Forum - View topicWhy Affordable Housing for Animators Matters (and What You Can Do to Help)
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MarshalBanana
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It is a shame that it has taken almost 50 years for something like this to be setup.
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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Eliminating production committees is only one step towards livable wages for animators, business models have to change as well (instead of the disc model, it should be a streaming and merchandise model).
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Ashtur
Posts: 15 |
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I find the idea both interesting and troubling.
The interesting bit is the cross-pollination that can go on in that kind of environment. Having spent way too many years in dorms (entirely different field of study, but 3 years of that were all people studying the same degree in the same field), I can easily imagine the ability of people to bounce things off of one another. In fact, it almost becomes natural for ordinary chitchat to move away from the weather and last night's sports scores to "talking shop" and that kind of fermentation can be a very good thing. The troubling? That's rather harder. A move like making this dorm is in effect to accept the status quo: "Low level animators are going to make diddly, and if they're lucky, get a raise to squat in a few years, so let's make the best of it and try to help them out." In very real terms, it does help those people who are chasing their dreams, and are sharing their talent and creativity with us, and that's all to the good. On the other hand, it's clear that there are things deep within the system that need to change, and that change needs to be something other than "hire this work out to cheaper labor in poorer nations." A previous poster mentioned getting rid of the committee system, and maybe that would be part of the answer, or maybe not. I'm not in a position to really judge business models in another nation. A bit out of my depth (as much so as me trying to draw a single frame of anything, quite frankly.) In the end though, the system needs to change in 2 ways 1) More money needs to get to the studios 2) That extra money needs to go to the entry level workers, not just the bosses' bank account. That's easily said, but not so easily done. We hear of studios imploding, going bankrupt and the like all the time, so it's clear that the business is already fairly marginal, and that's why deep seated changes involving "getting money to the studios" needs to be the starting point. |
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gorilla491
Posts: 71 |
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It's sad seeing musicians and artists being abused by production companies. Things like this need to spread a bit, consumers need to pay up as well. The streaming model is extremely affordable.
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DmonHiro
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That would be horrible for us consumers and for business. The only way that would work is if there were some sort of special streaming that would be to the regular streaming what BD is to TV. There are people who only want to buy phisical items and will not touch streaming-only. And those people, while not that many, provide a lot of money: the colectors. |
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Desa
 Posts: 285 |
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Most animation in Japan is basically slave-labor. If you think higher profits from streaming subscriptions or disc sales will somehow trickle down to these overworked animators, reality has a cruel wake-up call for you. You think most artists get a fair cut from Spotify or iTunes? Fat chance! And this is when you deal with your own licenses. Animators don't own their work, they have no leverage.
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Kikimani
 Posts: 23 |
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....
On one hand, I'm happy for the animators who get a chance to live somewhere cheap and decent. On the other hand, it eases the pressure on those who have the responsibility to provide their employees a living wage. Everyone seems to know what's wrong--what's being done, besides depending on fans' good will, to actually make change? I'm aware it's more of a nationwide issue in Japan. Are any animators or studio heads a part of any of those initiatives? Is there any effort made to focus fans' energies in that direction rather than indiegogo? I guess I'll have to research that myself. |
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Unicorn_Blade
 Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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It was a sad read really. To think that you can slave away each week working full time (or what seems to be more like a double full time), and not even be able to pay their rent. And work in an industry so popular at the end of the day.
Kind of makes me think of companies that hire people for unpaid 'internships' for a year or so, just to have free staff, in return for job experience. You do the work, and yet hardly get anything out of it. Great to see such projects happen, a bit upsetting that there is even need for them- in this or any other field. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6902 Location: Kazune City |
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Maybe initiatives like this will convince the "I pirate anime in solidarity with exploited animators, because only my favorite bootleg streaming sites are allowed to profit from anime production" crowd to open their wallets. After all, it's the opportunity they've always dreamed of, to help support studio staff directly. But then again, maybe they just want free stuff, and look for vaguely-progressive-sounding reasons to justify their actions.
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Desa
Posts: 285 |
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Copyright infringement has nothing to do with this. The slave labor that manufactures the goods which stock Wal-Mart's shelves are being paid pennies for a day's worth of hard labor even though the goods they make can't be digitally "pirated". As I said in my post above, it does not matter how many subscribers Crunchyroll has. It does not matter how many DVDs and BDs are sold. Wages remain next to nothing because the system runs on cheap labor, not because those at the very top aren't making enough millions. Money has never, and will never, "trickle down". It is a delusion. You think an executive somewhere will one day go "Okay, profits are high enough now, we'll start paying our workers a fair wage"? That is simply not how the system works. This current situation we're in did not come about by "accident". It was designed this way. It is the nature of exploitation. |
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2624 Location: Germany |
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Animators who have already "found success" in the anime industry shouldn´t even know what a dormitory is. Yet here we are. Last edited by residentgrigo on Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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That's already happening. Don't worry.
They are already directly acting against this, as is stated in the article. They can only do so much, but there are active attempts by the people involved in this project as well as others all throughout the industry to escape the Production Committee system. Having a bandaid to help people as the transition occurs is only a positive. |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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This isn't really a problem just affecting animators in Japan. As a former art student, these sorts of dormitories are all over the US with artists living in slum apartments, working while supporting each other. That big fire in San Francisco last year was one such community where artists were trying to stay in the area but couldn't afford the rising costs of apartments in the area.
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MarshalBanana
Posts: 5527 |
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I fail to see how getting rid of the production committees is going to do any good. Where will the money to make it come? If different companies are not chipping how are the studios supposed to fund the anime and get it distributed?
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1772 |
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I was disappointed that there's no comment section on the Indiegogo link. Really wanted to know if I could just donate to the $150 tier as Jun was talking about having a dinner at Animazement next year and I could most likely make that. Really have no use for the books or anything else other than trudging that back to AZ next year.
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