ACC Podcast - Surviving Stop Motion - Eileen Kohlhepp & Sarah de Gaudemar

In this episode of the ACC we’re talking with two very special guests, Eileen Kohlepp and Sarah De Gaudemar, both are experts in the specialized world of Stop Motion Animation. Eileen is a producer and animator, who’s worked on projects like Anomalisa and Marcel the Shell.  Sarah is a Director and Animator who has worked on projects like Coraline and Robot Chicken, among many others. We talk about the challenges of a career not just in entertainment but in such a highly focus style, navigating the industry now, and how both have changed and shaped their careers as the industry has evolved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Animation Career Community Podcast, where we answer your questions on how to grow, maintain, and transform your animation career at every stage. I'm your host, John.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

And I'm your host, Kathy. Today we're talking with two very special guests, Eileen Kohep and Sarah Deganar. Both are friends and colleagues of mine and both are experts in their own critic fields. Eileen is a producer and animator who's worked on projects like Anomalisa and Marcella Lachelle. Sarah's a director and animator who's worked on projects like Coraline and Robot Chicken, among many others. Get ready. It's gonna be a good one. Welcome, Eileen and Sarah. I wanted to start by giving getting a background on you guys a little bit. So I was wondering, uh Sarah, how did you get started in animation and end up directing?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Uh oh, it's a long question then.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Yeah. Well keep what is constructed.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Um I got started in animation because I took some classes in college. I went to film school at NYU, uh, got into the animation department, and then when I graduated, I did a few little jobs, but then I got lucky that that's when they started Celebrity Deathmatch on MTV, and they were just really desperate to have anyone on the East Coast who could do any sort of stop motion. So you didn't have to be good, which was great for me. And so that was my foot in the door, and that from there just you know spiraled into I got a bunch of jobs, and then uh the directing thing is kind of a newer thing where I'm just uh uh mostly at the moment doing it out of survival because there's just not a lot of jobs out there. But um, I did uh I I just I don't know, I kind of wanted to go more big picture because I was kind of tired of being just the cog in the wheel and it was kind of tiring. So I got kind of excited about more as you get older, you want to be more managerial, I guess. 100%. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

So yeah, I I totally relate to that. Uh getting into stop motion was kind of like I even in Toronto, the it was like they would hire anybody at that time, and it was lucky. You're lucky to get your foot in the door, but it was still kind of like a mishmash of people with different backgrounds doing it. Uh so it's interesting to hear that it was sort of the same in uh in New York as well. Um start. No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

When people ask me now, the younger people, they ask, like, how do I break in? And it's like, I mean, a lot of it is also just timing. So it's really hard to like I what is my advice? I don't know, I was in the right place at the right time, you know. I mean, it's just it was luck.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

That probably still applies.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Yeah, that still probably applies to even younger people. And timing, especially um part of the reason why I got my job at Deathmatch, uh, which was my first real animation job, was because Sarah left and a bunch of other animators left deathmatch and went to the West Coast. And then there was, they needed, they desperately needed people to fill in, like to come in and take over those jobs. So I had a friend of mine who, another fellow animator who I went to RISD with, who was working with Sarah and was leaving for the West Coast. And he was like, You should come in and audition. So I was able to audition on Deathmatch and kind of fill one of those positions from all the crew that was leaving. So there's a whole fresh group of people that came in in that was in May of 1999.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

And had you done it, had you done it in school or anything before that?

SPEAKER_04 3:17

I had. I'm like, I can draw, but I can draw, but I can't draw like uh, you know, other people in my class who were amazing. Uh yeah, that was a shock to me in school.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

I remember I remember thinking, oh yeah, I love drawing, but I don't love this like really intense technical matching of frame-to-frame drawing. Uh it's a really different experience than just drawing it. Uh it's it's really impressive that people do it. Like I'm uh very impressed that people have that technical skill. Um, and so after you were at deathmatch, did you also follow Sarah?

SPEAKER_03 4:12

No, no, no, Sarah actually came back.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Sarah came back. And I yeah, no, I think um, I mean, we uh I I left Deathmatch and I actually went into 2D. I went to Daria and worked in layout for a little bit because uh Deathmatch was a boot camp and I learned a ton in the year uh plus that I was there, but it was also a bit um, I think I could say this, abusive. So I was like, hey, I'd like to do something slightly different that is not this, this, uh, this mentally challenging. So I was able, I had applied for Daria at the same time I I had tested for Daria at the same time I had tested for deathmatch. And um they had offered me both jobs, but I chose Deathmatch because I thought it was more challenging and it was going to allow me to do like straight up animation. Um, and I would learn a ton. And um, and then after I had learned and I was like, I would like to do a job where I get paid and not abused, I went over to Daria and worked on season five and one of the movies as a layout artist and uh had a lot of fun. But that was actually the the first and last 2D uh job I ever did.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

So were you animating on Daria?

SPEAKER_04 5:22

No, I was a layout artist. So it was it was basically like key poses. Uh it was a lot of photocopying and uh and cutting characters into key poses in backgrounds for uh the teams in Korea.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Oh, okay, that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:37

I I really love that show.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

I did too. It was such a fun uh weird 90s uh relic.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

I think they're rebooting another one, they're rebooting some of it, like some some of the characters in the show. But yeah, that that show is still stands up. It holds up, it's such a good show.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

And how did you uh like I know you've done a lot more animations in that gap there, but how did you find yourself in a producing role? I know you've done some production management stuff as well.

SPEAKER_04 6:06

Yeah, it it basically kind of came out of necessity because like the next the next 10 years after uh Deathmatch, it was like I was hopping around from um whatever jobs were available pretty much. Because after 9-11, um MTV's animation department in New York was shut down, uh, there was a big merger between CBS and um Paramount, and I think CBS was CBS and Paramount, and they essentially like shut down all in-house animation for MTV. So there's like two floors of like all these shows, and everything just got folded. Um, so uh I went, I actually came to Los Angeles for a couple months to work on a on a web series called Sweet Jay Presents, which is just about to ask when did you do that? Okay, yeah. So I came out January of 2002 uh to work on that. Oh no, no, wait, no, it was sorry, it was 2001. It was it was January of 2001, and then I came back in May and worked on the last uh thing for uh the last movie for Daria, and then I finished that in August of 2001, then 9-11 happened, and then December of 2001, they shut down all of MTV animation right before Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Oh, it's always the way. Just so you guys know, if you don't, Sweet Jay turned into robot chicken, I guess what, like you said 2001? That's like five years later, four years later. Yeah. Uh yeah, three years. Three years later.

SPEAKER_04 7:34

Yeah, I didn't know it actually was um it was uh Seth and Matt had sold it to they had they had gotten a deal to produce a web series for Sony Screen Blast, which was one of the first streaming platforms. So it was very, very new in 2001, and it could only be streamed on PCs, not Macs. So I couldn't ever watch the show. And we we did like 10, 10 like four-minute episodes um over the course of like three, four months. And it was like Mark and Shay from Mark Cabiaro and Seamus Walsh from Screen Novelties, and Chris Finnegan and myself, and another animator, Mike Wolf. And it was just like five or six of us uh in there, you know, making these little shorts really quick and quick and fast. Um and uh the producers were Alex and Corey, who are the producers and owners of Shadow Machine, and they spent the next three years with Seth and Matt pitching it around trying to get it sold because it went nowhere with Sony, and they eventually got picked up by Cartoon Network and it became Robot Chicken. Yeah, it became robot chicken like three months into our production on the show. It was just an untitled show.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

That's what it was that I planned on.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

I remember I was working in Stop Motion like early in my career at that point, and I remember Robot Chicken came out, like the whole crew was just so impressed. But the show was it was like everyone's favorite show. It was uh such a fun time. Um, I don't know what the experience of working on the show was like, but uh, did you enjoy it?

