The Cure - Hanging Garden (Pornography)

people think i’m joking when i say we need to stop california’s dominance of animation. it’s a problem.

the key to major success lately seems to be: be born in california or nearby, go to calarts, get into the industry. other options come when you can afford to move to california. the industry is VERY quiet in every other part of the country. i live in new york city, possibly the most famous city in the country, and there is next to no work to be found here. yeah there are outliers like Natasha Allegri and Rebecca Sugar, but the majority are from CA.

Pen Ward? CalArts. Craig McCracken? CalArts. Alex Hirsch? CalArts. Lauren Faust? CalArts. Thurop van Orman. Patrick McHale. Paul Rudish. Chris Buck. Aaron Springer. Butch Hartmann. John Lasseter. Jorge Gutierrez. Pete Browngardt. Arlene Klasky. Genndy Tartakovsy. Rob Renzetti. Tim Burton. JG Quintel.

ALL Calarts alumni.

To make a further point: just about EVERY SINGLE ORIGINAL SHOW running on Cartoon Network right now has a CalArts alum as the showrunner, the only exceptions being Steven Universe and Gumball. Now you might be asking: why’s this a problem?? these people are brilliant. they make great shows, they’re creative geniuses. and i agree. and that’s part of the problem.

we got to see their work out of sheer luck. the luck that they could be born in california OR uproot themselves to move there, that they could afford to go to calarts, where the tuition is over 40,000 a year and growing. that they had friends who could offer them work in california.

consider all the people we’re missing out on. i haven’t even graduated yet and i’m already seeing TONS of my colleagues and peers who had starry eyed dreams of just being a PART of the animation process–doing inbetweens, storyboarding, designing characters–give up when they realized they couldnt get to california.

it is, to say the least, hard to uproot yourself and move across the country with 50,000 dollars in student loans on your back and no job that pays more than minimum wage, with no guaranteed apartment waiting for you.

the most talented animation visionary in the world could be giving up right now, because they were born in pennsylvania and their household makes less than 40,000 a year. CalArts is not the problem. But the fact that CalArts seems to be the ONLY school you can hope to go to make it–and every other option being outliers or exceptions—is a BIG problem. we’re losing tons of potential talent like this and its an issue. the industry needs to branch out, it needs to learn to accomodate people who dont live in LA.

this probably sounds whiny, but i’m tired of seeing amazingly talented people with brilliant ideas give up because they cant move away from everything they know, up to their ears in debt, hoping for the small chance of getting to draw keyframes for nickelodeon.

we need to do better tbh.

sammywhatammy

i’m going to add something a little extra terrifying to this, because i agree entirely.

i saw that image when it was new, and i felt my dreams dying. i was VERY lucky to have not only the money but also the ambition to give up everything i knew in new jersey and move to san francisco, california - a state to which i had never before been - in order to rekindle my passion and dream of being in the animation industry with the academy of art because HAHAHA as if i could get into calarts (i told myself). and i had done that a year before this image came out.

i have no idea what makes calarts SO GOOD that its alumni dominate the animation industry, and have a significant impact on film in general (tim burton, anyone?). i know it’s “the school that disney built” and that it’s good, but i don’t know why. and it’s so unfair. i know and see talented and hard working people in the art school i attended in the past, the art school i attend now, and the people i follow and admire online.

can you make it as a freelancer working remotely from wherever you are? sure. is it even more difficult? yes. companies are going to hire someone who can work there in person, eliminating a lot of the hurdles that would be extra to keep up with someone working from who knows how far away. and what do you have to offer that someone in person doesn’t? you have to be super special to make them willing to accommodate that.

something needs to change. i don’t know what, but. calarts is not the only art school of merit out there.

fervidusinspo

When I interned at the network of cartoons I had the pleasure of meeting a few showrunners, one of which was creating season one of AT, so it was a pretty big deal for me at the time. Now, I barely got this internship, I applied for art but wound up in the recording studio, which was a magnificently squandered experience that is a different story. basically, showrunners had higher priorities than chatting with me, but my ‘manager’ of sorts arranged for me to talk to a couple of them.

