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hezuart · 2 years

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Why did you switch from animation to reviews? Also, do you still plan on doing CGI like you mentioned multiple times?

oH BOY..... you may need to sit down for this one

So it all started back in 2012. I was around 14 years old and just saw Rise of the Guardians and Wreck it Ralph. The stories, the characters, the world-building, the animation... now I never really went to movie theaters as a kid, but as a teen I started going and I instantly fell in love.

I went to community college for a few years and made some amazing friends. Loved some of my teachers and we participated in fun events like the 24-hour challenge and Campus Movie Fest. I had gotten in the top picks for Campus Movie Fest at some point and was supposed to go to the Cannes Film Festival in France to showcase my short film, but then the pandemic hit and it got canceled indefinitely.

So get this, for community college, I got a certification in 3D Animation and Video Game development. It's basically an AA degree but without general ed. (Why do you need general ed to get a degree in something? Math and PE have nothing to do with Animation. College is ridiculous. People have to pay you more simply because you were forced to spend more money in college. Wild.) Out of the 20 classes I had taken to get this certification, only 3 of those courses were hands-on 3D animation. And only one of those courses was hands-on video game development and I dropped out of that class because it was PC only and I only had a Mac at the time. I applied to the class without realizing it was accommodating only to PCs. So even my certification is barely reaching the basics for the title of it, but I did take another online course or two for 3D animation which I have a different certification for.

Now even with my 3D animation, I was never taught the physics engine. I was never taught hair or cloth simulation, but I do have modeling, rigging, animating, and texturing experience. For gaming, I have very little experience. I've only modeled things and found my way around Unity, but otherwise, I suck at coding. I hate coding with a passion. Making a video game without coding isn't really possible.

Now, when the pandemic hit, a lot of things were shutting down. I had no idea where I wanted to go next. People kept asking me where I was going for my higher education, but I kept getting warned not to waste money on college if you're trying to become an artist, especially at University. It's a money pit, and competition is so high, you're not guaranteed a job, you're just gonna be in debt. Even colleges like Cal Arts, who charge over $1K per class, I've been told are a "Pay to get in" kind of place. Where the money is used to nab professionals from their work to teach students or talk about their company or programs, and through that, you get a bigger chance to get your foot in the door because you know someone. I've unfortunately been told that's the more realistic way to get into animation: networking. If you're a shy introvert who doesn't know any famous people, you need to be extremely talented and unique to stand out to get the chance of being noticed. I don't really want to suck up to people nor do I want to waste thousands of dollars and 5 more years on college that I may not even need (let alone be able to afford) especially if there are online classes that may be even more valuable.

Now after I got out of college and started applying a few places, I discovered a LOT of unfortunate information.

Most animation these days is done overseas. South Korea, India, Japan, and Canada are the big ones.

Invader Zim, Steven Universe, Miraculous Ladybug, The Simpsons, OK KO, Star vs the Forces of Evil, Kipo and the Age of the Wonder Beasts, Adventure Time, Twelve Forever, and the Powerpuff Girls Reboot were animated in South Korea. The Ghost and Molly Mcgee is animated in Canada.

(The first four seasons of the Simpsons were animated in America until it switched to South Korea and India.)

2D traditional animation is no longer viable. Puppetry is the industry standard because it's the cheapest. Luckily, Toon Boom Harmony has allowed us to push the boundaries of 2D puppetry. Puppetry these days, if done well, can look really great, like Tangled the Series, but if you don't have Toon Boom Harmony, you're probably not gonna be hired.

Not even all 3D is made in the USA. If it's Disney, Dreamworks, or Pixar, then it's usually USA. But streaming service movies, like Sea Beast, Kid Cosmic, The Willoughbys, and Klaus, while they claim to be a "Netflix Original" that "Netflix Animation" animated, that's a lie. Klaus was animated by Yowza! Animation in Canada. The Willoughbys: Bron Animation, Canada. Kid Cosmic: Mercury Filmworks, Canada. Sea Beast: Sony Pictures Image Works, Canada. (X)

Go Go Cory Carson is written and storyboarded in America, but the animation is shipped out to be done in France. Sonic Boom is also French Animated.

Even Sony Pictures? Open Season, Surf's Up, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, SMurfs, Hotel Transylvania, Over the Moon, The Angry Birds Movie, Sea Beast? Sony Pictures Imageworks is based in Canada. They're doing all the animation for them. It's not animated in America, it's merely funded by them.

