In the wake of the recent unionization efforts, such as the Writer's Guild strike, the Animation Guild is also pushing for more power in the industry.
Production houses such as Dreamworks and Pixar—once celebrated for their revolutionary in-house work and style—have increasingly outsourced their once-award-winning animation labor. A recent piece in The Hollywood Reporter highlights this and myriad other struggles. From the article:
While the larger entertainment business undergoes a major contraction, rounds of layoffs have buffeted top firms like Netflix Animation, Dreamworks Animation and Pixar in the last few years. The outsourcing of work and/or production to companies in foreign countries, long the bane of the union, has continued apace, per the guild. (Disney's new animation studio in Vancouver, announced in 2021, for example, is non-union, the guild claims. DreamWorks Animation is reportedly moving away from in-house production on certain projects and working more with outside vendors.)
My friend Sam Tung—creator of Knights & Relationships, which we previously covered here, and who's also worked on recent hits like X-Men '97—is also featured in the article in his capacity as a member of the Animation Guild's AI Task Force and negotiations committee, adding that:
"It's going to come down to making sure that artists can choose what technology is used in the pipeline and making sure that that isn't coming at the detriment of staffing and work.
[…]
"When everybody is comfortable, it can be easy to check out and assume things are fine. If anything, [this situation] may be actually activating the membership."
Animation is a tedious job—but one where the labor involved can produce some pretty remarkable visual rewards. Technology has gone a long way to helping reduce those workloads, even before the recent spread of "Generative AI" caused cartoonish dollar signs to glow in the eyes of every media executive. But animation is nothing without the human talent behind it—workers who should be properly compensated for the work we all enjoy.
Previously:
• Volkswagen workers vote overwhelmingly to join union
• Amazon CEO Andy Jassy broke federal law with anti-union statements
• Major union votes to strike in solidarity with pro-Palestine university protestors
