I think we can all agree that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was a breathtaking, incredible and overall very enjoyable cinematic experience for us viewers.
The stunning animated visuals, the story, the many MANY characters – and even the LEGO scene that was actually animated by a 14-year-old fan was all pretty great.
I think, luckily, the fan seemed to have a better experience than many of the full-time animators did whilst working on the movie – as apparently it was such a nightmare that hundreds of them quit during production due to the terrible working conditions! Ouch.
Of course, working on an animated film this complex and stunningly put together was not going to be an easy job, and one or two animators walking out due to the pressure is understandable… but hundreds? Nope, definitely something not right here.
A new report from Vulture details the extent of the walkouts, from four pseudonymous sources. Each stated that they were working 11 hours per day, seven days per week, for over a year – and for a measly salary that in no way compensated them for the gruelling amount of work put in.
But there’s more.
Approved animations having to be completely reworked
Other issues included short production times, and the glacial pace at which Phil Lord approved layouts, meaning some animators were left without any work for three months or more.
But Lord would also later demand additional edits be made on scenes that had already been completed and approved by directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, and Kemp Powers – forcing animators to rework all of the animation for those scenes.
Here’s what one of them had to say:
The changes in the writing would go through storyboarding. Then it gets to layout, then animation, then final layout, which is adjusting cameras and placements of things in the environment. Then there’s cloth and hair effects, which have to repeatedly be redone anytime there’s an animation change. The effects department also passes over the characters with ink lines and does all the crazy stuff like explosions, smoke, and water. And they work closely with lighting and compositing on all the color and visual treatments in this movie. Every pass is plugged into editing. Smaller changes tend to start with animation, and big story changes can involve more departments like visual development, modeling, rigging, and texture painting. These are a lot of artists affected by one change. Imagine an endless stream of them.
What even. If you’ve ever freelanced, or had work with various approval stages, you’ll know just how frustrating it is for clients/employers to turn around and dig up work that’s been done and dusted. It used to drive me up the sodding wall – so, I feel for these people.
It’s not just as easy as simply ‘making one change’, Lordy-Lord Lord. PHIL. It’s a domino effect. A big heckin’ one at that!
Whilst the animators could all agree on one thing – that they loved the final result of the work done on the film – they weren’t happy with how production was handled.
A different source explained more about Lord’s way of working:
The analogy for the way Phil works, it’s getting a whole bunch of construction workers to make a building without a blueprint. You get them to start putting bricks on top of each other. You get the wood guys to put the wood in, put the windows in, get some metal scaffold in there. And he’s like, ‘Nah, knock that part down. But show me some construction worker who can put bricks on top of each other again and again then watch it get knocked down on a daily basis.
Vulture contacted the studio an official response, only to be met with this nugget from producer Amy Pascal: “If the story isn’t right, you have to keep going until it is… I guess, welcome to making a movie.”
Hmmm. That sounds like ass-covering to me, and the normalisation of a less than ideal way of working, that at times sounds quite toxic. I recommend you check out the full report entitled ‘death by a thousand paper cuts’ to read the extent of it.
Because it sounds really fuckin’ painful.
Source: GeekTyrant
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