SPEAKER_04 9:17

I know both worked on it, right? Yeah, first season was really fun because I think it was like after there was a period of time, um, like basically in 2002, 2003, where work was really super, super slow for a lot of people. People had been working. I know you guys, Sarah, you had been working in Portland and a lot of the projects up there.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

But just before Robot Chicken, there was a long period of unemployment. So yeah, it was kind of amazing.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

It was kind of nice. Everybody came from all over, so it's like I came from New York to work to LA to work on robot chicken. People came down from Portland, moved down from Portland, people came from San Francisco. We had like the best of the best on season one. I feel like we had a lot of really, really good animators and really good builders and puppets, and a lot of ocean violations in there, but total ocean violations.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Like this, what was the spray booth in the puppet department just vented into the general stage that everybody was in?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Uh I yeah, it wasn't any better here. I was animating one day and I hear this whooshing noise, and I came out right next to my studio, which is just a curtain separating me. Someone was uh sanding paint off of something. Uh that was really healthy, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

And all of the the wood that we used too had a bunch of um like formaldehyde or something, right? And we're all like sawing in and all the particles are in the air.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Oh my god, that's from the sealants and stuff, probably, right?

SPEAKER_04 10:47

We're all fine now, right? We're all fine now.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Probably the countless number of buildings that had asbestos in them as well.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Yeah, we were all like I don't know what you guys, but I was like really young, young, and a lot of the crew was really young. So I I don't think anybody was equipped to be like, hmm, is this bad?

SPEAKER_01 11:06

We're just grateful to be working and having a good time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:09

But I think also a lot of the crew that was older and like the people who had been doing it for years, they were just used to working in those situations. And it's just like, all right, you just set something up and you do it as you can do it. And so there wasn't really a that wasn't top of mind to a lot of people. They're like, just get in there, get the job, and get it done, and uh this is how we do it. Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Yeah, I mean, especially at periods of time where there's no work, right? Like if right now you'd kind of be happy to take even a crappy job, right? Yeah. Um, so how did you end up producing? Was it after we worked together in California?

SPEAKER_04 11:48

It actually was prior to that. I started doing it kind of out of necessity. It's kind of similar to what like Sarah's doing now, where it's like she's she's completely producing her own like self-contained projects. And I think the first thing I produced was in 2005, I produced a segment, uh, one-minute segment for Family Guy. Um, that uh a friend of mine uh worked on the show, and uh he was like, Oh, we're we're gonna do, we need to do a stop motion thing that's like a parody of the Chevron cars, like the Ardman Chevron cars. So um they gave me everything and I basically put together a budget for it, and I I built and animated and uh did the whole job myself. Um, and that was kind of my first experience producing. And I did one other project for them the next year. Um and it also kind of came about because in New York, I was living in New York up until two the end of 2011, and a lot of the jobs that I would get called for, I'd be get called for and they'd be like, Oh, we'd love an anime, we need an animator. And then I would show up and it would be like, oh, we need someone also to come up with the to build everything, someone to build the puppets, someone to rig this, someone to like it was more than an animator job. It was so I would by default kind of become the animation supervisor director and put together an entire team of people to run the project. Um, and I just slowly started getting more and more of those gigs where I'm like, okay, they'd call me for one thing and I'd be like, you actually need this, and I would fill out the entire team with what was needed. Um, so I started kind of building those skills in New York in the commercial world. And then when uh I landed back in Los Angeles after Cinderbiter shut down, I continued to work as an animator, but I decided I really wanted to move on to uh working in production. So after I had worked on Anomalisa as an animator, and then I had worked on season one of Amazon's Tumble Leaf at Bix Picks as an animator, one of the lead animators for that season. And I decided I was just too old and exhausted at the ripe old age of 37. I was too old and exhausted to be a full-time uh uh series animator. Yeah, yeah, hard on the body.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

It is hard on the body.

SPEAKER_04 14:16

My shoulders and my back are so much happier with me now at my age than they were then. Um, so I think it was partially I I was like, I took a huge step back and took a job as just a coordinator on a friend of ours on actually on Screen Novelties was doing Elf uh Buddies Musical Christmas, which was a stop motion, uh, a stop motion special. And I talked to my friend Chris who was producing it, and I was like, Can I just be coordinate? I want to coordinate so I have the the credit and I get the experience. And he's like, Well, it doesn't pay much, and it's not really uh it's not really exciting. You're just basically going to be doing buying and runs and whatever everybody needs. And I was like, that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Well, I mean, that's a different aspect of the uh industry, but I I feel like there's a lot of room for interesting things to happen in that role too. Like whenever I'm in a managerial position or coordinating anything, I get to meet everybody, I get to hear what everybody's doing, I get to really understand how the project's running, which I find fascinating personally. But um, well, maybe we should go uh talk a little bit about Cinderbiter and how we met because like it was such a formative experience for me personally. It sounds like maybe it had an impact on you guys too. So, like uh 2011, we all got hired by Disney slash Pixar to work at a studio called Cinderbiter, which had like an alternative name at the time. I was always confused what the studio was called. Um Shade Maker, maybe? Yeah, it was shape, it had a Shade Maker attached to it as well. Uh, and it was for a Henry Sellick film he was directing. Um we were, I think it was affiliated with Disney too, right? Or yeah, I guess there are all TixR. Yeah, L Pixar, that's right, yeah. And we worked on that for roughly a year. We all got hired as animators. I think it was more than a year, maybe.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

Um more than a year for you, I think, because you were you were there before we started. I came in in January of uh 2012. And and Sarah came in what March? March of 2012?

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah, like March maybe, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Okay, didn't realize it was that short for you guys. Um, yeah, and and then the studio got shut down. Uh, but it was in San Francisco. They built the whole studio from scratch. It had been going for about a year and a half, maybe two years. In a chocolate factory. In a chocolate factory, the lunch, still in the break room. I forgot about that in the lunchroom, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Which somebody climbed into a couple times, I think. People climbed inside of the thing, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

And never came out.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Never came out. I have pictures of people going inside the chocolate.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Wow, it was an interesting building, also like a really interesting place to have a studio San Francisco, like in the mission district where we're working. But yeah, and then yeah, I think it was a year and a half in for me. Uh we all got called into a big meeting and they shut the whole project down. But it in I I look back on it more fondly now than I did at the time. But yeah, I think earlier we were saying that it was kind of a traumatic bonding experience. But maybe you could talk about how you guys got involved and and what you guys thought of the project. Uh Sarah, go.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Okay, I go first.

unknown 17:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Uh well, I remember when when Sarah Serrata reached out to me, uh, she's the producer. Uh I actually had a job offer on Paranorman. Um, so I I and I remember your episode, Kathy, you were talking about when you have like multiple job offers, which yes, but but there was the whole like um trying to figure out what's the right thing to do. And um I, you know, at the time I had just had I actually had just had a baby, um, my second kid, and uh I was married, and so I had a whole family. So I couldn't just like when I was younger, just move anywhere, which I had done like I think after I graduated college until Robot Chicken, I moved every six months for like years. That's how I lived, like a nomadic lifestyle to wherever the job was. So um now I had to think about where does my husband want to live? And for him, he was like San Francisco, yes, Portland, no. So that was kind of the thinking on that one.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Um was it any was it like an equal weighting creatively for you? Like I I know the project didn't go through, so in hindsight, maybe you would have preferred taking paranormal, but like in terms of like the job offers themselves, what was re-weighing that as well?

