Almighty painter

Chapter 604: Exhibition Painting: Cat (Part )

"London's West End business operation company hopes to design a group of appropriate and friendly fairy tale cartoon characters for their upcoming global tour of the musical "Cats"."

"Jane Arnold's studio has been negotiating with the promotion company for several months."

Mr. Sloth introduced.

"The other party's agent said that it was because Mr. Jane Arnold saw this contract that he decided to invite you to join his painting studio the moment he saw your 'Amy' set."

"He is willing to provide us with this opportunity, and both parties will try to cooperate on this project first. The other studio will provide suggestions on the creative direction, but will not interfere with or participate in the specific creation."

“We have full authorship rights for our work.”

"The total offer for the contract is $72. In addition, Jane Arnold will sign as an illustrator. The other party's agent said that the industry rule is 72% to 15%, with us taking 5% and the other party taking %. However, as a token of sincerity for the first cooperation and a thank you for the help last time, Mr. Jane Arnold will not participate in the share of the $ this time - however, Jane Arnold's painting studio will automatically enjoy % of the subsequent commercial IP of this illustration, including but not limited to the secondary development of characters, props, scenes and other elements based on the illustration manuscript prototype, as well as the right to share the commercial income when producing and selling related derivatives such as toys, clothing, books, and souvenirs. You can get another %."

"What about the remaining 80%?" Gu Weijing asked curiously.

"Of course it's the company that runs the musical Cats."

On the other side of the computer, Miss Elena smiled and explained, "The main terms are as follows. I have sent the specific contract copy to your email. I think it can be considered. There is no big problem."

Gu Weijing clicked his tongue softly.

Seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars!

This world-class illustration studio is truly extraordinary.

It was only the first exploratory cooperation between the two parties, but the contract that was directly offered was nearly one million US dollars.

It was almost ten times higher than the basic contract offer for "The Little Prince" and a full two hundred times higher than the remuneration he received for "The Blazing World".

This is the spirit of the world's number one illustration studio.

For ordinary illustrators, there are so many big contracts that they are impossible to get even if they work hard all their lives. Their work mailboxes are filled up and they simply cannot finish drawing.

The only difference is whether you are willing to accept it or not.

It must be said.

During the initial contact between the two parties, Anna found that the other party's agent did not behave in the condescending or overbearing manner she had imagined.

Instead, he skipped the process of showing off his power and conveyed Master Jane Arnold's goodwill to her.

An illustration contract for the musical Cats, with subsequent profit sharing.

The other party is very sincere.

Jane Arnold can always get a million-dollar contract if she wants to.

But on a global scale.

This is almost the highest offer in the illustration industry.

Don't think that Mr. Hyperion spent a full million US dollars just to buy a crayon drawing of Jane Arnold.

First of all, the super internet celebrity who earned hundreds of millions of dollars in dividends from YouTube video views has no shortage of money.

For Hyperion, the amount of video traffic is the most important thing. In order to increase the value gradient between illustrators of different levels, a gimmick of tenfold price difference is created.

He would be happy to quote a little more.

Secondly.

A single drawing by Jane Arnold can sell for a million dollars because he is so famous.

So although he is an illustrator, his essence is closer to the way galleries sell paintings in the serious art world, rather than the way commercial contracts are used in the illustration world.

Just like the cover drawing of "Harry Potter" was sold at Sotheby's for 200 million pounds.

This does not mean that there will be a commercial company willing to spend two million pounds to offer a commission contract to the lucky illustrator.

Not even £20.

It's hard to say how much the drawing itself is worth.

But the price Scholastic Publishing Group quoted to the illustrator when it commissioned the work was only 400 pounds.

You can also understand it this way.

The one million dollar signed check that Mr. Hyperion wrote to Jane Arnold did not only purchase the crayon drawing, but also the right to use the other party's fame to promote the channel, and the commercial copyright to print the content of the drawing on his personal brand of mugs and T-shirts...

This is not just about buying a painting, but a complete package quotation for a whole set of business contracts.

