#it may be low quality screencaps

[voluptuarian]

Favorite Movie Costumes (pt. 1)

Recently got the line-up-your-toys urge to list and discuss my favorite tv and movie costumes-- my favorites are many and tumblr's image limit is low, so I'm not sure how many posts this'll eventually spread to, but here's the first crop.

The Queen's red gown - The Brother's Grimm

I don't think anyone on earth wanted to love this movie more than I did when it came out-- sadly, the film itself was generally a letdown. However, its costumes absolutely delivered, which should come as no surprise since they were designed by Gabriella Pescucci. The costumes for Monica Belluci's queen are my favorites of all, but this piece, the one she wears for most of the movie, may be my favorite costume of all time.

The costume has several iterations; it's paired most prominently with her enormous horned headdress (my fave), but she also wears it with a more delicate tiara.

Marianne de Morangias' red riding habit - Brotherhood of the Wolf

Although Brotherhood of the Wolf is far from a good movie, I have a terrible soft spot for it, which is mostly due to its wonderful costumes, including a crowd of hunting costumes throughout, none more gorgeous than the one Marianne's debuts during the film's first hunt.

I probably owe my love of riding habits to American Girl's Felicity and her swoon-worthy green velvet habit-- they are sadly underused in movies (meanwhile Marianne not only wears this red habit, but also shows off an equally beautiful green one later.)

Christine Daae's masquerade dress - The Phantom of the Opera

Fun fact, I watched this movie as a teenager (after falling in with the inescapable junior high theater nerd crowd, who tried unsuccessfully to use this as a gateway drug to getting me hooked on musicals), then forgot about the vast majority of the costumes, and stumbled upon it again years later without realizing it was from a movie and completely fell in love with it.

I'm very fond of the early 1870s silhouette in general, long trains in particular, and the back of this one is what really sold me. The frothy layers of chiffon?? the flowers?? the graceful tiered bustle?? Obsessed. (Another fun fact, this is one of the references I always bring up when discussing potential wedding dresses.)

Imogen Spurnrose's red ensemble - Carnival Row

I know, another red velvet number ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Imogen's wardrobe is full of lovely quasi-Victorian pieces, but this one had me GASPING when it came on screen. These pictures do not do the color or vibrancy of that jacket justice!

Geilis Duncan's white ballgown - Outlander

I'm usually not a fan of stripped down historical styles, especially ones this anachronistic, but something about the minimalist design of this dress just charmed me.

It reminds of in some way of artistic undress in 17th century portraits, and the lightness of the colors and material has this clean, airy, almost White Lady quality to it, and the simplicity and limited accessorizing really brings out the period silhouette. (Also I adore lover's eyes).

Vanessa Ives' lace blouse - Penny Dreadful

Vanessa has a gorgeous wardrobe (Gabriella Pescucci hitting it out of the park again) containing a number of delicate black and white blouses, but this one is my favorite.

The design is not that complex, but the wealth of tiny details, especially the petal shaped blackworked collar and cuffs, give it a huge visual punch; paired with the decorative belt and beautiful black skirt it's a very unique look that shows off some of the most beautiful elements of the period (last photo courtesy @periodcostumefantasylover)

Lorna's church dress - Lorna Doone

YES another red number. And what a red!! This miniseries is so obscure I had to do my own (butt ugly) screencaps off Youtube, but despite being a fairly modest production, they do some nice 17th century looks in it.

This dress is glimpsed for a moment as Lorna catches sight of her separated lover through the crowd-- very dramatic, but unfortunately it means getting a good look at the beautiful dress is hard, but I did my best: here's the actual scene, if you want a better look (and I'd recommend the series, too!)

Virginia Wilson's Worth dress - 1899

Big shock, the replica House of Worth dress made it in *Oprah shrug* I've adored the original dress for years, so I went nuts seeing it on the show! On top of just top tier everything, the costuming on 1899 was great, and the fact that they decided to throw this dress in was just the cherry on top.

There are some minimal differences between this dress and its inspiration, most notably the change in pattern-- Virginia's dress not only incorporates the alchemical logo like all the rest of the characters, but the rounded edges in the original are all made jagged to match it, as you can really see in the last photo.

