The Sonic Redesign: Why Hollywood's VFX Industry Blows

[@LackingSaint]

Thanks so much for watching, folks! I realise I'm sort of jumping into a topic that's already been discussed to death over the last two weeks, but I hopefully have a COOL NUANCED TAKE you all get something out of. Once again, if you like the video, spreading it around on social media would be much appreciated - other than that, I can''t wait to read all your comments on this issue. Have a wonderful week! PATREON: www.patreon.com/jacksaint KO-FI: ko-fi.com/lackingsaint TWITTER: twitter.com/LackingSaint TWITCH: www.twitch.tv/lacksaint

[@barrymchugh667]

This was really good. I had a feeling about the changes in the back of my head but couldn't articulate it.

[@michaelpalin8953]

Video at 1:10?

[@melfmellow6345]

In the case of the Sonic movie, wouldn’t they mostly just be changing the models? I don’t have any experience in 3D animation, so I am not sure if changing the model would severely affect the animation itself. Sorry if this is a bothersome question, I am just quite curious to see if it may end up not being hard on the animators. As a last note, I’m glad you’re bringing up the plight of all of these animation and visual effect studios. I hope that there’s something we can do to change how they are treated.

[@____uncompetative]

Did they purposefully get Sonic's design wrong? When you have hyper critical fans of a 30+ year franchise it makes psychological sense to show everyone horrifying shit so that the revised design is warmly welcomed and the creatives are applauded for "listening to the fans" - a step that would have been more efficient and yield a better quality result if it had been done earlier. If I was running a VFX studio I wouldn't have touched Sonic with a bargepole. Even if they had started with a halfway decent design there would have been the usual NeoGAF / Reddit / Twitter unbridled rage. It would almost have worked to adopt this same strategy with live action movies and follow _Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi_ with _Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi_ or even just start the trilogy over again from scratch. Fans would be happy to see every _Star Wars_ movie that got put out. Scenes could be recycled and reordered. Rey could be trained before killing Kylo Ren in _Episode IX._ J.J.Abrams could yet rescue the trilogy from utter failure, but it can't escape being a mess. He can have an extended flashback and reveal a mysterious woman with long red hair ride across a desert where she arrives at nightfall at an encampment of tents and enters one where she meets a deaged Luke. This will be Mara Jade, Luke's wife from the novels and she is there to tell him that she has sensed she is pregnant with their child. However, before she has the chance to do so she notices how troubled Luke seems and asks him what the matter is. He says how he had a vision of the final battle between the Rebellion and the Empire, and that they were coming here. Luke convinces her to leave Jakku and stay with his sister in the Royal palace on Naboo. We then see a large space battle in orbit over the desert world. Then we see Luke stride across the surface and reach out with both arms and use the Force to pull a couple of Star Destroyers out of orbit, into the dunes. Stormtroopers run out of the wrecks, and he ignites his green lightsaber and wades into the infantry as Rebel troop carriers land their own infantry for an epic ground battle in and around these huge wrecked ships. Mara Jade isn't safe on Naboo and is nearly assassinated. She flees and starts to lead a nomadic existence, moving from planet to planet, and not staying anywhere for long. Luke looks for her as he arranged on Naboo but she left without saying where she was going so she could shake the assassins following her. Luke feels he has lost his wife and meditates in hopes of sensing where she is, but by the time he goes to where she is, she has already left. In a month of respite Mara has her child and names it Rey. She continues to evade her pursuers and trains Rey in the use of Force Persuasion when she naturally manifests telekinetic abilities as a young child. Years have passed since the Empire was defeated at the Battle of Jakku, but a new threat has arised in the form of Darth Sidious' original apprentice: Supreme Leader Snoke who he sent to the uncharted Unknown Regions to oversee preparations for the conquest of the galaxy should his plans to be elected Chancellor and then appointed Emperor in time of war not work out for some reason. Sidious would rather not annihilate Coruscant with Starkiller Base, but he needs to get his apprentice Snoke to make all preparations so he has the option should his diplomatic machinations fail. Vader knows nothing about Snoke's existence, nor Snoke about Vader, so the "Rule of Two" is bent rather than broken by Sidious as he knows that his apprentices won't team up to usurp his rule. Mara realises that Snoke wants to corrupt Rey to the Dark Side and Snoke wants Mara dead. Ultimately, Mara feels that the only way to thwart the threat is for her to abandon Rey on Jakku so she can let the assassins catch her up and then kill them herself without worrying Rey could get hurt or abducted. To this end Mara uses her Force Abilities to implant false memories into Rey's mind that she was sold off for drinking money by a couple of nobodies who are now buried in the Jakku desert, after first wiping her memory of her mother up until she was given to Unkar Plutt to look after, who sent her to scavenge, repair and test flight busted up space craft in his junkyard to then sell at Takodana for food rations to then import back to their arid world. Everything Rey thinks about family who will someday return for her is a mad delusion she has created to cushion herself from the psychological trauma of the false memory implanted to protect her. Her thought that she has a family who will someday return is based on a shred of memory of her mother's ship leaving for orbit as she is held by the arm by her new guardian, Unkar Plutt. As this same ship design is seen in the _Rise of Skywalker_ teaser trailer it could be that J.J. will reunite Rey with her mother Mara on the planet of Batuu (the location used by Disney's new _Galaxy's Edge_ theme parks, which is a shrewd bit of product placement by CEO Bob Iger). Also, the IMDB.com listing says Keri Russell is playing a character named Zorii who is seen wearing a gold helmet that not only obscures her face but her head and neck. If a character was going to and from a closed set with long dark red hair, a disguise would be a smart idea. So, I think Disney just aren't crediting Keri as being Mara Jade, because if they did that all the fans would conclude that Keri would play the wife of a deaged Luke in a flashback, then jump to the conclusion that Rey was a Skywalker and she was the subject of the subtitle. It literally means nobody no-name gets to rise and take the best surname going in _Star Wars._ Had Mara not wiped Rey's mind and implanted those false memories then Kylo would have realised she was Luke's daughter when he probed her mind in _The Force Awakens,_ and Snoke would have done so too in _The Last Jedi_ with devastating consequences, turning her to the Dark Side and probably making her his new apprentice as she would be stronger with the Force than Kylo Ren as well as naive and pliable to his corrupting will. This means that the scene from _Episode VIII_ where Kylo tells Rey that she is a nobody (which a lot of people hate), would gain extra layers of meaning on a subsequent rewatching. J.J. doesn't have to do a 180 and simply say Kylo lied. Indeed, it wouldn't make sense for him to do so as Rey tearfully agrees to the "truth" Kylo gets her to admit to. The fact it is an implanted truth she has denied and repressed but which he is helping her to confront doesn't mean it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Some might find this FIX exasperating but it is about the only way to tie up the story satisfactorily after presenting everything ass-backwards. _VIII_ had to have flashbacks to fix the faults of _VII_ and _IX_ will likely need a longer flashback to fill in essential world building left out of _VII_ because J.J. had to have his damned Mystery Boxes. It is possible to FIX _IX._ It is even possible to rearrange the scenes of _VII_ and _VIII_ to make a new _VIII_ and _IX_ and introduce Rey in _VIII_ and have Luke hand her his green lightsaber when she arrives on Ahch-To (by reversing a recolouring scenes) and let him have several months to train her before she fights and kills Kylo after he killed Han and Finn. Sorry, Finn (there was no way it was credible that you survived fighting Kylo, it just diminishes Kylo as a threat to have him jump out of bed wet mere hours later as if he hadn't been sliced up his spine). _IX_ is where all the lightsaber battles happen. _IX_ is where a never traitorous Poe destroys the enemy super weapon. The tropes of _IV_ are then spread out across three films not all in the exact same order in _VII._ This makes their use sparing and evocatively nostalgic. I'm not seeing _IX_ but I think it has a chance of giving the audience enough pieces of the jigsaw for them to assemble a halfway decent sequel trilogy out of it. I know a lot of people still care about _Star Wars_ so I hope, for them, it isn't a complete disaster and they enjoy the conclusion.

