Writers and Animators, Oh Boy!

What is the supposed rivalry between animators and writers? The best answer I can muster is the fact that producers don’t often consider animation artists for writer positions. Mo Willems remains one of the shining examples of someone who has bridged both worlds with success. Sure, most animation artists that make independent films are writers of sorts. The writing that I’m talking about, that mostly excludes animation artists, is script writing for TV series. Even Blue’s Clues, a series that offered its staff many diverse opportunities, drew the line at writing. Once or twice they opened the door to script contributions from the whole staff, but it never led to an artist penning a script.

There’s an attitude that writing is writing and art is art. The irony is that the wall preventing animation artists from writing scripts does not keep “front office” staffers from similarly contributing. In the world of preschool TV, I have seen scripts written by producers, coordinators, live action directors, actors, and child development research specialists. We can’t assume that all these people are automatically qualified or gifted writers. So, why are they getting this opportunity? My feeling is that this happens because those filling these positions work with the script as their sole document. Everything they do revolves around the script, unlike animation artists, which translate and then discard the script as they convert it to a visual medium. In most TV or commercial animation, artists interpret and writers write.

If an animation artist wishes to write or be considered a writer in a studio setting, they had better write some samples on their own time. I love writing scripts. My pitch projects have given me the excuse to write dozens of scripts over the years. I first developed my writing by contributing articles to the ASIFA-East newsletter (Hint! Hint!), and next by authoring the book, Your Career in Animation. This year I’ve been in development with a TV idea of my own creation and I was gratified to function as the writer on the project and not exclusively as the artist. Six years prior, I didn’t sign my first development deal with Nickelodeon (partly) because they pigeon holed me as the artist. At that point, I had no samples to prove I was a writer and it hurt my case. Today, my current deal has already led to another deal writing a series overview and bible for a new animated property, where my role will be, among other things, head writer/story editor.

Again, I ask, what is the supposed rivalry between animators and writers? My theory is nobody can block our path but, ourselves. Only we have that power. Perhaps this could be the catalyst for a new year’s resolution?

Five Reasons Why These Are the Good Old Days

1-Because TV series animation jobs have been back in the United States since the mid 1990s and despite upstarts such as India, show no sign of disappearing. Maybe with the dollar so weak, this can continue unabated. We could be the third world nation doing outsourced animation for other countries! How cool is that.. wait, that doesn’t sound so great… anyway, as we stand today, men and women are actually earning a living as animators working on television series. This hadn’t happened for nearly a twenty-year period prior to the 1990s. Back then animation on shows such as Scooby Doo was outsourced, only allowing U.S. animation artists to work as designers, layout, and storyboard artists. New cheaper means of producing animation such as Flash, After Effects and Maya have made this revolution possible.

2-Because when an artist creates a character for a network (again, since the 1990s), that artist receives participatory series bonuses and a piece of the ancillary action. A Nickelodeon insider told me that one successful creator has earned between 150 to 200 million dollars this way. In contrast, Scooby Doo was created in 1969 by employees of Hannah/Barbera as a work-for-hire, who only earned a flat weekly salary for birthing this still-successful franchise. Today, many creators are not only retaining a percentage of he spoils, they own their characters outright. The internet has put a “TV network” in the hands of anyone that builds a Web site and splatters it with original content. When internet properties prove themselves with gigantic amounts of hits, real TV networks take notice, putting the power right back in the hands of the creators.

3-Because Ralph Bakshi’s legacy of taking animation to not strictly G-rated kiddie fare has finally taken root. Love it or hate it, Ralph’s films have expanded this art form’s vocabulary and helped diversify its audience. Today his influence can be seen in everything from Adult Swim’s line up to independent features daring to tread beyond the song cycle of Broadway. Bakshi’s early features such as Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic explored the social, political, and sexual revolution. Persepolis, the most important animated feature this year, owes a far bigger debt to Bakshi than it does to another milestone film that’s now celebrating it’s 70th birthday, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. Whenever anyone tackles a subject that was formally taboo to the animated medium, they are pulling a Bakshi. The art form is all the more healthy for it, unless you’d rather the Chub Chubbs inherit the earth.

