A Moment with… Eric Schwartz - Retro Gamer issue 80

A Moment with… Eric Schwartz

(Transcribed from Retro Gamer issue 80, 19 August 2010, pg. 16) by FrDougal9000

Who is Eric Schwartz? Back in the days of the Amiga, Schwartz was Mr Animation, producing popular cartoons on the system, perhaps most famously the introduction to Team17’s Superfrog. He is also the creator of Amy the Squirrel and one of the world’s longest-running web comics, (Sabrina Online, NSFW) and has won the Bit.Movie contest several times.

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Which of your animations would you recommend to our readers and why?

‘The Anti-Lemmin’ Demo’. I wouldn’t call this parody of Lemmings my best work, but it’s probably my most famous, at least back in the day. Also my Amiga tribute, which can be found on YouTube and elsewhere. It takes the song ‘Still Alive’ from Portal, and subverts it into a twisted history lesson for the Amiga and its fans. Admittedly its entertainment value is proportional to one’s familiarity with the Amiga, so your mileage may vary.

What is your proudest memory?

Probably when I discovered my work was being covered in magazines like Amiga Format. It was a bit of a revelation that my creations were being viewed outside of the United States. I’m pretty proud of that press coverage, and held on to many of the old magazines.

Which game or character do you wish you could have worked on?

Sometimes I think it would have been fun to be a part of one of the big ‘character’ franchises like Mario or Sonic. I also wish I could have had a greater influence on the in-game graphics of Superfrog, the majority of which were completed by the time I was asked to work on the intro. I might have steered the game toward a more fully animated style, similar to Earthworm Jim.

What opportunities has computer animation given you?

My animations have given me enough exposure to attract a fair amount of work. I could have animated for a feature film if the timing had worked out - I was in college at the time, and reluctant to abandon it. Starting with my own projects gave me confidence that I could follow my own path, for whatever good that did me.

What’s your darkest memory of being in the computer industry?

For me that would have to be when Commodore computers filed for bankruptcy in 194, along with the year or so of uncertainty that followed. That was a difficult time for any Amiga user or fan.

And your best?

It was nice to find out that the end of Commodore was not the end of the Amiga. I was always happy and eager to learn about any new developments that could add to my toolbox.

Can you share one interesting anecdote about your time in the industry?

I never really considered myself part of the industry as much as just a person viewing from the sidelines. However, I often found it funny that in the magazine coverage of my Amiga animations, the columnists frequently mistook any feminine character I drew for my first ‘celebrity’, Amy the Squirrel. I took it as a cue to diversify the design of my creations more.

How has the industry changed?

A couple of decades ago computers will still strongly in the territory of the technophiles and hobbyists. Now computers are more like a commodity, a standard tool for everyday tasks. I wouldn’t call either era better than the other, though I do miss the ‘old days’. I’m not sure I would be the kind of person I am today if not for the tech and culture of 1989, when I was making the most of the Amiga.

 

FrDougal9000’s notes: The article has been lightly edited to include links for the animations mentioned.

From https://archive.org/details/retro_gamer

Howard Beckerman - "Hubley Retrospective" - "Animation Spot" - Back Stage; New York Vol. 23, Iss. 42, (Oct 15, 1982): 34, 62.

 ASIFA-East Presents Hubley Retrospective 

 When most of us create a film to express our very personal beliefs we usually put our heart and soul into it. The thing that always impressed me about John and Faith Hubley was that not only did they put their heart and soul into their work, but they also included a large portion of their brains as well.  

This was quite evident the other evening at the season's first meeting of the local chapter of ASIFA. This organization, which is represented by animators worldwide, meets every month to view animated works by international filmmakers and to discuss their merits. Every once in a while, ASIFA-East, the New York based branch of the organization (there are other chapters in Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco) sets aside an evening to screen films made exclusively by one of their own members.  

