Tag: cartoon

Animation Industry Downturn: Why It’s Happening Now

It’s been a weird year in 2025 – we have seen the animation industry dramatically shift from the busiest boom time we have ever had in TV animation to an absolute ghost town where it feels like nothing is in production.  Not many shows are getting pickups or greenlights at any of the studios, so it’s not localized (it’s everywhere).  

Lots of our animation friends are out of work, burning through their savings – some of them are getting ready to find other temporary jobs or even leave the industry entirely.  It’s obviously bad out there. 

Interns will ask me for advice as they prepare to enter the marketplace in this climate – they feel very apprehensive (and for good reason).  My response is to talk through the downturn, why it exists, when it will change, and what to do in the meantime.

Unfortunately, this situation feels like a lot of other downturns we have seen over the years in our industry.  Every time we have one, it feels horrible, and lots of people get a bit negative – kind of like when there is a big stock market downturn and everyone sells off their stocks in a rush of fear.  It’s hard to keep calm and everyone forgets how bad it was last time we went through something like this.

So that is number one.  We have gone through this before.  Downturns are part of the cycle of this business.

I won’t pretend like this isn’t the worst – it may be the biggest swing we have ever seen in terms of going from massive amounts of work to almost no work.  Many studios are just not picking up shows or greenlighting at the cadence that we have seen historically.

Why is there no work?

Well it’s probably a complicated stew of causes that are all colliding at the same time.  First off, we had the strikes – that pretty much put everything on hold (and caused some shows to get cancelled).  A side effect after the strikes is the costs of producing shows due to new union agreements went up significantly – those are big negotiated increases to rates and fringes across all unions, not just the ones that struck.  That means shows are now more expensive to produce.

The second factor on why we are seeing the downturn: studios decided to change business models and focus on profitability in streaming thus ending the ‘streaming wars’.  That means buying a lot less product (despite a perceived ‘unlimited’ inventory on streaming) and being careful in how and what is bought.  They are also now being much more strategic with launches and airdates, much more similar to traditional linear broadcast / cable.  

The final big factor is the current era of mergers and streamers.  These are two big categories disrupting the old “traditional” entertainment model.  These super mergers and acquisitions mean re-evaluating all business fronts and finding “efficiencies” to increase profits.    Simultaneously there is scaling back investments in old cable / dish channels where carriage fees are becoming less profitable and combining departments which removes jobs and head counts. 

The second factor is the new disruptor on the block – trying to figure out how to capture streamer (Youtube / TikTok / Twitch) subscribers.  How do you keep subscription streaming services like Hulu and Netflix from becoming the next cable / dish?

If you are following, shows are now more expensive and studios are being much more cautious because of a new business model and competitive landscape.  That recipe leads to taking less risks and going for known IPs and shows that are ‘safe’ bets.

When will there be more work?

So this all sounds quite terrible, when are we going to be on the other side of this / when will things go back to ‘normal’? 

Let’s start off by saying, we will very likely not be going back to the ‘normal’ of the giant boom era we just experienced.  It was wild but certainly not sustainable and definitely not profitable.  We are now in the conservative era of smaller / tighter budgets and schedules. 

We are starting to see a few projects getting picked up at the end of the year, which is a great indicator.  There was also an uptick in live action projects in the middle of 2025, and oftentimes animation tends to have a delayed effect of what we see on the live action side, which could be another positive indicator.  

Given what we have seen so far, it could also mean we see a few other projects start up before everything shuts down for the holidays.  Hopefully this means we should see more greenlights and pickups coming back in Q1 2026.  

What do we do in the meantime? 

It’s time to go through the list of usual hiatus suspects.  It’s not exciting, but being productive in the downtime is good.  That means working on our portfolio / website / resume / reel / samples.  Go take a class that we have been procrastinating on.  Work on that personal project.  Say hi to some friends and reconnect / network.  All these things feel like intangibles, but they make a positive difference in our careers.

To wrap up – we as an industry have gone through rough spots like this before and we will inevitably go through them again.  They are always tough to experience in the moment, but we always find a way to get through them.  Help support your friends, ask for help, and hang in there.  We’ll get through it together.

Mating Season Netflix Announced

It always feels a little silly when you work on NDA projects – you can’t really talk too much about what you’re working on, but this show was announced officially months ago so … here’s what I’m working on these days – it’s a new Netflix primetime animated sitcom from the creators of Big Mouth called Mating Season! This show is about animals telling their stories about friendship, love, relationships and sex.

