And funny thing. The tests take three ... or four ... or five days to complete. ...
A couple of decades ago, tests were minimal to non-existent. Then, a cartoon studio looked at a prospective hire's portfolio. And if the studio liked it, the artist was hired into an entry-level position and worked her (his) way up ... or flamed out.
Simple as that.
But not so simple anymore. These days, there are packets that include design samples, script samples, semi-humorous instructions and the admonition to "Draw up X pages of script and be creative! Be inventive! And HAVE FUN!"
Sadly, it's often not fun. One veteran storyboard artist told me:
"I'm doing two or three freelance jobs, all on deadline, and a director I know calls me about a staff job. I'm always up for a full-time gig, so I say yes. And he says, 'I know you're good, but the studio insists everybody takes their storyboard test. So take the test and we'll hire you.'"
"So I get the test and start it. Only it's long. And I've got paying jobs to do. So I don't finish it. And the director calls me to ask where the test is because he needs me, and I tell him I'm busy with real work and I don't have time to complete it, I've got other deadlines. And he gets mad at me. "I want you to start a board, but I can't hire you! Because you haven't finished the test!'"
I never did get through the thing. I didn't have time, and I'm not into working for free."
Imagine. He doesn't want to work for free. How greedy and short-sighted.
The testing mania sweeping cartoon studios has gone several clicks past ludicrous. The studios engineer tests that grow progressively longer. Directors don't have time to look at long tests let alone short ones, and as a veteran boarder said to me today: "You don't need a lot of board panels to know if somebody can draw the style of your show. If somebody does thirty bad board panels, the thirty-first panel is going to turn everything around? Don't think so."
The complaints about testing got more numerous around the start of the year, so I called the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (which reps the major cartoon studios) and asked for an audience. Four months later I got one with all the studios in attendance, and I dutifully hauled in copies of studio tests to show that testing was (is) wildly out of hand. And you'll be amazed to discover that the studios are reluctant to admit that their tests are "long," even when it's screamingly obvious. To take one example: Disney's Gravity Falls test said in black-and-white: "This test should take no more than ONE WEEK."
Fairly clear, yes? A strong hint, wouldn't you say? I pointed out the sentence. The Disney people denied it meant what it said. "Oh, that means a couple of hours a day. Not forty hours."
Yeah, hm hm.
Except nowhere on the test materials does it say, "Take six or seven hours, maximum" or "Just put in a couple of hours a day." And when the packet contains 2 1/2 or 3 pages of script, that's a tipoff that the artist will ge spending a bit more than two hours a day.
I made the suggestion that since studios are requiring job seekers to draw the studio's copyrighted work, the studios are effectively hiring these folks, and should pay them. This did not go over well. The argument was put forth that actors audition for nothing, so why shouldn't board artists do the same.
(Maybe because artists are not actors? And even actors don't audition for forty goddamn hours?)
The meeting went on for the better part of an hour (the details of which I will be relating at next Tuesday's General Membership meeting.) The studios thanked me for bringing the issue to their attention (again.) I told them I would be contacting them every time long and abusive tests rear their ugly heads.
Board artists and anybody else who care about this issue should show up 1105 N. Hollywood Way, Burbank next Tuesday night. We'll be talking about the problem. And the REMEDIES.
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2 comments:
Gosh, maybe if the artists themselves refused to play along with Human Resources on tests, this problem would get cut down drastically.
A director on a show should be able to hire people without them having to go through the absolute nonsense of a test. If an artist has a portfolio for the job they're applying for, there's no reason to do a test. The director or whomever is recommending said artist is putting their reputation on the line with that recommendation to begin with, so the fear of not getting the work done should be unfounded in the current cutthroat schedules that most of us labor under.
If a studio can't hire someone without them taking a test, there's something wrong with that studio, not the artists.
it seems the solution to tests is simple:
1. all work performed on a test is explicitly verboten for use in the show. it IS a test after all - not "work"... riiiiiight? and so it remains the sole property of the artist who performed the test.
2. IF (and ONLY if) the artist is hired, then the work done during the test can be used on a production and the artist is compensated for the work done on the test.
easy peezy and impossible (from an ethical position) for producers to argue against.
wtf can you possibly say against that?
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