---- on to part 2!

[lady-raziel]

I feel like you are missing the forest for the trees on the fanfic thing just because you keep insisting that there is good fanfic out there and pretty much nothing else. Like yeah obviously. But also bad fanfic has merit, has purpose. Fanfiction provides a relatively low risk space for people to experiment and learn how to write. How many Bad Fanfics are written when people are like 13?

Hello! I've included your second ask as a screencap so I can respond at the same time.

I agree with you, quite a lot actually. I think maybe these comments come from the fact that I could have made it much more explicit in my other post that part of "finding what you like" in fanfic means reading and enjoying stuff that isn't perhaps the best written, for whatever reason. Maybe the author struggled experimenting with characterization or narrative arc, but the idea of their story is unique and cool enough to read anyway. Maybe the author struggled with formatting, or some other thing that makes it hard to read. The important other aspect of consuming fanfiction (and media in general, but that's it's own post) that I didn't really touch on to keep an already long post from getting longer (but should have, if you're thinking I'm out here saying I think people should only read 'good' fanfics) is getting comfortable with engaging with things that bring you enjoyment even if others think they are 'bad.'

I don't really think I've been trying to imply that there are only the "quality" fanfics worth reading and everything else is just shit, but I can see how that might have come across given the way I pointed to how some fics go the extra mile as an example of why it's wrong to characterize all fics as badly written. I think maybe we're talking in different directions about two conversations within fanfic discourse that can coexist with one another. My previous post was more about people who disregard ALL fanfic because some of it is, in their opinion, poorly written, and how this may come from not engaging with the medium. What you're really getting at with these asks is the idea that all fanfic has merit in some form.

And you are right! People's efforts to put themselves out there and try writing, whether they are 13 or 30, and crucially regardless of whether or not their writing skill ever improves, have value! To me, it's not really even a question of 'writing bad stuff to get good later.' It's more of 'all attempts at creativity have inherent value.' Someone's bravery to post their fic as a teenager should be applauded just as much as a seasoned fic writer who's been doing this for a long time.

I think we are both on the same page when it comes to understanding why all this matters. I could have made the underlying point of 'fanfic is worth reading if you decide its worth reading' much clearer in what I wrote earlier, and I'm sorry about that!

[littlequeenies]

May 1991 - Lee Starkey and Ringo Starr at the opening of hers and Christian Paris' shop "Planet Alice" Boutique, in Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, USA.

These tiny and very low quality photos/screencaps come from The Beatles on Film website, where it says it was aired on the Channel 7 News on June 1991 (I cannot find it on the IMDB). Nowadays it can be found in a rare Ringo video collection, “"Ringo 1989-1991" (FFD Productions) (cover below).

[springy-scrapyard]

I actually have some info on Springy And The Galaxy Gears. So, I have a (now passed) relative who worked for the company I'm pretty sure developed SATGG before it was scrapped.

In his attic, he had a floppy disk which contains a more experimental version of the current discovered version of the game. This version is actually a fairly complete game. FMV cutscenes are implemented, but use low-quality screencaps of storyboards and sometimes distort heavily. Multiplayer modes (being a CO-OP version of the Story Mode and a weird split-screen/LAN-based Last Man Standing mode) are included, but LMS maps seem to be unfinished and offline enemy AI seems to be glitched.

He also had an Atari Jaguar cartridge for what I assume to be a port intended for side-by-side release with the PC version. The game is similar, but in a 2.5D style. Maps, albeit modified to make use of the 3D-ish rendering with various turns and effects, are carried over but with a decent amount lacking textures for the extra dimension of view. Most enemies are implemented, but quite a lot use their original sprites as placeholders (I may have to note that this build used a Doom-like method for most in-game things in rendering sprites with rotations for each object/character instead of using models). The multiplayer story mode is included, and a strange split-screen deathmatch mode is added in place of LMS using the same maps. While there are fully completed sprites for second, third and fourth characters, none of them seem to be implemented as a recolored Springy takes the place of every multiplayer player character.