[@lactofermentation]

@@melfmellow6345 Changing the model means they have to test, test, test again, re-render and re-composite frigging everything. That takes a ton of time and effort to do and have things not suck as a result. "Just changing the model" also isn't as easy as you think it is. They have to rebuild the rigging (skeleton) and morphs and spend time making sure the damn thing doesn't do any goofy folding things.

[@888fluffy]

They vfx team for life of pi being cut off during their oscar speech makes me so sad and angry I could cry

[@kassemir]

While I agree with you that it was very unfortunate, you gotta remember that playing the Jaws theme and cutting people's speeches off was a running gag throughout the entire show. It was a live show, so stuff like this can happen. If they'd just mentioned the VFX team earlier in the speech, it wouldn't have happened. I doubt they deliberately cut them off because of potential controversy. Though, seeing a room of industry professionals just laugh it off was a bit chilling to me as well.

[@888fluffy]

​@@kassemir I agree. I don't think they got cut off because of the potential for controversy. It's still infuriating that the pleas of desperate and exploited people were cut off for a joke. And you're right, it's very chilling to see the many overpaid actors laughing at it. it's somehow worse that controversy, it's complacency.

[@CourtneyHammett]

Same. You know a huge actor wouldn't have been stopped

[@greenhowie]

Look at the guys in the back. They can tell he's pushing it too far. Fuck Hollywood and it's fucking glitter.

[@bennycreemers]

And then people wonder why the Oscars are getting less and less live viewers when they wont even allow any live moments

[@Shammrye]

As a former vfx artist I had to quit after 7 years when the entire left side of my body lost function do to stress. I was also almost put in blood pressure meds at the age of 27. It was not unusual to work 80-100 hours a week. You don’t get days off you don’t see your family you just live there. Had coworkers die in car accidents after getting off 30 hour shifts. And before I get spammed with “that’s illegal.” It’s not. Not at all.

[@rovichi8297]

As someone who wants to go into game design / vfx, I'm having some second thoughts...

[@InfiniteAnvil]

@@rovichi8297 Yeah, run away. Go into computer programming, get a decent web development job, and use what you learn there on game design in your spare time.

[@dullicecream]

Oh my god, I'm so sorry to hear that.

[@ChrisD__]

@@rovichi8297 Yeah me, too. I want to go into either one, crunch time sounded like a great deal of adrenaline that I'd enjoy, as long as the demands aren't too overwhelming, but loosing the entire left side of your body sounds unfun...

[@maximeteppe7627]

@@InfiniteAnvil which is yet more unpaid labor sadly... I mean at least you don't have deadlines and executibve meddling, it absolutely is the best thing to do in the current state of tghings,, but any ambitious game will require either require untold amounts of lndividual labor by someone who picks up a cray number of skills... or a larger team. And larger teams are harder to coordinate as part of a spare time activity. Some smaller studios are okay in terms of worktime overall, but they are few and far between, and they're in just as much a risk of shutting down as any other studio.

[@Melissa-tw2gp]

Labor laws are disgraceful, especially in Asia and America.

[@jblue1622]

And not gonna be any change because Conservatives don’t care about people

[@ThatOneGuy7550]

And the UK*

[@kgpspyguy]

@@jblue1622 and yet well over 90% of mainstream Hollywood is massively liberal. EVERYBODYS got a horse in this race pal,

[@k.ebartlett1830]

@@kgpspyguyIdk, we communists don't like Liberals much.

[@keinname1896]

@@kgpspyguy Nah. Firstly: Nobody likes liberals. They have not much to do with the views represented here in the video or the comment section. Secondly: Most outspoken celebrities have a somewhat liberal viewpoint, yeah. But has it occured to you that "mainstream Hollywood" is not the fucking "movie industry Hollywood" where there are terrible working conditions for everybody who has not a prestigious job? Like, how can you even think that "Emma Watson is a feminist" and "there were calls for representation of women at the oscars" is a somehow legitimate respone to "labor laws are disgraceful and Hollywood is a terrible place to work". What has mainstream Hollywood even to do with anything. Dafuq pal.

[@octochan]

Somewhere, an art director is crying because they've already told the management multiple times that all the changes they asked for would lead to this, but now it's their fault everyone's going to have to redo everything because now the fans are saying the same things

[@timothymclean]

@@frankiedetori440 Maybe they'll be able to Alan-Smithee their way out of it?

[@jeshirekitenkatt1212]

This. Only someone as headass as a hollywood exec could think they know better then Sega how to design a character... Sonic is still iconic despite a slew of games from "eh, decent i guess" to "literally unplayable" in part due to the appeal of his design, and most the people who do their own redesigns keep that in mind.

[@ImperfectV01D]

And the tragic irony is that the redesign is probably going to be even _worse._ Not just because of the insane time crunch they're now under, but also because the executives likely learned exactly the wrong lesson from this backlash. No Sonic design is going to please all fans, and good art can't be focus tested like that anyway. When it comes to art, people generally don't know what they want until after they've gotten it. But now, instead of backing off and trusting the artists to develop their own unified artistic vision, the executives are probably going to double down on their design by committee approach whereby they try to create a compromise design that least upsets everybody. It'll probably end up looking super bland and uninspired and even more incongruous with the live-action realism of the rest of the movie.

[@Tea_Noire]

I sincerely hope the VFX/animation teams secretly kept all the footage with the original designs of Sonic as a backup so changing his design won't be THAT time consuming, for their sanity's sake.

[@Nublet864]

A cautionary tale of one poor aspect of a project ruining the entire thing

[@Lexi_Zone]

As someone who's worked in IT, that "it's your fault when it's not working, but when it is working you're invisible/worthless" feels very familiar. I'm sure there are differences in the details, but yeah.

[@iliketurtles2531]

Employers are like that. They see people as vending machines.

[@alexman378]

I hope I don’t come off as insensitive, but which part of It did you work for? Just out of curiosity. Also, why do you think VFX artists don’t strike like the screenwriters did a decade back? Seems to have reminded execs how important they were, pretty sure a ton of money will be at stake once VFX artists just strike.

[@z39836]

Alexander Angelus I'm guessing the businesses is just way to big right now so If a strike were to happen in a country like America, these studios could easily just outsource everything to China or some other country while the whole thing blows over

[@beanstheclown]

@@alexman378 I mean, probably cause the writer strikes got them next to nothing as companies shifted to reality TV and waited for the writers to get hungry from lack of work.

[@softestshade7813]

I don't know why on earth people ALWAYS point to the animators when they get angry about character designs. Like, the minute I saw that Sonic design I was like "ugh marketing" when a bunch of people around me looking at the same picture were like "whY w OulD anYonE dRaw tHat??1/??" It's probably not because they wanted to

[@TheLithp]

I'd say that simple, intuitive explanations appeal to people who are often either too lazy or simply haven't thought of considering an alternate explanation. "The picture is bad because the artist is bad" is an easy, neat explanation. "Marketing is flawed & people will do things they believe will make the product popular even if that belief is unsupported" is messy, & counter-intuitive.

[@im19ice3]

i don't want to imagine the existential horror induced from having to look at it for the amount of time it's required to animate it. they're the victims, the rest of us get the chance to see it only once in a lifetime and hope to forget.

