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."
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."
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