What is the "Creative Commodity"? Part 2

So we were talking about feeling undervalued as artists, and one way to feel more valued is to get paid more money. Keeping in mind that the more the boss pays out, the less profit he makes, and that's the reason most of the work is being done overseas. Asians do it cheaper.

So now most of the jobs in TV animation are non-animation jobs. But they still need to tell the Asians what to do.

So sheet timing is still done here in the US. Recently I did a sheet timing test for a big west coast animation studio that makes very ugly shows. The instructions for the test were very specific (which was a good thing) but a couple of issues raised my eyebrows.

For one thing, they had developed a pointlessly redundant but nonetheless new (and therefore better?) lip sync system. On their sample mouth charts, they showed an 'A' mouth (closed) and also an 'M' mouth ... also closed. In fact, identical to the 'A' mouth. Several of the vowel sounds were similarly doubled up, occasionally with minute differences, still unnecessary. Their new, improved lip sync system - for this very ugly cartoon - had 18 or 20 mouth positions, most of which were useless. The old system had 6 standard mouths with 2 optional additional mouths. With those eight mouths you could get through virtually all your dialogue.

Also, this west coast mogul had a glossary of sheet-timing terms they wanted us to use. These days, it's more important to standardize the language you use on exposure sheets than it was back in the StarToons days, because I could depend on my animators to A) understand the nuances of the English language, and B) understand the cultural nuances of and the entertainment opportunities of the specific situation. But these shows, of course, were all going to some Pacific Rim country. Anyway, among the terms were: "S.I." ("slow-in"), "settle," and "cush." ("cushion"). These three terms were painstakingly differentiated, as follows:

• "S.I.: is to slow into a held pose from movement"
• "Settle: is to cushion to a stop after moving"
• "Cush (cushion): a very specific way of slowing down into a pose"

No kidding. Those definitions are all worded differently more or less but the meanings are the same (they didn't try to define the "very specific way of slowing down into a pose" ... they just thought it was fine to explain it like that). It reminds me of high school, when I was trying to BS my way through a test. 2D animators use all of those terms - slow-in, settle, and cushion - interchangeably. But of course, the guy writing these rules in the glossary isn't an animator.

I've said it before: Hollywood has fired the Animation Artists and replaced them with BS Artists. And these BS Artists are now running the industry.

And the BS Artists are making more than the Real Artists did. So the execs running the studio aren't going to pay Real Artists more money - that just affects the bottom line negatively, as far as they're concerned.

Is there any value in artistic skill, storytelling techniques, and production efficiency? I think there is. This is what the "Creative Commodity" is - .a commodity (or a value) inherent in artists if they are allowed to be creative, allowed to do their jobs the way they know they need to be done.

Can we change the world - I mean, the animation world? Can we show the executives that we American animation artists could replace the BS/Asian Combo? Will executives listen?

These are the hurdles we have to overcome ... if we're serious about maintaining a future American animation industry at all.