Down below, there is a snark-fest going on about c.g. animators versus graphite animators. Who's better? Who's more skilled? Who deserves more respect? ... and so on.
Me, I think both sets of artists are talented, and should get our praise and our thanks for all the entertainment they've provided us. But that's not what I want to get into here. Rather, it's observations like these:
…I agree about CG animators being mostly button-pushers compared to the artistry of 2D animators like the Nine Old Men …
...I think long gone are the days when animators were considered "super stars" or even "actors". With schools pumping out animators at a record pace...animators are becoming acknowledged as little more than button-pushers by the big studios. …
... 2D had many artists who produced the girth of the animation with their single hand. They got higher salaries because they could not be so easily replaced ....
Judging from the above comments, people seem to think that:
A) Disney's vaunted "Nine Old Men" were animation stars who made lots of money, and
B) Artists who drew hand-drawn animation earned bigger salaries than others in the field.
Actually, no.
Woolie Reitherman, who climbed to the summit of the Disney empire running the company's feature animation department, told me:
"I didn't get rich from the salary they paid me around here. It was never very much. The reason I'm well off is because of the stock options. It's the reason all of us are doing better than all right."
A veteran Disney layout artist ... who worked at the studio for three and a half decades ... said to me at one of TAG's award banquets honoring fifty-year veterans:
"Animation is the part of the movie business where you work fifty years because you have to ..."
My father, a Disney background artist for decades, was once screamed at by a talented but disgruntled short-timer on his way out the door:
"I don't know what's wrong with you people! You work here year after year, and for next to nothing! Why do you put up with it?!"
Dear old Dad, at the time of his death, was making $500 per week. After thirty-six years of employment.
Please don't misunderstand me. Nobody was chained to their desks at Disney. Nobody slept under their desks (at least, not in the modern era). The place was considered the "country club" of animation studios, with ball fields, ping-pong tables, a pleasant commissary, and a work schedule that (usually) wasn't soul-crushing.
But high pay? It wasn't part of the equation.
And while many Disney animators were known inside the profession, nobody on the far side of Monrovia knew who they were. It was only in later years that wider recognition arrived.
There was really only one ten-year span where animators' fame and salaries grew geometrically, and that was the 1990s. For one brief shining and unsustainable moment, animators made fairly ginormous salaries and got their names and pictures in glossy magazines. But it didn't last. Animated features didn't make the mountains of money the conglomerates expected, and after a little while supply of talent caught up to demand.
At which point, weekly paychecks fell back to earth.
So let's stop hallucinating over wage levels that never were. With the exception of the nineties, animation salaries have never been exorbitant. Even for the Nine Old Men.
Posts
48 comments:
Amen. Excellent post.
"a talented but disgruntled short-timer on his way out the door"
So that's what you call yourself, Steve?
"Animation is the part of the movie business where you work fifty years because you have to ..."
What does this MEAN??
No one from any of the comments is suggesting that they want to dabble in the animation field to get rich quick. Animation is a career like any other, which means you work for four or five decades with a commitment to excellence and you receive worthy returns.
You seem to be taking one man's commiseration as a correction of some collective misconception.
I have no misconception here. I enjoy doing what I do and I chose to be in animation because I would have no problem doing it for the rest of my life. Its gravy.
The issue in the CGI vs. traditional thread is that there is a starkly different dynamic in place than in the past. CGI both gives the executives more power than before, and fragments the production line more than ever.
In traditional animation the animator can create a scene and the steps beyond that are secondary. Replace the animator - everything changes. Everything.
The parity of duties among the CGI production line isn't that dependent on any process. If the rigger is replaced with someone not as good, its not the end of the world because the animator, the modeler, the texture artists and so forth can still deliver, and todays audience member will hardly notice. They'll be dazzled by the photorealistic world. Same for the animator, or the modeler, or the texture artist.
All replacable if the rest of the team is there.
Traditional animation flows down from the animator, where as CGI... CGI is a beast with five heads that don't talk to each other. Only a hackneyed production line of miscommunication could produce a promotional image such as this:
http://tinyurl.com/c5864r
or this:
http://tinyurl.com/dbppd7
I can get the same figure poses from my son's Spider Man doll. CGI isn't any better looking than whats achievable in 2D, its a studio system that will always keep salaries down because everyone in the studio is now a cog and no one is an animator.
