the problem isn't JUST with the production company's schedule... it is the employee promotion, pay schedules, employees per team per job title, workflow and workload systems presently used in 100% of inside the studio structuring. as well as the crass commercialization of anime and the HUGE profits to be made by everybody involved. and WHOMEVER said the studios don't get a cut? or don't get a big enough cut? you're nuts.
oookay. lemme school you kiddies who don't know how an anime studio's team is structured.
we'll start on the bottom. animators. these are the grunts. the new hires. the guys n gals with less than 5 years experience. these folks DO the bare bones work, the huge projects, the sweeping long camera angle shots. the nitty gritty of a show. THE ROUGH STUFF. if a character walks, animators are doing it. around 40-60% of the work is SUPPOSED to be done by these folks. this structure is supposed to be a PYRAMID with the biggest number of folks at the bottom as animators doing the BULK of the work. but it isn't! present workflow has gone UP the ladder to the NEXT rung. making a HUGE bulge in the center of the pyramid for WORK FLOW!
inbetweeners. these guys are SUPPOSED to put the animators work together with the NEXT RUNG UP guys the KEY ANIMATORS... i'll get to them next. problem is, animators are getting scarcer and scarcer because the grunts want promotions! after five years as animators they want to be inbetweeners but MORE OF THE ANIMATORS WANT TO BE KEY ANIMATORS! than inbetweeners. not MANY directors spent tons of time as inbetweeners, they went to key animator jobs as fast as they could. inbetweeners are also the 'fixit now' guys. the animators screwed it up, or late, or behind... it is given to the inbetweeners. if the key animators are overworked, the jobs get sent to the inbetweeners. these guys are the 'middle management workers'. now, if not enough of these guys stick around because THEY WANT PROMOTIONS TOO! the remaining inbetweeners have BIGGER workloads than before because their colleagues went to other studios for higher paying or better jobs.
key animators. the 'supposed true artists' of an anime team. these folks do the fine work. the detail work. the few folks in a studio's team that STILL DRAW BY HAND AND MAKE CELLS! faces. expressions. mouths. eyes. hands. interactions with props. delicate hair. delicate cloth. this is some of the MOST DETAIL ORIENTED AND TIME CONSUMING parts of the production schedule.
usually separated into their own sections are the backgrounders and colorists and finishers. backgrounders make the settings. the buildings. the skies. the ground. the trees. the foliage. annnd THE MOB CHARACTERS! WELL... some mob work is done by the grunt animators. but backgrounding has taken on SOME of the load for mobs/crowds since they're presently considered background animations. the colorists make it pretty. and the finishers polish EVERYBODY's work and try to fix any issues the inbetweeners missed shoving the grunt animators' work together into the key animators' work.
then you move into 'management and leadership'. team leads. section leads. etc. then there's the separate sections for actor recording, music, sound, foley, SFX, editing EVERYTHING together, photography/mastering everything into the digital files for final presentation to the public, annd the directors and sub-directors annnd above everybody else the studio leadership and corporate drones.
now. if you want to consider OUTSOURCING? UGHHHHSSS... pretty much everybody's job on a team can be 'shipped out' so to speak. well. except for the big leaders and directors and corporate types. then there's work from home/remote work... annd all the issues inherent in that system.
so that's pretty much everybody. as i said, inbetweeners are getting overtasked these days. they're understaffed. the animators are chomping at the bit to hop over the next rung to keys. but that section of the pyramid is jealously guarded and protected. and if one issue arises and not enough folks exist or have the time to fix it? the shit-storm might get bigger and cause a huge delay. 9? month delay in Shield Hero S2. Spider-sekai CGA outsourcer screwing the pooch. god forbid another KyoAni fire type disaster.
if Mashle's 6.5 was planned out from day 1? sigh. irritating but it must have been necessary. if it was a last minute, 'oh shit! throw a recap together and ship it to the networks! now!' somebody's ass is going to be handed to them by their bosses. |