Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1120864
O N T H E J O B they're connected, how everything reacts. TOM: I always go back to that song about how every bone is connected to another bone. Because sometimes you get stuff back where like an arm is moving independently, and I would say, "Well, everything's connected, so the torso needs to move a little bit too. Remember the song." IT SEEMS SOMETIMES LIKE ANIMATION IN TV IS BECOMING A LOST ART. CRYSTAL: I know it's not realistic to bring all of the animation back, but I'd like to have more animation done here. When I started, I was at smaller studios where all the projects were done here from start to finish. And I think that made our industry stronger, to have seasoned animators. Now that so much of it is outsourced, on some of the projects that I was an animation director on, I couldn't find animators. You're losing the knowledge of people who actually really understand that craft. TOM: It just makes it more difficult to find the right people for the job. DREW: I've seen a lot of animators move over to storyboards. CRYSTAL: It's hard sometimes to find projects that push you as an artist in your ability to grow. You get a job that's retakes, where you're fixing animation, sometimes it's easier to re-animate it. So it also gets a little frustrating that you've worked hard to become really good at your craft and then all of a sudden you're not allowed to be creative. IS IT POSSIBLE TO BRING MORE ANIMATION BACK TO LA? TOM: If you set up the right pipeline, you can do it here with a tight schedule. CRYSTAL: I was directing on a show that was a series of shorts. There was this one segment that had four different shorts and the producer kept asking me if I wanted to outsource the animation and [I said], no. Eventually, they basically gave me no choice and [said] you have to outsource two out of four shorts. We did the two and then went to work on another project. The other producer pulled me into a room right before they were going to ship it and said, "It's going be too expensive if we ship these. Do you think your team can get them done?" And I was like, "Absolutely." And we got it done, and I got it done the way we wanted because we were all right there sitting in a row. I think sometimes the outsourcing model has become the go-to thing that everybody just assumes is cheaper. For certain projects, it makes sense, but for other projects it doesn't. DREW: When you export everything overseas and don't have any in-house people, you are at the mercy of what that company sends back. It [can be] sterile because there is no intuition or passion put into it. If you hire a couple of animators in-house here, we're hungry. We want to do awesome work, we want to punch it up. CRYSTAL: I've had people over the years question why I'm still an animator. This is what we love. I love timing. I love posing. I love acting. There's nothing else that I would rather do, and I think by not having animators contribute as much as they used to, something in this industry is getting lost. CRYSTAL STROMER got her start as an anima- tor over 16 years ago after moving from Florida to Los Angeles. Primarily a 2D animator, Stromer has been an Animation Director on BoJack Horseman and Teen Titans Go! To the Movies. Her work can currently been seen on Unikitty! DREW NEWMAN has animated for 12 years in LA and hails from Cincinnati, Ohio. The SCAD graduate has worked on shows such as Metalocalypse, MAD: The Animated Series, directed animated training videos for the U.S. Army, and currently animates for Bob's Burgers. 11 SUMMER 2019