I should also clarify: I only want to participate in stylized animated media. I don't want to do CGI for hyper-realistic films, which eliminates most of the animation jobs out there these days. It's just not my thing. The insane amount of details and uncanny valley are just so unappealing, I can't do it.

The closest animation studios are still far away. Most companies are located in LA. I'm over 7+ hours away from there. LA also has a high poverty rate, terrible air quality, is overcrowded, and is just generally not a good place to live, especially if you're low middle class. You're not gonna survive there.

Pixar is located in Emeryville, a few minutes north of San Fransisco city. Emeryville is the most crime-ridden city in that area. They tell you not to walk home alone at night. You're more likely to get robbed there than anywhere else according to the population ratio there. There are a lot of gangs that hide up there, and there's a lot of poverty there, even outside of San Fransisco. It's basically a trash pit. Not an ideal place to live, and commuting through 3-hour SF city traffic is also not gonna work. (X)

I have also been informed some people who work at Pixar are petty that the interns use their facility. Pixar has a heated pool, soccer field, gymnasium, and a few other nice things on their property. I was informed there was a person or two who got mad that an intern was using their basketball court.... when the intern was on break. As though they weren't part of Pixar, as though they had no right to touch the property. Apparently, they also used to make the interns push around little tea carts to serve refreshments as a way to "talk to the fellow animators" to probably get them interacting, but hearing that the interns were basically chored with butler duty to bother the animators hard at work seems like such a forced thing. That makes me uncomfortable. Of course, the person who told me these stories has been working with Pixar for over a decade or two now, so things could be very different as the years went on. Pixar itself on the inside of the animator building is gorgeous. They all decorate their office spaces in crazy ways, it looks like a movie set. But they have a bar and "whiskey club". They're apparently allowed to drink at work and have often had parties that got a little out of hand. There's also an old chain smoker room where the founders used to play poker and spy on people outside of their room with hidden cameras; I've even been inside. I don't think they use it anymore, though I'm not totally sure. Some of this info was fascinating, but the drinking made me uncomfortable. I kinda want to work with sober people here.

The sex ratio in the animation industry is also interesting and unfavorable. 70% of the animation and art school ratio is women, but only 34% of the actual animation workforce is women. 34% female to 66% male. More women study animation than men, but more men get hired and hold positions than women. Animation, ironically, has always been a male-dominated workplace. This unfortunately contributes to the "you have to know someone" or "be rich" to get-in situation. Men know a lot more men and not as many women. So the 30 to 40-year-old guys hire the other guys they know rather than a young poor girl with a passion. This makes it even more difficult for me to get in. (X)

20th Century, Netflix Animation, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Bento Box, Vanguard Animation, Universal Studios, Titmouse, 6 Point Harness, ShadowMachine- all LA / South California.

There are a few places I could apply to, but what they do, I just don't care for. Niantic(Pokemon Go), Lucasfilm(Effects), Whiteboard Animation(Marketing), Sharpeyeanimation (Marketing), EA games (Mass Effect, Battlefield, Dragon Age 2, all those hyper-realistic war, sports, or fantasy games.)

So whether it's outside of the USA or within the USA, I need to move. I don't have the money for that yet.

Just find a company that does remote work, right? It should be easy, especially in pandemic times! Wrong. Most animation companies don't permit remote work. It's probably a security issue. But I've done research on this. The only big animation company I've found (so far) that allows remote work (or is HIRING for remote work) is Mainframe Studios in Canada. They have a 3D animation job list, and I guess they focus on animating Barbie movies(???). (X) But that's about it. And even if you're a remote worker, there's a high likely hood you still need a Visa to be allowed to work for a company belonging to another country. So that's a whole other legal process to deal with.

Disney is becoming a huge corporate monopoly over American animation. They bought Blue Sky only to kill them off. (Disney also just recently laid off 7,000 people due to their stock price drop and failed movies they released the past year with deliberately bad marketing for political reasons. (X) Disney also bought Pixar and is pushing for sequels because weird or bad, sequels and terrible live actions make them a LOT of money. Did you know Disney's terrible Lion King CGI remake is amongst the top 10 highest-grossing movies ever made? It's criminal. (X)

Because Disney is such a big name in the USA, there's a huge association of animation = children's media, which is not true. Animation at the Oscars also has its own category, when it's not a genre, is a medium. Disney often wins at the Oscars too because no one sees the other animations. Granted, Disney has an insane marketing budget in comparison, but it's clear no one cares to seek out animation outside of heavy CGI live-action these days. No small-time studios, no limited releases, no anime. The fact that Disney also now OWNS the Oscars is SUS as hell. (The fact that Disney-owned ABC threatened the Oscars, forcing them to cut 8 categories or else there wouldn't be a show that year is wild. There isn't even an oscar for stuntmen. What the fuck, Hollywood?) (X)

