feudal lord seeks animators
Posted by dermot on December 9, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Animators/Artists/Designers will appreciate this risible (but all too REAL) job posting (UNPAID). This was found by members of the coldhardflash forum.
By this Friday afternoon (5/30), we need the following:
1. We start from a shot of a character’s hand with a blue-footed booby on it (we will provide the initial hand shot), and the camera pulls back very slowly away from the earth to reveal galaxies and the universe, all the while following the bird as he flies into infinity. This shot will last approx. 3 minutes.
2. We need a fake time-lapse sequence of this same bird hatching from an egg and growing into adulthood. Would prefer for the background/environment to look like time-lapse, so we’d need the lighting changes of days passing and seasons changing, over the course of a year. Keep in mind that his feathers will have to go from baby chick feathers to adult ones, through several molting stages. Perhaps growing and dying flowers in the foreground, to signify the time passing? I don’t know if there will be time for that.
3. We need a shot of the Transformers fighting, but we will change their faces a bit. Similar style to the movie. Also refer to Narnia as a reference (the robot parts, not the animals).
These shots will have to be photo-real in order to match the rest of our film, which is photographed with a film camera. I still don’t know much about computers or animation, but I assume we need someone with a good familiarity with Photoshop, or maybe Flash or Shockwave Director.
The fact that they would think nothing of posting the job quoted above, for NO PAY, is a perfect illustration of why the animation industry is so loathsome. Having explained my inchoate feelings of rage to a therapist, his advice was to seek solace from Thalia, the Heavenly muse, through the art of Poetry. Thus renewed with vital purpose, I rewrote the job posting, giving it some historical context:
A FEUDAL LORD SEEKETH ANIMATORS.
ARISE, ye students, and work for free,
Accept this honour: to toil for me.
Worthy vassals, good and true -
Here line up, and munch my Pooh.I your Lord, am good and kind,
And seek to guide thy simple mind.
For whilst thy hands are nimble quick,
I do not doubt thy wits be thick.I’ll have ye sketch a hand and boob,
And onwards! though ye be a noob,
Thy labour shall outshine the good,
The greatest ones of Hollywood.SO COME, ye knaves, and tarry nay;
The deadline is three days away.
And tho’ thine hours be full of sweat,
I shall ne’er be in thy debt.There is one gift I can bestow:
Put the work in thine portfolio.”
Whilst this is an extreme example of incompetence, the mindset is all too similar to many animation “producers”:
* No comprehension of the artistic aspects of the medium.
* No comprehension of the tools/technical aspects of the medium.
* No comprehension of the labour involved, or its true value.
* NO respect for the artists…whom they regard as “wrists”.
* An Ayn Randian belief that only executives are truly creative.
The fact that the majority of truly successful animated series (The Simpsons, for example), have been created by cartoonists or artists is beyond them. These shows, however, are the exception. Most people in the industry are cursed to spend their entire careers working on Shr Dreck.
This is one reason why ludicrous buzzwords become so viral in Animation/Design studios amongst the producers (though rarely the artists)…a desperate need to distract people from the fact that THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING. As soon as a fad comes along, they all jump on the bandwagon, shouting the Holy Words like a mantra. “Break the Fourth Wall” was one of the more irksome crazes at Disney Interactive circa 1997. Let’s make sure to “Break the Fourth Wall”. We broke the fourth wall for about six months; then we broke Disney Interactive’s checking account.
It happens over and over - a constant quest for the “magic bullet” - the amazing New Thing that will allow the artists to finish the product for HALF THE PRICE. (Hint: it DOESN’T EXIST). But woe betide you if someone invents a marginal method to improve things slightly (linear, not exponential). We’ll call this thing a FlangeBlaster. Within DAYS every accountant/creative-wannabe will be Flangeblasting you until you’re blue in the face, waving it around like King Arthur with Excalibur.
“Hey, can we Flangeblast it?”"Yeah, just have the wrists Flange the thing. It’ll be done by Friday.”