Oooh, interesting! Could you send us some footage from the disk, if you'd be so kind? -Mod Liam

[unholyfms]

ARCANUM NIGHTS : SECRET REVEAL 001

Glass House is known for its quiet and serene comfort during the day. Wisteria welcomes you in and taps your shoulder on the way out. Tonight, the venue is enticing with loud music coming from inside it's courtyard— but you can only get in with an invitation.

However, being a guest isn't just a prize tonight. Secrets that threaten the halos of Los Angeles favorite angels are woven into the decorations of the celebration for Glass House. They're subtly attached to the most simple of components, which could drive anyone to a paranoia to keep the rest from seeing if anyone's noticed at all.

Projected on to the walls during the DJ's take of the night, a silhouette paints the walls every so often from what appears to be footage of a low quality camera. No faces are shown, but certainly someone in the city knows the curve of those lips if not the body that dances for the camera. Most guests brush it off as a female model from stock footage, but there's a chance they know the sounds of pleasure that fill the space between songs.

Every napkin served with a signature cocktail has printed receipts and scrawled lines of debt. Names are cut out but there's no denying that even with the weakest of math skills, the total would make even the rich have their stomachs turn. All receipts, put together, come to a grand total of over 600,000 dollars.

In the restrooms, the speakers that are meant to carry the music into every corner of the venue seem to have an interference. Every so often, the music is drowned out by a voice that seems to be coming from a different source. The voice is that of a woman who seems to adamant about having papers signed, and follow up with contracts. No name can be heard except key points such as 'the show', 'the NDA', and 'the baby' which makes it evident that this is a private conversation.

Menus for drinks and food come with a superimposed photo in the background, but the details aren't given much thought when you're trying to read small text to order some grub. If you pull back farther enough, you'll see a surveillance footage screencap of a blonde taking an item from a store and then walking out the door.

Formal pamphlets explaining the success of Glass House can be found at the front. However, on some pages the history of the club house has been replaced with a poorly printed copy of a form from Planned Parenthood dated 2014. The names are hard to read, but there's a signature that is cut off in the printing signing as consent that may be familiar to those in a smaller industry. The loop of an R can be seen cut from the edge of the paper.

Printed on speciality drinks with cream on top is an image of what seems to be mugshots but the identity fizzles away quickly. The machine has yet to be perfected in its printing, but surely they'll fix it before the end of the night. With every drink, they're a little bit closer to making a clear image of a man with a strong jaw, a wide nose, and the curve of his ears beside his head.

Flashing the screens behind the stage every is a scroll through a set of text messages, though it's hard to read. If you pay any mind, the same set of words seem to be easier to read— are you sure, is it mine, how do you know, have you tested.

[behindfairytales]

Hi hi there!

Another day, another bottle thrown into the sea tumblr, looking for help!

As you may have noticed, I really enjoy editing avatars & icons from various period pieces. And I would like to continue to expand my horizon a little and work on some turkish period dramas like Muhtesem Yüzyil, Saladin, Dirilis: Ertugrul, etc.

But my main issue, everytime I try to edit on such shows, is that I simply can't find HQ stills to work on... I only get low quality screencaps, overexposed... (I think it's because I'm based in Europe, with no clue where to look).

So I was wondering if you knew a website (or many) where I could find such pictures? Like, is there a Farfaraway for turkish dramas? Or am I doomed to get scraps from Pinterest?

Thank you in advance for your help 🥺🤗

[saikokirastuff]

good people // kim namjoon, loki laufeyson

[thekeyboardguy]

"This party is boring, I should leave."

"This is my birthday party"

[singersalvageshop]

does anyone know where i can find either hd video or good quality screencaps from the arrested development season 5 finale? pls?

[sugarbabywenkexing]

Katherine i think it'll be fun if you'll rate GJ dramas. please ❤️

I'm not particularly good at subjective rankings, so I've decided that the best way to do this is to come up with some scoring categories that sum up what I think we can all agree are the necessary qualities in a GJ drama. These are:

Homoeroticism

Manhandling

Sugar baby behaviour

Puppy eyes

Shirtless scenes

I've only seen (enough of) four of his dramas to give them a proper rating, but if anyone who's seen more would like to add to this then please do!

