Tight Market

Funny thing.

As I mentioned here a couple of days ago, the market for some categories of experienced, production-savvy talent is tight. Four and five years ago, this wasn't the case. At the time, veteran timing directors often complained to me that work opportunities had tailed off, and that it was hard for them to stay steadily employed. ...

So Friday, after my earlier blog post, I get a call from a studio executive who says:

"Steve? We're having trouble finding qualified timing directors. We're also having difficulty getting enough animation checkers, but timing directors is our biggerst concern." ...

I allowed as how good timing directors are indeed tough to secure right now, since most of the best candidates are working.

"DreamWorks Animation TV is doing a huge amount of work and employing a lot of artists and directors. Almost every other TV animation outfit has ramped up the number of shows they're doing. Timing directors who were employed part-time a few years ago now have more work than they can handle. So they get selective."

(Hint, hint.)

The executive wanted to know what TAG could do to help alleviate the scarcity of good timing directors. I said I was reluctant to do much of anything without more thought on the subject.

"We don't want to start training people, then have the work dry up, and then have unemployed timing directors yelling at us. Maybe you can talk to some of your creative supervisors over there, and we can talk again."

See, I know how this kind of crapola goes. Work is booming, and then work falls off a tall cliff. And the last thing anyone wants to do is increase the size of the Talent Pool to the point it's Un. Sus. Tain. Able.

That doesn't do anybody any good.