It's the usual week with the usual march through signator studios.
The way it usually goes: I show up at somebody's cubicle. They look up and give me a reflexive grin.
"Oh hi. What's happening at the other studios?"
I tell them to the best of my knowledge. Then: "How are things going around here?"
"Everything's fine." And a second smile.
I move on. But half way through the walk-through, somebody looks up and doesn't smile...
...and I get the issue that is usually rattling around the studio. Of late, it's too-short production board schedules and the unpaid overtime artists work to make the deadline.
This isn't the reality for every show at every studio. Some schedules, believe it or not, do reflect workplace reality. But others don't.
And the places where it doesn't? They were major topics at the May General Membership meeting.
Earlier this week, a production boarder did a breakdown of how, with the shortened schedule, any competent board artist was going to have thirty extra hours of work if she (or he) expected to deliver an eleven-minute board on time. Another told me that the only normal work-weeks he has are the ones where he's roughing out panels. When he gets to cleaning them up, he's "working insane hours."
TAG will meet with studios to address this issue.
Do any good? I'm hopeful. As of this afternoon, I got word from a well-known 'toon factory that after receiving TAG's letter about writers' outlines being mislabeled as "premises", it will retroactively pay short-changed writers for work performed.
Squeaking wheels, and all that.
Posts
11 comments:
Hey Steve,
I'm an animation fan so forgive me if you've been asked before about this, but I don't know how animation works.
I seen Disney is doing shorts again. How long does it take from the time they have the finished script until the animation is done? Months? Years? I'm curious because I'm an avid Disney shorts fan and hope they produce some new Donald and Mickey cartoons. The more the better.
"I got word from a well-known 'toon factory that after receiving TAG's letter about writers' outlines being mislabeled as "premises", it will retroactively pay short-changed writers for work performed."
oh thank god you helped out the poor underpaid writers! bless you, kind sir!
and you're FINALLY addressing the issue of overworked and underpaid storyboard artists? and it only took how many years?
thank god for you!
"oh thank god you helped out the poor underpaid writers! bless you, kind sir!
and you're FINALLY addressing the issue of overworked and underpaid storyboard artists? and it only took how many years?
thank god for you!"
Dear Anon2:
First off I would like to state, I am a thirty year veteran of the animation industry and have not worked any unpaid overtime. Do you have any idea of what the union (or any labor organization) can do if its members choose to violate the contract and work unpaid overtime? If the members are not willing to stand together (unite/union...got it?), there will never be any changes, period. The union guy can pound his fist on the studio execs desk and talk until he is blue in the face, but it won't do any good if the members don't back him! So go ahead and whine anonymously while you sit at your desk and work for free!
anon3:
so pounding on the desks of the overworked members the union supposedly represents is somehow a better solution than pounding on executives' desks?
look, if the union wants to organize a strike or a walk out based on these issues, i'll be happy to stand behind them.
this may shock you, but despite the unfair treatment that many of us get, we actually CARE about our shows and how they look. if we don't work the extra hours it takes to get the job done right, the shows look even worse than they do and it would reflect badly on us.
i've known a few of the people who just do their 8 hours and walk out, and their work sucks.
all many of us want the union to do is be our mouthpiece... even if it's futile, i want steve to take the pressure off of the artists and put it back onto the producers and executives where it belongs.
if he is CONSTANTLY badgering them about these issues and grilling them about their techniques and methods and schedules, i have to think that eventually they would change their tactics just to get him out of their hair.
the studios need to know that the degree of discontent among their artists is a powder keg that is dangerously close to blowing up. and the union should be the ones relaying this message. all day every day if necessary.
we, the lowly artists, are not in the position to raise as big of a stink as he is. it's his job.
Anon4: Seems to me it would be hard to be a mouthpeice for an ANONYMOUS voice!
With mindsets such as some of these here it's really a mystery why our union isn't a stronger force against employers' injustices.
Last anonymous person has a good, realistic point, unfortunately. There's what would be "brave" and right to do, and there's keeping your job.
BUT on the other hand, all the hostility isn't helpful towards changing things-and I don't get it.
The solution isn't just one rep banging on a table continually, it's also got to be more than one of a story crew banding togather against unreasonable deadlines that are put there to save other people money and get them bonuses, people who who don't give a damn about them, at 839 members' expense.
The trouble is also with some of the membership that frankly would LOVE it if person A. B or C who complains about deadlnes that affect everyone gets laid off and makes them look better. There's a lot of cutthroat competition and not a whole lot of brotherhood out there.
"The trouble is also with some of the membership that frankly would LOVE it if person A. B or C who complains about deadlnes that affect everyone gets laid off and makes them look better. There's a lot of cutthroat competition and not a whole lot of brotherhood out there."
Amen!
How long does it take from the time they have the finished script until the animation is done?
Today? Production takes 3-6 months, depending on how many animators and technical people are on it.
Production schedules vary widely; "The Simpsons Movie," from start of production to release, is around sixteen to eighteen months. The bulk of "Snow White" was done in a year or year and a half.
Now. When you include story and design development, the time-line is way longer, often years.
It's a hard question to answer because the number of people on a project will cause the schedule to expand or contract. Frank Thomas told me a thousand years ago that when Disney artists were animating on shorts during the thirties, they were expected to do ten feet a week.
So how long was a "classic" short in production? Do the math. Number of animators times ten feet per week times length of the short.
Anon 5 here: So ... has anyone ever heard "actions speak louder than words?" Steve can go pound and scream all he wants but if we all keep putting in the extra time FOR FREE because "we care about how the show looks" than the execs will just smile at Steve when he screams and say "yes, well, no one's been complaining here"... and privately, they will think to themselves "those animators love the show so much they'll work for free. Lucky me!" Producers aren't willing to negotiate better deals unless what they have isn't working for them or they're afraid they're going to lose their workers to someone else more competitive.
Yeah, we all worry about rocking the boat and annoying someone so much that we can't keep our job or get another one. But we'll lose all the goodness we have and end up in REAL sweatshops if we don't stand up and ask for the overtime we are owed. .. or whatever it is (money for story premises, etc.)
"if we don't work the extra hours it takes to get the job done right, the shows look even worse than they do and it would reflect badly on us."
Yeah, but why does it need to be done for FREE? (You're killin' me Larry!)
Anonymous #666 here...
Isn't it interesting when a project starts, the excuse for low pay, tight schedules, etc. is, "There's no money, sorry!" But when the work comes back looking like utter CRAP, all of the sudden money will appear to fix the mess so that it'll save the producers' butts so that they look good?
Why don't we just do what we're PAID to do, and not kill ourselves over people who don't give a damn about us until THEIR butts are on the line? Make them spend the money where it's most helpful...at the front-end of production with a reasonable schedule and budget so that the work comes back as close to fully useable as possible?
I know, it's not as much fun as sitting back and whining that the union doesn't do the work for ya when it comes to your rights, but if YOU don't stand up for yourself(and, by extension, that means complaining to the Union for realz if you're in a crappy work situation so that they can help you file a grievance), why would you expect anyone else to?
Post a Comment