Problems with Being a Storyboard Artist Right Now 😕 DRAW WITH ME

Oh, so it sounds like most of the time storyboarding is not enough and they basically make you key animate. Fuck, that's rough. I'm only in my 2nd semester of animation and I have 2 more years to go. It' simportant to know the state of the industry and your videos have always been especially helpful.

This is the direction that many industries, entertainment and not, have taken. You have to be a jack-of-all-trades just to get your foot in the door.

Finally someone is raising their voices. I have been a storyboard artist for tv since 2006 and I literally saw this craft morphing from one type of job to many : animating with dozens of poses, the precision of an architect required with the backgrounds that feels more like doing layout rather than boards, the timing, the editing, the sound effects, the dialogues…) and I’m a freelancer ( in Italy, having worked on international productions for Netflix, Disney Junior, Nick …) which means never had paid overtime , vacations or stuff like that. Last year I worked on a production ( which I must say I liked the show per se) , I started in January, ended in August, I believe I only didn’t work for something like 5 weekends… all the rest of the days and the weekends in that time span was a loop of work. By august I was literally exhausted, even more than exhausted . Working in animation was my childhood dream, I chose this job, been lucky enough to have continuous work for all these years and making a living out of it, but as much as I love this job, sometimes I feel like quitting and opening an Onlyfans account.

Im an animation student currently in my second year. I want to thank you so much for sharing this information about what to expect if I ever land a job in the industry. Even though it is important to hear, information like this causes me to really rethink my career choices and if a job in animation is something I truly want. It’s honestly very scary, thinking for most of my life that this is what I want to do and suddenly realizing it might not be what I expected it to be. Sorry for the rant, thank you for your knowledge tho ❤️

Storyboard Artist in Canada here. Thankfully I don't have to deal with timing my boards, and I've only worked on 3D projects so far where you don't have to be too on model (so long as you can tell who it is, their actions/eye direction are clear enough, and that their sizes are correct). I've come across the issue though of having to practically animate my boards since the animation team's not inhouse, but MAN I'm like, they're animators that you hired out of confidence for a reason. They don't need me to animate a character walking to show that they're walking. With 2D productions too I'm kind of baffled that they ask you to be on model. Aren't boards supposed to be rough? Don't animators have access to the character model sheets for that purpose?? The pay here is also very low for the position (the average in canada is 72k CAD vs the average in LA being 107k USD which equals 135k CAD (from glassdoor)). Whenever we discuss about a union or higher pay, it's always the same excuse: "but if we pay our artists more, then the price for the project will be more expensive and we'll get less jobs outsourced to us / it'll be more expensive and they'll just outsource it to another place that underpays their artists" or something along those lines. It's frustrating to say the least.

i was a storyboard artist intern for this game company and ngl i realised my position kept changing from storyboard to concept art to character design touch up to 3d texture then to environment visual development. and when it comes to my resume, i was a little confused as to what is my main position when i work there since i technically move around a lot. it was stressful but the colleagues are kind and friendly so eventually i was able to go through it.

Yes there is a risk that companies will remove animators who speak up, but that should not scare us from asking for what we were promised. You are hurting no one's feelings when you do so. You only risk hurting your own feelings by doing nothing. Remember that the goal of any company is to make money. The fact that some support animation is a great thing. But unless one stands up and asks for what is rightly theirs, a company's capitalist bias is going to skew them towards intents to make money while avoiding giving money away.

With all these added creative tasks of providing layouts, rough animation, timing, adding voice track, and character designing - the storyboard artist might as well be credited as a co-director and therefore should be PAID as such.

its the same with concept art in gamedev. before you just had to have good portfolio and know how to use Ps. Now on job applications its: expirience using unity, texturing, use of some 3d software. I've seen one where they didn't beat around the bush and said "3D/2D artist/animator/CIRCUS PERFORMER" xD

I love how everyone is being wayyy more transparent about the industry - I also didn’t hear anything about how it really is until literally when I had graduated and when I was job searching after, and hearing what peers were going through. None of this info was available back 5 years ago!