"In traditional animation the animator can create a scene and the steps beyond that are secondary. Replace the animator - everything changes. Everything."
HAHAHAHAH! Again, your BLATANT ignorance is showing. What a MAROON you are. Animators are only ONE part of the film making process. An important one, but not always the MOST important one. The animator doesn't design the film. They don't create the characters or storyboards. They don't write the script. And they don't edit or direct. They animate. And most assistant animators in the business worth their salt draw BETTER than animators. And checkers tend to FIX all the mess animators leave behind.
And cg does not put more power into hands of executives. Keep repeating that lie and even YOU will start to believe it!
Go back to your video games, kid. Life is real.
"I'm not young enough to know everything."
Oscar Wilde
"There was really only one ten-year span where animators' fame and salaries grew geometrically, and that was the 1990s..."
Overall I see your point. But at least 2D had a moment like this. And aren't there still animators from this era still benefiting from those salaries?
I mean, doesn't Glen Keane, James Baxter, Andreas Dejas, Ken Duncan, etc still pull million dollar salaries?
These kind of salaries weren't established in today's market...but in that ten year period you speak of. But they still enjoy the fruits of the labor of that day.
Today's animators can't and will never touch those kinds of salaries. The system doesn't support it, and the studios simply will not promote them the same way those guys were promoted back then.
I think all of us secretly wish that we could go through another period like the 1990's where animators were sought after, in magazines, and pull crazy salaries. But I do think that the assembly lines of CG animation will never allow that. Someone is always being groomed as a replacement for someone else. That is just the reality of the modern animation industry.
As someone stated before, if you are an animator and want the money and fame...learn to tell stories and direct. That is what this industry rewards.
Animators are simply not high on the food chain.
"...learn to tell stories and direct."
...but do it not as a result of the current system, but in spite of it. That's the only way to make any film truly great.
Some people are missing the point of the damn post.
It wasn't that animators weren't important to the process. Or didn't have artistic chops.
It's that they didn't make a lot of money.
And yes, there are still a handful of star animators making good money today. But there are larger numbers of animators who've seen their salaries cut. A lot.
"a talented but disgruntled short-timer on his way out the door"
So that's what you call yourself, Steve?
Talented? You've got me confused with somebody else.
I mean, doesn't Glen Keane, James Baxter, Andreas Dejas, Ken Duncan, etc still pull million dollar salaries?
I dont know their salaries, but to be fair, Glen is a director/anim director, and Ken owns his own studio and doesnt work for Disney anymore.
But yes, if you're good enough, you can eventually be promoted from animator to director in this industry. Byron Howard (Bolt) and Jimmy Hayward (Horton Hears a Who) come to mind.
I think all of us secretly wish that we could go through another period like the 1990's where animators were sought after, in magazines, and pull crazy salaries. But I do think that the assembly lines of CG animation will never allow that. Someone is always being groomed as a replacement for someone else. That is just the reality of the modern animation industry.
CG animation didn't cause that. The '90's boom did, and last I looked that was 2D-driven not CG for the most part.
The bigger problem I've seen is that artists became very cutthroat with each other to the point where everyone would rather take a test to get a lame-o short-term job that pays crap and works everyone to the point of mental collapse than support the simple idea that to do good work, one must have some kind of a life outside of the tiny cubicle they're shoved into. And maybe get paid for the hours they actually work, as opposed to bending over backwards to the insane schedules that the non-animation idiots set.
How far will you bend before you break? And who will care when you go?
I mean, doesn't Glen Keane, James Baxter, Andreas Dejas, Ken Duncan, etc still pull million dollar salaries?
I can tell you with great certainty that the superstar animators of the 90's are NOT making those million dollar salaries anymore. There's a much longer list than the 4 above who were making huge bucks, and I personally know how much some of them have been knocked down. They still make a good living, but it's a fraction of what it was.
"The bigger problem I've seen is that artists became very cutthroat with each other to the point where everyone would rather take a test to get a lame-o short-term job that pays crap"
But isn't this a by product of every art school, online school, or junior college pumping out animators?