Dreamworks nearly went bankrupt and sold itself to Comcast back in 2013. Comcast also owns Illumination. Dreamworks has been focusing on making bad tv show adaptions of their IPs. So yes people, Jack would sooner meet the Minions than meet Elsa. Disney is the biggest corporate monopoly, but it's definitely not the only one. The animation industry in America is snuffing out its competition by buying it out for itself. It's insane the kind of power they have.

Competition is HIGH. Because of this, the only ways to get in? If you're rich or you know someone. Pixar gets over 3,000 intern applications every summer. Less than 100 are seen by actual hiring managers. The most interns Pixar has ever taken in a single year were 12. The least they ever took in a single year was two. A 12 to 3,000 ratio is not favorable. That's a 3% chance to get into a big-shot animation company.

And again, because remote work isn't permissible to new hires, you need to live in the area to commute to the campuses. This is one of the reasons why LA is so crowded.

If you get into an animation company purely remote and maybe even for a different country? You are the luckiest person alive.

Programs are expensive. The animation industry is very strict on what programs they use. The industry standard for 2D puppetry is Toon Boom Harmony; the industry standard for 3D animation is Maya, and the industry standard for video game development isn't as clear but Unity is one of them.

Some of these programs are free, as long as you are a student. If you are attending college or a certain online program, you can use your school-issued email through them to apply to get the program for free for about a year. Otherwise, if you're using it to make your own animations solo?

Autodesk Maya: $225 a month or $1,785 a year (X)

and guess what? Maya removed its free render service. Arnold is now built in by default, however, if you want to BATCH render (Meaning render a full scene or several slides) it will slap it's ugly watermark over it.

Fun fact, this very rendered watermark can be seen accidentally in a single frame for the Kingdom Hearts Frozen cutscene

Well, you need to batch render if you're trying to animate so let's see what Arnold costs- $50 monthly to $380 annually.... are you kidding me?! The rendering PLUG-IN BUNDLED TO MAYA COSTS MORE TO USE THAN THE OWN PROGRAM?! (X)

Now, there are other rendering plug-ins you can probably use with Maya. But they all have their ups and downs and their own costs as well. (X) Pixar's Renderman is $595 per license. I can't seem to get info on Octane. V-ray solo is $39 monthly while premium is around $60 monthly.

Now there IS Blender, an alternative to Maya. It is free and I have it. That is ideal to work in for people like me. I tried it a while back, but I hated the interface windows. It was hard to work on it when you can't close them properly. It's possible they've fixed this in an update, but I haven't touched the program in over three years so I wouldn't know. It's different from Maya a little, so it has ups and downs in comparison too. But Blender is a savior to 3D artists everywhere.

Toon Boom Harmony isn't as bad but still high: Lowest price is $27 monthly / $220 annual and the highest is $124 monthly / $1,100 annual (X)

Unity has a basic version that is free, but Unity Plus is $399 yearly while Unity Pro is $2,040 (X)

So some programs are clearly more viable than others. But imagine you're trying to model, texture, rig, animate, simulate, and render a short film all by yourself in Maya. That's gonna take you over a year or two, and you'll have several thousand dollars out of your pocket by the time your free trial ends. And might I say, for an industry-standard program, Maya sucks. It's almost unusable without those plug-ins for not only rendering but also for the models to even be able to SELECT their BONE rigs.

Do you want to practice on your own when school is out of session? Fuck you! Fuck subscription services! Welcome to capitalist hell, baby!

Again, using Blender is more viable, but you're still going to be basically doing everything yourself. That's gonna take years. Do you have the patience for that? Do I?

Because of the pandemic, movies aren't even hitting theaters anymore. They're going straight to streaming services. Streaming services of which, gain sole rights to and can take media off their platforms at any time without warning. Thanks, Discovery+ ! Does everyone remember the HBO Max Animation & DC purge? It could happen to other streaming services too. Piracy will save the future of animation at this point. (X)

And again, Streaming services like Netflix will purchase films and claim they made them by slapping their logo over it; but no, they either bought the distribution rights or produced them through funding and maybe storyboarding. Often times from a Canadian film studio. (Link again X)

Even stop motion companies like LAIKA are losing money and may have to shut down or be bought out in the future, especially considering how much work and money they put into their films vs. how much money they actually make. (X)

All of this? Naturally made me fall into a depression. My god, the layers of hopelessness. My animation and modeling is pretty average too. I'm decent. I can maybe make a good shot. But I can't blow people away like James Baxter can. I mean, I shouldn't compare myself to people. If I worked really hard, maybe I could get into a good company. But again, I have to move! A part of me gave up. I don't really do 3D animation anymore, though part of me misses it.

