Animators are broke/ people who work in animation are broke

Beauty and the Beast (the animated version) if you adjust the gross income for inflation is in the top 200 of highest grossing films of all time. The writer, however, was paid $35,000 upfront and a bonus upon the release of the film. As Disney racked up millions, the writer received no residuals. Feature animation is not covered by the Writer's Guild of America. Meaning there is no requirement that says that a writer will receive a contract that allows them residuals. It's not just writers who often get the raw end of the deal in animation. In 2016 many animators for the R Rated "Sausage Party" were allegedly not paid for overtime and others were uncredited. It got me thinking about the idea that animation is, "inherently" excessive. While I agree that animation has the ability to thrive in excess I don't necessarily agree that it is inherent. I've seen plenty of independent, live-action, films that were gut-wrenchingly excessive in their content and techniques for creation. It got me thinking maybe it's not the animation that is inherently excessive, but the attitudes of starving artists that is inherently excessive. An artist that has no one to answer to has the ability to be radical in a way a mainstream animator never could. Just a thought, I may be wrong but something tells me if animation were taken seriously by the film industry when it first hit the screens it would look dramatically different today.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 28, 2018 at 9:06 PM

    It's disheartening to think that even on a major scale in big budget films that animation is considered so much less that animator's aren't even paid/credited properly. It's an incredibly taxing profession with long ours and a tedious process. I think you're right in that the independent creator can get away with much more when she doesn't have a studio breathing down their neck and tweaking their content. If animation was taken seriously by the industry we would have vastly different films winning the academy award. Disney and pixar wouldn't always win on name alone. And those who pursued animation both independently and commercially would approach animation very differently to fit this new critical audience.

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