When people think about the entertainment industry, most first think about the glamour and fame, big-name actors and directors. They think of Stephen Spielberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michelle Yeoh, Dwayne Johnson and Robert Downey Junior. Many believe that those in the entertainment industry are automatically billionaires and rolling in their money. When the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) went on strike in mid-2023, the public questioned their strike. I saw people comment on several social media sites questioning its legitimacy. They all wondered why “rich” actors and entertainers were striking for better pay. Don’t they have enough money?
The SAG-AFTRA strike was not for all the “big-time” actors. It was for the background actors, the extras, and all the people who helped create films. Along with that, it was to fight against AI.
If actors go unappreciated at times, what about animators?
Animation is a whole other ball game.
At major Animation studios and companies, employees are overworked and underpaid, and with the rise of AI, many jobs are at stake.
Animation is a craft that requires years of training and experience, and it is a labor of love. Quality animated films take years to make, with artists and animators spending countless hours creating their characters, animating every single frame, and throwing in hints and surprises in each scene while also making the scene beautiful and detailed. It’s not easy.
However, major production studios such as Pixar and its parent company Disney are notorious for their treatment of animators. In May of 2024, Pixar laid off around 14% of its workforce, which is around 175 employees. Before these reductions, Pixar Animation Studios had approximately 1,300 employees. That’s not all. Disney box-office hit, “Moana 2” was originally supposed to be a Disney+ five-episode television series. However, when Disney decided that Moana 2 had “potential” to be a feature film, they greenlit the project, and “In January 2024, Walt Disney Studios president Alan Bergman “informed the team that they needed to shift rapidly from making a five-episode streaming series to a second Moana feature film”.
Other production companies are no better. Sony Animation, the company behind Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, “proudly touted how it had hired over 1,000 animators” according to Charles Pulliam-Moore for The Verge. He also writes, “According to a number of artists who contributed to the film, however, the working conditions they were made to operate under during the film’s production were unsustainable, erratic, and largely the result of producer Phil Lord frequently overriding Across the Spider-Verse’s three directors to make endless last-minute changes.” As his article progressed, the situation for these animators became clear. Nearly 100 animators left the project before its completion because they were working for over 11 hours, seven days a week. Unfortunately, because of its writers and producers, namely Phil Lord, animators were constantly having to remake already complete scenes. Pulliam-Moore also writes, “This potent blend of inefficiency, the animators said, led to things like the way Across the Spider-Verse’s production out of Sony Picture Imageworks’ Vancouver offices was effectively halted for three months, leaving employees with little to do but sit around and wait, knowing that ‘an avalanche of work’ was coming down the pipeline”
Daily Mail wrote in Sept. of 2024 that, “Inside Out was allegedly ‘mismanaged’ leading to a larger amount of ‘last minute’ changes – requiring tools ‘to be developed on the fly.” Animators were working seven days a week for around a month or two, which is corroborated by IGN’s expose on Pixar and Inside Out 2.
Dreamworks laid off employees. Netflix Animation laid off employees. Pixar laid off employees.
(flickr, image was not altered, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/ and https://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/5245428053) (Loren Javier)
Once a company no longer needs a large amount of employees, animators in this case, for a project, they’ll lay them off. That’s how the animation industry works. Once your project is done, you now have to search for a new one, unlike actors who might have back-to-back projects and are instead approached for a role.
Along with that, their use of artificial intelligence (AI) is very concerning. Disney has used AI repeatedly. Firstly for Marvel’s Disney+ TV show Secret Invasion in which they used AI to make their intro, for their 2023 Thanksgiving Instagram post, and more recently for a prop in their theme park. What impression does it leave on people? Is that AI art now permissible? That we no longer need true artists to make art?
Companies like Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks now only care about Quantity, not Quality. And with the rise of AI, it’s much more concerning.
June 21, 2023, Devan Coggan of Entertainment Weekly wrote, “Of course, there’s something a bit bleak about Marvel Studios using AI technology to craft any part of its shows — especially because so many of its prior films have centered on AI gone rogue. Did we learn nothing from Avengers: Age of Ultron, a movie where Tony Stark tries to use AI to protect the world, only for that AI to adopt the voice of James Spader, blow up a small European country, and try to exterminate the human race? Sigh.”
In Oct. 2023, when the show Loki premiered, they used AI to make promotional posters, with Jess Weatherbed of The Verge writing, “Illustrator Katria Raden flagged the image on X (formerly Twitter) last week, claiming that the image of the spiraling clock in the background “is giving all the AI telltale signs like things randomly turning into meaningless squiggles” — a reference to the artifacts sometimes left behind by AI-image generators.”
Their third offense was on Nov. 24, 2023, when they used AI to create their Thanksgiving post. Newsweek wrote, “The Mouse House shared an updated version of its traditional Thanksgiving artwork to Instagram. The picture shows major Disney characters around a table ready to feast on a turkey with Mickey and Minnie Mouse at the head hosting them all.”
Most recently was in Dec. of 2024, with Disneylandland News Today writing, “Disney used AI art from Redbubble as a prop in the new Haunted Mansion gift shop at Disneyland, Madame Leota’s Somewhere Beyond.”
As an artist, it’s very frustrating that a company that built its image and status on animation and art is now referring to AI instead of real people.
Fellow artist and Damascus senior, Kasey Yu shares very similar thoughts. When asked about AI art, she responded, “I hate it. It steals the hard work from people who have spent years and years to get down the fundamentals, understand how art works, and spend years to develop their style. I hate how people can put things into a machine which then generates soulless work that discredits actual artist’s work and it takes artists’ hard work without their consent and it uses it in a way that is not a way that the artist wanted.” She also adds, “[AI art] does not have emotions. Like I said earlier about drawing art and visual art, it takes years for someone to hone their craft and for rhythm to learn fundamentals and how they want to express themselves. AI can’t replicate that because you have to be human to have human expression.”
Unfortunately in our day and age, our society no longer has an appreciation for art as they used to. It’s now seen as child’s play or something.
Film is art. Animation is art. Writing is art. Directing is art. Art is EVERYWHERE. We can’t just get rid of art. Art has existed for as long as humans have existed. Since we evolved from being Homosapiens, we have created art. Before we made our language, we made art. Before we could read and write we made art. As an Art History student, I have learned and seen the art that early humans made. It was how they processed the world around them, and as we developed into the humans we are today, art grew alongside us. Those in the entertainment industry are no less than professionals from other industries. For the lack of a better word, they keep us entertained. We now live in a digital age, where media is everywhere, and a life without art is unimaginable. It’s an outlet for protest, expression, and emotion.
As The Animation Guild (TAG) enters a tentative deal with Hollywood studios, the future of animation is unsure. How will AI further affect the industry? Will TAG go on strike? Will companies finally understand the importance of their employees? Will quality prevail? Will quantity prevail?
Art will always exist. Art is everywhere and is in everyone.