Word of Honor

Homoeroticism ✅

Manhandling ❌

Sugar baby behaviour ✅

Puppy eyes ✅

Shirtless scenes ✅

Total: 4/5

The only major loss is on the manhandling front. Unfortunately Zhou Zishu restrains himself to arm punches and minor shoves despite the fact that Wen Kexing would clearly love a nice bit of manhandling. All the other categories are checked off though, so Word of Honor is a strong start!

Advance Bravely

Homoeroticism ✅

Manhandling ✅

Sugar baby behaviour ✅

Puppy eyes ✅

Shirtless scenes ✅

Total 5/5

To be honest with you, I'm seeing a flaw in my scoring system. Or maybe it's a good system and this explains why it lives in my head rent free. Either way, it ticks off all the categories but at what cost?

Begin Again

Homoeroticism ½

Manhandling ✅

Sugar baby behaviour ✅

Puppy eyes ✅

Shirtless scenes ✅

Total 4.5/5

The half mark for homoeroticism is because of vibes (and the fact Lu Fangning keeps flirting with girls) but poor Ling Rui doesn't have any time to get a boyfriend between his busy hospital schedule and his wife trying to sleep with him. Otherwise a solid score! Lu Fangning may be smaller than her husband, but she's not going to let that stop her from manhandling him.

The Love Equations

Homoeroticism ½

Manhandling ❌

Sugar baby behaviour ❌

Puppy eyes ✅

Shirtless scenes ✅

Total 2.5/5

Ooh a low scorer! Another half mark for homoeroticism because Zhao Fanzhou's roommate keeps asking him to check out his body but he's too busy making eyes at Zhou Xiao to pay attention. He does try and make her buy him dinner, but as he's the one who pays in the end I can't give a mark for sugar babying. I've not actually got to the shirtless scene(s) yet, but I've definitely seen a screencap from one. It's there.

[flyboytracy]

Heya Flyboy.

I don't know if you've been asked this before, and I hope it's ok to ask...

How do you make such clean and smooth gifs? Every time I upload a gif to Tumblr it completely destroys the quality.

Alola!

So I went and had a look at your gifs to see if I could see what's up with them. Your frame rate and colouring and sizing and everything is fine, so nothing has jumped out at me 💙

I think some of it may be an ACNH thing. The Switch produces beautiful screencaps of the game, but the videos are horribly low quality, and you need your source videos to be as HQ as possible for any gif you make. You wanna aim for 1080p as standard with 720p as a last resort.

I made like, one AC gif years ago and never again. The quality doesn't do the game justice.

You've got the process down pretty good 😄 So all I can suggest is that you try experimenting with settings. Gifs can be up to 9.99MB so you have lots of room to play. Try swapping between perceptual, adaptive and selective in the settings. Always aim for 256 colours. 128 is your bare minimum for Tumblr. Only go below 128 if you're absolutely desperate or if it's a black & white gif.

One trick I used to use back in the 1MB/no pink or blue/2MB/4MB days, was when gifs got really grainy because they were down to 128 colours and Johnny just = grain in every gif ever, try putting a texture over the top and setting it to overlay or whatever looks good. It helps to smooth out grain for those Johnny stubborn gifs that refuse to look shiny.

I hope that helps somewhat 💙

[metronn]

this may sound strange but i'm struck by how beautiful star trek is visually. like TOS is very unique and the set design and shots can be really impressive! TNG has some really incredible colouring and shot composition. idk it's just sometimes so genuinely beautiful to look at.

this is a low quality screencap, but the colours in this? the set details? on my screen it looks amazing...

anyway i don't actually have anything important to say. just. star trek <3

[kitwilsonsass]

[userastarion]

Hey, if you don’t mind me asking. I’m making some icons for myself (badly to say the least) but they look blurry on tumblr even tho they’re 200x200 and looking fine on photoshop. Would you mind telling me how do you finish your icon so they look with good quality?

hi anon!! i'm honestly always still learning myself, so i don't know how much help i can actually offer you, but i'll give you some things i think could potentially be causing problems!

