The Mid-Week Studios

Yesterday I dropped in on The House That Seth Build (otherwise known as Fox Animation) and today was Nick nick nick ...

FA was kind of hopping on Tuesday. I walk in the door and there is a BBC camera crew, readying itself to cast its lense on table reads for Family Guy and American Dad.

They were a little late getting the sessions going (they told me), but I wasn't around when they happened anyway. I was wandering through the cubicles, talking to artists and dragging my 401(k) books behind me (Few takers for the 401(k) applications, strangely enough. Could it be the economy, you think? Naah. Everyone's just shy,) One of the crew said:

I donno how long it's going to last, but since the WGA strike, the schedules here have seemed more doable than before. There seems to be more flexibility, more give and take ...

Probably there are Fox artists who would disagree with this, but I get the same kind of thing at every studio. Some artists are stressed out over the deadlines, others have less problems with them. And the stress levels vary from show to show.

Over at Nick today, I wandered among the crews of Fanboy and Madagascar Penguins.

We're coming to the end of the first twenty-six half hours of Penguins, which means we're about halfway through the work. It's nice to have a job that's going to last a while ...

Kind of the general consensus among working artists: "Happy to have a job". Even when things are less than ideal, everybody is glad to be employed.

Naturally, there were a few questions about the Screen Actors Guild, mostly along the lines of "Are they nuts?". Funny how I keep getting queries like that.