There are tons of students who graduate every year trying to be CG animators. That kind of saturation in any market will drive down prices.
When kids are 20-25, they have no bones about working insane hours, giving up their life for pennies. If all these kids were bad it wouldn't be a big deal...but a lot of them now are damn good.
So, take some who are damn good, hungry, willing to break themselves working crazy hours, and willing to do it for next to nothing...you have the makings of cheaper labor overall for our current animation industry.
"The issue in the CGI vs. traditional thread is that there is a starkly different dynamic in place than in the past. CGI both gives the executives more power than before, and fragments the production line more than ever."
The first 5 features I worked on were hand-drawn. The last 5 have been CG. I haven't seen this starkly different dynamic you cite. The traditional features I worked on were done in the usual, extremely hierarchical big-studio system, just like the CG features since. I really haven't seen any paradigm shift in how the films are conceived or executed.
"In traditional animation the animator can create a scene and the steps beyond that are secondary."
On the traditional features I worked on, the story department and director and designers came first. Animation was crucial (just as it is in CG), but everything else was hardly secondary. I think in hand-drawn work the lead animators had a bigger hand in the final design of their character, but that's one of the few differences I see.
"Replace the animator [in traditional] - everything changes. Everything."
Some of the traditional features I worked on had, by the end of production, over 50 animators working. It was an assembly line. They worked from storyboards and layouts that clearly defined the animation they needed to perform. Plenty of animators were replaced, shuffled, etc. The world didn't stop spinning.
"The parity of duties among the CGI production line isn't that dependent on any process. If the rigger is replaced with someone not as good, its not the end of the world because the animator, the modeler, the texture artists and so forth can still deliver,"
At this point I have to wonder if you've ever animated on a CG feature. I don't mean that as an insult, but the idea that animators (and texture artists!) can make up for crappy rigging is ludicrous.
"Traditional animation flows down from the animator, "
Like I said, my experience was that big-studio traditional animation flowed down from the director, designers, and story department, went through the layout deparment, and THEN the animators worked their special magic. And often those departments didn't talk to each other as much as they should have.
The process seemed just as segmented, and just as controlled by producers, as what we have now.
Just my two cents.
Wow... posters just went right back to the "Why am I not a superstar?" rant!
Well, I thought this was an excellent post, Steve. Well said.
"the idea that animators (and texture artists!) can make up for crappy rigging is ludicrous.
"
I can show you twelve scenes from a feature I worked on and you wouldn't be able to pick out the scene where our rigs were terrible. We all made do. And in the end, we're the only ones who know.
Conversely, you'll able to pick out a scene with crappy animation in a traditionally animated film. Its quite obvious.
Salaries are down because it takes much less of an artistic hand to make CGI than traditional animation. Yes, I know the argument that will be thrown at me. "I can draw AND I do CGI!" ...but you aren't drawng when you do CGI are you? You are delving into a craft and not an art form.
"What about stop motion animators!" What about them? RGreat stuff, but again animating a three dimensional object isn't comparable to drawing it. A 2D animator has to create the illusion of three dimensions - or more specifically. Its drawings moving. Drawings. There is CGI, there is stop motion, and none have anything to do with drawing. People still want to see drawings move and the people who are accomplished at that art are much more difficult to find than CGI artists.
The proof is in the pudding and CGI artists are legion. Salaries will stay down because they are easier to train and the production asks less from them artistically.
I can show you twelve scenes from a feature I worked on and you wouldn't be able to pick out the scene where our rigs were terrible. We all made do.
Maybe because you had, I dunno, talented animators. (ie: rigging their own deformers, breaking the rig to get better shapes, cheating poses to camera) Wow, CG animators can be talented!? Amazing!
Conversely, you'll able to pick out a scene with crappy animation in a traditionally animated film. Its quite obvious.
Same goes for CG, man. If you've ever been in dailies for CG you'd know theres BAD CG animators, and GOOD CG animators.
I was recently on a film where we had "traditional" animators who couldnt animate in CG. Their shots were redone by better people. Their drawing skills couldnt save them. But its not because they were traditional, its just because they had used their good drawing skills as a crutch for years, and when given the sole task of animating, they didnt do so well.