We got to work with lots of our friends from Big Mouth – producing the show with Brutus Pink out of Titmouse again and it’s been a fantastic production so far. I’ll post more about the show later as more details get released – but for now, that’s what we have been working on!

Here’s the press release from Variety on the announcement:

Netflix Orders Adult Animated Comedy ‘Mating Season’ From ‘Big Mouth’ Team

Random Projects – The Quibi Commercial

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to work on all kinds of different projects … the other day someone was talking about Quibi and it reminded me of this one.  We did a little commercial that sold the idea of how fun short content on the Quibi platform would be.  

This was late 2019 and we were animating at Titmouse, contracted by the Mill (back when they still had an LA office).  The Mill would handle boards / animatic / designs and the agency communication.  Titmouse would tackle all the animation, compositing, post editing and exports.    Style wise it was supposed to look like Jay Ward animation and directly references Dudley Doo Right and Snidely Whiplash – only instead of the damsel on the railroad tracks, it ends up being our cowboy.

We got to work with one of my favorite animation directors, Mike Carlo, collaborating with the New York Titmouse studio.  The compositing and editing were done back at Titmouse Los Angeles.  Mike Carlo and I have gotten to do a few projects together over the years and he is incredibly great at problem solving and adjusting while still making the animation look fantastic (and just an all around amazing animator).

We had a tiny budget (there were just 4 of us), a quick schedule and things were changing constantly (as they often do on these things) – characters would change (the cowboy was a different character originally), dialogue changed, composited footage changed, backgrounds changed.  Basically over the course of production, everything that could change, did change (often more than once).  Nothing would lock until the last second and everything was wet clay up until delivery.

We also had the added challenge of delivering two different versions – landscape (9×16) and vertical (1×1).  That meant separate crops, tweaks and exports – you’re doing everything twice on the back side.  That was a new idea at the time that Quibi was trying to capitalize on – content that worked full screen no matter how you held the phone (vertical or horizontal).

Related side note – Back around 2003-2004 when we switched to “HD” from 4×3, we had a somewhat similar problem – formatting to keep action inside tv safe on the 4×3, while trying to populate the edges of the screen. So they ended up exporting two versions – one for people still watching on old traditional 4×3 tv’s and a widescreen version for people on what were then known as “HD” tv’s. If you watch shows from this era, you might see lots of dead space onscreen on the sides, and this is why.

End of the day, we got it done, our compositor cursing at us all the way with our last minute changes from the client.  Looking back on it now, it’s maybe a little simple, but for the limited time and money (and all the changes we had), it turned out pretty great. I vaguely remember seeing this run during some tv network sports games, so it got out into the wild and saw some distribution.

One of the things I learned on this commercial (and continue to learn on small projects) is practicing flexibility.  Doing things out of order and changing content constantly during production can drive you crazy – your job is to slow down, think through it, and adapt.  This one was small enough that it never got out of control and I could learn HOW to adjust on the fly.  We had great collaborators at the Mill who were there with us through it all.  Finally, if you have a great partner to help you in your quest (like Mike Carlo was for me on this one) you can get through the craziest situations and come out with great work.

Parting thought – Funny that Quibi as a concept / company didn’t do well, but here we are all constantly watching IG / Youtube / Tiktok / etc shortform content 6 years later and everyone’s attention spans have likewise eroded.  People make fun of the execution of Quibi, but it may have just been too far ahead of the curve with not enough runway – clearly the idea works on some level.

Here’s the commercial!

Human Resources Season 2 Launch

Today is the day! Human Resources season 2 is out in the wild – all 10 episodes are available on Netflix for you to watch!

It’s hard to believe we made this series all remotely, over Zoom / Evercast / chat / email / etc. I am very proud of what is an incredibly beautiful and touching season. The crew really went all out and built some amazing episodes here, so I hope you get to see some of it.

While we are here, I just want to say how grateful I am for the entire crew that made this show. EPs, directors, writers, boards, editors, production, designers, assistants, timers, compositors, checkers, animators, sound engineers, mixers, colorists, and probably some others I didn’t remember to list here. Fantastic, best in the biz team here. Much appreciation to all of them and the time we spent together making this killer show.

Sadly it’s also the end of the series, but lots of these characters will go on to be a part of the Big Mouth cast and we will get to see them again soon.