The Hubleys began producing films back in the fifties when television commercials were becoming a fact of our everyday lives. John Hubley brought his expertise as an animation designer for Walt Disney and later the revolutionary UPA studio to the creation of some of the most outstanding one minute messages to grace the tube. John Hubley had a knack for combining inspired graphic images with musical tracks steeped in the American folk idiom and jazz played by the nations' best practitioners of the art. Toward the latter part of that decade he and his wife Faith made the important decision to find the time and money to produce films of their own as an antidote to the pressures and maddening demands of the commercial field. The course that this decision took, often at the insistence of Faith Hubley, led to their making at least one film a year that was solely theirs. This still growing library, produced sometimes at their own expense, at other times through grants and sponsors, brought them a clutter of awards including three Oscars and numerous Academy nominations. Their films have played in theaters, on television and just about anywhere people could find to set up a projector. The productions continue to this day unabated even after the death of John Hubley in 1977. Faith Hubley has carried on the tradition, producing films of her own design, and often working with her daughter Emily who has become an animator in her own right.  

Employing the talents of their family goes back to the use of the Hubley's four kids in various films in which their voices were recorded off the cuff and edited, to form a soundtrack that captured the essence of childish thoughts with warmth and capriciousness. Included in the evening's screening was the first film that the Hubleys made as a non-commercial effort, "The Adventures of An *”, released in 1957. This film set a pattern for almost everything that was to follow. Many subsequent productions dealt with childhood experiences and a view of the world through the eyes of assorted children. In the "Adventures Of An *” , the first signs of the Hubley graphic technique utilizing loosely drawn figures that are double exposed against full color backgrounds, a frank departure from the traditional painted cel method, became apparent.  

In these explorations of the child's view of life the artists have sensitively shown how the young react to the conditions around them and the adult audiences receive an insight into a special place that is rarely revealed in a population set on destruction of its own planet through mismanagement or war. The childhood theme is best expressed in the films, "Moonbird," "Windy Day" and "Cockaboody." In her recent films Faith Hubley has become increasingly involved with the theme of saving the environment as indicated in her productions, "Second Chance, Sea," "Whither Weather," and "Enter Life." Other themes that are becoming prevalent in her work are those related to the myths that have dominated various societies. Faith and daughter Emily are now busily completing a new story regarding American Indian myths, an area worth mining for any animator. Often she makes use of visual reference to well known paintings and art styles as in the films, "Step by Step" and "Sky Dance." As in all Hubley films, the music is consistently intriguing.  

In the past John Hubley depended on the talents of jazz artists such as Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald. Faith Hubley uses similar stylists but has turned repeatedly to the talented young musician, Elizabeth Swados, for original scores. If you missed this screening there will be two additional evenings of other works by the Hubleys. Back Stage will carry the listings as to time and place as soon as the dates are set. The programs are presented for members of ASIFA but the interested public is invited free of charge. In a world where every television announcement leaps out at you with razzmatazz sparkles, it might be worthwhile to check out the films of the Hubleys and get a glimpse of a corner that is filled with introspection, warmth, taste and humanity.  

A New Film From Producer Neil Wolf 

 A recent production, "Vision For Tomorrow," produced and directed by Neil Wolf, demonstrates the effectiveness of cornea transplants. The film, running roughly 20 minutes, has already received a CINE Golden Eagle for its fine description of the cornea transplant process. Wolf utilized many of the familiar shots of laboratories and interviews with medical specialists that are all too common in medical films but fashioned the story so that these scenes filmed in Paris, Zurich and at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, come together to make a fascinating documentary. The graphic sections employ a magnificent three dimensional model of the eye that was wholly created by computer technology at MAGI Synthavision in Elmsford, New York. (Additional animation segments were filmed by veteran cameraman Francis Lee.) Neil Wolf (212) 719-2444, working with scriptwriter Joe Scheer, feels that this production has the look and feel of a television documentary rather than the average film that too often gets made for informational purposes." 

George Davis of Eighth Frame Camera Service and Animation Producer/Director Howard Beckerman discuss a shot for a scene in the film "Stufin' Goes Flyin'" which is slated for cable early next year.

Howard Beckerman - "Collecting Commercials" - "Animation Spot" - Back Stage; New York Vol. 23, Iss. 43, (Oct 22, 1982): 20, 34.

 Collecting Commercials 

By Howard Beckerman

 A great deal of effort goes into copyrighting and protecting the ownership of movies these days. This was not always the case and in the old days once a movie had made the rounds it was often forgotten, and as a result many fine films have been lost forever. Others were saved by the intervention of collectors who were able to salvage whatever remained of the Hollywood productions made on the inflammable nitrate stock. 

