Comment by neonnoodle | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neonnoodle | Hacker News Reader

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So I’m an animator and I’d like to work on my craft. I’d also like a comfortable living, nothing outrageous by American standards. I’m not interested in the “job” of animator (unless something really wild came along), because these jobs don’t sound very appealing. It is very competitive, a “dream job” that attracts lots of young artists willing to work to death for a chance to break in to the business, but with relatively low pay and low jongterm job security.

I have a day job doing computerish things and I produce films in my spare time. I envy the industry people for:

- the creative community - the opportunity to make complex projects - access to production funds, assistants, software, etc. - the distribution and marketing apparatus to get the work seen

The internet solves some of these problems but not all. Generally speaking, YouTube is a terrible deal for animators. Patreon is great but you can’t bootstrap a new thing without having built an audience elsewhere. I’m still searching for a good ecosystem for indie stuff.

I trained as an animator and really, if you want to be able to pick up any of these things, move to Los Angeles. Find classes, visit figure drawing sessions, find people who are in the industry or on its periphery. The internet spreads it out but you are still much more likely to luck into things like “hey my buddy is looking for help on a project” and “I’m gonna go visit my friend who works at WB, wanna come along?”.

You may get some of this by joining animation forums. Join in stuff like “reanimation” projects or other weird passion projects. Don’t expect it to be paid for a depressingly long time.

And personally? I use my animator training to draw comics and do commissions, it’s fucking grueling work. Even if you can get a union gig.

I'm a musician with a day job. This is a widely familiar approach to a music "career." I've learned to satisfy myself with playing for a live audience and not trying to do any kind of recording or publishing. There are things that a "day jobber" misses out on, such as more elaborate projects that require rehearsals that are held during the day, or anything involving travel. On the other hand I have the freedom to play fairly esoteric music that is not commercially viable.

I’m an animator and the complex jobs == production hell. Every facet of the industry is a race to the bottom, just a matter of how insulated you are from it. Luckily I’m in medical animation where things move a little more slowly

> I’m in medical anus room

Can you elaborate?

OP corrected to medical animation, thanks. I was legitimately confused.

It’s only Monday and it’s already my favorite typo of the week.

Is it true that for TV shows a lot of the actual animation team is outsourced to countries with low income?

It depends on the production. I think this was especially true on US/CA productions while everything was predominantly hand drawn in the 80s/90s. You'd have key-frame animators that laid out the actions, and in betweening would be outsourced. I'm sure it is still done now, especially for TV where the budget is tighter. It's a tricky business, I empathize with owners that want to make the situation better but need to compete on bids, and employees (if that) having difficulty making rent on the frames they can get approved. Like with code, you have to love it to stick with it.

I have no idea what it's like for anime. This is subjective - but I think the quality is usually much higher. I'm not sure how it is done.

Watch the credits (which is hard for modern TV, but not so hard for movies). When you see hundreds of people listed under animation and 99% of them have names associated with one culture and that culture's home region is low income, chances are it was outsourced to that region.

If it can be outsourced, it will be outsourced. It an absolute race to the bottom shitshow

For pretty long now. I've been interning in a larger German animation studio in 2003 and while the directors and key animators were sitting on site, I distinctly remember being stunned by the logisitics of the weekly arriving Betamax tapes from Vietnam. All inbetween painting was outsourced back then already.

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