Thread 151055117

>Had to leave LA after decades in animation
Are things really that bad in the industry right now?

housing prices are probably really bad in LA right now.

>>151055117 (OP)
He had to sell his shit to pay his rent

>>151055117 (OP)
Professionals and senior cartoonists can't find work, that's how you know its really bad for an industry

>>151055117 (OP)
Industry vets are resorting to begging indie studios for work

>>151055214
Max was a showrunner. This autist was essentially an errand boy in comparison.

>>151055117 (OP)
Just spend a few minutes on linkedin, that will tell you everything

>>151055232
I'd rather not

>>151055223
>Helped develop and forge Fairly Oddparents
>Errand boy

>>151055117 (OP)
KWAB

>>151055256
>believing his autistic delusions

>>151055232
>>151055248

>>151055137
A man in his 50s was renting?

>>151055465
>It's cuckifornia
>Showrunners don't make as much as you think unless they're ruinning decades long series
>B&M has been off the air for nearly 20 years

>>151055409
who

Where's he going anyways?
I don't think Maxwell fucking Atoms would be able to make non-LA animation marketable but it would be nice

>>151055117 (OP)
I gave him money for Dead Meat and then he went and made an illegal film so no one can ever see it. Thanks.

>>151055117 (OP)
>>151055214
>>151055409
>Animators who lived a life better than ramen and a studio apartment are now coming to terms with the face that the ride is over.
Welcome to the modern industry, best be getting on that commission grind and perhaps in a few years you will of built up enough of a warchest to make an indie pilot.
At least they have the chance to pivot if whiling to accept the loss of comfort, their contemporaries with the same trajectory from the 80s and 90s were left out in the cold by the 2010s with no way to keep at it.

>>151055505
Atoms was at his height 20 years ago when houses were still affordable. It sounds like poor finances to me.

>>151055505
>>151055566
Atoms also had two issues.
First was that he was one of the first big animation industry names to go indie with Dead Meat back in the Kickstarter days, he burned all his money on it and if it succeeded would of been the first big marketer for the potential of industry vets to be able to go indie.
Instead he used a mix of union and non-union workers with subsequently made the film illegal and sunk the project.
Second he refused for the longest time to showrun reboots stating that it would be disgracing the original creators work...in an industry where the common path for a showrunner coming of their big Original Hit is to coast for a while working on show reboots.
While its admirable principles, the man had to be on the brink of starvation to accept directing a dvd Scooby-Doo Movie.
Because of theses factors Atoms is uniquely fucked in contrast to the rest of the industry.

>>151055465
People in their 60s and 70s are paying rent
fuck you on about

>>151055132
Nah they aint, mind you they have been shit for years but Im just saying there hasnt been a significant spike in LA specifically within the past year. However with the way the jobs drying up in general it just exacerbates the problem, and for animators that rings especially true.

>>151055409
Uppity pencil monkeys should have kept there heads down, enjoy starving to death stalker child

>Recently got married
>Decided to move out of LA
Is he planning to start a family? He's 50 years old so he doesn't have any time to wait

>>151055774
>made the film illegal
what?

>>151055117 (OP)
Very much so
>Got laid off, have been applying to non-art jobs with no call backs. Soon to be homeless. Considering the rope

>>151056549
It has to do with SAG-AFTRA, they have a clause where you will get into deep shit and kicked out if a union member works on a non-union project.
So its not illegal in the "go to jail" sense but its illegal in the "Everyone involved is Blacklisted from Hollywood" sense. and this was early enough on that the idea of going full indie was still untested and so the safe play was to cancel the film and eat the loss...
Or it would of been if not for Max being unwilling to find more work.

I can't think of a single nice thing to say about the current state of western animation.

>>151056550
Just bite the bullet and start doing furry commissions

>>151056550
If it makes you feel any better, the "real" job market isn't faring much better. Fuck jeets

>>151057005
>furry commissions
WHERE THE HELL DO THESE FURRIES GET THEIR MONEY FROM I WANT THEIR JOBS

>>151057072
Furries Commissioners come in two main flavors
Terminally Online STEMlords
Disabled NEETS
The STEMlords have cash to burn, and the NEETS live off Social Security and burn their monthly budget on art commissions due to poor impulse control.

>>151055137
See this is where he loses me. How the fuck do live out there for three decades, have a successful show and not own a place?

>>151055223
He FORGED The Fairly Oddparents, Invader Zim, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Chalk Zone, and Rick and a Morty.
Have some respect.

>>151057176
see >>151055774
Peak Starving artist behavior

>>151057176
being an irresponsible fucktard with money is part of california culture. also real estate in that area is fucked beyond belief

The country as a whole is fucked.

>>151057153
>studied stem
>but stupid
>didn't get to have furry commissioner amount of money

:(

>>151055409
>Reads post
> Genuinely feel bad
>Look em up
>They made High guardian spice
>Doesnt feel bad anymore

>>151055117 (OP)
>LA
Things are THAT bad in that shitehole

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WkJw1NsFBI
>please give me money so I can
>go on tinder dates and buy girls expensive things
>go to an expensive therapist
>go on vacation
>buy a gym membership
>buy new clothes
>travel
>buy a new pc so i can watch movies in 4k
>oh and also draw i guess
Animators deserve this recession. You'll get a fucking factory job and you'll like it, boy.