firstly, though, i want to direct you to soph's icon tutorial, bc tbh i still use it when i make my icons lol. she's really thorough and reading her tutorials is how i learned how to do a lot of the creating i do now! there may be steps in there you might not be thinking of bc i know everyone creates a little differently, so i think it's worth checking out if even just for a different perspective bc something in it might help!

the biggest thing i have, though, for anyone else who may be having the same issue, is to make sure you're sharpening your icon before it gets uploaded. that was the first thing i thought of that could be causing the blurriness issue, especially bc tumblr compresses images

more tips + maybe a mini tutorial? (we'll see! i'm not used to explaining my process so bear with me lol) under the cut:

(to start, actually, i want to say i always hate assuming lack of knowledge, so i apologize if you know any - or all - of this already!)

full disclosure: i actually always make my icons 300 x 300 because i like to be able to see them lol, but 200 x 200 should work fine, especially because they get smaller when they're viewed anywhere on tumblr anyway. but i wanted you to know in case any of my settings don't work properly for you specifically bc i'm using them for a 300 x 300 canvas! it's definitely worth noting this is just my method, so who knows how it goes for anyone else. it's probably wrong to someone 😅

so as for sharpening - as you'll see in soph's tutorial, do all your color editing and whatnot first, and then sharpen it! i have an action i found in one of the 3459083 gif tutorials i have used, so i unfortunately don't know how to get it to you, but i can tell you what it does! this is the way i sharpen gifs, but i find it works fine for icons too.

i'm gonna show you a screenshot of the action as a whole (which may look daunting at first if you're unfamiliar, but don't worry) and then explain each step in it with screenshots + my settings:

you're going to be using smart sharpen here, so you definitely want to select your image (the colored screencap or whatever) and convert it to a smart object first.

then, with that same layer selected, under filters, go to blur > blur more.

after that, go to the filters tab again, sharpen > smart sharpen. that will bring up a panel, and these are my settings:

i actually originally used 0.4 for my radius, which is what i generally use on gifs because i thought it helped make them look less grainy, but i legit just tried 0.3 on this icon and it looks better! imagine that! always learning, like i said. most folks use either .4 or .3 radius, though. but test them out! experiment! see which one looks best on your icon.

anyway! then, after you click OK and the smart sharpen window closes out, you're gonna click the lil lines over on your layer where you've smart filtered it and edit the percentages for both blur more and sharpen, as you can see in the following screenshots:

i usually stick to around 35% for blurring, but depending on how wonky the sharpening makes your image, you may need to increase/decrease the percentage. the point of blurring it is to offset some of that nasty graininess that comes from using smart sharpen.

speaking of which! i usually wind up with my icons around 95% smart sharpening. as with blurring, this percentage really depends on how good/bad it looks as you tinker with the percentages. (like in the above screenshot, before i switched to 0.3 radius. even still, it will be tiny on tumblr, so i'm not SUPER worried about it, and sometimes having it be a little oversharpened can help it stay clearer when it's shrunk down)

and that's my sharpening done! i really think sharpening makes a HUGE difference when viewing images, especially icons. a lot of people will also paint over the colors on their icons to make them more vivid (which you can kind of see i did with jesper's shirt/tie thing).

the only other thing i would suggest is to also make sure you have enough contrast in the colors on your icon. i think if it's not contrasting enough, it could maybe look muddier when it's smaller. soph's tutorial has a lot of great tips on how to color icons and stuff to keep them vivid and contrasting too. (unless, of course, you're doing a pale/low-contrast one, in which case it may be less helpful lol)

anyway, i have no idea if this is what's been giving you trouble, or if you 100% know all this already, or if the issue is actually just tumblr, but that's how i get my icons to look crisper! i hope that if not my words but maybe soph's tutorial can help you, and i know she sometimes even links other outside tutorials in hers for even MORE in-depth help.

good luck!! 💛💛

[pokaarii]

Low quality Gintama the final screencap(s) ( I may upload more )

[rwbyconversations]

Rooster Teeth Glassdoor Crunch/Overtime Accusations #AnimatorsFirst

EDIT: Georden Whitman, former creator of Nomad of Nowhere, has come out and publicly confirmed the Glassdoor reviews are true.