The same fate may have befallen the ubiquitous television commercials of past years. These short films made under extremely close supervision and often at great cost, considering their brief length, are usually discarded once a campaign has run its course. Often the collected people that have been involved with the spots, whether from the sponsoring client, advertising agency or production house, move on to other positions with other organizations and the once important commercial having lost its parentage is soon thrust into the incinerator to make way for newer works.  

If there are any remaining examples of the television spots of yore they are probably on sample reels gathering dust just behind the tennis shoes and gold clubs of agency creative directors and assorted filmmakers. Aside from a reel that I know exists at The Museum of Modern Art, and perhaps CBS' Museum of Broadcasting, there does not seem to be anyway to gain access to television commercials of the past 30 years.  

Another problem that faces those spots that do exist, and which has affected dramatic films as well, is the perishability of the color stock that has been used since the early 50's. Films printed on Eastman Color, no matter how subtly beautiful they may be in hue and tone at the time of their initial release are doomed to lose their lushness and turn towards the red scale. While producers of important feature productions may resort to various methods to preserve their priceless originals, there is no reason to expect that any precautions would have been taken with the average television blurb that is not meant to be seen for more than a few weeks or months.  

At this point many of you may wonder why all the fuss over the loss of films that were made for a specialized purpose, delivered their messages (many of which may have been irksome and annoying in delivery and shallow in con tent) and sold the clients goods.  

The reasons become plain after a showing of 15 to 20 year old television spots. Not too long ago I attended a screening of commercials that are in the possession of producer Bert Hecht who managed to salvage examples of spots animated and live and dating back to the 1950's. 

 

 The first thing that became apparent was that the films, though obviously dated, revealed styles and attitudes that no longer consider important, but in retrospect reflect on what we once thought to be permanent and indestructible. For instance, women are shown only in relation to household chores, and usually attired in their best finery, sporting ballerina skirts, high heels and small flouncy aprons to drive home the fact of domesticity. Jeans were hardly shown, except on cowboys or small children. Beer commercials were often animated, cars had fins, there were cigarette commercials, graphics meant clever layouts not streaks, strobes and sparkles, and almost all of the spots were filmed in sparkling black and white and ran for a full minute. 

Animated commercials of the 50's and early 60's had simple uncomplicated backgrounds but their plots were much more involved to fill, what appears to day to be excruciatingly lengthy. 60 seconds of screen time. There was an advantage though, characters such as Harry and Bert Piel had time to develop a theme and exploit their personalities while they presented the pertinent facts about the product. These two characters were so effective that the Piels breweries sold more beer in the cold months of January and February than they had the previous summer. 

Harry and Bert Piel may have been only the most popular of a group of characters that included, the little boy puppet, Speedy-Alka-Seltzer; the Mae West character, Muriel Cigar (“pick me up and smoke me sometime"), the Sunshine Bakers, the Babbo Cleanser men, the Campbell's Soup kids and any number of animated characters that represented scores of products, but there were also live personalities that present surprises upon viewing the old commercials today. 

We forget that television advertising not only uses existing stars to speal for products but it is also a good starting ground for newer actors. Looking through Bert Hechts' vast collection one is suddenly rewarded at the sight of Dick Van Dyke delivering a message for Bosco Chocolate Drink, or Mike Wallace touting the wonders of Fluffo Whipped Cream. Digging through the reels we came up with commercials featuring Sandra Dee making an early appearance before the public in a Coca Cola spot.  

Another fascinating aspect of the early use of commercials is the special effects that were employed to catch the viewers eye. The ones that stand out in memory are the Hertz rent-A-Car spots that flew a man and dropped him into the seat of a moving convertible, or the spot from the late 50's for Maxwell House that actually showed us a cup and a half of coffee being poured. Viewers were stumped as to how the extra coffee was able to keep on filling above the cup.  

Saving and showing the commercials of yesteryear offers us a chance to view ourselves the way we were and allows us to see our mistakes as well as our successes. One practitioner of the art, Bob Franz, who's stop motion wizardry added to the popularity of the above mentioned Maxwell House coffee cup feels that it might be best to not relate back to the old films, "If someone wants to reinvent the wheel everyday let them," he says happily. "It would mean work and pay for everyone.  

Still it is always a good idea to cast an eye on what has come before or as the philosopher said, we might find ourselves from bumping our shins on the same old corners. 