Id argue that a cg/stop motion animator are likely to be better "animators" than traditional animators, and traditional animators are more likely to be better draftsmen.
Still, this is a dumb, stupid, ignorant argument, and Im ashamed to be feeding the trolls. I have so much respect and admiration for my peers, both 2D and CG, and pitting the two against each other only exists in your mind I think. All of them Ive worked with are interested and respectful of both mediums.
"I can show you twelve scenes from a feature I worked on and you wouldn't be able to pick out the scene where our rigs were terrible."
Maybe I couldn't, but I'll bet I could. I see it in high-end features all the time -- secondary characters that didn't get the rigging/modeling love, and no matter who animates them they look clunky. I've worked with great rigs, and with lousy ones, and I don't put the animation with the lousy ones on my reel, because it never looks as good.
But none of that has anything to do with Steve's post here.
"Salaries are down because it takes much less of an artistic hand to make CGI than traditional animation."
If that's the case, then why are the animators working on the ONE hand-drawn feature in production in the US working for a fraction of what they worked for 10 years ago? I'll tell you why, and it has nothing to do with traditional being "an art form" and CG being a "craft." It has everything to do with Steve's main point -- supply and demand.
On the idea that 3d takes less talent than 2d, and therefore schools are able to pump out more 3d animators---I remember schools pumping out 2d graduates like widgets back in the 90's. There were no shortages of them by the end of that decade.
Schools are pumping out 3d graduates today because that's where the money, and the boxoffice successes are.
Decent draftsmanship (enough to be employable) can be learned by a committed student in a couple years, sometimes less. The principles of animation, which must be learned for either 2d or 3d, can be basically learned in about that same amount of time. Maya can be learned in about 6 months. So in the end, the relative differences in training and "talent" are trivial. There is no strong difference in talent or training-time between 2d and 3d.
Who cares about hand drawn animation anyway? I'd rather watch a good movie.
Who cares about hand drawn animation anyway? I'd rather watch a good movie.
"I was recently on a film where we had "traditional" animators who couldnt animate in CG. Their shots were redone by better people. Their drawing skills couldnt save them. But its not because they were traditional, its just because they had used their good drawing skills as a crutch for years, and when given the sole task of animating, they didnt do so well."
This is an unbelieveably ignorant comment. It sounds as if the person in question simply couldn't grasp the concept of animating in CG as well as 2D. It does NOT mean that they were never good to begin with, as the writer implies.
Someone seems bitter with 2D animators in general.
"Decent draftsmanship (enough to be employable) can be learned by a committed student in a couple years, sometimes less.
LOL!!
(certainly enough to be a CGI animator...)
Laugh all you want. With proper instruction, that's about all it took to become facile enough to become employed at a 2D animation studio. Obviously, it took longer to become really good, but nonetheless, I gather it took you longer?
But your post illustrates what other commenters have already pointed out about you--which is that you seem to equate animation with draftsmanship. I know a lot of 2D animators like that. And their work showed it.
Animation is the art of movement and acting. Draftsmanship was always merely a means to an end, but some people (you) mistakenly became so enraptured by Milt Kahl that they never properly focussed on the principles of motion and performance. Look at any 2D feature and along with lots of incredible animation, you will also see no shortage of solidly drawn, but stiff shots with lousy timing, with little sense of entertainment or looseness.
As has already been said: those who could animate well have weathered this transition quite well. Those who couldn't, well....they're posting bitter rants against those who did.
It is just an atrocious sign of how dismal our union has become when an individual like you cites Milt Kahl as an example of a great animator who only focused on draftsmanship - when his MOST FAMOUS QUOTE is his admission that he has always been a lousy draftsman and that acting and performance are just as important.
For your own sake, please shut up. You are wasting a lot of time that you could spend learning a thing or two about being an animator.
It is just an atrocious sign of how dismal our union has become when an individual like you cites Milt Kahl as an example of a great animator who only focused on draftsmanship - when his MOST FAMOUS QUOTE is his admission that he has always been a lousy draftsman and that acting and performance are just as important.
Why is this the union's fault? Why isn't it the artists' themselves at fault?
