared
vision, and this amazing long-term perspective
on -- you know, on what the goal is to do.
And every single thing that you see in an
animated movie is from somebody's imagination,
everything. There's none of it exists in the
real world.
>>Maureen Orth: I was struck to also learn
from somebody here that Walt wasn't sure that
he was going to be successful, so his studio
was built right across the street from a hospital,
so he made the whole studio for gurneys to
pass through the doorways, painted the same
awful hospital green just in case he had to
sell the property to the hospital if the studio
didn't work.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: it's literally true.
It was designed as a hospital with wards off
of it and --
>>Maureen Orth: And no shadows ever hit the
animators' boards. It was always the sun.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: Natural light.
>>Maureen Orth: So you come up here to Silicon
Valley quite a bit -- I mean, no, we're not
there. But you go to Silicon Valley quite
a bit now, don't you? I mean, haven't you
begun some --
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: Yeah, I mean we -- the
only --
>>Maureen Orth: What are you learning from
that?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: Well, you know, we are,
you know, we are as technically advanced in
the world of digital image creation as any
company in the world today. We require state-of-the-art
technology to be able to achieve the things
that we do. We have had, you know, some amazing
strategic partnerships. Deep, deep R&D partnerships
over the years. One that we're just finishing
a four-year project with Intel that's probably
the largest, you know, pure R&D project done
in the entertainment industry. You know, maybe
ever, honestly.
>>Maureen Orth: What is it?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: It's -- you -- it's
called scalable multi-core processing. Now
do you know what it is?
>>Maureen Orth: No.
[ Laughter ]
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: Well, it allows us to
achieve what is a holy grail in animation,
which is for our animators to be able to work
in real-time and to actually see their work
as they are doing it. Today our artists actually
almost work blind, if you will. They -- they
do the equivalent of painting a frame, through
their imagination. They send it down and eight
hours later it comes back as something rendered.
What -- you know, what multi-core processing
allows them to do is to now actually see their
work as they're doing it. So here's a perfect
example of technology. Being maybe the most
powerful paint brush ever put in the hands
of animators and artists.
So Silicon Valley, we have a studio in Redwood
Shores in Palo Alto. We've been there for
20 years, we have 800 artists that work there.
And so -- so, you know, we are sort of at
that perfect intersection of state-of-the-art
technology and, you know, great storytelling
and we rely on Silicon Valley, you know, we
-- we couldn't do what we do without them.
>>Maureen Orth: I was struck yesterday when
JJ Abrams was saying that it didn't matter
how much technology you have if you didn't
have humanity at the center of your product,
of your pictures. And I wondered if you could
give us a couple of examples of hits and misses
because of the lack of humanity, perhaps.
Well, I'm not sure that I have that. I do
agree with JJ that, you know, it ultimately
is -- always comes back to, you know, emotions
and great characters and great storytelling.
And all of the bells and the whistles in the
world, you know, I mean, you know, I -- we've
all seen this. I mean, you have movies that
come out that -- what was it? Battleship,
you know? Biggest effects or John Carter of
Mars.
And these things are terrible, terrible misses.
You know, with all the resources in the world
to do it, they forgot their storytelling.
So I think that is very much at the core of
what we do.
There's something fascinating about the process
of how we make animated movies, so here's
an interesting fact.
DreamWorks Animation has now made 17 CG animated
movies, and every single one of them, every
one has been a hit.
Pixar has made 13 CG animated movies and every
single one of them is a hit. So you have these
two companies together have produced 30 movies
and the track record is 100%, whereas in the
live action movie business, the hit ratio
is about one in four.
>>Maureen Orth: Is that because of your worldwide
audience?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: No, it's because of
the way in which we go about our movies. It's
the way in which we make our movies, see our
movies as works in process. It's an iterative
process. We get to see what doesn't work about
them. We have an extraordinary collaboration
with our audiences every step along the way
of films.
JJ, who is someone I've known for many, many
years, I actually gave him his very first
job as a writer when he graduated out of college,
came over and visited DreamWorks about a year
or so ago because he was interested in seeing
some of our process, and in particular 3D,
which he was considering for Star Trek.
And when we took him through at the end of
the process, he said to me, "Well, you cheat.
That's not fair. You get to make your movie,
look at it in storyboard or in previsualization
and you see what doesn't work and you can
even put it in -- you know, in various forms
in front of audiences and this and kind of
get that feedback."
And so there's something amazing about that
process. It's a little bit like, you know,
a show, you know, a theater show in which
you can preview them and shut 'em down and
dress rehearse them and go back to work on
them.
The last thing we do is animate our movies.
>>Maureen Orth: Well, talking about shows,
we have a big one tonight, the debate. Have
you given the President some advice?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: No, I don't believe
this is a president one gives advice to.