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah, I mean, obviously I had worked on Coraline, so going back to Leica was, you know, I knew that was gonna be a good thing. This one, the San Francisco thing was more of a we're starting up something new. Um, so it was kind of a more of an unknown. But I'd worked with Henry before. Um, and so I was really honored that he would want me back. So that was cool. Um uh so yeah, I guess I like I can't remember how much of the time. I actually kind of remember also that I never really gave Sarah a solid answer because I was deciding and then I didn't hear back from her for months. And then I got a phone call from Eric out of the blue where he's like, So I hear you're joining the team and we we should talk about what's gonna happen. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, I've I'm working on it. So it was like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Wow, yeah, that kind of makes that that sounds about right for the experience of communication when we were there. Yeah, yeah. So Eric, Eric Layton was our animation supervisor. And I what at one point wasn't he like co-directing? I can't I can't remember what his title was.

SPEAKER_04 19:33

So yeah, yeah. I think he he was like bumped to co-directors at a certain point, but that might have been before we even started.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Yeah. So I came on as a junior animator, so they kind of put me with the other juniors. We were tucked away in like a weird little room for like a good four months or something like that, just doing like trying to impress Eric with our animation with a bunch of sticks and blocks and stuff. Um, so when you guys started showing up, I was like, oh, this is much better. Um, I so Eileen, you showed up before Sarah, right? You were saying?

SPEAKER_04 20:06

Yeah, I I actually was supposed to, I think originally I was supposed to start in October, November of 2011. Like my first conversations with uh with Eric were probably in I started talking to him in May and June of that year. And I had I had never worked on a feature. I had tried to, I had auditioned for Coraline, but had not gotten hired on Coraline. Um, so I did not have feature experience like Sarah did. And this was actually something for a lot of us who came out of television animation in the late 90s into the early 2000s, is that there had been no features made in the United States since James and the Giant Peach. And so the people who had feature experience were people who were older who had been around during Nightmare and James. And then Corpse Bride was done overseas. So if you had been lucky enough to be able to get a visa to work as an American overseas, then you had experience. But the rest of us all came from having television or commercial experience and no feature. So when we were all when people were applying for Coraline, it was like that was a big part of it. It was like, oh, well, you have no feature experience.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

They were kind of witty about it too, the feature people like, oh, TV.

SPEAKER_04 21:23

They were like, Oh, you're coming from TV. I don't know necessarily if we you'll be able to work at this level. I'm like, oh, you mean with twice as much time and a lot of support and uh a whole rigging team and three passes to figure it out. You don't think I'll be able to do that? Um, but yeah, that was when I first talked to Eric, he was taking a chance on me, is what he told me. Um because he's like, because he's like, well, your work is good and there's stuff here that I can see, and there's potential, but like I'm still, you know, taking a chance to see if you're coming into this at this level as an animator. Um and uh so I was originally supposed to come out, I I was supposed to give notice on my apartment in New York and move to San Francisco like in October. And then uh my start date got pushed. So I wound up leaving New York uh early, like end of November, early December, and finding a place and then starting literally January 2nd, 2012. Um and uh yeah, my first day, my first day I walked in and um Eric's assistant, uh the animation director's assistant walks me to a stage and I said, Oh, cool, is there a script that I could read so I could kind of get get uh get familiarized with the project? Because I had only seen what Eric had shown me, and um, like he had shown me a test that he had done. And uh I was like, is there a script I can see? And uh she just laughed and she said, There's six pages, six pages one through six that I could I could show to you, but otherwise we have no script. And then I I was like, Oh, I've made a horrible mistake. Um I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

This is the high-level feature filmmaking.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't I didn't know any better.

SPEAKER_04 23:18

Yeah, I was like, I was like, oh no. I like, yeah, it was it was a situation where I was like, there's no script. And I then spent the next uh, I think I got a puppet for a few days that first week, where I just was handed a puppet and they were like, go. I was like, what do you want me to do with it? And they're like, you know, just test it. And I spent some time just figuring out the puppets, doing poses, and then Eric, our animation director, would come in and he was like, Well, what's this supposed to be? And I was like, I don't know. Like direction, what do you want? Um, so I think he was kind of looking to a lot of us to to figure out, uh, to just kind of like take it by the reins, figure out like character, play around with it. And so I I had to basically, it was a very quick learning curve for me to figure out like, oh, what is expected of me here? Like, what what do I need to do? There's a lot of research, there's a lot of RD that's happening at this point in the process, because it was a good three months before I even got to a point where they had something ready for us to actually shoot.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Yeah, it was quite blind.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Sorry to interrupt. Sorry, I wanted to ask, um, did they not even have like character bios, like any kind of character Bible to get you started on who these characters were?

SPEAKER_04 24:31

They kind of did for the two main characters, but it was it had part of the reason why my start date had been pushed is because there had been a big shift in the in the script. It had been like they had done shown story reels to Lassiter and everybody, uh, the brain trust over at Pixar, and they just decided to just completely change direction on the entire script. So it sounded like they killed off character, they could like cut characters, they got rid of things, and then they were restructuring the entire thing. So by the time I got there in January, it still was in flux as to what was happening. They had a somewhat of a structure that still existed, but it wasn't um, it wasn't very clear. So I spent a lot of time actually sitting on my computer in my on my stage, going through the server and searching through all of the story, uh, like going back to see what had been done, going through and seeing what story reels were up, what what like scenes, because they had it kind of they were doing story and animatic based on scene and sequences, um, and those were getting approved. So certain parts of the movie were getting approved, but not the entire entirety of it. Um so it was a very different process than what I expected. In um I I I had kind of thought we would be going in, you know, why would you start a movie without a script? Like, and apparently that's something that like what I've learned over the years is that's something that happens a lot.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Um clearly bad, yeah. You were one of the people that spent like a were you like Kelsey spending a year up there doing like testing and stuff? Like, I don't know how you guys did that, to be honest. The two months I spent searching for things to do, like I don't know how.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

No, that was that was the hardest part of the of that job was when they they were basically I was self-directed to do something, and clearly I wanted to prove myself because it was also my first feature, right? And I know Kelsey and the other juniors were like had come out of school and they had this sort of energy like, let's just throw some tape together and make something. And I had come out of making TV and I just wanted to animate, so I was like, Oh, this is hard. Uh, and like there were two other cup of coffee people from Toronto there as well, uh, Kevin Perry and Charles. Uh Charles Charles was like the first person doing shots. Um, so he was actually he didn't worry about that, he was just animating. But I remember the rest of us were kind of just like trying to figure it out. Uh yeah, I didn't touch a puppet till maybe uh the first the last few weeks of production. It was actually it's such a core memory for me where I finally got a puppet, I was animating the the animation looked good, and Eric came into my studio, and I didn't know this at the time when they'd already decided to shut us down, and he was like, Yeah, this looks great, you're ready to shoot. And I was like, Yeah. Oh no. Um, so like I was always searching for approval from Eric because he had such a high standard of expectations.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

I mean, Eric's like the best in the world, so yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 27:35

Yeah, that was part of the reason why I wanted to work specifically on that because it was an opportunity to work with the same team of people that were on Nightmare Before Christmas. So it's like in addition to working with Henry, it was working with Eric, it was working with just the the best of the best, and um, you know, on all the personalities that are involved with that. But like I I loved working with Eric. I learned so much in my animation I thought was much, much better. Like he he could really pinpoint exactly what it was that you needed to do to tweak the shot, like to tweak your animation in order to make it hit. Yeah. And I had never had anyone explain things like be able to direct in direct me in that way before. And I felt like I learned a ton.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

I totally agree. It's a rare experience to have uh a boss in animation who really understands how to elevate your work, uh, rather than just trying to put their own stamp on it. Uh, not that that isn't part of it, but I think uh that was the first time where I was like, oh, they want us to bring something. They want us to show what our skills are so they can get something good that's unexpected, uh, or expected, either way. Um, I wonder if you had a similar experience, Sarah. Where were you shooting when you first started? Well, first I just want to interject.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Just props to Eric for creating a very balanced work environment where he actually hired. I think that's like one time I've had like it was like 50% women, maybe. I mean, it was a lot, and that was amazing. I've never had that before. So I just wanted to like Yeah, he was very intentional. Yeah, he was intentional.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

I remember he was he he would like even come to ask when he was hiring an animator, like, do you know this person? Do you like working with them? Like he cared that uh the team would get along, which was like a shock to me at the time.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

Yeah, so that was great. Yeah, he and he also, I think when I when he hired me, one of his one of his his things he says he is, my job is to protect my team, protect the animation the animators. So it's like he really thought about like I mean, I think he still does in all of his projects. Um I like would love to work with him again on something, but um, I don't know if it'll be as an animator so far. I'm not I don't have the same skills I had. I I'd really have to start start animating again and do it for a long period of time in order to get it. A little bit, a little bit, yeah. He was actually really sad I wasn't gonna be over there when he was working on it. Yeah, he was like, oh wait, you're not gonna be here? I'm like, no, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be here and moving on to something else. Um yeah, I can't, I can't probably can't really talk about that one. Yeah, that's okay. Sorry. Um that part out.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Well, you didn't say anything, but it's very vague.