I swear, the union is only as strong as its members allow it to be. Artists will continue to undermine each other for their own short-term personal gain until there's NOTHING to be gained for ANYONE at any price...or lack thereof in this case. Unions last thrived in the Great Depression, maybe these times will be a wake-up call to artists that their loyalties to studios that don't care whether they live or die is indeed misplaced.
Then again, artists can be a stubborn lot, and doomed to yet more masochism at their own hands because they refuse to see themselves as part of a larger group that deserves a little more respect than its getting. It's all up to you, kids.
"when his MOST FAMOUS QUOTE is his admission that he has always been a lousy draftsman"
Precisely where/when was this "quote" from? I don't believe Kahl ever said this.
And if it's his "most famous quote," why haven't we hard of it before?
when an individual like you cites Milt Kahl as an example of a great animator who only focused on draftsmanship
Way to miss the point. You just can't get past your blinding rage, and so you resort to your usual personal attacks and deliberate obfuscation.
For the reading impaired, I never suggested that Milt Kahl only focussed on draftsmanship, but that certain animators DO. Certain animators, in their admiration of his work, fail to understand what Milt understood--that draftsmanship is simply a means to an end. Today, one of several means to an end.
Ironically, for all your verbal diarrhea about 3d animators having less talent, it is you who wants to reduce animation to a technical skill (draftsmanship), instead of an art of movement and performance. I'm sorry that you've never understood animation, which explains why you're so angry and petulant today.
"when his MOST FAMOUS QUOTE is his admission that he has always been a lousy draftsman and that acting and performance are just as important."
Sounds like Milt is on the side of the 3D folks in this thread. Game over.
"t is just an atrocious sign of how dismal our union has become when an individual like you cites Milt Kahl as an example of a great animator who only focused on draftsmanship - when his MOST FAMOUS QUOTE is his admission that he has always been a lousy draftsman and that acting and performance are just as important."
Milt Kahl, in addition to being a brilliant animator and draftsman, was also one of the least modest of artists-false modesty. He was quoted at least once as stating that he was the BEST draftsman at the Disney Studio. So I think your "quote" is dead wrong.
Her is his quote:
"“it’s a very difficult medium, Animation requires a pretty good draftsman because you got to turn things, to be able to draw well enough to turn things at every angle. you have to understand movement, which itself is quite a study. You have to be an actor. You have to put on a performance, to be a showman, to be able to evaluate how good the entertainment is. You have to know the best way of doing it, and have an appreciation of where it belongs in the picture. You have to be a pretty good story man. To be a really good animator, then, you have to be a jack of all trades. I don’t mean to say that I’m all fo these things, but I try hard. I got accused over the years of being a fine draftsman. Actually, I don’t really draw all that well. It’s just that I don’t stop trying as quickly. I keep at it. I happen to have high standards and I try to meet them. I have to struggle like hell to make a drawing look good.”"
Its a very good quote and hopefully it can salvage the littering of idiocy in these comments by the two of you losers who are trying to pretend to be animators. Thank me later for enlightening you.
Now get back to your button pushing. Lord knows what you would do with your computer to do all the work for you. What a dismal development that the animation field now includes clown like you that can't even hide your ignorance. How lucky you are your names aren't posted.
Keep setting em up and I'll keep knocking em down. Maybe you can drop another name of whom you know NOTHING about.
Seriously, if you aren't familiar with that quote... and you are working in this industry... and you are bragging abut your grasp of the art of animation...
Pathetic.
I'm disappointed by all of you. ALL of you are acting pathetic.
Traditional, CG, Stop motion, it doesnt matter. If you've found your way in this difficult industry to the position of animator, then you obviously have skills and talents beyond those who have NOT. Resorting to cannibalism on an anonymous message board, throwing your COWORKERS and PEERS under the bus because they "can" or "cannot" draw, or "can" or "cannot" animate in CG, or "do" or "do not" know their animation history is disrespectful and childish. Shame on all of you.
I simply do not understand the benefit of tearing ANYONE down, other than to feed some insecurities on the part of the instigator.
I wish everyone would TRY to show some respect for each other, because if you strip everything else away, we are ALL animators.
>>because if you strip everything else away, we are ALL animators.<<
Depends on your definition of animators.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v42LVMi6Suk
g.
>>Depends on your definition of animators.<<
Biggest. Douche. Ever.
Biggest. Douche. Ever.
