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Is it just me or is it harder to "make it" for cartoonists and animators these days?

Jamesmac

I've been watching a lot of documentaries about animated films and comic books lately and one thing I've noticed is that for so many talented people back then, all they had to do was prove they could draw and some big studio executive or someone would notice them and be like "hey, wanna come work on this thing we've got?". It used to be so easy, all you had to do was show some people you could draw and they'd be thrilled for you to join them.

And yet these days, it seems none of the major studios and companies are looking for new, fresh talent anymore. Nowadays it seems all the aspiring artists are forced to go indie all while the old heavy hitters are also leaving the big studios to go indie too... are TV and theatre animation and the big comic book publishers just letting themselves die or something? The rise of AI is also taking valuable opportunities away from talented human artists too, as well.

It's kinda depressing really. Indie works are rising up and being recognised, but at what cost?

Parents

  • Yeah creative industries are hit hard at the moment, ai is one of the reasons, but there was a down turn anyway as companies were all investor led now, who want the guaranteed quick buck over new and interesting (I mean look at ocarina being released yet again on switch 2 rather than even any other Zelda title).

    I read a really depressing article by the studio that makes the kids show Pokoyo. They were crowing how they had developed their own ai program that was fed with thousands of shots made my animators and could generate storyboards and base animation that only needed one animator to clean up. They were saying how great it was that they had 'cut productuon costs'. But in real human terms, that meant employing only 1 animator to the previous 3. So you work really hard to make something creative and then get rewarded by being replaced by a computer so the company could make more money. 

    The job market in the games industry is really depressing currently, especially with all these uni courses churning out kids to an industry that's really hard to get a job unless you take an unpaid internship. 

    I imagine it's a similar situation for cartoonists, with ai, studios need less workers to generate ideas and churn. A lot of people go indie just to make something new as old studios only want the same thing they did last year. 

    It is hard, but I think there's always hope where there is human creativity to do something new and exciting.

    Until there is some sort of agreement to stop trying to get ai to do fun creative things, all creative industries are going to keep shrinking and stagnate. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be anytime soon.

  • in reply to Cinnabar_wing

    Oof, that hits me hard. I used to watch Pocoyo аs a child, so hearing that the company behind it has gone this direction makes me feel almost like I've had the rug pulled out from under me!

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