>>151056006
Stfu, white collar cunt

>>151058024
You first

>>151058024
at least he's being honest

>>151056995
Now none of the SAG talents are getting work because the industry is aware of their monopolization of projects, and to them it's not worth working with a group that always wants absolute control

>>151055214
>tweet application
What's the point of this. Social uproar when he doesn't get hired? Should have kept this cringe private.

>>151057182
>and Rick and a Morty

Let him rot.

>>151058290
Salty, I see

>>151058163
I agree! Honesty is the best policy.
So, how much money are you gonna send him? We have to keep indie animation alive, anon! Don't let our animation hero down...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHY DIDNT I LISTEN TO MY DAD AND JUST MADE ART A HOBBY AAAAAAAAA WHY DID I GO TO SCHOOL FOR THIS REEEEEEEEE IT BURNS

>>151058450
At least it's a self-fulfilling skill. Most of the young guys in my family fell for some meme trade, and now they're working wagie jobs

>>151055866
>there hasnt been a significant spike in LA specifically within the past year
Because it's already terrible.

>>151057072
As far as I can tell, at least a third of them are electricians.

>>151057285
honestly, the sheer whiplash between how by-the-numbers the show is and how much vitriol it spawned because the creators were a bunch of retards who thought that just because women worked on a show it was worth watching instead of, you know, selling the damn premise is kinda funny by itself.

i wouldn't hire someone that thinks this is a perfectly fine way to promote a show either

>>151055117 (OP)
>Are things really that bad in the industry right now?
They are. They really, really are.

>>151055117 (OP)
So what is he going to do now? I just hope that he is alright.

>>151058465
B-but /pol/ told me that trades are secure jobs!

>>151056995
You change your name and work as a scab, this happens quite a bit. That's the other reason actors have to have unique stage names, in a sense SAG owns them. If your SAG name appears in the credits it literally means you were paid union rates. Remember when that Blender cartoon of Scooby-Doo in Rankin-Bass style was redubbed because of the AI voices? One of them is Grey Delisle (not Daphne) but all the voice credits are pseudonyms.

>>151056995
It gets you kicked out of the union with a total loss of the healthcare plan. But they do have a lot of rules against union members working on non-union projects.

>>151057072
1. Technical jobs
2. Rarely married, never children
That means a shitload of cash

>>151061110
I lived in Wilmington NC for a decade, in a right-to-work state full of nonunion film/tv jobs, and the productions there were and remain mixed. Don't lecture us on how you think the world works.

>>151058450
How do anons expect shows to be made if everyone only does art as a hobby?

>>151061726
Well they certainly aren't getting made when thousands chose that as their career choice lmao

>>151061199
I'm talking about LA, the place with the animation guild having the most authority.

NO ONE can give a fuck about Wilmington NC, or cares that it even exists.

>>151061726
Nobody wants shows made. They just want the industry to die so they can grift on getting video games to end next.

>>151061852
based

>>151055117 (OP)
I think so, right.

>>151055117 (OP)
The biggest problem with the industry is that they won't greenlight anything that doesn't look like this:

>>151063637
I hate Doobus and Gus I want to see them brutalized

>>151055117 (OP)
There was a video posted in another thread of a dude with 20+ years of experience saying how he had to leave the industry. I tried to watch the video, but got only forty seconds in before he said, "We need to not use toxic positivity right now". I closed out the video and didn't want to hear what the guy said, because I knew that no matter what excuses he threw at me, I could tell so much of the industry's problems is because dumb Californians instilled their retarded values into cartoons and made them worthless to everyone else.

>>151055214
Why didn't he just email them?

>>151063808
I'm going to assume that guy thinks being told not to rely on big studios to fun your cartoons is toxic positivity. God, western animation has a co-dependency problem.

>>151063947
The opposite actually
He says that animators need to start their own YouTube or social pages, sell merch and work non art jobs

>>151063947
Something along the lines of what he said before I turned the video off was, "Now is not the time to tell everyone it'll be okay or that things will get better. There's nothing useful about that kind of toxic positivity and not helping anyone right now".

Have no idea what he said after that.
https://youtu.be/qusKXjwidww?si=e_Bv2chiSCEhFCKB

I found it in my history, so anyone else is free to tell me and sum it up.

>>151064014
A bit of a surprise, have a friend in the industry who gets pissed at the mention of not relying on pitching to disney/nick/whoever and says its impossible

>>151064030
>else is free to tell me and sum it up
AI can sum up youtube videos for you if you want.

>>151064041
Yea, dude in the video flat out says "you'll never pitch again"
He's completely right throughout the video even if he talks a little faggy. Problem is that he's nearly a decade too late to the party

>>151055117 (OP)
Animation isn't IN LA anymore
Remember how capeshit comics were IN NYC for a long fucking while and then it wasnt?

