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Vee: The first thing I noticed after getting a real job was the level of freedom and trust awarded to me. In my brief stint as an animator, I was watched over and micro-managed, made to approve every step of what I did. For me, it built a low level resentment that eventually led me to stop showing up entirely. If I can complete the work in one hour, why should I stay for eight just because somebody else tells me to?
The answer is obvious: because most people can’t.
And I understand why studios work that way- if you’re a production line artist, you are a child. A really large child. It’s best if there is some imposing figure telling you the order in which you should do things, to take short breaks so your arm doesn’t seize up, and to stay in your seat.
You not only decided to dedicate your life to cartoons, but took the most brutal job you can in the entertainment world (at least stunt men get a lot of tail, and gophers get to touch actual famous people once and a while). Seriously! If you just liked drawing, there are about a billion other iterations of this job you could have applied for. Being anywhere from keyframer to ink&painter means you probably have trouble remembering your own phone number, but can name the exact color code for every Care Bear.
Jaime: Revisions and approvals are an unavoidable aspect of any creative production, particularly one with multiple partners, and anyone who's ever had to suffer through the process knows how maddening it is.
The worst situation I was ever in involved six stages of approval; the supervisor, the director, the producer, the partner, the client, and their focus group - and each tier became progressively more ignorant.
What can make it worse is when they do it for every stage, from concept art to storyboards, layouts, animatics, rough animation, etc
Everyone feels as if they have to add something to the 'creative process' and it begins to retard production exponentially.
Now of course, I'm the one giving these sorry bastards their revisions, but I try to do it as little as possible.