[@quaesitrix881]

Really ? I never head anyone blame animators rather than deadlines and such constraints, so this whole thing baffles me. I had always assumed (and also assumed -wrongly, it seems- that everyone else would reasonably assume) that the animators just did what the direction/studio/whoever asked them to do. Just like the costumes or the props department would. If the costumes and sets look terrible, I assume that they are what the costume department was asked to do, otherwise they would have just been sent back with a "WTF that's not what I asked for ! Are you high ?!" note. Even if, somehow, the costumes & props looked terrible because the department had been left running loose without any specific direction, that would still be the fault of the direction. For example, I don't know who decided on the abominable Nilfgaardian armour for the Netflix Witcher, but I do blame the direction for either specifically requesting it, if i was their idea, or for accepting the design, if it was the costume department's idea. (Though in either case I remain baffled by the idea and by its adoption : cool and menacing black armour should be difficult to mess up so thoroughly...) Do people really think that the animators were asked "just do whatever", so that they did the job for the whole film without oversight, without the director/studio ever coming to greenlight the designs and everything ? It would be ludicrous for any department...

[@spidaxtreme]

People blame animators for character design? *_ANIMATORS_* ? Not, oh I don't know, the concept artists, the modelers, no?

[@quaesitrix881]

That is a good point, but not everyone is familiar enough with the industry to differentiate.

[@tinnagigja3723]

"Black Panther, Sausage Party, and Life of Pi" That's one weird movie night.

[@CoryMck]

One of these things is not like the other.

[@muntu1221]

@@CoryMck Yeah, Sausage Party doesn't feature big cats

[@sofia.eris.bauhaus]

let's watch the Sanic movie next!

[@ravdeepbagri1313]

Controversial opinion, but maybe artists should get paid for their work?

[@JollyJuiice]

That's what I don't get. What kind of shitty business management needs to happen for artists to NOT get paid for extra work?

[@SebiHemke]

wow are you saying Hollywood shouldn't treat animators like slaves? .... yeah I don't get it

[@thommunism1656]

Sorry! you won't live on!

[@LoneDestiny6]

The worst part is that even if they pay you extra hours, the pressure and the work is so constant and stressful that at the end you will need to spend said extra money in health care for the stress and breakdown problems

[@samjudge1240]

Or even better, say no and leave for a better job?

[@ounocat8032]

I'm glad you didn't blame the people criticizing Sonic's design and instead rightfully blamed the shitty management that is abusing their staff. I've seen some people getting mad at the average joe instead of the greedy corporate execs. Which is exactly what those greedy exces want.

[@concernedcitizen6313]

It is pretty easy, though, to be just a little angry at the "average Joe" who unironically Photoshops a legit Sonic over the movie Sonic and says, "See? That wasn't so hard." Not all ignorance is excusable. But yes, the primary problem is the management.

[@tobimisa]

@@concernedcitizen6313 how is an artist redesigning sonic's look morally wrong? "photoshops a legit sonic" isn't just like, a Button Press, and they aren't just cutting out a render of sonic from one of the games. it's real artistic talent being used to tweak the design, some leaning into the movie's vision (with a more realistic or at least animalistic approach) and some leaning more into classic sonic (pushing the stylization towards his original proportions) reducing the work that they did in their off time For Fun to "photoshopping" and painting their attitude as arrogant or rude when the majority of the fixes I've seen have done no such thing is devaluing the work of artists just as much as people blaming the animator's and special effects teams for sonic's design. it's just favoring artists working for studios over freelance artists

[@blackanimecat2]

@@tobimisa its obviously not taking a crack at redesigning the cg sonic that is bad. This is not an argument about what form of art is more legitimate. It categoricly the dismissive, condecending attitude that 6 months of redesign, rerigging,recompsiting etc is "not that much work" that is the problem. Its devaluing Labor.

[@tobimisa]

@@blackanimecat2 that's the issue yes but my argument is that that has nothing to do with the trend of artists painting over screenshots, especially considering the trend started _before_ the redesign was announced and nobody thought an official redesign was possible it wasn't a knock against the animators and special effects artists that created the movie, it's an artist taking the opportunity to flex their own particular skill set to see if they could fix the design. the individuals that created the movie and that now have to fix the movie had nothing to do with the original design, _that_ was down to focus group testing and insistence from the higher ups. it's not an insult to ground floor workers when they had nothing to do with it you're swinging at the wrong target my man

[@tobimisa]

@@macmcskullface1004 your comment is exactly what I mean by swinging at the wrong target. the people making the art have absolutely z e r o control over what strangers on the internet do with it. it's absolutely inappropriate to blame _them_ for internet trolls using their work to tear down the artists behind the film. you _cannot_ paint them as arrogant and rude and then back that claim up by pointing out _other people_ who were arrogant or rude people having fun and not hurting anyone isn't the problem and holding them accountable for something they didn't do won't help anyone. blaming the art itself when it's people commenting on the art that's got you annoyed is absolutely no better than blaming the staff for sonic's design, and it's certainly exactly as rude

[@Gnoberr]

And why is no one getting sued for obviously stealing the design from Hbomberguy's cosplay?

[@blarg2429]

That's the real question here.

[@YourFaceisPretty]

Holy shit, I knew it looked familiar! Not even joking.

[@TheLithp]

I keep wanting to see one of those "it isn't hard" photoshops, but with Hbomb.

[@twistysunshine]

We need better labor laws for artists, from animators to video game developers

[@OctopusGrift]

We need better labor laws generally.

[@jasonfenton8250]

Reform

[@twistysunshine]

@@jasonfenton8250 and we still gotta live in it until the revolution is here, and even when it is, probably gonna have some kinks to iron out.

[@jasonfenton8250]

@@twistysunshine No I know, I actually support reforms, since people less fortunate than me have to survive in our current society. Just adding a reminder of our end goal.

[@mykaruest6257]

If they do though they'll outsource it. Seriously I think it's that type of job that if received unionization it'll just get done cheaper elsewhere.

[@carlcarlington7317]

The marvel cinematic universe wouldn't even exist without VFX animators.

[@Scroteydada]

Nearly all of the New York battle was CGI and Endgame was shot with more screen than ever before

[@kassemir]

I feel like the comparison between Titanic and Avengers made in the video speaks volumes of this. All major box office films rely on the VFX industry, and they treat them like shit.

[@alexman378]

Maybe they’ll pull what the writers did about ten years ago. In case you aren’t aware, screenwriters were also treated like shit in the movie industry, so they collectively said “fuck that shit” and had a strike. Hollywood just shut down, they were not able to do anything without them, and it further emphasized how important they truly were. If you wonder how come TV has exploded with fantastic writing while the writing for movies has gone down, that’s why. VFX artists need to remind Hollywood that they’re responsible for a huge chunk of their paydays. It’s not an easy skill to pick up, and every single one should be treated with respect.

[@DrunkJockeySenior]

About a day or two after the redesign announcement, I saw a few posts circulating tumblr about how the animators aren't really suffering because all they were doing was changing the model, and the "skeleton" for the animations was already there, so they weren't really having to do any real work. And all the responses were "that makes sense" or "thank god, that's so easy then!" I have nothing to say about it, really, it's just sad that people view it that simply, when there's so much that will have to go into it, and the animators are forced into the crunch time, as you said. They should really just delay the movie by like a year or two. Who's really out here going "WE NEED A SONIC MOVIE IN 2019"?

[@tizooky]

do people not realize how complicated animation and visual effects actually are?? I suppose they might still have the "skeleton" that they were working with, but if they change the structure of his face _at all_ then animators are going to have to spend hundreds of hours reanimating his expressions, you can't just stick a new model on top of this mess and hope everything turns out okay (and that's not to mention anything else they might decide to change). It makes me upset that people are buying into something that's so obviously a huge understatement.

[@samwallaceart288]

Even if they keep the skeleton more or less the same, and only really change the face; boom, all those months of facial animation - gone. The expressions won’t read the same when you stretch the model, it will need tweaks, and the other things around it will need to be tweaked to match the tweaks. Probably a whole chunk of time will be sunk into troubleshooting any glitches or goofs in the graphics by transposing animation to a new model. Even the bare minimum is months of work.