[ Laughter ]
>>Maureen Orth: No, I guess not considering
what happened at the last one.
[ Laughter ]
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: Listen, I'm a -- I'm
a great fan of the President's. I think he
inherited, you know, just maybe the worst
hand that any president has in modern history.
I think that he has through very troubling
times had a very steady hand, in the most
divisive political environment our country
has been in in probably 30 or 40 years.
And you know, I'm amazing at what politics
has become today. I started in politics, as
you know.
>>Maureen Orth: Right, John Lindsey.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: I worked for John Lindsey,
who was mayor of New York. Politics has been
important to me my whole life. I believe in
actively participating in it. I think it's
important that we all do.
And yet today, you know, the truth doesn't
seem to matter too much, and I find that very
disturbing. I find that the disruption of
the sort of democratic process, the fact that
unlimited money today --
>>Maureen Orth: But you're raising it all.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: I am because you fight
fire with fire.
Again, I will tell you one of the real -- I
started Priorities U.S.A. about a year and
a half ago. I can tell you President Obama
specifically asked that I not do it. He said,
"I think it is immoral, unethical and undemocratic."
>>Maureen Orth: And you're doing it.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: And I said to him, "You're
right. The problem is it's legal. And the
other side is doing it."
And I didn't do it in 2010, again asked not
to. And I felt it was a terrible mistake.
You know, the result of letting it go unchecked.
And I said to him, I really -- I just feel
like this is something that has to happen.
And the best thing that we can do is hopefully
put you back in the white house, maybe appoint
a couple of Supreme Court justices, and overturn
it because it is terrible.
But you're not going to lay down, and unfortunately
to a large degree many in the democratic party
have done it, and I think to -- to a disastrous
effect.
>>Maureen Orth: One last question. Well, now,
because you're very important now because
Hollywood money has become I guess the most
important money in the campaign now that a
lot of Wall Street has turned against the
President, and you're right in the middle
between Silicon Valley that wants Internet
freedom and Hollywood that wants its intellectual
properties somehow rewarded, so do you foresee
yourself playing any role in that fight?
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: Well, we've had --
>>Maureen Orth: I mean, the Valley is winning
obviously.
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: It's not. It's not a
winning or losing.
Hollywood and through the MPAA, drafted a
ridiculous bill that had no business being
-- SOPA. SOPA's dead.
And yet what -- the goals in terms of what
Hollywood was trying to accomplish, although
as I said, in a badly flawed bill that did
not deserve to even get as far as it did,
and the fact is I'm happy to say this, for
our hosts here today, you know, once the dust
settled off of the skirmish of SOPA, you know,
they've been incredibly responsive, understand
the protection of intellectual property. And
the protection of intellectual property and
a free and open Internet are not mutually
exclusive to one another.
And I have to say Nikesh and Kinzel (phonetic)
has been two of the leading people in the
Valley and I've just tried to, you know, help
marshal the people down in Hollywood to understand
that we actually have, you know, mutual goals
to do and we're going to get this done together.
It's not going to get done by Washington.
What we need to get done is going to get done
between all of us and then Washington can
put their stamp of approval on it, but it
was a broken, busted process and, you know,
I'm happy to say it's probably on a pretty
good footing right now today.
And you know, post-election, regardless of
whether it's Democratic or Republican, I'm
sure there will be a well-crafted, well-informed
piece of legislation that will ultimately
make its way into law that will be good for
the Internet and will be good for the protection
of intellectual property.
>>Maureen Orth: Last question. Because you
have been very generous with your philanthropy,
tell us what you heard from Kirk Douglas which
sort of started you off in your philanthropic
--
>>Jeffrey Katzenberg: It was interesting.
It was in the 1980's, I made a movie with
-- last movie that Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster
did together. And they were shooting the film
on the Disney lot at the time and I went to
visit Kirk at lunchtime in his trailer.
And most actors, particularly at that point,
you know, at lunchtime it's just a time to
relax and, you know, it's a long day standing
in front of actually lights and cameras, you
know. It's physically demanding.
And I went in his trailer, there was just
like wall-to-wall people with blueprints and
lawyers and there must have been 15 people
packed into this trailer, and looking at blueprints
for playgrounds.
And I said -- I said, "What are you doing?"
He said, "Come in, I want to show you this."
And Kirk and his wife Anne set out a program
in the early '80s to rebuild every single
inner city playground at every single school
in Los Angeles personally. He funded this,
he designed this.
And I said to him, I said, "I'm just curious,
with all the things that are going on, you
know, how do you find the time to do this?"
And he said -- these were the words that I
have never forgotten and quite inspired me.
He says, "you haven't learned how to live
until you've learned how to give."