Howard Beckerman - "Animation Sale" - "Animation Spot" - Back Stage; New York Vol. 23, Iss. 41, (Oct 8, 1982): 26.

 Animation Sale  

By Howard Beckerman

With the economy the way it is, I thought I'd run a sale on animation this week. It seemed like a good idea after I noticed all of the marked down goods in store ads and rebates by manufacturers that are popping up in local newspapers. Flipping through the pages of a daily gazette suggested several ways for offering an animation sale, so I thought that if any other studio operators were looking for payments, or even no payments, I could offer some advice.  

The first thing is to mark everything down. Go to the local stationery store and get a batch of red tags, with strings attached, and tie them to drawings which you can hang in your window. It should look something like this: 

Notice that the character with the ears costs more than anything else, this is to cover royalty payments to the original creator. Another gimmick that is frequently used is the offer of a bonus. So on a large sheet of paper, say about a 16 field, write the following: "With every purchase you get a set of numbers so that you can make your own Academy Leader."  

Another device that is employed is the rebate. The customer buys something and then returns a form to the company which then rebates a set amount of money. The only reason they don't just mark down the item in the first place is they expect several people to lose the form, and then the rebate never happens. So,  

Now all of these machinations may seem strange at first, but remember using such ploys have been part and parcel of business for thousands of years. Animation should be considered no different than any other form of production, manufacturing or selling. How you exploit these sales methods is also very important. 

For instance, many companies feel that sales depend on the romantic association between the product and where it is made. Once upon a time when products came from Japan they were shoddy and cheap. Today that image has changed totally and almost everything worthwhile appears to have originated in the country whose main export is no longer paper parasols. In fact it has become American to proudly state that your product was made in Japan.  

So for the producer who wishes to attract business by extolling his product's place of origin, stickers should be ordered that say, "Made On 45th Street, N.Y. USA." California animation studios have an ever broader range of exotic and romantic locales to turn to, such as Australia, Taiwan, Korea and other wondrous ports of call that now export animation as they once proffered spices.  

Many businesses take into consideration the fact that their competition may. be enticing prospective clients with gifts, lunches, tickets to the theatre or meetings in pleasant surroundings. The clever animation producer has many choices at his/her disposal. If one takes into account the knowledge that the chief competitor of the cartoon medium is live action, a good idea would be to invest in some second hand cameras, tripod and lights. Set these up in an adjoining room and tell the clients that love live action that while you and your people are making their animated film, they can play to their hearts content in the other room with all the 'live' paraphernalia.  

For the clients that had their hearts set on computer animation but had to turn to traditional techniques and are still uneasy about that decision, there is the perfect solution. Rent a few electronic games, hand them a bag of quarters and while they are engrossed in the zap and glare of Pac Man you can animate away to your hearts content.  

I also have some consolation for producers and services who have invested a great deal of capital in electronic imaging and videotaping equipment. Even if new technology usurps your current machinery, have no fear, the price of new equipment will remain about the same. I say this, because I've noticed that since 1950, when a loaf of bread cost about 22 cents, a black and white television set cost about $200. Today a loaf of bread costs 90 cents and you can buy a color television set for about the same price as a 1950's black and white version.  

One last thing. This you will have to figure out for yourself. After you've told your happy client that lines cost 5 cents and circles a half a dollar, how will you get him to understand that the commercial will still cost $35,000 dollars? You will have to explain the drawings are the easy part, it's the overhead that has no money back guarantee. 

Howard Beckerman - "What Do The Lines Say?" - "Animation Spot" - Back Stage; New York Vol. 23, Iss. 40, (Oct 1, 1982): 22.

 What Do The Lines Say? 

By Howard Beckerman

     Animation is encountering a special revolution. Those precocious electronic twins, video-tape and computer graphics are out of short pants well into their adolescence, and they're strutting around showing off their stuff. It's gratifying to watch these newcomers blossom, but it is disconcerting to observe the growing generation gap between them and the parent mediums, film and animation.  

Feedback of The Canipa Effect's "The Animation of Rick and Morty" video

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRAxYD3VlSk

From various comments on Twitter and Youtube from animation industry pros.

Corey Barnes (Director on Duncanville): "A thing I learned boarding on shipped shows, even ones with rigs, is that storyboards really don’t need to be that detailed. The pre-production studio simply chooses to do it. This is frequently because the showrunner is not an artist, and prefers as much information as possible in the boards so there’s less guess work. It can result in fewer notes (maybe) so board artists add more detail hoping to sell their boards and get fewer revisions. Over time, showrunners get used to the added information and it becomes expected, making boards work harder. If they’re lucky they might get a schedule increase.