[@FancyFufflyBunny]

As a game animator, I can confirm that, even if they keep the skeleton (known as "rig"), they'll still have to change the facial part of said rig and reskin it to the new mesh and re-animate all of the expressions and all that is only the bare minimum they'll have to do. I'm guessing those who are saying it will be quick and easy have some knowledge of how 3D animation works but not enough to realize that there is so much to do to change any small part. Good news though!! Apparently, the studio is situated in Vancouver and overtime is paid there. At least they have decent labor laws there.

[@samwallaceart288]

FancyFufflyBunny - If true, nice!

[@spazoq]

@@FancyFufflyBunny It really depends on your toolset. There are some fantastic ones that could easily re-target this, but it would still take time. By the looks of what's there already, they don't have the best of toolsets.

[@knightogourd]

i saw the original tweet and my first thought was “oh no”

[@okayso1747]

As an animator, I reacted the same way: The crunch time the animators, lighting, and modelers will face will be painful, and unpaid. : (

[@Darisprites]

Sonic the Manhog is an unintentionally genius metaphor for the horrors of capitalism

[@Scroteydada]

I hope this is just a marketing stunt and that the only manhog shots were in that trailer. That they always had the real design in secret.

[@InfiniteAnvil]

@@Scroteydada I doubt they're that smart

[@Amelia-yu6ii]

yea this is exactly the sort of thing a focus group would shit out

[@MoonatikYT]

Sonic in 1991 was an edgy new character who was fighting a megalomaniacal industrialist trying to tear up the natural world. It's like the blue and furry equivalent of a Che Guevara shirt, isn't it?

[@Hayleynwong]

This video is so appreciated. I work in animation, my boyfriend works in VFX, and I was pained to see the cavalier nature with which the director can appeal to the fans without putting into context the amount of work that it is going to take for the vfx workers and animators on the project. It's not as simple as swapping out a model. As a storyboard artist in the industry, I'm represented by a union and have that sort of advocacy at my back as worker, but the VFX industry does NOT have the same protections for the workers. And yes, visual effects houses are forced to under bid each other for contracts; so automatically they're going to try and produce the best work they can with small budgets that lead to abuse, overwork, and lower quality sometimes because there's only so much you can do on the schedules they give vfx productions. This video made so many good points, points that people really need to hear. Thank you, Jack Saint!

[@sonyakinsey4376]

Yes. I had the same reaction, as a comic artist and illustrator who has studied animation. Like, ugh. A similar issue has come up with Studio Ghibli, who are currently offering 2500.00 US a month to move to Tokyo and animate. Everyone is so excited and making excuses for this low salary. But it's not an 'internship' or a wonderful opportunity, it's an indication of how badly animators are paid. Even a studio like Ghibli which rakes in the dough, won't pay even a living wage for full time work in Tokyo.

[@sonyakinsey4376]

@@broccolibroccoli7040 Sorry, I fixed it. It's 2500 a month. Which is nothing for Tokyo.

[@s.g.7572]

As an avid fan of Studio Ghibli, that's extremely disappointing.

[@kloggmonkey]

*"THIS IS WHY UNIONS MATTER"*

[@mykaruest6257]

I already can't afford video games anymore outside of cheap indie titles on steam. If they unionize and raise prices on theaters, DVD sales, and steaming I'll tap out of that and watch low budget Asian and European movies. If the US does unionize South Korea and Japan whom animate for the west will just make more money with everything being shipped over there to keep the inflated prices where they are.

[@gabrielmaffei7623]

@@mykaruest6257 oh poor baby cant have them videogamies and movies. this is real people lifes we are talking about dude

[@gabrielmaffei7623]

maybe that sounded rough i apologize for that but you cant put your entertaining over people lives

[@ThatOneGuy7550]

I recall Jim Sterling making a video about this, he said pretty much similar things to what you said, I feel like the core problem here lies in the management of these things, people do sorely lack any awareness or understanding about the pressures of VFX design and animation.

[@iheartjackieyes]

trrrrrripple a game management in a film is no good!

[@NextPlayAdventure]

@@iheartjackieyes *Catrippleapitalism

[@ludograves7071]

i doubt its a lack of awarness, or at least its not solely a lack of awareness. this sort of exploitation is a building block and indeed function of capitalism as we know it. you find this in every industry too. the management build systems and rules with little regard as to how the actual workers have to use them and the workers get punished for it.

[@vfxninja5503]

@@ludograves7071 yeah nobody gives a fuck about the laws of physics if management made a flowchart that says it's doable

[@ThatguycalledJoe]

Jim Sterling is a fraud who supports paywalled online play.

[@ThatWeirdFinn]

"you have died of exposure" (not Oregon Trail, but real life for artists)

[@kolonarulez5222]

I wanted to see the ugly Sonic. Imagine how many snarky reviews and meme faces we're going to miss out on. Also they should've had Jaleel White reprise the voice

[@KOTEBANAROT]

Unless they change the design to that of games, he will still be ugly, dont worry

[@TheSerfsTV]

One of us worked for a VFX company for years and I can safely say with complete conviction: Jack Saint is 100% correct here.

[@elijahbuckout2300]

You mean I have a new reason to hate the new sonic movie? #gottarevoltfast

[@ellagage1256]

Sonic, a series always critical about authoritarianism and capitalism #gottarevoltfast

[@SunshineRena13]

i am both a huge sonic fan and also an animator myself so i am conflicted af.. i would love for the design to be reworked but... will hollywood listen a second time when we beg them not to blame and overwork the animators/ visual effects crew?

[@Scroteydada]

It would still be an animation/live action hybrid and yet another opportunity for Hollywood to disrespect the medium of animation. If this gets sequels instead of Paramount doing a Sony and starting again but with a 100% animated approach then sunny days.

[@radradder]

Franchises churn out mediocre and/or reboots every couple years we can afford a bad looking sonic film.. fans sticks around through things they consider of lower quality. They just do, from what I hear Sega cares about it's fanbase alot. They just need to trust fans to stick around. (Tangent) The animation in Polar Express is horrific because I'm sensitive to uncanny valley effect. But it's one of the most hopeful and satisfying movies I have ever seen. I'm glad even with it's animation short comings all those people came together to make it

[@goodial]

you have to look at it this way: it is a movie with (according to google) a 90 million dollar budget given to a director of an academy award nominated short movie. He however never did any feature-length movie. He is therefore probably just a puppet of some big producers to bring out a safe, not that great, cookie-cutter movie. The redesign won't improve the movie by itself and will probably just make many animators suffer. But any marketing is good marketing they say and the movie got tons of that ...

[@kassemir]

I honestly doubt they will. One of the issues is that stuff like this doesn't reach mainstream media coverage. It might in hindsight get a documentary, like the Life of Pie situation, but that'll have little impact and little media coverage. Now, if it'd been mistreatment of an actor, it might be different. 'Cause there's a familiar face to it, so the media is more likely to do write ups on it. Stuff like this happens in the shadows, and doesn't get much media coverage by design, so the studios can keep their scummy practices going whilst making the most profits they can on projects.

[@RomanBearProductions]

This is exactly the take I was waiting for. You touched on a lot of stuff I did in my first video but with a lot of the info I had to leave out for time so thank you! These artists deserve so much better.

[@mentalhygiene1250]

#GottaUnionizeFast

[@TheJadedJames]

Stephanie Blast Collective Bargaining

[@lagunasandroide]

... Is that the Final Pam.

[@thepricklyprick]

Enjoy food baby mommy cleans baby's tummy

[@weenis6697]

Are we just gonna ignore that the photo at 0:52 describes sonic as lickable

[@QuestionableObject]

Animators rise up Srsly they need to go on strikes over shit like this :I Can't have your multi-million dollar movie if your animation slaves won't work.

