so I’ve been gaining a lot of insight into the animation industry recently, especially in regards to pitching & the creation of new shows. There’s a few ways to go about it.
First, there’s pitching to a studio. When you pitch, it has to be SHORT and CONCISE. You may write a lovingly detailed pitch bible that perfectly breaks down episodes and characterizations, and it might barely even get read. First impressions, first impressions, first impressions!
Most peoples’ first projects don’t get picked up. I’ve heard a few stories from directors that said they tried pitching a story they’d had for years, which got rejected, to then spend a week or even several hours in their car coming up with a new idea, only for that to get greenlit.
But that’s not the end of it. Just because a show gets greenlit, doesn’t mean it will ever get finished. There’s lots of things that can happen. Sometimes, unexpected major world events (like… a global pandemic) can cause projects to get chopped. Sometimes, a CEO change or studio merge means a single person can decide a project “no longer fits with the company’s brand.” Sometimes, the one producer that was rooting for your project gets laid off, and no one else cares enough, so it gets shelved. Sometimes, a streaming service decides to create an animation department, and then they decide they don’t want it anymore. Sometimes, the studio will be simultaneously be developing another project that was too similar to yours and they just didn’t think to tell you until they decide yours is the one with less potential.
On top of that, almost everyone in the industry is saying that “studios just don’t pick up original content anymore.” Studios want something they can franchise, something that will bring in money. New content is risky. Established fanbases are safer.
However! Studios can still be a very good thing. They can be unionized. They can provide better benefits and resources. They can have connections and infrastructure and a larger volume of workers. At a studio, you can divide the labor and produce more in less time. Longer episodes, longer seasons, more consistency in quality.
But this comes with all of the disadvantages of having more in the kitchen.
The alternative is indie animation.
With indie animation, you have total freedom. Full artistic control. It doesn’t even matter if your idea sucks ass, because there’s no one to tell you you can’t make it. You could make it anyway, and you can make it whatever you wanted.
The thing is, making animation is hard. In my production class last semester, the average maximum animation one person could make in that timeframe was 30-60 seconds, and that’s not even counting background design, sound design, or cleanup/color. To make a 5 minute animated short, you should probably have at least 5 people.
And it is CRUCIAL you have a production manager. Ideally someone who’s not already doing art for the project. Most projects without a production manager will fall apart pretty quickly. Once the adrenaline and impulse-fueled motivation wears off, you need someone to hold you accountable and enforce deadlines and proper time management.
Speaking of time, that’s also hard to get. The more people you have, the more likely schedules won’t line up. Most people will have school, or other jobs.
And it costs MONEY!!!!!! You either have everyone work for free and volunteer their time & energy, or you establish a business as a proper indie studio, with people who may or may not have experience on how to handle paying someone else’s salary. And the money has to come from somewhere, so you have to rely on crowdfunding like patreon or kickstarter. (This, by the way, is why I could never fault an indie animation for releasing merch with their pilot.)
And like, maybe you wanna do a series, and all your friends agree to volunteer their labor and time to make the first episode, but it was unanimously not sustainable. Deciding not to produce a second episode until you can raise enough money is not being suddenly greedy, it’s attempting to compensate people rather than expecting them to be continuously taken advantage of.
You have to consider your output as well. There are some outliers like Worthikids, who afaik does all his animation himself, and afaik can work on it full-time thanks to his patreon subscribers. And he still has only produced a total of 30 minutes of animation (for Big Top Burger specifically) in the past 4 years. This is an IMPRESSIVE feat and this is with using a lot of 3D as part of his pipeline!!
Indie animation also has the complication of being more accessible for fandoms. When you’re posting your Official Canon Content on youtube, it doesn’t look a lot different than the fandom-created video essay in the sidebar next to it. What’s canon vs what’s fanon becomes less distinguishable. The boundaries are blurrier. When the creator is just some guy you follow on twitter, it’s easier to prod them for info regarding ships and theories and word-of-god confirmation. They don’t have a PR team or entire international tv networks to appeal to. And this is when creators get frustrated that their fans snowball and turn their creation into something they don’t recognize (and no longer enjoy) anymore.
