Animation Workers Sound Alarm On AI & Shrinking Staff Positions As Guild Resumes Talks With AMPTP
deadline.comThe Animation Guild is back at the table with the studios this week, hoping to seal the deal on a new contract by Friday. Last month, the union said it was still “far apart” from the studios on several key issues, prompting a second scheduled week of negotiations to hammer out the details.
The negotiating committee voted to extend the contract until September 20 and, as the clock ticks, some in the animation community have taken matters into their own hands to raise awareness on the key issues plaguing these creatives. “It’s really difficult, and it’s especially painful, because the animation industry was the only thing functioning in Hollywood during the lockdown.
So whatever money they were making, they [were] making it from our labor,” Gene Goldstein, president of Jellybox Studio, told Deadline. “Then it seems like, as soon as there was a hint of a recession…the industry as a whole has been kind of kicked to the curb.” Goldstein has helped shepherd a series of animated shorts highlighting the threats to animation in hopes of reaching the broader Hollywood labor community — and beyond — for support.
Jellybox began publishing the shorts in May, beginning with an explainer titled “Animation in under attack!” The 46-second video provides a rundown of the most pressing issues in animation, calling attention to the fact that last year’s historically long WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes were actually only a fraction of Hollywood labor’s fight with the major studios.
Read more on deadline.com