Meanwhile the vendor animation studio’s creative liberties are reduced the more information there is in the boards. As if the client is saying “Yeah, we don’t trust you to do your jobs so we did it.” They’re treated like workers on a factory line who put the pieces together. And the more information in the storyboards, the more there is for the animators to follow and track. If they miss something, the client calls a technical retake, and the vendor has to go back and re-do it for free. If a pose is too sketchy, animator gets to interpret it and the client can’t fight it because they shipped a vague board. If it’s tight, animator has to follow what’s there even if it might not make sense, or else tech retake.

Anime does it their way because anime is produced closer to how movies are here. You have a screenwriter(s) in charge of the story and a series director in charge of visuals. 

In the west we have writer-showrunners in charge of a whole series, and they like it that way.

But it’s hard to argue with results. Those on model comedies are some of the most successful in the medium. I just wish we had more shows like The Boondocks, or even Golan, but Hollywood operates on fear so we get Family Guy and a bunch of shows wanting to be the next Family Guy.

I think the blander, more consistent, less offensive art style just appeals more to the neurotypical brain who would otherwise not watch cartoons. It doesn’t require effort to look at. You just watch and laugh at the rapid fire jokes while the art is too inoffensive to distract."

Marissa Bernstel (Storyboard Artist at Bento Box): "Damn... I think you hit the nail on the head. Though it is weird to think about how we're making cartoons for people who would rather not watch them, no wonder it can feel soul sucking at times. Though I have plenty of practice forcing adults to watch animated things thanks to my parents, so the feeling isn't new, lmao."

Karl Olson (Software Engineer at Uncharted Software): "Hollywood also just seems to prefer to give writers cartoons these days instead of animators, so though the latter group is often more tolerant/interested in creative freedom for their fellow visual artists, the process gets honed towards those who tend to want to see everything."

Barnes: "Well writers can write for any visual medium so they’re seen as valuable commodities. Animators can’t really move outside their discipline. It’s just how the process is respected here too. Animators are not viewed as storytellers. Writers are. And then you add the layers of elitism…."

Olson: "Well, they're treated as not being able to do that, though with how much previz & such happens with film & TV these days, I would honestly rather tap good animation directors for some of what is being made now than other disciplines as they can see the whole thing in their head. But that would be a huge shift for Hollywood to realize animators are often writers, directors, camera, lighting, colorists, actors, etc. That doing that job well can mean having a sense of literally every job there is to do. That would mean these specialists aren't so special. "

Sabrina Cotugno: "Hey look, it's my Star vs. storyboard! :D What an honor to be featured! 

I'm so glad that you highlighted the amount of work that gets piled onto board artists in the US. It is . . . exhausting. But I do think the reasons behind it are complicated. I would point to a couple things that have created this culture:

1) In TV animation, board artists are essentially expected to be keyframe animators. The mantra is "if it's not in the board, it won't be onscreen." 

2) It's a bit of a budget thing--if a board artist draws a pose in a board and the animator doesn't draw that pose in, the overseas studio has to pay for their error. If a board artist leaves room for an animator to interpret a pose and they don't hit the mark? The US studio has to pay for the retake.

3) There's a huge disconnect, at least in my experience, between the board artists and the overseas animators. I've been at the director level so far and even I have literally never interacted with anyone from an overseas studio in my entire career. I'm sure the higher ups interact with them, but the board artists (again, in my experience) have literally no interaction with them, so there's no way to understand their thought process or what kind of board would be helpful for them. In a culture with no communication, OVER-explaining becomes the default, especially because we will be blamed for any errors in animation.

4) Also..... and this is purely anecdotal, but I suspect a lot of people in US animation don't think terribly highly of overseas animators. There's a lot to unpack there, but it can become easy to blame artists you never see and whose process you don't understand for every single mistake in production. I would LOVE to have a working relationship with an overseas studio like they had in Avatar the Last Airbender, but I think there are complicated industry reasons why that isn't the norm. (Which likely all go back to issues of time and money.) Incidentally, a big reason why I love your channel is how you highlight a step in the process that I don't get to see, despite working in the industry myself. It's incredibly refreshing to see this channel celebrate animators in their own right, and to see how the process is handled in Japan.