4-Because animation artists are exchanging ideas and information with each other as never before, largely thanks to personal blogs, and Web sites such as cartoonbrew.com, michaelspornanimation.com, michaelbarrier.com., and frederator.com. In the 1970s, budding historians such as Jerry Beck, Michael Barrier, and Greg Ford hunted for animated films in garage sales and laid the foundation for a serious discussion of this industry’s history. Today a provocative post on cartoonbrew might score 150 posted comments in the first 24 hours. The community is not only larger than ever, but is also interacting as never before. Through personal artist blogs, we not only have the ability to take an intimate peak at great (and future great) animation artist’s thoughts and work, but also are treated to a tour of their network of artist pals.

5-Because so many of the artists that I respect most are venturing into independent feature films that, again, would not have been possible without the cheaper production technologies of today. In the upcoming years New York Independent animation may be well represented in the Oscar’s best-animated feature category. Don’t be surprised to see indy features by such directors as Michael Sporn, Nina Paley, Dan Kanemoto, Tatia Rosenthal, and Bill Plympton taking their place alongside Pixar, Blue Sky, and Dreamworks. The day of the independent animated feature is finally here and it’s future looks bright.

The Other Side of the Coin

Some of the comments on my last blog post have inspired me to address a related topic. Last week my blog post was about how animation artists navigate working in a non-union animation town such as NYC. Some of the emphasis was on how animation artists can work together without the union and improve working conditions as well as studio policies. Recently, last week in fact, “permalance” workers from Viacom’s MTV networks walked off the job after their benefits and health plan were severely cut back. Among those who walked out was the entire NYC animation department at Nickelodeon. After a few short days, Viacom made some concessions and the crews returned to work. In this example, management was equally effected by the cutbacks, so the general staff had their bosses right there on the picket line with them. Still, it takes courage to walk off a job under any circumstance, so the Nickelodeon animation staff deserves our kudos and respect.

But, this posting isn’t about the above labor action. It’s about individual responsibility, which is the other side of the coin on this issue. Some students graduate with a sense of entitlement. They believe they’re owed something because of the great time and expense they just put into their education. The first five years of a typical animation career is the time when experience should be the prime consideration, far above getting the highest salary. The pay I earned while working at my first job at Michael Sporn Animation was not the biggest dollar in town. There was far more money to be earned at that time at Jumbo Pictures or MTV. But, I was working at one of the only studios in town that did animation from start to finish. The bottom line was that I was in the best place I could be to learn. And I had a lot to learn (still do!). Besides, Sporn paid a fair and generous dollar based on his budgets. If you follow the almighty dollar as your only compass you may have a very sorry career to show for it. I never heard of anyone ever choosing this industry to strike it rich. If that’s your plan, you’re probably setting yourself up for a big fall.

Yes, I understand that students fresh out of school have student loans. These loans represent your investment in yourself. If you’re looking for a quick return on that investment and believe that others owe that to you, then, you’ve already sold yourself way short. This is a business about relationships and reputation. These are your two greatest assets that you should guard with your life. Get over your sense of entitlement and start building your career. Opportunities I now have are the result of 12 years of making personal films, creating and pitching projects, taking on freelance opportunities in addition to full time work, teaching at three universities, and networking/volunteering through ASIFA-East. I have no anger or disappointment. I never believed that anyone owed me a damned thing. I’m too busy being grateful that I get to work in the field of my choice. Turn the mirror on yourself before you look to vent your frustrations elsewhere.