Original story:

Rooster Teeth’s Glassdoor reviews have recently made serious allegations against the company, with people who work for the company claiming that the company engages in practices involving heavy crunch periods, a resistance to providing benefits, eighty hour work weeks, a management team trying to justify crunch and unpaid overtime that, according to some, led to as much as a third of RWBY and gen;LOCK’s recent seasons being made effectively for free. 

Below are screencaps and exact quotes from the pages. Any emphasis made is done by me.

From May 23rd this year, as written by an employee with three years experience at RT:

Cons

Program scheduling department has no idea how to time budget for animation, has resulted in unnecessary, preventable crunch Company takes on projects that are too big for it to manage effectively Not the highest pay compared to Anim Guild standards Open office space, gets noisy

Advice to Management

Management has been using a weird method to try and deescalate hard feelings about crunch. They’re acting like counselors who are “there to talk” and to try and find “coping mechanisms” to deal with crunch. This is a terrible idea considering that none of them are trained counselors as far as I’m aware, but more-so, they’re obviously going to be biased in favor of what they want from us. It makes me want to communicate with them even less. This past review, my manager criticized me for having “negative energy” during a terrible crunch period where we were working over 80 hrs s week, and told me I should “look for the silver lining” which is just bad advice. Advice to management is to stop pretending you know anything about mental health and also be less passive - fight harder for your team.

From May 13th, an employee with a year’s experience at Rooster Teeth:

Cons

The management is terrible. Artists are lead on with the promises of "full time employment and benefits" dangled in front of them without ever being addressed and ultimately are never given, there is no paid overtime, artists had to fight for their right to time off between productions, and good luck getting any form of benefits despite them being plastered on the wall.

Advice to Management

You're not a group of guys playing halo in your apartment anymore. Please run your business and look at what's happened to it.

From June 11th this year, from an employee who has been working at the company for five years:

Cons

- Extremely poor management (Some of it is negligence, some of it is just accidental from the sheer amount of work. Upper management is also extreme bro/friends club.) - Insanely high expectations (animate a 10-14 min episode in 2 weeks) - Very low compensation (I've worked here for years and make entry pay. Some people have gone MULTIPLE years with no raise) - No overtime pay (Every season of RWBY and GL gets about 1/3 or less made for 'free' because no one gets paid over time and it's not uncommon to work hundreds of hours of overtime) - Toxic work environment (there are a lot of cliques, complaining and even making fun of other people and depts here. It never gets punished so it always happens. Not professional)  - You know something is going right when after many complaints HR reminds everyone you have "unlimited" mental health doctor appointments... I could honestly go on and on like an emo on Myspace in 2007 but I'll reign it in. I'll leave it at this since I've seen many fans read these and be skeptical. It's not great. You can deny it but there is a lot of evidence if you just accept it. And the reason you work here is cus you get stuck and are promised "It'll get better". The work is low quality (hard to get jobs elsewhere), pay is low (can't save money) and life/work balance is a joke. We have a bit of balance now but it's only for a couple months out of the year when production isn't in full swing. Then it's back in the meat grinder.

Advice to Management

You NEED to listen to the workers and make hard decisions and actually fight for better conditions. It's been far far too long of "it'll get better" or "we know what to do next year". This isn't sustainable and I think we all know it. But someone has to be the guy to say "no" when things aren't good enough. If you don’t say no, hundreds of people suffer. Please.

From May 18th:

Cons

Crunch has gotten to an unacceptable level. Productions have been completed with over half of total hours unpaid overtime, especially impacting the comp and editing department. Management cares more about their ego than the quality of the work they put out— letting the crunch caused by their irresponsible decisions fall solely on the shoulders of the artists while they enjoy a forty hour work week. Pay is laughable compared with the amount of mandated, unpaid hours of labor. No career advancement, and contract workers are given empty promises of full time employment before being shown the door once production is done.

