DMO: Regardless of work staying or leaving the country, how is pay for animators?

Joe: Pay is up, but the jobs are harder to come by.

Daryl: As far as I can tell, it's staying the same, I doubt it would go up, more likely to go down

Mark: As we do not hire animators, but focus on programmers, I can't comment - though I have heard that the ridiculous salaries that nearly bankrupted the industry have come down significantly.

Rowsby: There isn't much budget for top-notch pay for "kid vid" people, which again, explains why things are going overseas for the kid's market. The same thing has been going on for a long time in 2D, with Asia taking most of the work away from the US.

Gregg: I think we're looking at a big overall decrease in pay over the next few years. That is one thing that the union is very good at; keeping the wage base stable.

DMO: Why is pay decreasing?

Gregg: Simply because of the competition for work, both at a facility level and down in the artist trenches.

DMO: What about working conditions?

Mark: Wow - I just finished reading about the excess of the dot.com startups - expensive furnishings, lots of creature comforts - and all that is gone now. If you look at animation studios in America, there are frequently 6 people to a room - no privacy - but a lot of camaraderie - so it doesn't appear to have a negative impact. These conditions mimic what I see when I travel to Asia - there it is not unusual to have 30-50 animators in the same amount of space as we would put 10 - yet the same level of frenzied activity persists. I have to say that I came from a production environment - though it was in the world of professional kitchens - and nothing is more important than getting the job done - animation is the same, if you have to sleep at the workstation to assure the render completes, then that is what you will do - being a tool maker, I can go home at night, and sleep in my own bed - I appreciate the difference immensely.

Joe: If, by that you mean ergonomic desks, insurance plans, and semi-normal working hours, I'd say working conditions are great. But there's a price for all that stuff. The contracts you have to sign to get that stuff are extremely exploitive, read them carefully. The 'worst case' clauses do get exercised fairly routinely. If your contract says they can impale you with a stake, you can be pretty sure you have a nice pointy stake at some point in your future. Don't hesitate to cross out ridiculous things on your contracts before signing them.

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