>>151056006
Cringe

>>151063808
>>151064014
>>>151063947
You're talking about Steven Silver. Industry vet that got his start on the Clerks cartoon and was a character designer at Disney for little over a decade, and then he was the main talent recruiter. for TV animation.

He used to make inspirational videos and post them on Linkedin 2-3 times a week. Around 2023 he started trying to tell everyone that lulls always happen, not to worry, things will get better, just try to wait it out etc.

In early 2025 he was not so positive any longer, he was getting kind of angry in a lot of the videos. By summer he was telling people to go indy, stop waiting to be hired by a big studio. Last August he announced he left LA and took a teaching JOB at SCAD in Georgia.

I really feel bad for all the teenagers who got scammed into thinking expensive art school would help them get their foot through the door in a competitive field only to see that the industry collapsed the moment they graduated. At least when I graduated, I was able to have a few years of working on storyboards for random bullshit nobody cared about until jobs dried up. Not even being able to get ANY job experience, not even a couple of months in a studio, must be fucking bleak.

>>151064887
he broke

>All these artfags talking about killing themselves because no job
Have you guys thought about getting into trades and construction work?

>>151065483
I fell for the construction meme
Never again

>>151065483
"just learn to code bro and you'll be set for life"

>>151055117 (OP)
Yes but he also run out of good ideas.

>>151063660
rude

>>151058409
$0.00001206

>>151065483
He’s the thing. If you are still working a trade job by the time you are 30, you failed.
Real tradesmen have graduated to having subcontractors and apprentices do the work for them by then.

>>151055117 (OP)
>Had to leave LA
Be happy for him, this alone will improve his life substantially.

>>151066178
Why are you assuming that? Underfist actually got greenlit, but then got cancelled due to the recession and the new CEO wanting to focus on live action.

>>151066666
Those are some grim quints...

>>151066666
digits don't lie

>>151055214
Christ
would laugh if it weren't so fucking pathetic

>>151055117 (OP)
why are people here so obsessed about gossipping

>>151067421
Cartoons aren't good anymore, so all we do is tear each other down. We're all mean little girls, deep down inside..

>>151055866
just so we're clear, is this regarding renting prices or buying prices?

cuz' i bought a house recently so

>>151058139
Gtfo, dogwhistle pussy

>>151067421
There are barely any new cartoons coming out what do you want us to do?

>>151067499
Kys

>>151064986
I only got low level gigs for various Adult Swim and Scifi Channel shows. Nothing amazing. Almost got in on a couple bigger productions but none of them worked out. And yeah, it sucks for everyone graduating around 2021 and after, they are not going to get shit and eventually have to give up that dream and do something completely different.

>>151068277
you first

>>151065483
>>151066150
>>151066638
Construction is also not something you can just start doing later in life.
It's back breaking labor that ruins you until you gain some kind of permanent injury, and normally by 30 you are a supervisor so you don't have to do as much physical labor. And you are behind a desk by 40.

Anyone over 30 cannot really start out because you cannot do the work, and everyone in charge knows goddamn well you cannot do the work no matter how much you think you can. you are just going to be slow and uncoordinated. Which may slow down the schedule, cause a major injury, or hurt someone else.

>>151055117 (OP)
nah it's LA that's bad, they should all move to Canada where lots of the work is being outsourced to

>>151055214
>industry vets
This fag did one or two storyboards for FOP saying he's this big deal is like Lauren Zuke saying she was the best

>>151055547
ouch

>>151058465
Damn really? I know college is bullshit but trades as well? It seems like theres nothing a man can do nowadays to get ahead unless they know people, are a trust fund kid or just get really fucking lucky.

>>151067421
>le cartoon gossip
that's like a third of what /co/ talks about

>>151057176
We don’t really know where Max is coming from. It could be that he supports his family monetarily, has made shit investments or gambling. But even then, the wages for union workers has not changed significantly in decades. So if he was working in the late 90’s into the 10’s as a director, he should have been making 100k + a year and could have theoretically bought a house before the big price hike. You have to be pretty fucking awful adult not to consider covering a home within that period.

>>151061105
You do realize that Grey pretty much bullied that guy into having her on right?

>>151070708
He didn't direct that many Billy and Mandy episodes, if any.

>>151055117 (OP)
Poor fucker.

>>151058024
>go to an expensive therapist
why?

>>151057005
Not yanks though. Slavs and latinx pull the extra mile to make you happy.
>pay third worlder a hundred bucks for a drawing, get two awesome drawings, a sheet of doodles and a christmas postcard, always a pleasure to deal with you masta
>pay american a hundred bucks for a drawing and he ghosts you
Slav usually better at general furfaggotry.
Latinx make accurate copies of modern american cartoons.
Both gladly do any fetish you have.

>>151055774
>Instead he used a mix of union and non-union workers with subsequently made the film illegal and sunk the project.

He should have just finished and dumped it online then gone out for more funding on future projects. If your going Indie go fucking indie man fuck the Unions they are a racket.

>>151058024
>Factory job
Those are going away too

>>151072888
them robots came along, and now there is no job for me...