Advice to Management

Stop saying the crunch issue is “getting better” or that you’re “working on it”, and start actually owning up to your mistakes.

From May 19th:

Cons

-A lot of employees brought on, if not all, before the last development cycle were promised permanent positions after a 90 day trial period. As those dates approached those artists saw no change, asking their leads what was going on. The guidance from higher ups was vague at best, and some felt like they had been forced to lie to employees during the interview process. - A lot of processes went over-scope due to poor planning. -Lack of actual production experience in the management side of things is no longer something that can be glossed over as the company tries to take on more industry vetted employees. -Crunch is extreme and overtime is not compensated for, nor is that time given back in any fair amount.

Advice to Management

-Clear and concise communication -Re-structure your upper level management

From May 12th:

Cons

Crunch here is out of control. No Paid OT. Expect to work A LOT for free. 70-80 hour work weeks. Mandatory 10-12 hour work days sometimes with no days off. Management is more interested in telling you what you want the hear as opposed to the truth.

Advice to Management

Fix the crunch issue and stop saying 'we're working on it'.... because you're not. Layoffs are certain. Will layoff bad employees and good employees in the same breath, completely eliminating any reason to work as hard as you're required to do. Fix your transparency issue and stop overworking your employees otherwise your reputation will severely suffer.

From April 5th:

Cons

-No paid overtime. -Crunch is a major problem in the animation department due to unrealistic deadlines, poor planning, and indecisiveness. (Mandatory 10 to 12 hour days for multiple months are common.) -Stress levels are often very high due to harsh deadlines -Some of the producers tend to lie. -Promotions are used as a morale booster, not actual career advancement. -Hardly any time for Professional Development -Professionalism can be a bit scarce (for example people would draw penises on the boards throughout the studio)

Advice to Management

-Management needs to seriously figure out how to deal with the crunch issue. A question was asked at an all hands meeting: "How are you going to handle crunch this year?" Instead of giving a clear answer, the head of the RT animation department completely dodged the question. If you don't know how you are going to tackle a problem, try saying, "I don't know. I will get back with you ASAP." Then actually pursue a solution to the problem. Dodging questions makes you look shady and untrustworthy. -Improve production plans and make sure you have enough resources to complete your projects. If you are going to work on two shows at the same time, then you need to double ALL of your teams along the pipeline, not just one. If you can barely get one project done with your current resources, you certainly cannot finish two. If you can't get the resources needed to complete the projects, then it's probably best to keep them small or to simply not do them at all. Pushing your teams beyond the breaking point is not the wisest decision. If you continue with your overambitious ways, it will backfire in the long run. Telltale Games' closure and Bioware's Anthem debacle are examples of what's to come if you do not improve your production practices and get crunch under control. -Get more training on how to manage people. There are plenty of programs out there that can help management understand how to work with various types of personalities. There were some situations where I noticed that some leads and producers simply did not know how to talk to a person when there was a problem. Despite all of the criticism I just wrote, I feel the majority of who work at Rooster Teeth Productions are decent people. However, the management is just terrible. Put some of that ambition you have into fixing your problems internally instead of putting it into meeting those unrealistic deadlines.

From March 25th:

Cons

- Massive amounts of unpaid overtime. All while touting the importance to the company of a life/work balance. They promise to give you the time back, but it will be impossible to take. - Management is just a joke. They can’t schedule or stay on track to save their lives. Total amateur hour. - Zero followthrough on promises made. How about a pizza party? - Pay much lower than standard. Don’t expect real raises. Promotions with increased responsibilities don’t come with comparable pay bumps. - Most promises of advancement and opportunities are hollow wishful thinking. - Almost zero followthrough with meaningful investment in employee education. You can access a Udemy account and that’s about it. - Management will blame the artists instead of taking responsibility and will even through people under the bus to cover themselves. - Internet celebs are more valuable than artists.  - Their awards are called “cockbite of the month/year” and it’s what they call their employees. You may not want to be called that but that’s too bad. It’s their culture. A few guys draw penises everywhere to be funny. - Not very much diversity in management. Feels like you need to be a straight white male to be appreciated.

