Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546404
12 KEYFRAME O N T H E J O B TEAM SPIRIT TAG ANIMATION WRITERS SHARE HOW WORKING IN TEAMS ENHANCES THE CREATIVE PROCESS. As animation budgets continue to shrink and writers' rooms become less common, writing teams face unique issues. This was the impetus for writing partners Becky Wangberg and Sarah Eisenberg to start the Writing Teams Subcommittee for TAG's Writers' Craft Committee. "There's confusion about how teams should be compensated," says Wangberg. "We've also found that a lot of people still don't understand how writing teams work or what value they bring as opposed to hiring two unattached writers." Here, TAG writing teams answer the most common questions about their job. WHAT'S YOUR WRITING PROCESS AS A TEAM? SUSAN & TILLY: Tilly usually does the first draft, then Susan does a big edit, and then we take turns revising back and forth until we're both happy with it. MICHAEL & JEANNET TE: Jeannette writes the first word, Michael the second. Jeannette writes the third, Michael the fourth. And so on... More seriously, we take turns story editing one another, we alternate who gets the first pass at scripts to keep things fresh, and we take turns trying to make one another laugh. SARAH & BECKY: When cracking ideas, we both ideate individually before coming together and talking it all through. Then we write together in the same room. Once we have a strong outline, we split it up. Then we come back together again, find issues, and punch it, which makes for a stronger first pass. WHY SHOULD A SHOWRUNNER HIRE A WRITING TEAM? DREW & JACOB: I think of a writing team as a little joke factory. There's already such a shorthand within a team that they can quickly start pumping out jokes. ALAN & GREG: Listen, everyone bemoans how writers' rooms are pretty much nonexistent now that the industry has moved to this all-freelance model. With a team, instantly a story-breaking session becomes a mini writers' room. There are more voices, more weird takes, more laughs confirming if a line is CHRISTOPHER AMICK BEN MEKLER MICHAEL J. BEALL SUSAN BRIDGES JEANNETTE LARA TILLY BRIDGES & & &