[@bookfan1239]

Questionable Object The problem with this is that the animators who do strike would likely be blacklisted by the entire industry. I think if change were to happen (at least right now), it would probably have to be this huge strike where people straight up refused to work until they got the pay they deserve. It’s not likely, unfortunately.

[@spazoq]

@@bookfan1239 A zillion people waiting in line to take their places...

[@TheMedicatedArtist]

David B r Until this information becomes public knowledge and less people enter the industry every year.

[@samuraijackoff5354]

We need a union. A union if artists. If one breaks free, another will take it’s place. If tons of people break free then the owners will have to pay alot more to train the newbies.

[@icicloui]

Animator and VFX artist here. The only thought I could muster at this announcement was existential dread. I've lived through it, in a much smaller scale, for a much worse film, and long story short I had to learn self care, fast. I do TV now. It's still an overproduced, micromanaged pain, but I'm not getting ulcers anymore. Oh, and the new sonic is a signature "overdesign by commitee" if I've ever seen one. I can literally *hear* how one goes "and the teeth don't look quite right to me either now that I look at them again. Human teeth don't look like that. Get it to your guys, yeah? Thanks. Now, the third spike from the bottom..."

[@agustina0407]

Great video. It's disgusting how Hollywood treats its animators and visual effects people. Makes me sick.

[@skybluskyblueify]

And people say that Hollywood is left wing? Ha! In the U.S. often liberal= left wing so any accusations of the "liberal media" is laughable. U.S. children are poorly educated as to what left wing and liberal means whether worldwide or local meanings. Education needs shoring up if the majority of people in the US want a good future.

[@alexman378]

julia Ruva I adore movies, I work in movies, and I want my entire life to revolve around movies, but I have to admit, Hollywood is whatever is popular. Liberalism seems popular, so they say they are liberals, if right wing Conservatism was to suddenly become more vocally popular tomorrow, they’d turn to that, it’s unfortunately the state of things. I’m not really left wing, I’m mostly center-right, but I can clearly see that liberalism has been bastardized and corrupted heavily in popular culture.

[@JungYuri]

I had never thought about this, actually... thank you for making this

[@DrawnByDandy]

He's right and he should say it

[@TindraSan]

ppl were complaining the moment the first promo image was released and I can't understand why they didn't start working to fix it as early as back then instead of waiting until the very last minute, like ppl would magically change their minds once they saw his way too many human teeth

[@Kadaspala]

Finally a decent take on this fiasco

[@rainbowpantsrock]

not to mention the fact that we as an audience are now so in control that if we complain enough, even as a joke, we'll be condemning animators to months of unpaid work.

[@tobangafeufeu]

it's not our fault if the people holding the strings are doing a shitty job

[@JollyJuiice]

Consumers? In control? HA HAHAHA *HAHAHAHA*

[@AleTitan]

I've seen a few posts here and there talking about the animators. Genuely afraid of them being overworked for free or face being blacklisted. Like it happened to the animators of Sausage Party (2016)

[@alexman378]

Imagine working on that film pretty much for free where you have to make food and condiments have an orgy and then getting blacklisted for having an issue with slaving away for it.

[@Monique.Marceline]

Thank you for speaking out about this. I work in post-production in the film industry and when I saw the #gottafixfast tweet I literally felt secondhand anxiety. Crunch is no joke and so many post jobs are treated like shit. The Life of Pi’s VFX team being cut off and the audience’s attitude about it breaks my heart every time I see it. I love my job and am reminded every day that it’s a blessing to be hired to do it, but also can’t help but resent the greedy insidious industry as a whole. The general public so greatly misunderstands how film production works (as made evident by people who are rejoicing about this or people who think this was all the VFX team’s fault) and I know that misunderstanding isn’t necessarily based in malice, so thank you for covering this and giving a new perspective to those who might have not known.

[@Horsaz]

I was at a prep course at a game dev school not too long ago and the guy that's head of educations there said that if we ever get to work crunch then the company has failed us on a personal level.

[@starchilder734]

"it does star a cop" FINE, youve worn me down. I'll like the video.

[@Saibellus]

This movie is general social attitudes toward creative endeavors in microcosm. People say they feel bad for artists being overworked and underpaid, but that's clearly just talk more often than not. If as many people truly cared as claim they do this wouldn't happen. Unfortunately, people allow themselves not to think about it, putting money into all kinds of stuff that exploits artists because it gives them pleasure to enjoy the results. Everyone wants things to change without having to give up anything at all, which to me says that their concern is not stemming from interest in the abused artists for their own sake, but from a desire to keep enjoying their hobbies guilt free.

[@GalxyStudios]

and by December 2019 the vfx team working on sonic went bankrupt...you definitely called it unfortunately

[@darkeimp555]

Every time the movie Avatar comes up I cite this as the main reason I hate that movie. If I recall correctly, its production bankrupted SEVERAL VFX studios, the most I heard was 3. I'm not a VFX artist but I'm a freelance illustrator who does contract work and knows many people who do VFX and go through this kind of crap, so it's still a very close issue to my heart. Thank you for bringing this up, I hope it helps more people realize the overhaul that this and many of the systems governing societies everywhere desperately need.

[@MagicalFruitBasket]

The fact that animators in Japan can get overworked to death makes me hate anime even more than before.

[@ashjcamp]

brandon roberts >japan >kpop

[@timothymclean]

It ain't just anime. It's a potential problem across Japanese work culture. Not at all companies, of course, but (AFAIK) in _some_ companies in _most_ industries. It's a problem, but it's both larger and smaller than your comment implies.

[@TiredFerret]

@@ashjcamp Well, pop idols in Korea are forced into living certain ways and having their personalities and entire lives controlled. One part of the appeal of pop idol groups that executives have realized exists is the fictional relationship availability of idols. So, idols cant be seen dating anyone. They're not free to live their own lives. They can instantly lose popularity, receive death threats from ex-fans, and lose their source of income instantly if they make one false step. From what I've heard their lives can be pretty soul-crushing. Yes, Korea is not in Japan, but J-Pop idol groups (and western idol groups to a lesser extent) often face similar problems. I understand this is a but of an unrelated topic to visual animation but uh, international worker solidarity or something? I dunno.

[@Skelloween]

Karōshi 過労死 means death from over work.

[@TiredFerret]

@Rando I don't think hating anime fans is necessarily what MagicalFruitBasket is implying when saying they say they hate anime. There are other problems many people have with anime beyond just studios overworking of animators, notably certain frequent occurrences often uncritically written of as "fan-service" (gratuitous indecent shots of women, sexualization of minors, sexual harassment played for "humor", etc.). I can't really speak for them though.

[@girafa400]

Saddest part is this movie will probably bomb regardless

[@belias360]

Right?

[@Vox-Multis]

That's what I keep thinking. Design issues aside, it still doesn't look like a good movie, let alone a good Sonic adaptation.

[@samwallaceart288]

All this overwork for a Hop! / Paul ripoff.

[@poisondamage2182]

it'll be bad regardless of the sonic design, so i don't really care

[@shupasopni]

They should really just cancel it again.

[@TheMedicatedArtist]

It’s sad because when the team behind Bojack Horseman along with Tucca and Bertie unionized, their shows got axed.

[@janderson1008]

Imagine being an animator fired for critiquing the new Sonic movie design and now thinking, "So I was right, but nobody else knows it and by the way I want to work so I can buy food."