SPEAKER_04 30:24

It's very vague. He's working on something somewhere that's not here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

That's enough, enough said.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah. Well, yeah, uh Sarah, did you start shooting shots right away? Or were you in that weird limbo period where we were all waiting for things to kick off?

SPEAKER_01 30:40

I think I had a puppet pretty quickly. I remember having happen and he had like the sleeves, and I did like a walk and a few things. So I think I was because I came in later. I was lucky for you guys. But there was still, I still had to do a lot of like I would finish a test and then it would be like it's just empty on the stages. It was like trying to find Eric or somebody to tell me what to do. Like it was just a lot of trying to figure out, you know, I need to be proactive. I don't want to not do something, but I'm not sure what it is I should do.

SPEAKER_04 31:08

And it was Sarah spent a lot of time sitting on my stage in the lounge chair. That creeped a lot.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

I wanted to ask that because, like, kind of amongst this little bit of chaos, I guess, where no one kind of had the script to work from, and you're figuring out what to do individually. Is this where people did come together? Like, did you kind of seek each other out on your cruise and just ask, hey, what are you up to, or introduce yourself? Like, I wonder how that dynamic was happening.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Yeah, and that's how we got really close to is we had all this extra time to hang out with each other. So, and just experiment together, be like, hey, what are you doing? And it'd be, you know, we'd show each other stuff. And so definitely it was a good bonding experience.

SPEAKER_04 31:52

Yeah, one of the things that I did to try to make work for myself, because sometimes there was a lot of times we didn't have things to do because there was a limited number of puppets that were actually final puppets that were actually made or approved. So once those puppets were made, they were on set shooting with one or two of the animators, and then the rest of us were kind of in this limbo phase of like waiting for a puppet to be ready. Um, and like waiting for sets. And so I started just going to the puppet department and being like, what do you need tested? What do you like? I started kind of saying, like, or I'd go to Eric, I'm like, what do you need? Like, do you need stuff for Shadow Shadow Girl? Do you need stuff for this? What do you need? Because at one point they gave me a moth that like all of the junior animators had animated moths like for six months. And he was like, Well, here's a moth puppet. I know. I was like, I I don't think you need another test of this moth. Like, what else can I what else can I do that's like not a test? Like you have 50 tests of moths in here. Um so I think I was like, Yeah, it's like at one point I was like, okay, what can I do to like what does what does puppet and armature need help like help with? What do they need help testing? And um, so I was testing stuff for for Shadow Girl towards the end um before uh before we were shut down. So it's like I was just going and being like, okay, what what can I help with? What can we figure out here? Um, but it was a lot of trying to make your own work and having to be super proactive. And you couldn't just otherwise, like you were just sitting around waiting for someone to give you something. And if you didn't walk off your stage and ask somebody for for something to do or how you could help, you could be sitting there doing nothing for months.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Yeah, I think we were kind of uh we were kind of aware that like things were not progressing well in the story department and in the design, you know, like they were really busy, but they weren't feeding us because it kept changing on their end. Uh, I remember I was in like the facial animation CG department for a period of time. I was doing uh like what it was a blocking pass of the whole all the animatics of the came out. I was like shooting a rough pass with really, really rough puppets, then editing that, then putting effects and in that, and then I would pitch it to Eric. And if he liked it, he would pitch it to um Henry, and then I would record all the like camera data and positioning of the camera and like with with rough sets and stuff like that. So, like that wasn't stuff that I I thought I would be doing when I started the project at all.

SPEAKER_04 34:28

That was kind of fascinating, though. All of that stuff that you like, I know you and and uh Kelsey and Kevin were all doing a lot of that, and I thought I thought it was super helpful for kind of figuring out how things were like the blocking of how things would look. Um and time.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Kevin's blocking pass was amazing. Yeah, he did like the whole movie or something.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Yeah, Kevin always outshone me in every single activity we were compared to. But yeah, Kevin was doing like full animation with the jankiest puppets I've ever used, and he was on his knees on the concrete floor. And I remember at one point I went to Eric and I was like, I need knee pads or something, I'm dying my body is falling apart.

SPEAKER_04 35:08

He's like, You're weak. Kevin's doing it with no knee pads.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was such a fun experience for me in a lot of ways, and but in other ways, like that sitting around period was really hard. Like, especially, I don't know, like Eileen, maybe it sounds like you had a similar experience where you're like, I wanted to prove that I could do it, and I just wasn't g getting an opportunity to really do that. Um, I know you did a couple shots though.

SPEAKER_04 35:35

Uh I did. I got to do about four shots in the um the like Hap and Richards uh bedroom scene, um, which was which was kind of nice. I was really glad I got to do something that I didn't walk away from that project with nothing to show, which I know there's some people who didn't have anything. Um and so I've I felt like that was it was a challenge to like, you know, it was it was a really those shots that I did, it was fascinating how long one of those shots would take me. It would be weeks to do that because of the multiple passes and the going back and forth with rigging and with art department and with set puppets and having like the in the one the character had to have a a bubble of spit, like and figuring out what that how that was gonna work and um kind of RDing that before they made it for for me. And um, it was also specific in a way that most jobs that we do, we don't have time, I don't ever have that much time. It was a luxury. Um, and if uh I think if I had continued down the path of working in um feature animation, it's it's something I I would have flourished. But I also, after the whole project shut down, it was like there wasn't an option given to many of the female animators on that team to go on to another project that was a feature. I would say none of all basically all of the female animators were not offered elsewhere and other companies.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

I did uh I did test at Leica, but there was one role, and Kevin Perry tested against me. So just like Kevin Perry. I mean, he he was a better animator than me, so I sort of got it. But it was yeah, that was a rough period. Uh Sarah, you got did you do some shots on the project as well before we get laid off? I'm pretty sure you did. I did, I did, I did. I have a few that are in there.

unknown 37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:38

Okay, you were doing the stuff with uh Fern, right? It was the staircase. The stuff on the staircase, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Yeah, which you can see online now. The the like promo they put together is on YouTube. I've I've seen it. So for anybody listening who wants to see like the art behind the Shadow King that was canceled, a lot of it's uh out there. You can find it. Um, which at the time I was like, no one's ever gonna see this again. Because it's going into the vaults forever.

SPEAKER_04 38:04

It was it was actually really um a couple years later, like I think it was the first um glass festival in up in Berkeley. Um, Henry had a screening up there. He had like basically he was one of the top uh the speakers, um, and they had a whole thing with him, and he showed the um it was the first time he publicly showed any of the work from Shadow King was at the Glass Festival, and I got to be there for it, and it was really emotional actually watching it in a room full of people who weren't involved with the film. Like we because we had watched it in the screening room while we were working on it, but um, with the other crew members, but I'd never seen it like I'd never had the opportunity of seeing a project I worked on, and I animated on in a room full of people that didn't like you know, an audience, an actual audience. Um, so it was really that's the rush you get.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

That's why we keep doing it, why we torture ourselves. Because then you go and you watch it and people watch it and react, and it's like you feel so good about that.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

That's about that's that has not been my experience. I I can't I like I like Eileen says, I've almost never seen my work uh on a big screen with a crowd. And I've also feeling like you asked me before we started recording, like what's a big difference between uh the US and the Canadian industry. And a big one is that I worked on so many projects I never saw finish because they would air in the US and we just had no way to access it in Canada.