Companies generally don't care about their employees, it's a situation that goes far beyond the animation industry. The ones at the top who make the business decisions put pressure on everyone else without knowing or caring what it takes to actually accomplish the work they ask for. Then employees are basically emotionally blackmailed to do whatever is asked of them for whatever pay they can get, and then (at least in the animation industry) are literally blackmailed (blacklist) if they don't comply or stand up for themselves. Glad the union is taking a stand to protect storyboard artists, but I feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg on a big shift in the entire workforce. It's unsustainable and ethically reprehensible to normalize the mistreatment of human beings working in any industry, and I find it especially insidious in the entertainment industry due to weird misconceptions about being a paid artist like "oh you're making art for a living, you're having fun" or "you have to be able to do this much work to deserve this much pay since you're just making art" or any kind of idea that implies that doing something creative in itself is payment/reward, so compensation should be less. Fortunately the industry(s) is changing, but I expect it to it's own shit show before things truly get better. 🤪

Thanks for talking about this stuff. Setting unrealistic expectations for employees/artists by trying to normalize one person doing the job of 3-4 people for the pay of 1 job should be shut right down by unions before they become an accepted norm.

Like Graphic Design as well. Must Know all programs, animate, photography, video editing, coding, copywriting, design digital and print at the same time while balancing a bowling ball on your head while keeping up with all the latest trends in culture, typography, social media and make sure you know what not to include that might be slightly misinterpreted by 1% of the population. Job descriptions are getting ridiculous these days. I feel your pain of a job expecting more than was bargained for.

Another thing contributing to the problem is the vague definition of StoryBoarding. I saw a video from a YouTube artist demonstrating his storyboarding techniques and he was clearly doing an "Animatic". I kept asking myself why is animating on a video labeled storyboarding. I'm new to storyboarding but I know animatics when I see them. This was total animation breadowns and not just action sequences. So a big contributing factor is lack of clear understanding even by artist and not just employers.

bruh that sucks. Girl needs her coin. Wonderful work; such a cute comic😭

Thanks for the heads up! I’m in art school for storyboarding right now, and needed to hear this. Hopefully it’ll all be worth it in the end.

Currently working as a storyboard artist on a 3D kid show. A position that most would envy. I have to say: This is hell. The pay is 68 000$ can and I need to cut corners all the time. No time for thumbnails. Almost no time for rough. I have 4 weeks to board 14 pages of action. Its usually 1000 panels minimum and 200 scenes minimum. If you just go straight to clean that's 50-60 panels a day from the script to an animatic. Calculate how ever you want, it's around 4.5 minutes per panel and more often you need to draw multiple characters, the bg, the important elements they are interacting with, the weird camera angles, the camera moves and create the animatic. They way to go is Kim Jung Gi style. No rough, no clean. Every mark count. You need to perfectly draw your ideas on the first shot. Imagine drawing with only a black sharpie where you can't miss, because if you do you are suddenly late. The skills required to be able to just keep the job is insane. We are already on the edge and I feel like every script is just getting heavier in demands. To anybody comtemplating getting in the business because it look cool or you get paid to do what you love: just dont. You will pay with your health.

Dang, never thought the animation industry would mirror the education industry. Do more for less is pretty much the standard at most schools here (USA). I remember even as a teachers aide, I had to “volunteer” for multiple committees that dealt with stuff like campus events, outreach, or restocking the teachers lounge. And you do it, in my case because it was “for the kids.” and how do you say no to that? I’m sure there are similar motivators in animation, it’s another job where people are there because they’re passionate about it and that tends to make them willing to stretch themselves farther than they should.

This honestly sounds illegal. I doubt it would be allowed in other industries.

Thank you, this is very informative as someone currently learning a bit about boarding. This is super timely and relative as I see parallels with teachers, and workers of many stripes. Shout out to the animation workers organizing their efforts and demanding more. Board artists basically direct the film before its directed from what I can tell so far. :)