Hello All!

This week I will be discussing something extremely important that DreamWorks Animation does! Community relations are a huge part of any organization. It is important to give back to the audience and thank the people who make DreamWorks possible. DreamWorks focuses on bettering the community through charitable donations but also have a unique program for recent college graduates around the globe! It is vital to invest in the wellbeing of the youth of today because one day they will be running things.
The unique program DreamWorks has is called the Outreach Program. This program has four specific challenges or initiatives to get young adults involved. The program was created to scout artists, design specialists, animators, graphic designers, and media study graduates from colleges and universities around the globe! The program conducts mentoring and instructional programs to identify and coach talent to its full potential. It helps post-grad's to get entry level jobs with the ability to climb the corporate ladder. The programs help people to learn to succeed at their job, not just get by.

The first program is the Story Initiative. This program is an all-inclusive, full immersion program for recent graduates who hope to pursue a career as a story artist. The program is a six month period in training in storyboarding for feature length films. Participants learn to evaluate and plan, create final boards, collaborate with peers, and work with directors and producers. It is an opportunity for creative enrichment in the working world.
The second program is the Character FX Initiative. This program offers the opportunity to further knowledge of hair simulation, clothing simulation, and character finaling. This program combines mathematics and artistic abilities. Making an animated character look real is a science that can be calculated and executed exactly, this program offers the tools that are essential in making that science possible.
The third program is the FX Challenge. This program gives a solid education base in concepts critical to design and animation of visual FX in CG animation. This program teaches programing, drawing, rendering, compositing, animation, simulation, and the ability to take direction. It trains potential employees to know the animation programing inside and out under the instruction of a trained professional. The programs offers experience that you cannot get in a normal classroom environment.
The fourth program is Character TD/ Rigging Challenge. This program helps graphic artists to learn skeletal structure and procedural control to bring characters to life. It teaches high end character set up procedures. The program includes many aspects such as; animated film pipeline organization, principles of animation, interpreting character design, key anatomical ideas, program procedures, and techniques of presentation to creative and technical audiences. This is an intense 12 week program to teach designers how to do everything that they will need on a basic level.

DreamWorks Animation also has a community outreach program to give back to the community. They give thousands of hours per year to helping those in need. They focus on programs that will make the community better! DreamWorks feels it is their duty and privilege as a whole to continue the founders legacy of giving back. DreamWorks is involved in activities such as the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Triathlon, AIDS Project LA Walk, adding children to their Christmas list for the Salvation Army's Project Angel Tree, Thanksgiving Tea with elderly pioneers of the industry at Motion Picture and Television Fund, and the DreamBuilders associated with Habitat for Humanity. Events are hosted both on and off campus of DreamWorks Studios.
The information listed on the official website was insightful however I found that it lacked a sense of how important community work is. The outreach of the studio was summed up in three paragraphs one of which was just a list of things they had done. As an interested consumer I would have taken more interest in how these charitable acts benefited the community specifically as well as the impact on employee moral. I don't just want to know you do, I want to know why specifically and the lasting impact it has had!

Thanks for reading!!!!
-Molly Zoe

Social Media

Molly here!

This week I will be analyzing the use of social media by Dreamworks Animation! As a PR professional it is vital for a corporation to have a strong presence on social media in order to engage with a younger generation and get word out fast about new or exciting things happening. Social media can work to a corporations advantage or disadvantage depending on how they are viewed by various publics. Lucky for Dreamworks they are a company much loved by all, except maybe their competitors!
         In 2012 Dreamworks decided to make a smart move by hiring a social media account management team! They began a relationship with Magnet Media and from there their social media presence increased more than 77% in the first 10 months. Magnet Media began by doing an audit of the social media use up until the point that their partnership began, they found that while there was a social presence much more could be done to increase the popularity of the multiple social media accounts. Firstly they decided to utilize the popularity of specific characters by speaking on social media in the voices of those characters. This strengthened the bond between consumer and product. Next they suggest that Dreamworks include their older films in order to draw on nostalgia. By making these changes Dreamworks Animation expanded more then they would have ever been able to on their own! After reading the Magnet Media description I decided to do some investigation of my own!
         The first social media site that I investigated was YouTube. Dreamworks has their own channel with 152,859 subscribers. The page offers trailers for current films, trailers for older films, interviews with stars, and red carpet clips.By Showing both new and old trailers they are using nostalgia to draw attention. The clips are short which usually get more views then longer more drawn out clips.
       














The Facebook account for Dreamworks Animation is also very enticing to fans, With 1.7 million likes fans are drawn to the page for it's informative statuses as well up to date information. The cover photo is a compilation of characters that yet again drawn connections between classic characters and new additions to the Dreamworks family. There are daily posts about recent movies and other events. There is also hashtag use on their page. Each movie release is listed under the Life Events part of the page which creates an easy timeline for people to see when each movie came out.

The official twitter account is not used as much as the Facebook page. There are not daily tweets but the tweets that are published have relevant information to fans. It has just over 300,000 followers which is not even close to the number of Facebook likes however that could just be from the nature of the site. 

        The overall social media use of Dreamworks is good however there is always room for improvement. I would suggest a better grasp of twitter because it is a way to constantly engage the public. Wether it's through hashtags or picture competitions there should be something more going on in order to generation more attention. The other suggestion i would make is the use of a blog. I think that hearing from the writers, animators, and stars of the videos would create a personal bond between the corporation and its publics. By creating a dialogue and giving an inside look into the studio people might feel more closely connected to the people and the company creating these classic films that will be around for years to come! 

-Molly Zoe