SPEAKER_04 39:33

Oh man. VPNs, VPNs, that was before.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Now we yeah, yeah. Wow, but we also didn't have many feature films going on up here. That's also until more recently. We had a few here and there, but it was mostly, you know, kind of the as we were saying earlier, as you were all talking about that kind of delineation of groups between television and features. And I know one of the earlier features I worked on when I was kind of a senior layout artist was the Babar movie when it was animated by hand in 2D, and kind of talking about the theater experiences, I think that was the second movie I saw in theaters. Um, and it wasn't quite the crowd reaction I wanted, like or I was expecting, because the crowd were all preschoolers and their parents, and they're all running around when they got a little bit bored, but they they they enjoyed the movie. But you know, when you're in a theater full of preschoolers and they get kind of a little antsy here and there, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I learned that like that experience was like, oh yeah, I forgot. These are like little kids and they can't necessarily sit through an 80-minute film, right? So, um, but but you take it for what it is. Like you get to see your name up there, you get to see everybody's work, and you can be proud of that no matter what that project is. And as long as it reaches the audience, and hopefully some of them, even if they're three years old, can appreciate five seconds of it, then I feel like you've done something.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

I mean, if you work long enough, also uh you run into kids who saw your work and who are now adults and have an attachment to it.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

Uh that's a that's a nice experience.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

That's the thing that's weirding me out. And I did some volunteer work at my well, no, because here I did some volunteer work at my my uh my kids' high school. They have an animation program actually. Boom. And I couldn't believe how many of the kids were like, oh, I love Moral Oral. And it's like, you weren't even born when it came out, first of all. And then like, second of all, why are you watching it at this age? I'm like they get to watch everything these days. But yeah, or like robot chicken. That's a I get post clips of it, and I get all these people like that traumatized me when I was five years old. It's like, why are you watching it at five years old? I thought our audience was adults.

SPEAKER_04 41:46

Like, I'm so confused. Yeah, it's like robot chicken was on at 11 o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_03 41:51

Right.

SPEAKER_04 41:52

You should not be watching it as a five-year-old. Yeah, but it's all toys, right? So the parents are probably like, it's toys, just let them know that either that or the parents were watching the show and the kids saw it because the parents were watching the show, or the you know, their older siblings.

SPEAKER_02 42:08

I feel like traumatized is a bit extreme. I watched The Simpsons when I was younger, and you know, there were inappropriate jokes on that. It didn't traumatize me. I know. I'm sure they're all blaming me for being traumatized.

SPEAKER_04 42:17

I would say it's your fault for watching. I didn't do anything. I watched a lot.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

I watched a lot of horror movies when I was a kid. I think I saw The Exorcist when I was 10 years old, and it's uh I actually quite liked it. It didn't scare me at all. I was just like so ingrained and like caught in the moment of the film. I know that's not animation, but it was it was that thing. I just got lost in the storytelling.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

And they did traumatize me as a kid because I should not have been watching.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Yeah, yeah. I think I saw Jaws when I was seven, and that was pretty traumatized. That's so good though. Jaws is such a good movie.

SPEAKER_03 42:53

Oh, amazing.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

Yeah, it scared the crap out of us.

SPEAKER_04 42:56

Yeah, polarized.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Yeah, my mom covered my eyes in the theater when we like to Spaceoft. I didn't see that until I was an adult. She did my mom thing.

SPEAKER_02 43:06

She she but she took you to the theater to see I know it's the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

Like, what were our parents thinking?

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Did she think it was like a sequel to Casper the Friendly Ghost?

SPEAKER_01 43:17

I saw nightmare on Elm Street in the theater too, but that was my dad.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Oh, amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

No, no, I had nightmares for a year.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

Maybe it sort of explains why we all ended up in this profession, though.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

Um, well, I wanted to talk uh to you, Sarah and Eileen, a bit about like career pivoting. Uh right now I think that's a big topic, like we're we're covering in our podcast, but we're I'm also thinking on a personal level too. It's just like, well, there's not a lot of work in animation. What how do I pivot? And like it it does, even though it's still within the industry, I think, you know, producing and directing are big are different roles, really big different in in what your day to day life is like. Um I'm curious, uh Sarah, like how you find directing. Directing versus animating, or what got you into that?

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Uh well, I think Eileen's pivot is amazing because uh producing is uh she can work on like anything now, and she went above the line, which I think is that's more things. Sorry, but I don't find much of a pivot because I don't feel like personally, I don't feel like I've done other than I'm running my own business right now, which for me that's a big pivot because there's not a lot of work out there to work on. So I do everything myself, then I like get jobs and I do the whole everything, the idea, the animation, the editing, the all of it. So you're you're a one woman one woman band. I do hire some people for things I'm I really can't do very well because I'm like I'm doing a Disney project and I I hired a composer, an illustrator, and uh somebody I and Rebecca still went to make the book cover because she's really good at that. Um so I I have my limitations, but for the most part, I have to do everything myself.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

Well, okay, well, that's a big shift. Uh finding work is something we don't do as artists. Like, how do you find work? Yeah, or progress.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

That's still a good question because I need more than I have. But at the moment, I started. Um, do you know the site, Tongle? It's uh it's international, so you know, um, you can be anywhere in the world and they put up these jobs and you you bid on them, and then you know, they award the job to whoever they like to pitch the best, and then you you you do the job. So it's like for um for brands to do social media content. Um and so I I started doing that, and um, once you start doing that, you get to know the producers there. So then they come to me with stuff as well. So I don't always have to pitch like on the site. I I they just come and they say, Hey, we've got this thing, giving you ideas for it. Um, so that's where I get most of my work right now. That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

And what kind of and like what kind of work is it? Is it a lot of commercial work?

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Well, so like for a long time, one of the biggest clients that I did a lot of work for was Nickelodeon. And so I was doing lots of stuff to just advertise their um all their stuff, like uh animating SpongeBob SquarePants stuff, or um, a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated the toys when they came out. Um, so it's a lot of toy animation. Um, I did work for this uh these building bricks called their builder. They're like Legos, but and I did it's like there's like a lot of hands building stuff. Like then I started doing like live action stuff essentially instead of not even animating, because it's like, well, I have the setup, I can do all this. So, you know, whatever people will pay me for. I I pitch weird stuff and like they say, yeah, do it. So like I did this thing where I animated uh like a zootrope on an umbrella for for uh it was a SpongeBob thing, and I I did that, and I don't know there's you know, like maker videos, like people like sing stuff like stuff. Um are you pitching the concept as well?

SPEAKER_02 47:00

You're like like you pitch that whole idea, okay everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

So I come up with like usually I brainstorm and I'll have like 20 ideas and I give them to them and they pick, they say we want this one, and and I that's what I do.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

So on this website, sorry, um, do they essentially do like a request for pitches? And anybody can kind of submit their pitch. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 47:21

Anyone it's a little bit, it's a little bit um similar to the just the normal commercial process where you know there's production companies with with directors, and the agencies go to the like they basically throw it out to a bunch of different directors and have them pitch on it. But this is like more direct to cons kind of like direct to any director, right? Anyone who wants to pitch to it, it kind of cuts out the middleman of um, you know, the big agencies.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

But it is they're lower budget projects, but yeah, I was gonna ask they are so they that's great for the the clients because they yeah, they don't have to they don't have to spend as much.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

You presumably have to budget now to that budget and make it work for you, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:02

So it's a lot of creativity because yeah, I have very small budgets and I only make money off of it if I can not have to spend a lot on making it. So that's where the creativity comes in.