[@individualthotpatterns9067]

Damn you 100% predicted the studio closing. It’s almost like this is a trend or something

[@FlorSilvestre12]

My uncle worked for Rhythm & Hues. It was almost a family name in my house; I think I even had one of their corporate T-shirts as a child. I remember his career with the company being mostly working on unsuccessful movie after unsuccessful movie until they finally hit it out of the park with Life of Pi. It was heartbreaking to see the company go under right when their workers were finally getting recognized for all their hard work and talent. Here was my uncle, a loyal and gifted employee who loved his job, winning an Oscar for his efforts and then turning around and no longer being employed.

[@shannonf101]

Rip animators/vfx hopefully they can find some quick fixes and short cuts, or they got a hell of a lot to do :s. Makes me nervous as I want to go into pre-production design in the future. I'm glad you mentioned the designers have to work within the guidelines, are probably going to be heavily blamed for the final design. Most people don't realize that they don't get the final say most of the time on components.

[@UAPCaptain]

"Chill and Lickable." 😆

[@Vox-Multis]

I don't advise trying to lick a hedgehog. It's unlikely to end well for anyone.

[@CorvusCoraxification]

confirmed: sonic the eco-anarchist is secretly a popsicle

[@AxelLeJeff]

Maybe, just maybe it would have been better for everyone if this movie wasn't made. The designers would likely be working on something else right now. But who knows, maybe the relative publicity this is bringing to the issue will net positive in bringing the issues to the fore.

[@jawibble]

Haha...I'm one of the 5% that loves your old Bombcast animations...though I actually got back into your KZbin channel accidentally since you just make the kind of videos that I like watching now. I was pleasantly shocked when I'd watched a few of your videos and then saw that you used to make those things. ROLLER COASTER DOLLARS Anyway...yeah. I was equally disturbed when I heard they were gonna try to "fix" the Sonic design. This video really does a good job of talking about why. Great work! Always look forward to your stuff.

[@tabithak.9923]

A friend of mine thinks the whole thing is a stunt and only the trailers were ever animated with that model of Sonic. I really hope that's true. Growing up in this generation is so terrifying, it seems like every day I learn a new horrible thing about the job economy I'm about to enter.

[@slakyresisty]

They went bankrupt.

[@lakotacamp8533]

I need more people to come back to this video and see that you knew this would happen, that it is so prevalent for big companies to do this that you could predict it seven months ago when this all started and not even be shocked anymore talking about it. I don't understand how people don't see a work culture expressly built on overworking their staff and treating them like disposable tools could ever end in anything else, yet seeing what few people are saying about this, half of it is always defending rise and grind culture. I don't know how to fix this when it has gotten in everyone's heads like it has.

[@alexandrianelson6538]

I'm not much of an animator but I am a video editor and videographer by profession and what you are describing happens ALL THE TIME! I've never worked in Hollywood but I have worked for high level production companies all the way down to independent companies and it is always the same thing; clients and the people in charge make edits up to the eleventh hour and I'm stuck at work until 3am wanting to pull my hair out because my computer is bogged down with idiotic and last minute edits that they end up not liking anyway and insult my work right in front of me during meetings even though I made the exact edits they asked for and knowing full well the time and effort I put into making them happy for no extra pay mind you.

[@ungulatemanalpha]

I'm half convinced that they've been working on a redesign for the last year, since the initial response was just as negative, and pushed out this trailer purely to invoke this response, so that they can look like the good guys for doing a redesign. That's certainly the more optimistic take, at any rate.

[@marie-claire3340]

I never blamed the sfx artists but I also never considered this. Thank you for the information

[@Toonyy55]

Meanwhile, Digibro is over there, telling everyone that they should simply resign if they don't like the project they're working on, or if they disagree with the artistic direction.

[@tobangafeufeu]

I'm honestly on his side. If VFX animation is such a nightmare then dont work there.

[@srfrancium9728]

@@tobangafeufeu That'll look great on resumes

[@wadespencer3623]

@@tobangafeufeu Brilliant, I'm sure they've never thought about that.

[@Toonyy55]

@@tobangafeufeu Trust me, if my passion was bagging groceries, I would be doing that right now, instead of working in the film industry.

[@tobangafeufeu]

@@Toonyy55 of all things why packing groceries

[@wl9162]

A close friend of mine is a professional animator, and when he was early out of school and had just finished a contract with one studio, he was trying to quickly apply to other studios (one of which required an animation trial at the time). I was visiting him that week, and I watched as he worked himself to the bone on this animation, because his survival -- keeping his apartment, being able to buy food, all of it -- depended on that. He ended up getting incredibly physically ill. Like this was the WORST flu-like thing I'd seen (and experienced, because he accidentally passed it on to me), and he was chronically exhausted. He needed anti-anxiolytics. When ppl have to do what he did then -- really, really rushed, and for a major motion picture, often UNPAID, they can easily die. Literally no one should die over their work. And yikes, imagine being forced into that physical danger-zone for the fucking Sonic movie, of all things.

[@RegsaGC]

This thing with changing requirements is a huge thing in the tech consultancy business too, except there it's usually the customer who pays lol

[@Gudule3000]

One thing that terrified me is now the power of "fans". It's start with Sonic but where is gonna end ? What the next step ? Changing actors or actresses at the demends of fan ? Where is the freedom of creativity if the spectator can change the movie when they whant

[@samwallaceart288]

If the producers are that easily swayed by spectators, then the creators never had freedom to begin with.

[@Gudule3000]

@@samwallaceart288 It's the "problem" with the Holywood systeme. The Producers have too much power on the final result. In France it's the director who have the final cut, not the producers.

[@janderson1008]

The executives, the real Robotnicks, 😳

[@rosemoon1219]

I think a lot of people assume that any form of "art" as a job is easy and doesn't measure up to manual labor work. However, as someone who studies both animation and visual effects, its very obvious when someone has never tried their hand at this type of work before. Every little animated movement, from arms down to hairs, are very different processes and require hundreds of hours of work, rendering time, correction, re-rendering time and so on. It requires specialist knowledge, but because people only ever see the finished product, they don't understand how long each shot, each few seconds of animation truly costs in terms of time, labour, care and attention.

[@cocok.291]

0:52 I'm sorry he's chill and WHAT.... Did they just call sonic lickable

[@lunasperidot8760]

I assumed that the people doing the work would be appropriately compensated. To hear that they aren't is completely heartbreaking as someone trying to break into a creative field. Thank you for raising awareness of this

[@Kagebrain]

As a visual artist, I've experienced my input on my hired area of expertise be ignored. Its not fun and often I end up having to fix it in the end when it doesn't work out. When I heard about the sonic debacle my heart sank for the animation and visual effects teams. Their lives, mental and physical health and families will be put on hold with very little promise of getting much back. I don't blame artists/sonic fans for their edits and criticisms of the movies original design choice, they should be allowed to do all of that. I just don't think a lot of people truly understand how much of an undertaking it is to completely change a whole (and MAIN) character like this. Thanks for making this video, Jack!

[@shtev2218]

holy SHIT, I honestly didn't know you were the guy doing the giant bomb animations. I LOVE THOSE!!

[@i3want3cookie]

This was such a bummer to watch but thank you for making it. I knew a little about the labor issues in vfx but now I know so much more and I'm really mad about it.

[@lureed]

To be completely honest, the first thing that I thought was that this was a whole conspiracy. That the trailer design was never going to be the final design and that it was made only for the trailer to gain views and controversy and the “redesign” was the original one. Now I realize that would be much better than the actual reality of horribly overworked employees being punished for just doing what their boss told them to do. For the animators sake, I hope my conspiracy theory is true.

[@thewordywarlock7159]

Malevolent gods are better than none.

[@timothymclean]

​@@thewordywarlock7159 I don't think that's true. A malevolent god (or conspiracy with god-like influence) can work to keep humanity from improving; if there are no gods, we have nothing to overcome but ourselves. Which isn't easy, but it's easier than overcoming a god _and_ ourselves.

