Gravitational Pull

Netflix and Nick forge a new partnership...

... Nickelodeon and Netflix have entered a multiple-year output deal that will see the Viacom-owned cable network create and produce original animated feature films and TV series based on both new and existing IP.

The deal announced Wednesday expands Nickelodeon's relationship with Netflix, which was revived a few years ago with deals for a live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series and deals for Rocko's Modern Life, Invader Zim, The Loud House and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, among others. ...

There's a theme here: Netflix is losing many of its old animation providers and building its own cartoon studio turns out not to be enough. Nickelodeon doesn't have its own streaming service, and the power and reach of cable networks ... where it once dominated ... has declined. So supplying product to a distributor who needs it? And will pay well for it? That's a match made in corporate heaven.

This deal will no doubt increase L.A.-based animation production, which has been on a roll for years now. Why is Los Angeles getting so much of the work? The answer is straight-forward. As large universities act as magnets for brain-based industries like medical research and high tech (think Boston and its many colleges; the bay area with Stanford and Berkeley), so do large pools of animation talent attract companies setting up cartoon studios.

It's not for nothing that the east San Fernando Valley ... home of Disney, DreamWorks, and Universal Cartoon Studios ... and the beach towns of Culver City and Santa Monica ... where visual effects shops, video game studios, and cartoon houses are headquartered ... continue to attract new animation facilities. These are the areas where pencil-and-paper animation took root eighty and ninety years ago, where artist employees started families and raised kids. Today, generations of talent live and work in Southern California, making it a desirable place for newer cartoon studios (Netflix Animation and the like) to set up shop.

Stanford and Berkeley (and Hewlett-Packard?) helped incubate the Apples and Googles in Silicon Valley a half-century ago. The same kind of process has taken place in Los Angeles since the early days of talking pictures.