SPEAKER_03 48:13

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

So then there's quite there does seem like there's overlap with producing in that sense.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

I mean, in some ways, yeah. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. But that I think I I uh Eileen's job is is I then I have appreciation for how hard that is. So okay.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

Well, maybe we could talk about Eileen, what you're doing now. Uh, I know you've been you've coordinated, you've PM'd, uh, you're producing. Um, I'm assuming there's lots of overlap in that area as well. But like, what is your day-to-day like and how different is it from all those other roles that you've done?

SPEAKER_04 48:45

Um right now I'm working, uh I'm working with a company called Open the Portal based here in Los Angeles. And we've been doing I've been doing commercial jobs for them where I've been producing um producing a bunch of different commercials. Last year we did a huge campaign for this uh healthcare uh company based out of California called Kaiser Permanente. They're like a US-based healthcare insurance. Um, and we that was a really interesting campaign because we did a big 60-second spot and then we did two 30-second spots. So it was like three spots that we had to build and shoot all at this kind of at the same time. It wound up being a five-week animation, stop motion animation shoot um that we had to turn around pretty quickly. Like, job got launched the beginning of July. We had to be done shooting the first one by the end of August. So it was um my role in that is I got I got brought on at the very beginning phase of like which was two weeks before it awarded, of looking at the treatment that the director had done um and all of the requirements that the agency and the client needed, and coming up with a budget for what it a budget and a schedule for what it was that it would take in order for us to do it in the time frame. So a lot of times you'll get uh you'll get uh this needs to deliver by this date, and then I have to back everything into that date and figure out what it's gonna take. Um, and so I I find like my experience as an animator and a creative and understanding all the different parts of the process has really been helpful for me to understand exactly how long things will take.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

Um I just want to say I'm gonna see one of the best producers I've ever worked for because you understand stuff in a way that nobody else does. So no, really seriously, I think the best.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

I can see that being a huge asset. Uh having now gone from being an artist to like doing some manager of stuff, coordinate. I'm doing a little bit of coordinating right now. Like I can see how that b experience relates directly to solving any issues that come up because the the solution I'm offering comes with uh actual experience that tells you whether it's possible or not.

SPEAKER_04 51:02

You've got receipts, you're like, here you go. This is why this can happen or not. And and part of part of the job, at least on the when I've been working on the commercial side of things, is it's a different situation when I'm producing something like when I was working on Marcel, it was the UPM on that, and I was like on the on-the-ground producer um on a day-to-day throughout the whole shoot. So it was like I was helping facilitate the whole creative process. It was like a little bit more relaxed in some ways, um, where it was more kind of like it was a feature, but it was also kind of felt like a series, like when you're shooting a series. Like so you have multiple stages and you have like teams of people that are working over the course of months, um, and you kind of settle into a rhythm. When you're on a commercial, the difference is you are working at an accelerated pace and you're also justifying every single thing and having to answer questions to people who don't understand the animation process whatsoever. Like when you're in series and film, most of the time people understand, they're they're coming from the world of animation, they understand the process. They're all trying to make the best version of it. And in commercials, they're trying to make the best version of it, but there's also people who come in with like, you know, comments that make absolutely no sense. And you're having to they they're like, Well, what if we did this? And I was like, here's the 15 reasons why we can't do that. And then here's what we could do that kind of gives you what you want. And so there's a lot of horse trading in figuring out how to um how to give the client and the agency what they want and also not kill your team. Um so it I spend a lot more time, like the difference is I spend a lot more time on meetings and emails and texts, negotiating and calling things out and having to be really quick as to like when they're trying to slip something through that you're like, nope, that's not that we we're not scoped for that. I use the word that's out of scope more than I've ever used in my life.

SPEAKER_02 53:07

Well, I can tell, I can tell when I'm on a project where somebody is saying that, where there's a producer saying this is outside of scope, and when I'm not, because every single request that comes down the pipe we end up doing. Uh, and it just balloons out of control. And actually, most a lot of projects I've had that happen on fall apart. Like I've like the project goes away, the studio falls apart. So, like that's a hugely important part of the project. And and I imagine it's extremely hard to say no to somebody who's paying your bills, right? Like, I I love saying no to people, but I don't say no to people.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

That's how she tweeted her job because she didn't know.

SPEAKER_04 53:43

Yeah, I'm not like I'm I I'm maybe I'm not always liked, uh, but it's uh by above the line. But it's uh there are times where you like you're saying, there's a lot of people who will say yes to a lot of things to be accommodating. They want to help out, they want to make sure that everyone's getting what they want, the director's getting what they want, and the agency's getting what they want. And I think there's a point where it's like, yeah, is this is this choice making the overall better? Then yes, we should accommodate that and make sure. Is this just someone wants to do something because they want to put their finger in it and make make like leave their mark, but it makes nothing better and makes it worse?

SPEAKER_01 54:24

That shouldn't just be your job to to do that. As a as I was gonna say, as a director, I try to think about is this thing gonna be on screen long enough? Is it important? Is it any difference in the story? It's also important as a director to not ask for things that aren't important that you're because you're killing people. It's like, I don't want to kill you unless it's really important.

SPEAKER_02 54:45

Yeah, and the better directors I've worked with, we still make a great product, but they have like a clarity of choice making based on uh understanding of like what's possible and what's and what can work that makes the experience of working on it better, but also makes the product better and usually gets it over the finish line in a better way. Like uh I've worked with a lot of creatives who like are great creatives, incredible vision, but because they don't know how to find it uh quickly, the uh the projects they sometimes fall apart, they don't get done, they don't get done well a lot of the time, too. So yeah, like that I think where you and Eileen, uh Sarah and Eileen really overlap in terms of uh like efficiency of role is understanding what the artists are doing, right?

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Like we all done we started out in low budget stuff, so I think that makes a difference. People who come from features are like everything should be beautiful and perfect. It's like no, it doesn't need to be like this is we're we come from a world where you learn to make the right decisions.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

Well, and it's understanding those parameters, right? We have parameters by budget, by schedule, even by talent sometimes. And you you want to empower and engage everybody as best as you can, but there are certain limitations within those parameters that you always have to be cognizant of.

SPEAKER_02 56:02

And sometimes those parameters make your work better if you if you work within them. I it can be a really enjoyable process, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:10

And and all of them, I mean, every project is different. Every project has a different budget, has a different um expectation. So it's like when, and with basically what we've been talking about since the beginning of how scarce work has become and how the industry is changing, um it's it's tough because there's a lot of people who are like, well, the budgets are lower and lower and lower, so I'll just keep accepting that. And uh so the I think there's some people, it feels like a race to the bottom, um, where people are just accepting what because they're like, we don't want anything to go away, so we'll accept anything and we'll promise that we can do this. And uh that's not helpful either. But it's it's it's hard. We're not I we don't always have a situation. Well, we don't always have a situation where we can like stand firm and fight for the right amount, and that that's hard because it's like you could be like, I can't go below this, and the job could go away entirely. So there's there's risks, but there's also like, do you really want to put yourself through and the team through something? Exactly trying to do it at that at that budget and that timeline when it's not really possible.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

There's there's got to be a line where okay, yeah, we can take a loss on this. And oh, if we do take this much of a loss and it crumbles the studio, it's clearly not worth taking, right? Like exactly so you have to like understand what's too much, uh too far to go. And I I all the studios that have closed that I've worked for clearly didn't know how to draw that line.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Actually, I worked for a small studio uh for a number of years where they were pretty good for the most part, but there were definitely a lot of projects we we ended up declining, and even one project we handed back when the costs were starting to add up on our end, and it was because of the production company just not understanding, you know, where they needed to draw their line with what was being delivered to us so we could then service the work. Uh, and it was something small like that. And this this production company had been around many, many years. So it's not like they didn't have the experience, they just mismanaged this project from the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 58:15

Yeah, maybe we could talk uh like as we're wrapping up here. I'm uh I there's a lot more I'd like to chat with you guys about, but maybe you could talk about what the LA scene is right right now. So a lot of our listeners are Canadian, so like it's a really different industry. But I I suspect we're all suffering at a similar level. But Canada is sort of a service uh industry here. So when you guys don't have work, we don't have work.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

So uh I'm curious what it's like for a lot of times we don't have work because it goes to Canada. Exactly. That's true. Okay, fair enough. It's when you don't have work that we're in trouble because like there's not even work to send to Canada. That's true. It kind of goes hand in hand, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 58:54

Yeah.

unknown 58:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

When you say scene, I'm sorry, I I just react because there's I wouldn't even call it a scene anymore. What is it? I don't even know. Eileen, how would you describe it?