[@graphicremoved2539]

@@timothymclean Well, it would be more of a difference in perspective. While the lack of a god may allow one work past themself, the existence of such a god at all, especially a malevolent one, brings a feeling of greater control over the chaos and I believe this is the kind of comfort being conveyed by the sentiment, but whatever that's just my opinion 'cuz it seems reality sucks like that yo

[@Kevo6492]

I could buy this argument if not for the fact that physical promotional material has already been sent out. I doubt that would be the case if they had all of this in mind. Occam's razor would suggest that this is due to the hubris of Hollywood executives.

[@kinokochan]

I work in video games, and oh boy. The crunch is real there, too. I want to keep on working in the industry because I love it, and I often do set boundaries for myself to ensure work/life balance, but I can't always win. I once got shamed for asking for 2 weeks of vacation literally 7 months in advance, and my manager demanded I shave it down to 1 week. This on an "untracked" vacation policy, meaning vacation days don't have to be accrued and in the right work environment, scheduling time off should be MORE flexible, not less. I don't believe we have it as badly as VFX artists in film, but we do get terrible treatment from fans quite often. If a game ships with glaring errors in it, those bugs get attributed to "lazy devs". Those same devs who find the problems early, bring them up to management and ask for more time to fix them, but get told there is no time, and either have to put in massive amounts of overtime which may or may not yield results, or fix a buggy, broken game. The idea that something as early in the pipeline as Sonic's design is getting "fixed" now is absolutely disgraceful.

[@riverrun8535]

Thank you so much for this video. It’s not just feature animation but TV animation as well. Ive been in the industry for only a few years and Im seeing people depressed and burnt out. Almost all animation studios are located in major city center where you need to commute as well. Most animators get no breaks and no paid over time. This has been normalized.

[@postalexism]

I want to thank you for making this. I am an animation student and the creeping future of underappreciation and potential abuse is always on my mind. Strangely, you made this at the same time I got an English assignment to research issues in my career field so thank you for the inspiration. You said it perfectly as this is a systematic issue that should be addressed properly.

[@literallygaston2489]

I was kinda hoping for you to throw some shade at Digibro for his awful video, but still good ep.

[@hemoglobininspector4749]

What's digibro done now?

[@LackingSaint]

i did not know about that digibro video until i saw this comment my life is now worse after having watched it

[@f3z087]

Even the thumbnail of those videos are giving me a headache

[@saxosipho]

On a scale from 1 to Digibro, how bad was his take?

[@keridye4891]

​@@macmcskullface1004 basically, the libertarian blame-workers game, implying that the animators were at fault for their working conditions without directly saying it. He suggested that they should have noped out as soon as they saw they'd be working on a sonic movie, implying that they would be able to suddenly get a new and better job, that they wouldn't be blacklisted, that contracts didn't exist.... At the same time, he literally suggested that if working on the sonic movie was your only choice that you maybe weren't cut out for animation *at all.* Add in a dash of him basically saying "I make enough money making anime videos to get by, so anyone can work independently!" and you have a pretty bad take.

[@pinkfeiry]

ANIMATORS DESERVE BETTER

[@ActingNT]

An important detail that's missed here is that the Sonic changes we're talking about isn't really comparable to the examples of Black Panther, Sausage Party or Life of Pi. Least of all to 2D animation. We're not talking about remaking the whole movie from scratch. We're not talking about redoing the environments, camera, or even the animation. 3D animation isn't a matter of drawing one frame at a time, nor of manually manipulating each polygon. A process called rigging gives each character model a digital skeleton, and then you manipulate that skeleton to create movement. The animation of the digital skeleton doesn't need to be redone. The only new work needed is to create one character model, rig it again onto the same skeleton, and debug any problems between the two. Assuming the managers are smart about it and understand how animation works, which is admittedly a BOLD assumption, the vast majority of added time will be in rendering: just waiting for the computers to put the new character model into the exact same scenes.

[@LackingSaint]

to be clear, I do say outright that the position the animation and VFX team is in here is almost advantageous compared to what other teams have had to deal with. that said, I highly doubt this will only be a matter of straightforwardly rerigging a new model considering the number of significant criticisms people have with the current design. and considering crunch is basically a planned part of most big vfx projects nowadays (especially mid-budget outings like this movie), the fact that the same people have the same timeframe to work on everything else *on top of* this significant task is frightening to say the least. you're right that I should have geeked out a bit more and really gone into what the production end entails for this team, but I would disagree that it's feasible to imagine this being a straightforward process.

[@SlendysWatchingMe]

I'm so here for the discussion about the industry FINALLY turning around and addressing the abuses suffered behind the camera (and in this case, in post). Art, even technical elements of art, doesn't get done best, fastest, or even cheapest under the current conditions and top level producers reap benefits for coming in under schedule and budget when people are dying as a result of the practices they're implementing, and too often it feels like if we aren't celebrities, nobody cares.

[@hannahrisken7183]

All hail Keanu Reeves who gives over half his salary to the special effects team.

[@JozefSzekeresartist]

When 2D animating for the Disney Animation studio in Australia, we were visited by an Australian union for animators. The union’s presentation made sense, and I’m sure many animators wanted to join... however, minutes after the union’s representatives left, while still gathered for this presentation, we were given a talking to by Disney upper management. We were told, if you wanted to sign on, that’d be fine, however, we were told unions had destroyed the industry in the states, and was why Disney came to Australia in the first place, and... if unions controlled the industry and the staff of Disney Australia, Disney would pack up and leave, therefore, we’d all be out of a job. No one signed on with the union. And so... Disney had these crazy rules that were so hard to achieve, which meant creating extra work done over minimum quotas would be unpaid. 1 month of over quota, by + half your required quota (unpaid over quota), to be eligible for the 2nd month of paid over quota. (However, that first month of over quota would not be paid, you’d only receive payment of the 2nd month). I tried this over 6 months, 3 cycles. And surprisingly, on the 8th week of each cycle, I was given such difficult works, it blew out my 2nd full month of reaching over quota (x3). So what happened in payment for those 8 weeks of over quota footage? Nothing. Unpaid. My bad for not achieving the over quota on the 8th week. 6 months of this, 3 cycles, was enough. Enough of working crazy hours, for nothing. And after 3 cycles of the 8th week crashing under the extra load, it became obvious, the studio wasn’t wanting the artist to achieve these goals. Just get the free footage. I stopped trying for these over quota goals, just focussed on getting quota done. Being under quota was not allowed. And I was reprimanded by management for not doing enough as a senior animator. Apparently being one of their “top gun” animators, doing great female lead acting, on quota... wasn’t enough. After a weekend of working around the clock to get work done for a Monday morning quota deadline, and missing the deadline by an hour, as I’d dared to go home to sleep for a few hours. The management said, nope, your work over the weekend doesn’t matter to us, ‘cause you arrived an hour late. When I asked what would be an acceptable excuse, if not working around the clock the entire weekend, and due to that, exhaustion caused me to arrive an hour late. I was told... “I dunno, if your cow died, or something!” That’d be an acceptable reason. I quit Disney Animation soon after that. I’d had enough. I loved the characters, I loved the animation work, and was proud of the animation I’d created for the company. But, I hated the management and it’s smug treatment of its staff. So I left. Now I do my own thing. Investing in myself, rather then working to the bone for others. I design and manufacture my own collectable fashion doll line. @glamourozdolls I’m much happier.

[@kijekklejzik]

It is a good oportunity to talk about working conditions of animator and vfx artists. But, the design is so obvoiusly bad, and the response to outrage so fast that, in my opinion, it is just not possible that it is not a marketing plan.

[@AshenSpark]

If it was a marketing ploy they wouldn't have had all of their merchandise be after the original design. Feel free to disagree but that's a pretty big point against that theory.