I still 2D animate. I'm trying to make a short film and though my college friends who were working on it with me have given up, I have done my best to keep going. Even if it has been produced at a snail's pace for the past three years, I still intend to finish this animation. It's gonna be beautiful when it comes out, and it will be a wonderful portfolio piece regardless.

So with nothing else to do and no other kind of job experience really under my belt(plus my family is prone to covid so getting a job in the pandemic was just kind of out of the question) I decided to go to youtube. I heard some people can make a little money on there, but the truth is I had actually wanted to become a youtuber for a few years prior. I've always looked up to animators and reviewers on youtube, I've loved the stories they tell and their incredibly detailed analysis essays on movies, tv series, books, etc. I wanted to be one of them. I wasn't sure exactly what I'd do, so I just followed the Youtube Partnership program set up which took a few months, and then jumped in! I found I only had the time to upload once every month or two. I had a ton of audio issues and I'm not outputting at the proper 1920 x 1080 quality that I should be doing either. It's a huge learning process that I still haven't perfected, but I'm taking notes to try and get better.

Even though Youtube is fun, I only make $300 a month, and that isn't even consistent. With patreon, I make maybe another $80 or $100 on top of that, so overall $400 a month average. That's really nice and pretty cool! But it's not enough to survive.

Now I work part-time at a coffee shop. My mental health is a lot better and I love my coworkers. I make roughly $400 a week in comparison to the $400 a month. It's still not enough to live off of (the cheapest rent around is over $1,000 a month, not ) and it's still a temporary job in the long run. I intend to work here for maybe another two years to save up money.

But what do I do now?

Am I welcome in animation spaces anymore?

As a critic of popular media, it could be likely that they could fire me or deny my application because of my critique of their past films or tv series. They could see my youtube persona and assume I'm a raging untrustworthy nitpick instead of a passionate, kind person.

Vivziepop's Spindlehorse company? What Viv was doing was a dream. I was so inspired by her. She made her own company, made a super successful pilot, and was even creating more jobs for traditional, high-quality animation. However, for Hazbin Hotel, she required more funding, which is why she sold it off to A24, who now has corporate say in the show. A24 is known for letting creators be more lenient, but otherwise, Viv won't have full control over it anymore unless she managed to get them to sign something over to her; but with the rumors of her being kicked off season 1? I don't know anymore.

Her own company Spindlehorse; they rely on youtube revenue and/or merch sales to fund Helluva Boss. That's a tricky business practice, but it's kept them afloat so far.

However, Spindlehorse is hiring a lot of people as of late. This could be a bad sign; that people might be leaving the company due to potential mistreatment or unhappiness. With the way the show is going, I don't really want to be part of that company regardless, but maybe before season 2 of Helluva Boss, I would have considered applying. Had I made any critique videos prior, there's no way they'd accept me. "Aren't you that one YouTuber that said my writing is bad for season 2 episode 2?" And you expect me to hire you?" Like yeah, that application process would go down well. Not. By critiquing artists' work, some of them are very sensitive. I'd be kicked out for a lot of things, when really, we artists should be critiquing each other all the time, trying to improve. That's how the writer's room always is, ahaha... hours of fighting goes down in those meetings. It's intense, but fun.

But yeah, it's such a shame. Even small companies need to sell out to corporate to survive. Either that or be HEAVILY crowd-funded, which again, can be a slippery slope.

I see a ton of small projects on Twitter looking to hire people, or looking to become a big studio to release a pilot or game. I've joined a few of them, but most are unpaid because of COURSE they are, and then these projects?? Just don't go anywhere. Because it's unpaid. Because we can't afford to work on a project for free. IRL comes first. Some of these projects seem so great but they don't go anywhere, and it's hard to have faith in start-up studios anymore. (Game creators might have a chance, but tv series or films? Good luck, folks.)