SPEAKER_04 59:04

I I mean it's it's much, much smaller than it was a couple of years ago. There's still like, you know, at least for stop motion, there's still uh screen novelies, Bix Picks, uh Stupid Buddy, Starburns, um, Shadow Machine. But although Shadow Machine, all their stop motion is happening, whatever stop motion they're doing is happening in Portland. They do have a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 59:23

Starburns also sent a lot of stuff overseas, just to say.

SPEAKER_04 59:26

Yeah, Starburns has a project that's happening in London right now that's a stop motion live action film. Uh, and that they did pre-production in in Los Angeles, but they they are doing the actual production in London. Um But yeah, Stupa Buddy is probably Stupa Buddy and Bix are both like I I think what a lot of the studios here have done is they've kind of shrunk their footprint um from what it was before when they were in full series mode. Uh they've kind of shrunk down to what they can do that's manageable at the moment, and then they'll expand when they need it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:01

Yeah, they're much smaller now, all of the studios. Yeah, some of them don't even have a space anymore. They only rent it when they get something.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:08

Yeah. So, oh, Apartment D, that's another one that's here. Apartment D is doing, doing um, they're the probably the youngest of the studios, and that's uh Max Lopez and Tammy Kwan and Nan Scrappius, they're the younger son scrappiest. Um, but yeah, they're really uh it's and everyone's doing something different. Like Apartment D is doing a lot of toy-related uh content for the web.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

Yeah, they're doing their own series. They're trying to get this thing, like done a couple episodes, so they're they're it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:38

Yeah, and I think I think a lot of people are just trying to do their, they're kind of trying to come up with their own work and their own ideas and content because it's not things aren't really being bought by a lot of the studios aren't buying anything, a lot of the streamers aren't buying anything. There's this weird freeze because of what's happen what was happening with Skydance and Paramount, and now with Warner Brothers and Skydance, and no one knows what's happening, and Netflix is like weird about like and we don't know where AI is gonna come in.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

It's like everybody doesn't want to do anything right now because they're waiting to see all this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:11

So, do you see more people like uh in artists just doing their own content, like trying to start their own things? Yeah, that's the survival right now. Yeah, I think it's I ultimately, I mean, that's all terrible for the industry on a commercial level, but you know, on a creative level, it is interesting to see people uh stepping away and doing like trying to start something new. Um do you think things are trending in any particular direction, or it just feels like everything's on holes?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

I mean, I want to be optimistic, but it's so hard right now because I can't even picture what it looks like, the industry in like five or ten years. Like I can't, I think we're going through a change that's so big and different than we have before that I don't even know. I don't know what's on the other side.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:56

And the thing is, it's not just animation, it's the entertainment industry in its entirety is changing in a way that like stop motion specifically over the course of like the probably 27, 28 years I've been in it, has had these like highs and lows, like where there have been really deep valleys, like 2003, there was nothing. 2009, there was absolutely nothing, like no work for a whole year after the financial crisis. Um, and and then there was this whole uptick in from 2010, 2011, like up through to 2022, and then it just dropped off. And so there's 10 years of like 10, 12 years of like so much work in features and series and commercials, and then the pandemic happened, and after everyone relied on animation during the pandemic to prop up the entertainment industry, they just like pulled out the rug from all animation across the board. Um, so it's a really weird time.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

And because there was that big boom, there's extra people, like the the industry is flooded with people who are talented and can do this job, and now there's no work. So it's worse than before because the competition is so stiff because there's just so many people now.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:08

It's just yeah, oversight. Globally, we're going through a very volatile time, as you know, as you said, it's not just our industry. There are a lot of industries globally that have suffered since COVID, essentially. It's like this weird perfect storm that has been building for the past number of years.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:24

Yeah. But in a lot of ways, like I'm not saying I I don't disagree with you. This is a really in intense period of time. But I've like you guys said, like, I've been through periods of low work before. So it doesn't not that I know the answer or how to you know navigate it 100%, but the level of anxiety I might face in this period of time versus someone who's coming out of school just trying to start the career or had one project, like that's gotta be a lot more intense uh than myself. Like I have some confidence that, like, or I don't know what the if the word is confidence, I just have like a calmness where I'm like, well, I'll get there, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

Like because you already have the resume, you know, at some point when it picks up, you'll get it. But I can see if you're graduating now, it's like, yeah, I don't I don't have anything. So there if they have to pivot to something else, they may never come back.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:13

True, yeah. Or yeah, 100%. It's a different, it's a really different time. I and like maybe we could just roll into our last question here. Yeah, well, I I it usually is an upbeat thing. It's uh what was a time or period or challenge in your life that you faced that you overcame and feel proud of? Um it's kind of a softer question, but um uh Sarah, do you want to go first? No, Eileen, you go first.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

I want to hear.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:42

Great, thanks.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:45

Who's in charge of your bill? All right. She's like, I'm just gonna throw this back to you and then Sarah, you're going.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

Uh well, okay. So I was trying to remember, uh obviously the biggest challenge I think right now is is like period of unemployment. And honestly, the biggest challenge of it is that the longer I go without I mean at the moment I've been lucky. The last year I was really busy, but like the year before that, it really hit hard. And uh it's really hard to to keep to remember that you are good at what you do and that you should be in this industry because I feel like the longer you go without work, you kind of lose this, this you you question yourself, you question if you're any good, and you you lose that sense of purpose. And I think that's the hardest part is trying to remember I I am good at this, I can do this, and do keep doing stuff. Uh that's that's the challenge I find.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

Um it sounds like that's what it sounds like that's what you're doing by starting your own business.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:47

I mean, I'm trying to stay positive and and do and be proactive. Yes. Um because if I don't, then I start to yes, all the self doubt comes in. The disaster syndrome. It's uh it's bad. It's Really hard to to think that you're good when you don't have work for a long time. It's really hard.

unknown 1:06:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:07

Like, I don't understand ever why Sarah has imposter syndrome. She's one of the best animators I've ever didn't even ever know. Yeah. Excuse me.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:16

But what I'm saying is if you don't work, you you question it. You know, it's like, why am I not being hired? Yeah. So like that's very sweet of you to say, but that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:24

It's like I know, but you're self-worth, like this, honestly, this is also kind of part of the reason why I pivoted to production, because a lot of times, like I I had a really hard time just being an animator and feeling good about myself as an animator. Like I had a lot of self-doubt. And also I'm surrounded by people who are so much better than me. And that you've always challenged me. I I don't feel like I was as good as a lot of other people. And because it is it is a personal thing when you're hired as an animator, it's like, are you good enough? Are you fast enough? Like that is such a reflection of um that it feels like a personal, it's a lot of judgment and it feels so personal. And there's part of me that's like, well, I switched to production. Was I like is that was that the easy way out? Not the easy way out.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:19