Yes, and now he'll predictably come sobbing about "personal attacks" and "insults." I got some kleenix over here for him.
Everyone is sort of partly right and wrong. None of you have pinpointed the reason animators of either medium don't get paid what the deserve.
Drawing is a difficult skill that takes a lifetime to master. Sometimes, in a classic animation production the animators aren't the best draftsmen. Sometimes, in terms of pure drawing and designing skills the clean up artists, lay-out artists, and designers are are relatively stronger.
The principal skill that distinguishes the animator is acting; using expression gesture, movement and pure instinct, like a live film and stage actor to create a convincing character with the power to make an audience suspend disbelief.
An artist with those unique sensibilities can accomplish that with drawings, puppets or virtual characters. It doesn't matter, especially to the audience.
The actual reason we don't get either the recognition we deserve is because we are, especially to the general public, anonymous. We are faceless nameless ghosts, hidden in dark little rooms, behind the scenes. They don't know who we are, they can't tell us apart and they don't care. It makes for poor leverage. We are what in live action films would be a paradox, an oxymoron: below-the-line stars.
I don't know if CG animators are less talented. At pure, distilled animation skills they are similar to 2D animators. Beyond a doubt, however, because of the nature of the medium, they are certainly, if marginally, more anonymous, therefor more vulnerable.
I sometimes think that that is an important reason that production companies gives so much attention and creative support to CG. They are hoping for a future when CG animators are a dime a dozen and quality CG features could be done (CHEAP) anywhere in the world.
GOD that animation of that dog like thing was HORRIBLE. Bad, cliched acting.
The Ratatouille animation was filled with CHARACTER, WIT, and SURPRISE. Wins the day--no doubt.
Oh--and it was the best reviewed and one of the highest grossing films of it's years.
Treasure Planet bombed.
See---I TOLD you Milt never said he was a "lousy draftsman." And he'd LOVE the computer--it would let him focus more on what he loved to do: perform.
Milt would have embraced the computer like the best animators today have.
"As I See it" posted a very thoughtful and insightful response.
Too bad it was followed by the stupidest thing I've ever read in my life.
BOTH examples show a high degree of craftsmanship.
and, on the subject of acting...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voenkCw-x7A
R.
R,
Thanks.
To Angry and Bitter 2d Guy-
Yeah, um, if you're going to pick a Milt quote, you might not want to pick one that completely negates your own (very lame) argument.
So Milt confirmed that draftsmanship is just a means to an end, to simply "turn things in perspective, at any angle"? Like...uh...what a computer does in virtual space.
It's sad that you focus only on the most technical aspect of what a traditional animator does, as being the most important. Why do you reduce being an animator to simply being a technician--i.e. a draftsman? Milt says that being an actor, a showman, finding the entertainment, is what is important. Apparently you never grasped this.
And the fact that you've displayed your total ignorance in the asshole-iest way possible is doubly sad. As the famous saying goes, better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Biggest. Douche. Ever.
Yes, and now he'll predictably come sobbing about "personal attacks" and "insults." I got some kleenix over here for him.
No not at all. I actually laughed when I read the "douche" comment.
This comment section is so funny. Everyone is so openly pissy because they are hiding behind an anonymous title. Myself included.
Most of you are such pathetic sniveling babies that all one really can do is laugh.
Peace out. :)
Peace out. :)
Shut up.
so far only the cg posters have stooped to using foul and disgusting profanity. this vulgarity speaks volumes.
so far only the cg posters have stooped to using foul and disgusting profanity. this vulgarity speaks volumes.
Awwww. You couldn't win on the merits, but you can always be a crybaby, after being called on your trolling asshattery.
Milt was a hack. Everything he animated moved the same, and was loaded with bad acting. No personality. Thankfully, 2D animation is about dead. Now we can get on with making REAL movies instead of rehashing past Disney crap.
This is one of the 3d defenders here, saying that whoever just made the above comment is incredibly stupid. Probably the 2d troll just trying to stir things up again. I know of no 3d people who wish or think that 2d is dead--quite the opposite, given that "Princess and the Frog" is coming out this December and will certainly be a hit. Milt may have occasionally repeated himself, but his stuff was awesome and filled with personality.
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