I was a wreck in every way back then, so when I met Penn I was nervous as hell. He was super nice though!! Asked me about my background, where did I go to school again? CalArts?

I told him no, I went to LCAD. ‘Never heard of it.’ And that was the end of the conversation. It was like I was invisible. I have never experienced anything like that before.

I’m not saying this was a universal experience amongst the interns. Quite a few of us came from different schools, and two others besides me were from LCAD as well. And another showrunner I met (a lovely person finishing up Flapjack) was kinder to me than I think I even deserved. I’ll never forget that experience.

But I’m gonna have to agree that there’s a really fucked up attitude going around about the exclusive merit of CalArts alumni.

missveryvery

Here’s that thing I was talking about how CalArts dominates the animation industry.

plaidventurer-blog reblogged

jheselbraum

insomniac-arrest

types of writers

The Lore-ist

has detailed if not meticulous notes on the universe they’ve created, down to the food eaten and language quirks, they use mythos and setting to bring it all together
most of the character’s backstories are already loving laid out, though may not be all connected yet.
Has yet to write a full chapter. (But they’re getting there!)

The Bae

Story is centered around a complex and engaging OC that they’ve spent years developing
said OC has been through A Lot, the love is real, so is the pain
OC may sort of be a loser? ie the story is a character-driven piece where the plot is moved ahead by said character’s bad decisions and questionable habits

The Researcher

akin to the lore-ist but spends more of their time on wikipedia articles jotting down notes and things like how much a watermelon weighs
Everything from knowing Too Much about child-care to how a body decomposes or flapper chest-binding is on the table, their breadth is large and Should Be Feared
takes a long time to start but make the most of their words, from spot-on sci-fi to history to murder, readers will learn something on the way

The Lemon Flavored Factory

alright take it back now y’all, this writer has written enough smut to make a tom cat blush, they can write other things too, and often well, but there will inevitably be bed-rattling at some point (or car or shower)
either unusually creative or just sticks to classics like Aliens Made Them Do It, neither is necessarily bad but there is oddly little in between
their author’s notes tend to be hilarious or at least very self-aware

The Word Vomit Canoe

action oriented writer who spews out the words before they know what is happening, no plans, no outlines, 10k of the first thing that comes to mind, sometimes things like ‘maybe dragons?’ & they go with it
their strengths are productivity, weaknesses are not knowing what the hell is going on
style is marked by fast-paced tone and downright impressive word count

The Muse

their inspiration doesn’t come as often, but they are always listening for her & redy 2 go
update schedule is…sporadic at best, but makes up for it with long chapters and clean editing
Will write 30 pages in a day and then take a few months off, enjoys one-shots but can do longer works
doesn’t have the best sense of time and when they are in The Zone may forget to eat or shower

plaidventurer-blog reblogged

jheselbraum

nintenderoo

girls don’t want flowers, girls want pockets big enough to hold their 3ds

plaidventurer-blog reblogged

So on Downton Abbey:

Realistic: Spratt being a fucking agony aunt in Edith’s newspaper

Unrealistic: Thomas finding love, gay relationships in general apparently

plaidventurer-blog reblogged

cotton--headed-ninny--muggins

“Did you just do the yawn thing?”

“Yeah… it was in character”

plaidventurer-blog reblogged

LUCIFER IS LITERALLY JUST LIKE “FUCK THIS SHIT IM OUT”

plaidventurer-blog reblogged

clumsy-cas

It’s bad enough when you don’t realize your friend got a new haircut/shirt or something but not noticing your friend is possessed by satan…thats just not good guys

plaidventurer-blog reblogged

sarahjtv

You know who Dean loves? Sammy and Cas and Bobby and all his old friends.

plaidventurer-blog reblogged

fangirlingtodeath513

Dear Supernatural Writers,

Please stop trying to shove Dean and Amara together. A majority of the fandom isn’t going for it and complain about it on a daily basis. And a lot of us don’t want to keep watching because it disgusts us. It’s gross. We don’t want it, Dean doesn’t want it. No one wants it. Let it go.