and yet they are the first to preach others
Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
171–180 of 365 posts
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Western animators aren't paid that terribly, just anime animators, and only some of them. But part of the compromise that Western animation does to be more productive is that it all looks bad. There's a fake-anime style Superman cartoon on I saw that has the artistic quality of maybe a Japanese elementary schooler. And then Netflix makes animated sex comedies that look like old Flash cartoons.
Since you mention Western animation and Netflix. Have you seen Blue Eyed Samurai? Amazing show and it has a beautiful style that looks like it's hand drawn and Japanese, but it's actually French made CGI. I suspect that even this industry can be disrupted by technology.
The French have their own thing going on. Fortiche and Blue Spirit are making some of the most beautiful animations we have seen in western TV series. They draw from a rich heritage of art and comics.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#173When I read things like this, I think back on my experience in games and entertainment. I believe that the more generally prestigious the industry is, the more likely it is to see worker exploitation. Part of your pay is wrapped up in getting to brag that you work in industry X on product Y. Almost by definition, that means young, passionate labor. Industry leaders quickly learn how to exploit the young and passionat…
I think the most extreme case of this is probably ski patrol. Dangerous, difficult, high skill, high cost of living, pays peanuts and pocket lint.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#174While the industry as a whole makes a lot, the majority of individual anime and manga make next to nothing. It’s a few very popular properties that make all the dough. If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. There would be just a few anime per year instead of many. But also, how would the popular ones come to be? Every new property would be a huge gamble. As an anime and manga fan, I actually…
This is, basically, what happened to movies. Because of that, you'll see very few risks, and the people who get to be creative tend to be the ones who have an established track record. People have been complaining that the theater is full of sequels and superhero movies for decades.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "if we paid people fairly things would be prohibitively expensive" argument is a terrible one, just to note. First, it rarely seems to actually be the case since the requirement that employees be paid fairly mostly just drives away low-value efforts. It's also an attitude that, if taken to its logical extreme, demands society have an underpaid underclass that suffers so the rest of us can have nice things.
First, there is no such thing as a "fair pay". All of it is driven by demand and supply, always, except when regulations or external factors somehow break things. Second, of course increased costs of production lead to consequences for end users or people who buy the content. We see that all of the time in every industry.
> except when regulations or external factors somehow break things.
That is one hell of a hand wave.
To say nothing of the lack of other regulations making it to where even with proper payment transparency one has no clue if an employer has a corporate culture that in many states would constitute an abusive pattern in a domestic partnership yet most of those same states have at best some limited carve-outs to do anything about it.
The entertainment industry in particular seems to be really good at exploiting folks, but in IT there is still a sort of elephant in the room; So many of us who read and post want to be the sorts of folks with vested-FAANG security cushions, however we know through self or colleagues plenty of cases where many shops will have a huge uphill battle to make a huge impacting change and the result is a nice review; in the extreme cases the reward/value is in multiple orders of magnitude.
And maybe that would be OK if it wasn't for the other pressures; which is probably something animators deal with too based on general tone and the times the industry tries to cleverly sneak jokes in about the situation.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree that these animators should work to unionize if they want to improve their situation. But I think for professions like these, the "they have free will" argument is pretty compelling. If they were being exploited in a low-skill, low-status job, where there are few to no alternatives, sure, definitely an industry that needs worker protections. But no one needs to be an animator at a big anime studio to survive. T…
NBA players work at extremely desirable jobs and make a minimum of, like, $1m per year. And yet they're unionized and have the right to advocate for themselves collectively. There's no "but their job is cool and they could do something else" caveat that makes someone less worthy of professional advocacy.
This is a false equivalence because there are a limited set of NBA players. Sure lots of people play basketball, but NBA players have gotten to that upper echelon for a variety of reasons such as training, genetics, perseverance, etc. It's simply not the same.
There is a surplus of game developers and animators and a league like the NBA for game dev doesn't exist (unless you count working for Valve or other prestigious organizations "the NBA of game development").
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#177While the industry as a whole makes a lot, the majority of individual anime and manga make next to nothing. It’s a few very popular properties that make all the dough. If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. There would be just a few anime per year instead of many. But also, how would the popular ones come to be? Every new property would be a huge gamble. As an anime and manga fan, I actually…
> If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. There would be just a few anime per year instead of many. >But also, how would the popular ones come to be? Every new property would be a huge gamble. So give the artists their current meager salaries and bolster it with a percentage of profits? Seems really easy to fairly compensate the artists.
> Seems really easy to fairly compensate the artists.
they want just the upside, not the downside as well.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#178While the industry as a whole makes a lot, the majority of individual anime and manga make next to nothing. It’s a few very popular properties that make all the dough. If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. There would be just a few anime per year instead of many. But also, how would the popular ones come to be? Every new property would be a huge gamble. As an anime and manga fan, I actually…
The "if we paid people fairly things would be prohibitively expensive" argument is a terrible one, just to note. First, it rarely seems to actually be the case since the requirement that employees be paid fairly mostly just drives away low-value efforts. It's also an attitude that, if taken to its logical extreme, demands society have an underpaid underclass that suffers so the rest of us can have nice things.
I always like when small business complain that "payroll is the majority of our expenses", but when you look at the expenses it is something like:
Income: $100,000/month
Expenses: $50,000/month
Payroll:
Cashier: $290/month
Cashier: $290/month
Cashier: $290/month
Janitor: $290/month
Security: $290/month
Manager: $1,000/month
Owner: $45,000/month
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#179Then by definition, that’s what their time is worth. It should alarm animators that they’re paid so little. It alarmed me as a gamedev when I saw how much webdevs earned in comparison. It’s partly why I left, and I was much happier for it. No amount of legislation or shame articles will change the reality that market forces have profound effects, and these effects are difficult to break. Unions try. To my knowledge,…
> Then by definition, that’s what their time is worth. Only if the market for animation is efficient.
If it wasn't efficient, it is because some participants in the market (namely the animators) aren't choosing to maximize their economic utility by doing a different (higher paid) job.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#180It’s only going to get worse with AI now in the mix.
AI is absolutely going to be the end of many inbetweeners, and on one hand that's a good thing because of how exploited they are, but that's kind of a problem too because you need people to have a way to get started in the industry who can develop their skills, learn how production works, then get promoted to doing key animation or move into other roles that get paid better. If we let AI take all the work from the pe…
> If we let AI take all the work from the people at the bottom
would you also make the same augument about industrial automation taking away the work of apprentices?