At that point, should I just make my own company? I don't have the money or knowledge for such a thing! It's insanely expensive to start a business and get licensing. So much paperwork, so much everything! And the USA Government is so behind in understanding technology. If you want to create a remote business and/or copyright something, you're still required to put an advertisement in a local newspaper about it, even if your business isn't selling to locals. 💀 The number of fees and ridiculous legal hoops you need to jump through... it's a ridiculous waste of time and money. But you need to do it. The question is, am I willing to do it? Am I willing to tackle such an insane thing by myself?

I want to keep my internet persona and IRL persona separate, but can I? I value having a private, quieter life away from the screen. I worry about getting doxxed one day because of the nature of the internet. I worry about people finding my IRL resumes or profiles for work I want to do outside of youtube for security's sake. My art style is unique and very recognizable. I don't have a lot of private art that is worthy of being in a portfolio. But for absolute safety, I'd need to password-protect my websites or portfolios so the public doesn't have free access to them; only companies I'm applying to. But at that point, does password-protecting my resume and portfolio make it less likely I'd be hired due to the inconvenience? Due to the private, hard-to-find nature of my work? Being a YouTuber with great story skills and art skills with a fanbase could be a big plus to getting hired somewhere, but it could also be a horrible disadvantage that would get me fired. It's a double-edged sword that I cannot work around and I don't know what to do.

I've considered the video game industry, but even that isn't ideal. A lot of the indie ones I adore aren't made in the USA. Gris and Monster Camp were made in Spain. Ori and the Blind Forest: Austria. Hollow Knight: Australia. Little Nightmares and Raft: Sweden. LIMBO & INSIDE: Denmark. Outlast, Don't Starve, Spirit Farer, Bendy and the Ink Machine: Canada.

SuperGiant Games did Hades, Transistor and Bastion and is located in SF, but they're not hiring. Janimation, a multi-media company located in Texas isn't hiring. Frederator in New York isn't hiring.

I don't want to work for a studio that does nothing but first-person shooters or sports games. If I want to get into the gaming industry, I probably need to crowdfund and make a company to make a game myself.

If I make my own game, which I've wanted to do for a long time now and still want to... I can't code. I guess I could try to hire someone that could? But a game to the extent I want... I'd need to start small. I'd need to practice. It's several years of work. Will it even be worth it? I don't think I can do it alone. I'd need crowdfunding and workers; which again, here comes the "make my own studio" issue...

Do I even want to animate anymore? I prefer traditional animation in comparison to puppetry. I prefer 2D animation to 3D animation simply because it is more accessible. But even then, I'm finding myself drawn more and more to writing, storyboarding, and character design. If I were a 3D animator, this is mostly what I'd be working with all day: Naked models in an empty room. I'd do none of the physics simulation or texturing or lighting.

Animating naked & bald people all day... I don't know... 3D Animation kind of lost its appeal. You only work on such a small portion of a film, you almost never have the bigger picture. You won't see the final result until the film is done. As an animator, you're almost kept in the dark. Maybe that's how they want it anyway, since leaks are a huge issue they keep quiet under strict NDA.

But yeah, anyway... I'm an artistic digital generalist. I can do almost anything. 3D animation, storyboarding, writing, photo editing, illustration, rendering, modeling and so much more. It's hard to choose what you really want to be in this industry. I feel like Barry Benson dfklgjdflkjg

I don't know what I'm gonna do anymore. There's gotta be a solution to this but I just can't figure it out. I don't want to give up my youtube channel so I can be an animator. I don't want to give up a safer, quiet countryside house to be able to survive financially. Am I even willing or able to move countries? Is my career more important than friends and family?

I think I'm thinking too much about everything. I should start small. Move less than an hour away first and move in with roommates to get a feel for independence instead of jumping into it immediately. Get a job at a small time company, maybe not for what I want at first, but it'll get me some experience and maybe I'll learn some things along the way to understand where I can go next. Take it slow and don't panic too much over trying to be a young big shot. Take things one day at a time? That's my current goal, I suppose.

So you know... to answer your question... why did I switch to youtube for a current career? Because of a classic existential & career crisis in my 20s. Will I ever go back to 3D animation? Maybe. Maybe one day.

#ask #personal #3D animation #career #youtube #long post #i should also say because im a fan artist #i dont have a lot of original work to add to a portfolio which is a HUGE issue #Pixar doesnt even want to look at a portfolio if it has copyrighted material #they want to avoid lawsuits if they see material owned by a different company #you need to be so careful what you put in a portfolio #i mean especially if i use my 2D stuff or illustrations #my illustrations especially #animation #the animation industry #CGI #rant

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