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:20

Um, but it it was um, yeah, it's like all all jobs, like you feel like it's a personal thing, like, am I gonna be hired or not? And I learned over the years, I'm like, it's not personal, it's casting, and not every actor is right for every role, and not every animator is right for every job. And as I've been working as a producer, like realizing that when I'm hiring people too, it's like this person is right for this, this person is not right for this. And it doesn't necessarily mean they're not good and they're not of value. It's just it's a different, it's a different thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:58

So yeah, I think when you're getting notes, for example, as an artist, uh, it's really easy to take it personally, be like, oh, this is personal judgment. But having now been a supervisor and an eight animation director, when I'm giving notes, I'm not I'm not sending out a judgment towards that artist. I'm just like, no, let's check like this is just how we should go forward. That's all it has nothing to do with who you are and your skills.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:20

It's it's funny throughout whenever I was animating, if I was animating a commercial, never felt any judgment on the actual notes that came back in commercials, like because I'm always like, this is coming from somebody who knows nothing, or it's coming from somebody who has a very specific thing that has to serve serve a client and serve a purpose. But I felt differently when I was working in series and features because it was so much more about performance. And I was like, I'm being judged by a performance, and so it was like a very different that was a different thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

Coraline is where I built my thick skin because I stopped being uh so personally attached to a shot. And I thought it's more about what does the director need? So I'm pretty good now about getting notes where it's like, okay, that doesn't work, we'll do it another way. Like it's not about me, it's about what you need as a director for this scene or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

So I think that's very common. We sometimes we get kind of lost in the weeds, as it were, and we forget what is the purpose of that shot. Like, what does the actor or the character need in that shot for that shot to be successful to tell their story, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:28

Yeah, it's not the about the animator and what exactly like you're doing. It's about how it fits into the hole. And um yeah, there's a lot of times we'll break things out into A, B, and C shots. And it's like, what's an important shot that really needs to hit, and what's something that is actually facilitating the hole and doesn't need to do you don't need to spend five days on this shot if it's a C-level shot. Um, sorry, I don't think that answered the what was my challenge in life. It's the thing I'm most proud of getting getting I honestly like the thing I I think, and I'll probably all of you feel this way, it's like getting this far in in my career in like in animation and still doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:13

Also as a woman, just to put that in there, challenge overcome for you too, John, as a woman.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:19

Yeah, yeah. That's all my wife has gone through very similar challenges. She's also in animation and has worked as a director. And obviously, through the years that I've been with her, and even earlier on in your career, there were lots of challenges we all kind of go through. I'm not trying to diminish anyone or anything, but it certainly has not been easy for women in animation. So I'm glad it's changed, but I think there's still a lot of room that we have to make up for as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:46

Yeah, that's a whole other episode. Right, sorry. Not that I don't want to.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:51

You know, Eileen, I liked your answer because I did want to ask, like, you know, I know we're going a little over time here, but I did want to ask something in a similar vein, which is what does it mean to each of you to be in animation, right? Like if you were able to talk to your younger self, you know, um, you know, what would you say to that younger self that's like, it was worth it? You know, I obviously disregard the whole state of the industry right now, but for you personally, what does it mean to be in the industry at this point?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:23

I know I know for honestly, the the thing for me that I love the most about animation is the community and is the people I get to work with. It's sometimes less the final product and it's more about the process.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:39

Um like I've worked on a couple things uh where I so much more enjoy the process of working with the entire team from start to finish on something and going through like the stuff that never gets seen at the end, like problem solving, figuring things out, kind of coming up with creative uh like how everyone on the project brings something different to it and makes it uh makes the final outcome different than what you expected in the beginning. And it's all about the alchemy of the team working together. And that's that that and the community in large uh is kind of what I I don't think I expected in the beginning when I wanted to go into animation, was what I think it was like I'm gonna make these beautiful things that are gonna be on the screen that people can see. And for me now, it's kind of what's up there is nice and all, but it's more about the process.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:36

Amazing. Sarah, how about you?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:38

No, I mean that's for sure. The people are everything in this business. And when I worked in CG, which also when we were talking about overcoming, because I said I had a challenge, but I didn't actually overcome that one because I'm still going through that. But I learning CG for me, I know Kathy, you seem to roll into it this year. That was a big challenge for me to do that. So the fact that I did it and then worked on a feature film in CG was like that was huge for me because that was a really steep learning curve. Um oh, so it was a question before I got off. Oh, other people, yes, okay. I wanted to read something because this was really funny. I worked on this movie when I first got to LA called Disaster, which I'm sure you never saw, which is really really bad, right? I mean, it was we knew we were making something that was bad, and we were having the best time because it was just a bunch of people goofing off and having fun every day. But I just saw recently that there's reviews for it on Letterboxd. And at the end of the movie, we did these like um pixelations of ourselves as crew members. Somebody wrote this review, they wrote, as okay, oh my gosh, so as the credits roll by, it is honestly sad to see the faces of all the lead animators who thought this would be their big break after pouring so much hard work into it. Yet you are subjected to this display of people that had no idea what the outcome would be, had no say in any part of the story. They're just doing their job. They did a good job. The sets are great, the figures are great. The animation itself can be a bit choppy at times, but overall was well done. None of them deserve to follow someone with such a starry excuse for an idea. I'm just laughing because, like, none of us thought this was a big break. It's really good. Nobody, nobody felt that way.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:15

So yeah, just very, very rare for people to be like, this is gonna be the thing. Like a lot of people, if it's not working, people know it at the time. And sometimes it's like, this is the job, this is a paycheck, this is a means to an end. What can I learn from this? What can I take away from this project? And then there's other projects where you're like, I really believe in this, this is something that's gonna be something great, and I know it. And um, those are rare. Yeah. Like I think Marcel the Shell with Shoes On was probably one of the one of the projects that I've worked on that while I was in it, I was like, this is going to be great, and this is going to be important, and I'm really proud to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:59

Yeah, 100%. Sometimes the projects that you know are gonna be really strong, like I like the Cinderbiter one, I was really new to features, so I couldn't really tell. Like the work looked amazing, so I was like, maybe this will be amazing, but at the same time, it was a mess. So I'm like, this feels weird. Uh, but uh a lot of the projects, like you were saying earlier, I mean, that are under the radar. There's nobody who's like, this is gonna make or break the studio. Like, those are the ones that turn out the best, and the crews are the best, and the the experience is the best because no the expectations are not that we're gonna alter the universe with this project, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:39

I've had someone when they tried to, when they were hiring me, try to like do a lower salary because they're like, but it's gonna be a classic, it's gonna be a Christmas classic. Like, and it's like you don't you can't say that, you don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:51

And so I'm not gonna take a paycheck because you think it's gonna be like Rudolph, it's gonna be a classic, like these seven other stop motions uh Christmas specials I've worked on in the last career.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:02

Number of times I've heard that too. I was told once we were doing a series. This was not preschool per se, but just kind of above preschool. And but they all the stories were based on uh classic literature, and they they gave that line. I'm like, so the Count of Monte Cristo animate is going to be a classic for these six-year-olds. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:26

Oh man, well, I could keep chatting for a long time. I know uh there's just so much to cover. I know there's a lot that I I wish we could uh chat about. Maybe we'll do uh episode uh two with you guys. But um, I wanted to thank you guys so much for for coming on. I really, this was such a personal pleasure for me. So thank you, Eileen. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:50

Yeah, thanks for having us. I'm all like I've been laughing, sorry, I've been crying. So that's fun. Her mascara is running.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:57

Yeah, that's how you know that's how you know video.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:00

It's just audio, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:02

I want to say thank you as well. Like you're both great guests. We'd love to have you back and continue the conversation, but it truly was amazing today.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:10

Oh, thank you so much. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:15

The Animation Career Community podcast is created and hosted by Kathy McDonald and John Lee. Music by Mike Romaniac, fixing and editing by Kathy McDonald, and produced by Kyrie Kimball.