Even his check contains the buyout cost for the risk of uncontrollable problems that might arise in order to make the illustrator willing to participate in this makeshift online celebrity painting competition.

Didn’t Van Doorn have a huge accident during the live broadcast in front of hundreds of millions of viewers?

The blow to him was far beyond what $100,000 could compensate for.

If time could go back, I would have a choice.

The thing that Van Dorn wanted to do most was definitely not to rush over and tear Detective Cat and Miss Elena into pieces, but to tear the contract sent by Mr. Hyperion into a hundred pieces and eat them mixed with coffee.

I should have known I would run into such a crazy painter and crazy judges.

It's clear that this is a flowery thing.

I will definitely be satisfied.

I don’t want to play.

In terms of status and honor, in the field of illustration, people like Jane Arnold have reached the top.

In terms of market price, unless he can get the art design of a Hollywood super-production of the magnitude of "Star Wars" that is hard to come by, or participate deeply in the entire process of A-level production cost animated films such as "Up" and "Frozen".

A situation where you can earn money simply by drawing a picture.

In the field of illustration, a million dollars is also the highest price.

but.

It's like being a top star in the same $20 million pay club.

Those who have won an Oscar may enjoy better treatment and more respect on the set than those who have not, and may even be able to ask for a few extra points of box office dividends when negotiating contracts.

A big contract of this magnitude.

Not many every year.

But there weren't so few that Jane Arnold could eat them all by herself.

There are still many contracts of similar size that will flow into the market.

Leave it to other first-line illustration studios.

Occasionally, Wehrlein would receive one or two large art design contracts worth around $500,000.

But at the publisher's annual awards ceremony, when he heard Jane Arnold actually invite others to join his private illustration studio, he almost fainted from jealousy because -

Compared with other well-known illustration studios, when Jane Arnold's studio negotiates a contract with the client, the amount of money is secondary.

What’s important is that Jane Arnold’s studio is qualified to make some rather “excessive” conditions.

For example, the ownership of the picture IP produced by the studio should belong to the illustration studio.

Another example is the right to commercial dividends from surrounding derivative income.

No one is a fool.

Even if it is a book publishing contract.

When a publishing house thinks that the sales of a certain book will be very "explosive", they will buy it out directly. It usually doesn't cost much, one or two thousand dollars, or at most ten thousand dollars.

They are generally reluctant to provide artists with sales-sharing contracts.

As for other types of commercial designs, in addition to the right of authorship required by law.

Sorry, don’t even think about it.

After the painting is finished, the project has nothing to do with the artist.
An artist cannot draw Harry Potter for others and then go home and contact the company to secretly sell Harry Potter action figures.

The copyright owner is going to rush over with a knife and kill people.

If Jane Arnold were to handle this contract, then of course... it wouldn't work.

but.

Jane Arnold can go and negotiate, for example, for peripheral products designed based on his drawings, he can take 10% or 20% of the profit for each item sold.

Essentially.

It has gone beyond the level of Party B drawing illustrations for Party A.

It is equivalent to Jane Arnold Studio using his personal IP and the project IP controlled by the other party's commercial company to carry out joint cooperation.

Similar to selling artist trendy toys.

It is a bit like when the publishing house sells the limited edition collector's edition set and postcard gift box of "The Little Prince", Gu Weijing will receive corresponding commission.

The commission rate for this kind of peripheral products is much higher than that for selling books.

Gu Weijing paid special attention to it.

In the financial statements provided to him by the publishing house, the sales of various collector's edition gift boxes accounted for less than one-thirtieth of the total sales of the works, but accounted for one-eighth of his share of the income.

But the difference is.

After all, The Little Prince is just a children's fairy tale book.

During the entire business cycle, it would be a great achievement for the collector's gift boxes to sell 18,000 sets.

That's it.

He was able to get the relevant share as an extraordinary reward when he won the contract from Wehrlein by chance.

Osborn gave him this sweet gift mainly because of Anna, not because of his good drawing skills as a detective cat.