5) Finally (sorry, I have a lot to say on this it turns out) whenever you get a bunch of artists working together, an inevitable unspoken competition pops up. The more hardworking, high-level board artists work together, the more complicated their boards will get over time as they all try to live up to each other's best work. The result is "nearly animated storyboards", and they can get even more complex than the ones you've already pointed out (my go-to being the Rise of the TMNT boards). At this point, board artists may not even be thinking about how their work fits into the overall pipeline and may be working harder for pure love of the craft . . . or because certain showrunners think that "nearly animated storyboards" just look "cool." (Heavy sideeye to those showrunners intended.)"

Ashley Tahilan (Storyboard Artist on Craig of the Creek): "I wish there was more input from other people in the American Animation Industry here. There are some good points here about asset based shows and how it’s creatively constricting.

But what it boils down to is money/executives ‘knowing’ what the audiences want. 

I’m an animator went to storyboard cause I knew I wanted to have more creative freedom with my work. But at the same time I wonder if the animators need all these keys. Most overseas do, cause if it’s animated wrong it can cost money for them/us.

I’m always for letting the animators do their thing. I wish for them to go crazy and animate their hearts out… But the schedule/$$$ to animate is so tight most overseas animators just wanna hit their quota and call it a day (exceptions to collab projects).

What I wish for this industry on this side of the world:

Put more faith in your creatives. You may not know if, but there are some amazing talented people under your nose!

One more thing, we need to credit EVERYONE. People on our side AND the animators in the animation studios.

They deserve the credit as much as we do.

I honestly don’t know why we don’t and I wanna know the gods who animated my scenes."

Kadi Fedoruk (Art Contractor at Gaia Interactive): "There's NO language barrier in this case -- I worked at Bardel briefly years ago, and it's a Vancouver studio-- while there may be animators from other areas (though mostly from bc itself, due to massive tax benefits using local workers) the studio itself is 100% English.  Not all USA based productions are as iron fisted as R&M though-- I briefly worked on MLP for concept art and all pre-production was done in house (at DHX media, now Wildbrain, I believe) other than the first season. Another one I worked on was an even odder one, where the entire production was Canadian based.  A lot of the best animations/previs people end up in the USA from here since the amount of work allowed creatively is hard to find.

Storyboard artists now are more like animation directors, if you want to look at anime terms. They do a LOT, even when a show has a script and can sometimes change said script when the boarders and episode directors are in house. So I think more than anything else, that's the reason why the boards look the way they do-- it's like you're sending stuff off to inbetweeners vs actual animators (except the animators in this case are more than able to work off of less explicit boards).  The overseas studios have made any and all decisions before sending boards off."

Pai: "I work at a studio that does more anime-pipelined work, and we do jobs both in-house and with outsourcing, and the outsourcing really is the hinge on the necessity for clean boards. In-house will almost always be boarded by one person, and pretty loosely, and because everyone's there with the director, it's easy to communicate needs. Any time we have to outsource though (that outsourcing almost always being to non-English-speaking studios), the preproduction work nearly triples (more detailed model sheets, a complete clean animatic by a team of board artists, a full set of establishing layouts and drops ins from BG), and the needed revision work scales with how clean the boards are, because there's really only so much that you can communicate, even if everything does essentially have to be redrawn (though that Canadian studio, I can't imagine why they'd ever need boards that tight)."

KimotaJutsu: "So basically, doing it in house means a financial investment, while outsourcing means a human resources investment. Well, it's obvious what the higher-ups are gonna choose. Keep on fighting. Some day we will be able to change this stupid system."

Abby DeBusk: "Outsourcing is frustrating. my only experience is in a small gaming studio, where on the rare chance we outsource, it is because it can't be a full-time position or we can't find a freelancer. As art director, at best they got close to par and needed some more notes and paint-overs than usual, at worse it was like pulling teeth and feeling swindled. And it ain't cheap either! You are paying for their studio overhead, art director, and then the artists themselves. And with all those levels of authority, communication breaks down. (luckily foreign language wasn't a problem due to bilingual staff) 

I'm hoping animation in the west can change to allow for more creativity and unified productions. I wonder what happened with ATLA that resulted in such good looking animation. (I also don't wish to exploit underpaid and tired artists)"

 Pai: "@Abby DeBusk  yep, I've had the same experience! It's either smoothish with some issues or absolutely teeth-pulling.