[@kijekklejzik]

@@AshenSpark Seems right! but i cant find any merch, where can i see it? Im trying diffrent word combinations and still nothing, maybe its harder to find it in eu? Can you show it to me? Thanks

[@AshenSpark]

@@kijekklejzik I'll see if I can find a link but there was a costume leaked. I'll see if I can find it but if not Chadtronic made a video on it (he's a sillier youtuber but if your into games he's pretty decent) and he had screenshots of it in the video

[@AshenSpark]

I found more than just the images of the leak, there's already an amazon page! kotaku.com/sonic-movie-costume-lets-your-kids-face-be-the-redesign-1834538188 www.amazon.com/Rubies-Hedgehog-Childs-Deluxe-Costume/dp/B07NJRLB2P?creativeASIN=B07NJRLB2P&linkCode=w61&imprToken=pbUIEq6embfo1BYx.oW.OA&slotNum=0&ascsubtag=d438b7b1013c1eed6ba599e5a858bfa4d834f3af&tag=kotakuamzn-20

[@patataeve]

People think that because watching and reading works of art is easy, funny entertainment, making them is easy, funny entertainment. The realty is that at requires a lifetime of practice and study and intensive, hard physical, mental and emotional work; all so others enjoy the product of all that in less than a few hours. We do it for love, but we need respect and a decent life for what we do. Art is not free.

[@arytheloser]

I didn't know you were an animator! I work in animation too, and after spending most of my Sunday fending off angry Sonic fans on Twitter, I am so pleased that you made a video on this subject.

[@ShionLc]

Seriously, animators and VFX artist must be on a really huge strike

[@timothymclean]

One can hope.

[@clintjmilne]

Thumbnail text is now essentially about all studios releasing films in theatres this year!

[@RaygirlROL]

If I could like this video 50+ times I would. You have literally summed up every single problem I have with this whole business in such a concise way, from a perspective of someone in the industry, I could cry. Thank you SO much for this video. Now I can share it with anyone I see trying to claim the #gottafixfast thing is a good idea. Outstanding.

[@YoshyRyuDCC]

"Sucks to suck". - TrailerDrake, probably

[@CriticalThinkingShow]

omg comic drake - I love his videos!

[@AshleenWoods]

THANK YOU! Union yes! I'm not a special effects artist, but I do free lance art/comic art (for myself.) I am not "pro," so I've been fortunate enough to not run into this much. But, I have thrice: one time working on a comic with someone who ended up completely dropping the project and me getting no pay. The next time that person wanted a project, I made them pay up front. Sorry, I was in college, working full time, and had my own comic to keep up with. They cancelled that project, too, but AT LEAST I got paid. And they paid me well, and the guy was super nice and understanding about my demands. I am still kind of friends with him, and would like to finish the project just as a gift: because he saw the err of his ways and was fair about the pay. And I hate having an unfinished project on my hands. Second time was a person wanting concept art for a book she was working on. I created seven characters, did a couple different images/shots for her, even PRINTED line art for her kids to color, and she dropped the project and I got no pay again. The third and final time was a guy wanting a T-shirt design. I created one design: he didn't like the buffalo looking too human. I did again, making the damn thing look more animal: he didn't like how animal it was. He ended up dropping the request, and again I got stuck having wasted my time, my resources (I work traditionally, not digitally,) and no money. Never again. It's not like they didn't see my level of art, or see how I worked, and I just blind-sided them with something looking like a 3 year old drew it. Artists get screwed so much, and people want free shit all the time. But yeah, when you ask them to do their job for free, they get all up in arms. Thank you for making this video.

[@hobihope2981]

The worst part is this movie already looks like its going to be mediocre, regardless of Sonic’s design. So all these artists are going to suffer for some movie that’ll fall into sad dissatisfied obscurity :(

[@CheapSkateGamer96]

I'm not even an animator and was seriously concerned when the backlash of the trailer lead to an executive saying they were changing everything.

[@madsb.8097]

Even looking at that ‘style guide’, that Sonic design would have been selected by an art director, after pushing a concept art team to produce hundreds of variations, before they decided on a final design for that image alone. For a bit of good PR, paramount has practically shat on the entire artistic pipeline.

[@wj2429]

I've never worked in animation or animated anything, but the workload of the animators was my immediate thought. It's depressing, being overworked to alter a blue hedgehog because manchildren are throwing a hissy fit.

[@rimoluna4213]

"Knock-off Korean Sonic toys" *shows an official toy from Spain*

[@benjaminbrady2385]

0:46 hahaha, I can't stop laughing. That right there is absolutely beautiful

[@peterprime2140]

"The political implications of bad Sonic designs"

[@ritavermilyea5848]

i will pay you 10 dollars to change your profile picture

[@zmdumpbox2340]

@Rando Probably because...... people can't imagine it NOT happening?

[@peterprime2140]

"The political implications of my ahegao profile pic" wasn't something I was expecting to see.

[@obamabinladen2408]

shuichi saihara profile pic salute

[@peterprime2140]

@@obamabinladen2408 Who doesn't love the emo boytoy detective?

[@ronwheezyrox]

Thank you so much for covering this in the context of the industry. I am always amazed at how few people are even aware of the issues in the industry. Since I was at one point working towards an animation career, it seemed to me like everyone knew what was going on (and everyone had a green screen for their Facebook profile during the Life of Pi Oscars year). Now that I am on a different career path I feel like I am constantly retelling this story.

[@freyabee819]

I’m not an animator (yet) but I have been pretty overworked due to pandemic + happenstance at my marketing job, and while I agree it is criminal not to pay artists for their incredible hard work and sacrifices in crunch, I have noticed recently that beyond a certain point, I don’t even want bonuses and shit. I mean I want the money. And I’m happy to have it. But if throwing money at me is the solution to our sudden understaffing issue and my lack of training in some of the things I’m being asked to step up and do... we’ll, that’s not a solution. I don’t want to be paid more to lose sleep over projects no one can help me with. I want more sleep, more support, and fewer projects. So, I know this movie already came out, so it’s a little late for this argument, but the delay argument is the most urgent part of this video in my eyes. Fair compensation is essential, of course! Don’t commit human rights abuses, obviously! But beyond a certain point, you cannot buy extra hours into these people’s lives. Capitalism means you’ll always be able to find someone who will hurt themselves for your shit wages just so they can feed your family. It’s a moral imperative not to make your employees do that. Pay fairly AND treat kindly.

[@johangrenier6016]

As a former game developper myself i can only agree with you on that subject. That's why i ate this trend of meta narrative and performative nostalgia in general. You know what i'm talking about, the money shots when we see the millenium falcon, the "i'll be back" sentence out of context for the sole prupose of referencing a bigger movie...etc. This social capital not only hurt the narative of these movies/tv shows/ video game, it shift value of an artistic project from the creativity of it to the "brand's" or Intellectual Property's, as it is called nowadays, symbolic bank account. At The very end of that social capital is weaponized upon us, the creative workers behind all of these big money making projects. Because we are often so desperate to find a job that we can sacrifice a good part of our lives simply to get a tiny crumble of that symbolic currency to add to our portfolio. Big corporation are very conscious of this and will always try to make this sound like a privilege you have simply to work here. They know they can treat us like shit because more people are outside than inside and they can simply switch the working teams if some of us start to ask for better pay, less crunch time or simply decent amount of control over what we do. The last part of this is how technology is against us in this run, because what could have been made with one good artist and a decent amount of time can now be done with a begginer artist and a better program (artist who will ask for less money and working conditions, so everyone comes down at the end). I could talk of this for hours, beside all of this i know i've been among the lucky ones. But even then, 4 years of work made me quit my job and do something else instead. artist friends assemble!

[@Holacalaca]

Jack saint turning into the jimquisition amirite?... Great vid