New York City Animation and the Ghosts of Union Past

Once upon a time New York City animation was unionized. By the early 1980s, the union’s membership and influence waned as the local industry shrank and independent studios accepted low paying (below union scale) animation work from clients such as Sesame Street as a means of survival. Thankfully, animation in the big apple proved far more resilient than the union that sought to protect its member’s interests. However, recent events in NYC animation, such as the erratic behavior of specific studios, the sudden layoff of a whole crew at AniMagic, and the vanishing benefits package at MTV networks, have got some folks whispering about how a union might play into the whole mix. I don’t claim to have the answer to this question, although many are of the opinion that a union would send work away from NYC as well as threaten the existence of small independent studios.

I’ve often believed that there’s a circumstantial problem in this business that helps create conditions that make some desire to unionize. Firstly, each year, there’s a new batch of students bursting out of the animation schools. In NYC, alone, I’d estimate the animation grads per year to be around 110 individuals. The new trend is for studios/companies to “hire” these students as interns. Unpaid interns. Maybe this is similar to the old days of the apprenticeship system, but I don’t think so. An intern is someone still in school, helping out a few days a week at a company, in exchange for school credit, experience, and contacts. Secondly, animation artists, in their first few years in the business, have fewer family obligations and often consider a studio to be their new fraternal order or clubhouse. In such a way, the sacrifices they make by working unpaid evening and weekend hours seem less painful. Things get further complicated because this group often feels (and rightly so) that they are still paying dues. In addition, they have a natural fear about losing their jobs, while at the same time, feel grateful to be employed in their industry of choice.

While this is a non-union animation town, it doesn’t mean that class action can’t be utilized. I worked on a series for a big network where, initially, there were no benefits or ergonomic equipment. The staff rallied together and meetings were held with producers and network representatives. In the end, the staff won all their victories, even causing conditions to improve at large rival studios that were then forced to up the ante of their own employee offerings. In a lesser (but, still notable) action, the same crew successfully petitioned their director for better tech service to their computers, each artist signing their names to a petition.

But, crews do not always come together in the right way, for the greater good of each other. Sometimes they come together simply to lick each other’s wounds. In this scenario, everyone rallies around each other to soldier on, in spite of all kinds of abuses such as mandatory late hours and weekend work without pay, arbitrary firings, demotions, and harassment. I don’t trust that people will always have the confidence and leadership to tackle these issues on their own. I suppose the argument is; should they even have to? I merely ask the question and open the floor for discussion. For those wishing to learn more about the history of the animation union in the USA, I recommend Tom Sito’s book, Drawing the Line, although his honest retelling of union battles fought and lost, sometimes help make the case against the union.

Time to make your appointment to see Dr. Katz

Is it just me, or is Dr. Katz one of the most brilliant TV shows in recent times? I think the case for this quirky show is pretty simple. Beavis and Butthead succeeded in part because it combined memorable characters segments with economic repurposing of old and current music videos. Dr. Katz did the same thing with well worn stand up routines from a veritable who’s who of top comedians. In the guise of “therapy” the comics would run through their material which were then depicted in producer Tom Snyder’s patented squiggle vision. Book ending the comedy bits were brilliantly written story segments with a lean cast of characters: Dr. Katz, his deadbeat son, Ben, the surly secretary, Laura, and two of Dr. Katz’s pals at the local watering hole. Dr. Katz plays as a sort of animated companion to Seinfeld, finding character gold by exploring and reveling in moments of “nothing.”

Not since J.Ward’s Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, has there been an animated series that did so much with so little. Dr. Katz is deceptively simple however. Sure, there is little to no actual on-screen movement. No walk cycles, matches on action, or even transitions from pose to pose. On Dr. Katz, all of that happens between the scenes or cuts. It’s an implied movement. The scene layouts, held poses/expressions, and editing are so strong, that it all works! The show fascinates me because it puts such an additional burden on the editing where even changes in expression can only really happen on scene cuts. I can’t think of any other TV show or movie where this is the case (besides other productions by the Dr. Katz crew, of course).