Advice to Management

Hire some actual seasoned industry professionals to upper management in Animation. And demonstrate there are some consequences for them, instead of taking it out on employees.

From April 11th: 

Cons

-Overtime, and hours will cause any person to slowly become something they don't like. -Management is typically made up of "talent" and treats other employees poorly, not to mention 0 years of previous managerial experience. -Management also blames other employees for the problems they create, and don't show actual leadership. -Echo chambers within management. -Stress levels incredibly high -Lack of professionalism

Advice to Management

-Get rid of "talent" in managerial roles, it's clear they're costing the company serious problems and money. The ones who end up being hurt are the employees who knew and constantly warned about problems ahead of time that were ignored. If the company stays the same a huge incident is bound to follow. -Try to respect creatives that aren't "talent" within the company as well. It's clear management doesn't and goes against the entirety of the company's "core values." those who have had previous industry experience should be listened to and considered instead of being shrugged off and given responses like "Well that's just how we do things." -Collaboration doesnt seem to exist for a majority of managment here. If this one massive change happens the company could really grow far and do much more than create crude content with a lack of care/heart for the final product. -If people are able to sleep and have a normal schedule more thoughtful input will also happen, and your content can only get better. -A multitude of people and lives have been hurt from management at this company, from in house employees being mentally abused to freelancers that are ghosted. So many immature and poor practices have taken place within the animation department I'm amazed a lawsuit has yet to happen. -Management should be leaders not bosses.

It’s almost darkly funny that most of the positives are just “They give you free food on Mondays and the people are nice.” 

But these are all from just the last year alone. Most reviews from before the start of 2019 don’t speak of crunch barring one from April 2018, one from March 2018 and one from June. This is a problem that has been affecting Rooster Teeth for at least an entire year, and since the start of the new year, the problem has magnified tenfold. Most reviews mention that the heads of departments are aware of the crunch and unpaid overtime but refuse to do anything about it beyond offering platitudes or dodging the question on what the company is going to actually do to fix the crunch problem.

Crunch is a problem plaguing many companies, especially in the western hemisphere. In gaming development there’s a story nearly every month about what apathetic upper management think they can get away with by forcing employees to spend dozens of hours every week slaving away on their product. I hoped that Rooster Teeth would not be one of these companies, but I am saddened to see that they were not. 

Crunch’s negative effects on mental and physical health have been well documented, alongside the basic fact that crunch isn’t worth it and doesn’t work. Employees forced to crunch are unable to work as well as employees who are well rested and have time to go home to their families. 

To anyone working these impossible crunch hours at Rooster Teeth right now, I hope your suffering ends soon, that eventually basic human empathy wins out and hours are lessened while you receive your just rewards for your work.

For @roosterteeth? This is appalling and a slap in the face to the fanbase you conned into thinking that you were a company that cared for everyone within as a huge family. Your entire management team should be ashamed of the environment you signed off on. No profit margin is worth the suffering you have subjected your crew to. Shame on you. 

As a fan of RWBY, it disgusts me that a product I enjoy was made through blood, sweat and tears. And as a fan of RWBY, I wish to make a public call to the fanbase, be it on Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter or Youtube. I want to make a public statement to Rooster Teeth that we are willing to wait longer for new shows if it means that they are made ethically. I can’t in good conscience support a product if it was made by putting the workers through hell. Maybe I can’t change anything on my own, maybe ultimately we’ll just be ignored, but I refuse to stand by and stay silent on the matter, maybe even get Rooster Teeth to make changes in their workflow (I won’t say “I hope they respond” because they seem to respond in-house to complaints about crunch without ever actually changing anything) 

I encourage you to share this around as much as you can. Share the accounts of the Glassdoor reviews as far and as wide as you can. We love and enjoy media, we love the people who make it- the animators, editors, writers and voice actors, and we as a community want them to not have to resort to RT’s seemingly unlimited mental health coverage or “find a coping mechanism to deal with crunch.” As much as it pains me to admit, I’d rather see RWBY die instead of seeing continue to be made on the back of crunch.

Thank you for reading. Again, I encourage you to share this around as much as you can. Let your voice be heard if you stand against this.