Colin couldn’t handle all of that but I could 🙏
ALT
ALTWHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
— 5.03 Pride Parade
cut my life in Two pieces i share it with a friend :)
Friend affection Friend meeting :) share a chair when there’s not enough seating
Do you write music with the view of being politically active and delivering a message or does it just happen and the rest follows?
#this is a perspective I’ve only seen from people who truly think broadly and sympathetically about life#like he’s literally right I’m sorry and people who aren’t white or cis or straight learn so so SO early that your existence is political#not inherently but because white cishet men have crafted society in a way it’s impossible for it not to be#and ignoring that isn’t going to make you ascend above it god I’m so tired of having to explain that to people#I’m tired of people’s experiences in both places of privilege and place of oppression being used to scapegoat what we all can see#like look at his example!#‘going out for a dance on a Saturday night’ means something different if you’re poor if you’re gay if you’re a racial minority#’walking into a shop’ who owns it how often do you go is it a big box store or a small owned business is it walkable#there’s pOLitiCs in all of that! in ever aspect of your life!#ESPECIALLY if you take your life experiences and turn them into art of any form (via @twentyfour-mp3)
Friendly reminder that Hozier’s first music video, in 2013, involved him literally taking his life savings and using it to make a protest video about anti-gay actions in Chechnya. This was not a popular position at the time, to the point that damn near every interviewer asked “so, are you gay?” because they literally could not figure out why he cared so much.
Incidentally, after the first few times of saying “no, I’m straight but it’s important,” he started saying “you can think that if you want.” ALSO not a popular position at the time. Adam Lambert’s entire career had been derailed only four years before because he dared to be openly gay and sexual about it.
He literally came out swinging like Muhammad Ali and has not stopped. And he finds it odd that people find it odd! Like he was asked if he was aware of his “lesbian cult following” and seemed genuinely puzzled why he has a lesbian cult following (and, later, just a massive queer following in general) and it’s like. Honey. You loved us first. You loved us more and harder than most people were willing to. When it was unpopular to even whisper about how maybe queer people shouldn’t be seen as inhuman actually, you grabbed a megaphone and screamed. You risked not just losing a career, but never having one at all, to stand by us. You loved us. We’re just loving you back.
From The Animation Guild on Instagram:
“Congrats to the WB and Cartoon Network production workers for filing an NLRB petition to unionize and demand voluntary recognition! Show your support to help them get the representation they deserve! #unionstrong #weare839 #production strong”
copying and pasting the comments i added to the disney tva prod unionization efforts post because this time, IT'S US, BABY!
if you're not in this job, you would never know how intense, involved, and straight up complex animation production is, but because it's mainly administrative, behind the scenes, and most skills are taught, production staff are often viewed as highly replaceable and unimportant. not everyone is nice to us, and more and more studios are stripping production personnel of our "corporate" status, meaning if the show ends or gets cancelled, studios aren't required to relocate us to another one. when this happens to artists, the guild protects them, but production will lose all benefits and will need to file for unemployment until they can find a new job (which isn't easy in the animation industry these days!). remember, a season of a show takes only about a year and a half to make. losing all benefits and having to file for unemployment every year and a half is NOT a way to build a career nor is it a stable and sustainable way to live!
because our roles in animation are rarely talked about, here's some of what production staff does:
STORYBOARD AND ANIMATIC
- managing the master project file, which sometimes means scanning, cropping, camera adjusting, and typing hundreds or even thousands of panels, dialogue, and action notes by hand into storyboard pro if the artist drew them in photoshop or traditionally
- pinning up and taking down boards for pitches and reviews (yes, manually, with push pins on walls). every note drawn on those pieces of paper needs to be scanned and sent to the artists.
- inputting new and revised panels into the board project file and then exporting them to the animatic editor, which necessitates memorizing the board front to back because artists don't always track their panels or tell you which ones have been updated and you have to know instinctively.
- conforming, which means going panel by panel and comparing it to every frame of the animatic to make sure they're a complete match, which happens multiple times and usually requires quick turnarounds.
RECORD
- reaching out to recording studios, voice directors, and talent agencies to coordinate record times and availabilities.
- creating the schedules, typing up scripts, adding line numbers, updating line counts, exporting boards, collecting audition tapes, arranging catering, watermarking literally everything, and making sure everyone involved gets the right stuff and the most updated versions of that stuff ahead of time.
- circle takes.
- sending the raw selects to the dialogue editor, arranging radio plays, and sending the clean selects to the animatic or post editors.
DESIGN AND SHIPPING
- creating all the templates artists need to design a show's assets (hundreds of them!), which includes pulling board references so they know exactly what to draw, compiling brush libraries, mood boards, and vis dev pieces.
- tracking the progress of hundreds of designs across multiple episodes in every stage they're in and making sure the artists turn them in on time.
- creating a reference list (a GIANT spreadsheet breaking down every single use of every single design in every single scene of the episode--takes DAYS to create for just one episode!)
- preparing shipments of everything the animation production facility (usually international) needs to make the cartoon, which involves a lot of exporting, layer adjustments, cropping, re-exporting, and cataloguing.
POST
- acting as the main point of contact for those overseas animation facilities. CNS uses mostly korean studios, which often means trying to field questions from a non-native english speaker every day.
- making sure the showrunner and exec producer review weeklies/dailies quickly and thoroughly and the notes get to the overseas studio on time.
- configuring the retake list so the production can stay under budget (determining retake categories and footage count, which are connected to prices--involves a surprising amount of math!)
- assembling retake materials, including creating lists of tasks for artists to do, getting them the shots or designs they need to fix, and making sure all fixes are completed in time.
CONTRACTS
- negotiating rates with every non-corporate player involved in the making of a cartoon and making sure all NDAs and legal contracts are signed and correct.
LEGAL, TRACK READ, TIMING, CHECKING, EXECS, ACCOUNTING
- sending boards, designs, animatics, and time cards to dozens of people with highly specified jobs who require very specific items to do those jobs, making sure they get them at the right times, and making sure whatever they send back (be it notes, sheets, or lists) makes it to the appropriate party so the right action is taken.
and this is all in addition to very stereotypical secretarial work like taking notes at meetings, managing the showrunner and producer's calendars, and maintaining a pleasant atmosphere for the crew (coordinating game nights, decorating the office, organizing parties or lunches, etc.). production is expected to know everything, what's going on at all times, and how to fix it, which is a lot of work and often, a lot of pressure!
tl;dr:
we're going to fight the good fight, so