Go check it out! Out today on Netflix! Happy HR2 Day!

Human Resources Season 2 Trailer

Giving a shout out for the Human Resources season 2 trailer if you haven’t already seen it. It’s the Big Mouth spinoff show that seemingly no one knows about!

We worked on this show in-between / on top of seasons of Big Mouth, which made for a crazy schedule, but it also gave a lot of our team year round employment, which was awesome. I don’t think we could have asked for a better team than the crew that worked on this show.

Season comes out June 9! Very proud to have worked on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBupl81yAEQ

Animation News Wrap 9/2/22

Here’s the cornucopia of animation trades news over the last month. Lots of HBO Max drama…

Emmys Individual Achievement Winners – Netflix almost swept it this year (lots of Arcane wins)
TV Academy Reveals Emmy Winners In Juried Categories

Good take from CNN on how Netflix is changing business models – this explanation is directly related to the changes at Netflix animation
Netflix is not in deep trouble. It’s becoming a media company

Dreamworks sets the Kung Fu Panda 4 Release Date (it’s March 8, 2024)

Love Death and Robots renewed for Season 4

Tubi orders Adult Animated Comedy Series from Julien Nitzberg about drug dealing bears – there’s not a ton of Tubi originals yet, so maybe they will start to have a presence in original animation

AMC shows off some ‘Pantheon’ trailer and key art finally – We have been making this at Titmouse and I haven’t seen much of it, so it’s cool to see how it’s turning out. Some definite Ghost in the Shell vibes.

https://youtu.be/TrC-0XJR3qo

Streaming views surpass cable for the first time (from Nielsen) – Everyone knew this was coming, so here we are at the crossroads where streaming is beginning to pass cable in scale

Ok, we have to talk about HBO Max here … lots of big changes this last month.

Lots of shows were to be pulled from HBO Max abruptly – 36 titles, with 20 titles being originals

Then we heard about more cuts from HBO Max – including a stack of Batman & WB projects, as well as the JJ Abrams Batman project

Cartoon Network creators then jumped in to blast Discovery’s decision (and handling) on removing these shows from HBO Max…
Fungies creator Stephen Neary “slams” HBO Max
Summer Camp Island creator Julia Potts reacts
Infinity Train creator Owen Dennis calls out HBO Max

So at least after all that, John Oliver called out HBO Max over pulling the series (no clip – not exactly surprising)

Ok that’s enough of that – I’m sure there will be more HBO Max stuff next time.

And closing this out on a lighter note – some footage of the lost American Sailor Moon pilot has been unearthed. It’s great and terrible in all the best ways.

Ok that’s it for this time. Stay frosty.

Big Mouth 7 and Human Resources 2

It’s hard to believe we are already making Big Mouth season 7 – it was not that long ago we were sitting in an office talking about the rules of how the Hormone Monster (he wasn’t called Maury yet) appears into scenes, who can see him, does he have super powers?

Well we figured all that out along with lots of other questions and slowly a big world started to evolve, which is even bigger now with the world of Human Resources. Here we are years later, now starting to work on Big Mouth season 7 and Human Resources season 2 – we are excited for the fans to see what we have been cooking up!

Lots of new characters, new nonsense, and new adventures (that we can’t talk about yet) coming for our favorite friends and monsters in the Big Mouth universe.

Thrilled to be doing many more episodes with such a fantastic crew. Here’s to Big Mouth 7 and HR s2!

Human Resources Series Trailer

Last week Netflix released the full trailer for our new Big Mouth spinoff series – Human Resources! It’s hard to believe the series is almost here – we are a little under two weeks away from the premiere.

New humans, new monsters and we finally get to see what life is like for a hormone monster (and all the other monsters) working at the office. And yes, the hormone monsters can be gross to work with in an office environment.

The cast this season is amazing – we were very lucky to get to work with such incredible talent (you will see a slice of some of them in the trailer).

Shout out to our crew who absolutely killed it and worked together to make an unbelievable series we are all very proud of. Enjoy the trailer!

Why The Simpsons Keeps Going

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Why is the Simpsons still being made?   I think it’s a simple answer:  After all these years, it still makes money, lots of money.  The second question is maybe slightly more relevant: “Does Fox have a show to replace it yet when the Simpsons money dries up?”   Continue reading “Why The Simpsons Keeps Going”