ATLA was a TREAT to the industry, one of those rare instances where they were really able to work closely with and trust their outsource as though they were all a single unit (Bryan Konietzko spent long spans IN Korea working with the studios, too). This channel has some great other vids that break it down specifically, def recommend!!"

Really, the moral here is: the big companies who commission shows need to give the budget to let studios be able to do more in-house :) (it's why so many talented outsource studios can't afford to do their own series either!)"

Austen Payne: "I've also boarded on shows where the animation is done in-house as well, and I can tell you that it doesn't stop people from insisting boards be overposed and clean as hell. The last show i was on was animated in house and the level of detail they wanted was insane. In some ways it's become the standard everyone thinks they need to work towards. Or that execs expect now. Not outsourcing is not the answer anymore."

Thurm@n: 

"It never was the permanent answer, it'll always be getting more of the power in the hands of the workers."

Jessi P: "An animator friend told me a pretty funny story this show. A studio she used to work at was given the opportunity to work on this new show called "Rick and Morty." They sat down and watched the pilot's leica, declared it the stupidest thing they'd ever seen, and threw it in the trash. 

There's making bad business decisions and then there's putting the most popular modern day cartoon in the garbage."

John Fountain: "I co-storyboarded the pilot episode of the show before taking a hiatus from the industry...

Suffice it to say, the process has changed a lot over the years... but as a 25 year veteran, I can attest that the demand for “practically animated” storyboards is nothing new. Which is why if you don’t love doing it, you’ll probably burn out.

For myself, I had a blast with my section of the show and everyone I worked with on it was great - especially Justin.

Take that for what it’s worth

.

Very insightful video, though. Well done."

Kelsey J. Sharpe (Titmouse Vancouver animator): "Awesome video! and bless you for not writing off Canadian animators lol. I'd also like to add that a lot of the animators who work for Yotta and other small freelance studios are the same Canadians who work in TV animation as well, between contracts or often as a side-hussle   So the quality of the animation for any project really is a result of the scheduling and freedom the animators are allowed, rather than the talent."

Canipa: "Yup! Hopefully, I managed to get that across. There was a quote from a podcast that I listened to, but totally forgot to include in the video where they spoke about animators on US shows not "being used to their full potential."

Sharpe: "I work in the Vancouver animation industry, and it's very common to see coworkers spend their days working on the familiar Flash/Toonboom shows, and then their nights working on ambitious, fully-animated freelance projects (and not necessarily for more pay either).

With all that said though, I think the folks at Bardel are killing it on Rick and Morty! Yes it's "puppet" animation, but it's very well acted and well done. They've managed to make the characters and world feel alive and believable. I wish all R&M animators a very Unionize."

Jason DeMarco (SVP/Creative Director, Adult Swim/Cartoon Network): "Interesting video, a lot of great points here. I think a whole lot of nuance is missing in terms of WHY American animation operates the way it does, but for 13 minutes it’s pretty thorough! Nice to see the RTJ vid and Sano shirts singled out.

But if you want to see more HAND DRAWN Rick and Morty stuff? Check out all the animated shorts, music videos and animated IDs we’ve made with hundreds of artists doing their own thing with the show, for the last…almost ten years!"

Karl Olson: "For 13 minutes, it's solid. Getting into the nitty gritty of how thumbnails on a wall slid into basically full animatics with everything short of color, backgrounds & tweens due to Storyboard Pro & the executive OK-driven process for US toon sitcoms is another story for sure.

I even suspect there's an interesting (if very niche) documentary in breaking down how the US animation industry fell into a handful of production patterns in the past 20 years as the all-digital production pipeline came in & how that's changed what gets made & by who."

DeMarco: "There are a TON of benevolent and NON benevolent reasons why US animation is the way it is, labor costs are a part but by no means the only part. Someday someone will write a great book about it."

Olson: "Absolutely & it's still a pipeline in evolution. I'm not sure it'll ever be as normalized a process as it was with the very separated steps that once were used to provide production consistency & predictability & newer tech still will likely make even today's system feel quaint. And yeah, it'll be bounded by/evolve again due to many other things than cost/wages."