So it’s tricky.
Thankfully, the threshold to learn animation is fairly low nowadays!! There are TONS of resources online to learn it on your own without forking over a couple hundred thousand to a private art college. There are conventions and discord servers and events where you can network, if you know where to look.
I know it can seem discouraging in the face of capitalism, but I think that’s all the more reason why it’s so important to BE DETERMINED about animation!! We’re already starting to see the beginning of an indie animation boom, and I think it’s a testament to humanity’s desire to tell stories and create art. Even if there’s no financial gain, we do whatever it takes to tell our stories anyway.
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found back this thing from 2021
putting the addition directly onto the og post since nobody reblogs the full version:
'about this i feel a few people have misunderstood what i drew it for, my tags didnt help at all for sure and it is just one doodle, but i didnt made it as 'i'm questioning my sexuality and need to know what specific labels i am'. i've been well aware of what my whole deal is for years.
this was a silly doodle i drew as a recreation of all the thoughts and questions i had that went 'what is attraction? what is romance and sexual and platonic and friendship and something else entirely? how and why do we need to define feelings and relationships so much? why do people act the way they do, date the way they do, marry the way they do, live the way they do? how much does your own culture and time influence the way you do those things, the way you think you should act and feel? how much does amatonormativity influence and impact all of us? and why are some people so resistant against the idea of questioning and living out of these norms?' among many others things.
again, i drew years ago. i didnt want to post it because it felt unnecessarily personal and because people are insufferable about queerness.
EDIT: pls for the love of my sanity reblog the full post instead.'
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Testing the structural integrity of the chandelier mount. Everyone THINKS that a chandelier would be a good anchoring mount to use for suspending a submissive, but the truth is, unless the original installation was designed to handle the additional mass of the girl, or you modified and bolstered it structurally yourself using a healthy factor of safety and sturdy hardware, you’re risking injury or death by tying her to it. (Think “War of the Roses” and how that tragically ended). Same goes for ceiling fans, potted plant ceiling hooks, blind & drapery mounts - none of which were designed to carry more than 20 to 40 pounds (less than 20 kgs) of load. Be a good engineer and use the right hardware mounted to a sturdy structural member. Don’t risk a trip to the hospital or the morgue.
SculptsO
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Alright. Willis Todd being an abusive father to Jason is a trope often utilized. Comparing this version of him to Bruce's reactions to Red Hood is fantastic. Lots to analyze there.
However, I raise you. There needs to be more fanwork addressing the classism behind Willis Todd being characterized as an abusive alcoholic. In some version of canon, Willis Todd was a good dad in a shitty situation. He was poor, his wife (Catherine) was sick, and he had a newborn baby he needed to provide for. In this horrid situation, where he has no family to fall back on and no higher education to obtain a decent well-paying job, he tries to get quick money. He's desperate to keep both his wife and son alive.
Catherine turns to drugs because it's easier and cheaper to buy drugs than healthcare. The pain she experiences is debilitating, and she'd do anything to not feel pain for one godsdamned second. Unfortunately, this turns into an addiction.
This ultimately shapes the way that Jason views crime. Bruce, while he may be sympathetic to individuals who resort to crime to pay their bills, will not understand huddling in Crime Alley in the dead of winter as he debates whether to buy food or pay for heating. He won't understand the bitterness, hatred, pain, and resignation of never having enough money to survive as you get chewed up again and again.
If Jason's dad is just an abusive criminal, that not only perpetuates the notion that all criminals are evil, but it will shape how Jason views those who commit crime. Breaking the law doesn't make someone bad. There's plenty of reasons people commit crime, whether to survive, protect someone, or something else. The issue, especially in Gotham, is the system that perpetuates wealth inequality through bribes and unethical governmental practices.
Anyway, I think Jason's Red Hood is more fleshed out if it accounts for him acknowledging the desperation behind goons and small-time criminals because he grew up without other options.
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you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.
you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.
instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.
you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.
your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.
because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.
so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.
all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.
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