However, Jane Arnold can get a share of the profits from the "Cats" project.

A musical like "Cats", in terms of capital investment, revenue scale, and human costs... is totally incomparable to a fairy tale book.

The difference is several orders of magnitude.

In a place like London's West End, the cost of producing a large-scale drama is around 200 million pounds. A stage musical will be much more expensive, around 1000 million pounds. The cost of Broadway in the United States will be even higher, and the cost of producing a musical can rise to 1500 million US dollars or even tens of millions of dollars.

And overseas global tour.

The cost of introducing the original English play into the big theaters in places like Dongxia, Japan, and South Korea is about 200 million US dollars in each country. If a perfect localization is to be made, the cost may be doubled.

The cost of cooperating with local theater groups to turn it into a local permanent production would be doubled.

Of course, the cost of subsequent performances will be much lower.

In the 20th century, large-scale musicals have become a capital-intensive industry.

It is for this reason that their commercial promotion company was willing to offer a $72 contract just to design a set of illustrations.

If Gu Weijing worked for a publishing house, he would never get such an opportunity.

How much does it cost to print a book?
Adding up all the inputs into his book "Burning World", the total project funding might not exceed $10.

If Osborne had just waved his hand, he would have approved him nearly a million dollars.

The board must have thought he was either crazy or crazy about kickbacks.

After the epidemic.

The living conditions in the West End of London are actually not very good, and it is all gloomy and bleak.

While the rich wine and meat smell, the road with frozen bone.

The musical industry's austerity drive has no impact on top projects like Cats.

It’s time to prepare for a global tour.

A dead skinny camel is bigger than a horse.

"Cats" is the most commercially successful musical. It was adapted by musical master Webber from T.S. Eliot's children's fairy tale poetry collection "Old Possum's Practical Cat Book", and was successfully popular in the two major musical theater venues of London's West End and Broadway.

In terms of money-making ability, "Cats" is even better than another legendary musical "The Phantom of the Opera" also adapted by Webber.

Over the years, its revenue from ticket sales, peripheral products, derivative creations, commemorative merchandise and related animation character adaptations has totaled in the order of $50 billion.

Just a little bit of money saved from between your fingers can support the entire related creative industry.

Jane Arnold can get a share of the profits from such projects.

Even the commercial company behind the musical can only get conditional share when it uses the cartoon characters produced by his studio as prototypes to produce peripheral products.

This is completely unimaginable for other studios.

This is the confidence coming from the world's number one studio.

The number one in the art world is worth more than the number two to number nine combined.

Miss Elena felt that the other party wanted a 15% share of the income, and it was not too much to give Detective Cat only 5%, after all, it was the first time for both parties to cooperate.

Detective Cat's current fame is totally not enough to support such a big project.

The 5% share was also given to him by Jian Arnold.

If it weren't for the other party, they wouldn't even get 1%.

compare to.

It's not a big deal that Jane Arnold is willing to not take any of the income from the $72 contract offer and give it all to Detective Cat.

The master said it very clearly, he was expressing his gratitude.

The help with the Writing and Art Award, the invitation to join the illustration studio, and this extra “gift”.

How much is the personal gratitude of the world's most successful illustration artist worth?

If this favor were written as a number on a check.

Seventy percent of $72 is about $. This number is definitely not low, but it is definitely not outrageously high either.

At this point, the debt of favor has basically been repaid.

Next.

If they can further cooperate, how to distribute the benefits will depend on their respective abilities.

Miss Elena understands this truth, and this is what Detective Cat Sister deserves.

So, she took it without any fear or trepidation.

seriously.

Even if this kind of project doesn't earn a penny, just the fact that I can participate in one of the top projects in the illustration industry worth millions of dollars and that I can leave my name in the musical "Cats" is worth taking.

and so--

“I hope this is just a commissioned illustration, and you can turn it into a portfolio for the Singapore Biennale.” Anna smiled inscrutablely, ready to kill two birds with one stone.

(End of this chapter)