“Flange Flange Flange Flange Fla Fla Fla Fla Blaster…….”
“FFFLLLAAAANNNGGGGEEEEE BBBLLLLLAASSSTTEEERRRRRR!!!!!!!!”
“Please Kill Me. I yearn for the sweet release of Death.”
Often, artists are in a separate lower caste to these Brahmin producers (and are even lower than writers on the scat-stained totem pole). Needless to say, they are paid accordingly. The artists are also unable to rise to producer status, having no creativity - that being a monopoly of the self-ordained Producers.
We, gentle reader, are poopmunchers. We munch their poop. They tell us it’s chocolate, but nobody believes them - except for the young ones with the bright eyes.
The eyes aren’t bright for long. Soon even they must realise the awful truth: that terrible thing sliding down your gullet isn’t fair-trade low fat chocolate, harvested organically by buxom Guatamalan peasant women. No, it was squeezed from the puckered posterior of your boss, freshly laid that morning. There are still undigested lumps of corn in it.
People wonder why 99.99% of the content of TV shows (live action and animation) is unadulterated drivel. Every second artist/designer has ideas light years ahead of most producers. We all know co-workers who’ve had the contents of their portfolios ransacked by Studios for concepts - which are slightly altered, making them “original”. Hooray for Hollywood!
Bastards.
Artists Unite! No return to Feudalism without a return of the Guilds!
FOOTNOTE: If you’re worrying about the job posting and the studio who asked for it, fear not. A kind-hearted animator came through for them, and did the work ON TIME and ON SPEC. Here it is:
3 Responses to “feudal lord seeks animators”
Speaking of ransacked portfolios, I recently experienced the exact same thing with the company I worked for out in Holland. It seems recently they have posted on their blogs a “complete” list of contributors to their projects that conveniently omits 2 creatives who produced the main brunt of their concept art, and omitted me as animator and custodian of all their 3d assets at the time I was there.
On the one hand I was annoyed at the lack of class. On the other, I’m really f*ing glad I don’t have to have my name associated with the garbage they were producing anyway.
I suppose it could be worse.
No one can be forced to love the latest craze. The public’s not stupid. That’s why fads have their day and then fade into oblivion. …Even the well purposed ones.
Of course, the bigger they are, THE HARDER THEY FALL! On their face, on their butt, on their buttface, on their …wrists… ;)
Then hopefully their arms will have snapped in two and they won’t be able to point them at you. This will serendipitously cause blood clots in the unbroken, unexposed part of their limbs that will travel up their elbows, across their shoulders, climb their spine, ride the expressway to their collective cerebral cortex, and KILL THEM.
This is what happened to CGI- it got overused, and wore out its welcome. It, uh, crashed. This is what will happen to major studios who knowingly exploit their workers. With the onslaught of creative people taking to the web to produce their own work independently, the studio system appears to be on the verge of collapse anyway. DITTO FOR FM RADIO. Who would want to work for someone like that? I hear it’s harrowing. You don’t have to work any place special if you want to get treated like ass. A little corner store with strict policies, low wages, and morally loose customers with the intelligence of box of rocks will do.
Still, I want to see those grainy black and white pictures on the front page of the Sunday Times when THE BIG 5 request to be bailed out!
Oh yeah, one last thought: You know those really high frame rates that are supposed to be the next standards in television? Imagine running a 15i file through an NLE and outputting it at 120p with frame blending :D That’s what I call flange-blasted! If the boss wants you to cut corners, CUT ALL OF THEM! He’ll have what he wants, and if his taste is as bad as you’ve indicated, he won’t know the difference between what you could have done and what you gave him in the measly time allotted. If he’s not satisfied, then maybe he’ll give you a more reaonable deadline on the next project. After all, time is governed by physics, and it takes a certain amount of time to produce anything PHYSICALLY worth a damn…Just for fun, you should show him what you do in your spare time. I bet your independent work is FAR more polished…
I like your bitterness, man. It’s so REFRESHING-Like a run through the snow on a cold winter day! More, please.
ONE TYPO. ONE!
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