I’ve always felt that TV’s bad reputation for animation was unjustified. TV allowed a breath of fresh air to arrive in the form of the art of the soundtrack. Sure, soundtracks in the theatrical cartoon could be incredibly inventive and sensitive, but for television, soundtracks had to do even more of the heavy lifting. This was artistic necessity, as well as an economic need. Dr. Katz features such strong audio that the show would work even as a radio play, but when combined with the great layouts, designs, and clever cutting, the visuals end up being the most radical and groundbreaking aspect of the show. Who would have thunk it? If you’ve already dismissed Dr. Katz and it’s squiggly non-animation, it might be time for another look.

Luckily, season one and two are already available on DVD, and this Tuesday an exhaustive 13 disc box set arrives (just in time for the holidays), collecting all six seasons of the series! Take the plunge and a let a little animated therapy into your life.

The long shadow of Little Bill and a Little Blue Puppy.

Working a long stint at Blue’s Clues between 1997 and 2004, I was able to witness an interesting movement in talent that would come to dominate the NYC TV series community. Some time in the late 90s, we Blue’s Cluesers were informed that Mr. Bill Cosby would be stopping by for a tour of our operations. He had inked a deal with Nick Jr. to turn his line of children’s books, featuring a character called Little Bill, into a preschool TV series. For this new series, Nick Jr’s second done in-house in After Effects, it was a natural idea to seed its staff with experienced Blue’s Clues veterans. Among those that made the show-to-show switch were Jen Oxley, Nancy Keegan, Michael Dougherty, Chris Boyce, Adam Osterfeld, Chris Gelles, Jane Howell, and Olexa Hewryk. Not before long, the fledgling crew exploded to occupy two floors in a brand new studio at 1633 Broadway. With most of Blue’s Clues staff staying put, where would Little Bill find it’s large crew?

The answer was partly, SVA. Their graduating class of 1999 was the first to jump right out of school and into steady employment. In this wave came some of today’s top talents, including such names such as: Celia Bullwinkle, Rob Powers, Bob Wallace, David Heiss, Dan Cardinali, and many others. Most would find their seminal work experience at Little Bill. By some accounts, Little Bill was an expensive show to make and perhaps that contributed to why it wrapped production just short of January 2001. An insider at Nick Jr recently told me, “It didn’t work to have such a fearful character at the center of a series. He was always sad.”

In contrast, Blue’s Clues enjoyed three more years of continued production. So, as circumstances had it, the Little Bill crew were first to venture out and seek employment elsewhere. This pushed them into serving as gatekeepers on series work all over town. Among Little Bill alum’s, Blue’s Clues long had the reputation as the simpler of the two shows. I remember Steve Connor, who worked on both Little Bill and Blue’s Clues having difficulty convincing his Little Bill pals just how challenging Blue’s Clues actually was to make. By season six, it had gotten quite sophisticated; far more so than most people realized.

The migration pattern, dominated by the movement of the ex Little Bill artists is easy to track. First, they landed at Spike TV, when it emerged with two short-lived original flash animated series; Gary the Rat and This Just In. The shows turned out to be huge flops with their intended audience, but the crew was stellar. This could have been the birth of a new digital MTV-style animation studio. Instead, the whole enterprise fell flat on its face. Little Bill alum Mark Salisbury helmed these shows and hired up many of his former co-workers. By the time of the second Spike series, Blue’s Clues was finally on hiatus, so it’s crew was free to apply for a position on the new show. This would mark the first great mixing of the two preschool crews. Sadly, in the hey day of Blue’s and Little Bill, when the two shows occupied the same floor for a two year period, there was virtually no interaction among their staffs. Each crew had myopically gone about their business.

Once Spike ran it’s course, the flock migrated to join director Jen Oxley at Little Airplane where they were employed to animate on short and long form series work, including Nick Jr’s The Wonder Pets. It was at this time that animators Bob Wallace and Rob Powers first got the chance to direct. By all reports, season one was a bumpy ride for the crew, but what made it to the screen was spectacular and took the show to number one.

Post Wonder Pets season one, many of the original crew landed at Curious Pictures Little Einstein, a series that combined flash, drawn, and 3D animation in equal measures. Olexa Hewryk directed season one of Little Einstein and the technical director was Sang-Jin Bae, both formally of Little Bill. Little Einstein remained the home base for many of the former Little Bill and Blue’s Clues crew until Nick Jr announced a new series starting full production in Fall 2007.

Incidentally, this new show was created by Soo Kim and Michael Smith, a pair of ex Blue’s Cluesers. On this new series, Blue’s Clues and Little Bill alumni are now co-occupying the 4th floor at 1633 Broadway once again. Its fitting that Steve Connor is at the helm as the director, because he really deserves the credit for bridging the gaps between the two old crews. This time, you can bet that they are enjoying a collaboration and comradeship that seemed to elude them nearly ten years earlier. For a community of artists existing from job to job and moving from place to place, this sure sounds like a family to me.

Oscar Blues

In NYC, we just screened the pre-selections eligible for this years Oscar nomination for best-animated short subject. In a very roundabout way, it’s an inspiring thing for a filmmaker to attend, especially for one who has not yet snagged an Oscar nom or win themselves (there’s still some of us out there, right?). I offer this backhanded compliment because to screen these thirty plus films is to demystify what may be considered as Oscar Worthy. Sure, of this lot, only four or five will secure a nomination, but, many of the cast offs wouldn’t last two minutes in our very own ASIFA-East jury screenings. During a break, Jimmy Picker observed that the bad films are also very loud films. Jimmy’s right. Bad and loud go together in bad animation. Watching films such as My Date From Hell, Christmas Village, The Chubb Chubbs Save Xmas, and Anna And The Moods was very much like being beaten with a bag of oranges, but without that pleasing citrus-y aroma. I was glad to see that most of the 3D monstrosities were not made in America. But, then again, they were made as copies of our box office champs such as the Shrek franchise. Is this the legacy of what we’ve wrought?

Not surprisingly, Disney had an entry this year with their new 2D Goofy short, How to Set Up Your Home Theatre. I’d seen this film open the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival in October, where it played to a packed crowd of kids that didn’t laugh once. Here it seemed like a breath of fresh air. Well, sort of fresh. I don’t know what to make of this film. On one hand, I think, “well done.” But, on the other hand, I wonder, “What’s the point?” Yes, it’s great to see Disney doing 2D again, but, the film is a love letter to the past with nothing to offer for today, besides exploiting the home theatre craze (wasn’t that so 5 years ago, anyway?). The original Goofy shorts sort of followed a Robert Benchley how-to format. Today, Benchley is long gone and his own live action shorts have not aged well. As much as this sounds awful, maybe it would have been better to throw Goofy to a situation relevant to today? A reality format? A home design make over show? Something. Anything but a carbon copy of what Disney did in the 1940s. Why make new 2D animation that is stuck in the past? Can’t we make new work that does honor to the great animation of yesterday without resorting to this?

A few films floored me. There were moments of Peter and the Wolf where I was on the edge of my seat. There’s a moment in that film, when the strings finally kick in with the familiar score for the first time. For me, it was as magical as when Dorothy steps from black and white into Technicolor. The film was a dazzler with incredible shots, pacing and genuine emotions. Michael Sporn recently correctly remarked that smiles were overused in Bee-Movie. A scene in Peter and the Wolf begs to agree. There’s a moment where we first see Peter smile when he’s escaped out the fence that separates him from the adventure of the great outdoors. Peter and his animal friends frolic for a bit on a frozen pond and then there’s this shot of his Peter’s smiling face. The smile had such resonance. A similar moment occurred when the director is bold enough to hold on a very long shot of Peter’s face smoldering with hatred for the wolf.

On a side note, many in the audience were dazzled by a Russian film called My Love, which for my money was a Ralph Bakshi rotoscoped film masquerading as paint on glass.

Before I forget, big kudos and congrats to NYC area filmmakers included in this screening:
Sarah Wickliffe (Art’s Desire) and Bill Plympton (Shut Eye Hotel).