As reported in Variety and several other news outlets, several animators who worked on the recently released R-rated animated film Sausage Party have spoken out anonymously about abuse and intolerable working conditions during the 2 years spent producing the movie. These animators began posting in the comments section of Cartoon Brew’s interview with Sausage Party directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan, posted earlier this week. They’ve posted anonymously for fear of being blacklisted professionally. Some highlights of the discussion on Cartoon Brew include:
The production cost were kept low because Greg [Tiernan] would demand people work overtime for free. If you wouldn’t work late for free your work would be assigned to someone who would stay late or come in on the weekend. Some artist were even threatened with termination for not staying late to hit a deadline.
Over 30 animators left during the coarse of the production due to the stress and expectations. Most of them left before the paid overtime was implemented. This was met with animosity and was taken as a personal insult to the owners. Their names were omitted from the final credits despite working for over a year on this film.
Almost half the animation team was not credited. The team believed in this film and poured their hearts and souls into it. Despite this, more than half of it was not credited. You can see the full team on IMDB, which contains 83 people (and I am certain there are some missing). The film’s credits, however, contains 47.
The team had to fight for fair compensation and a lot of the artists needed to quit due to unfair practices and poor management. The studio had lost such a massive portion of the team by the end of the production (more than half) that they had to resort to hire recent animation graduates to finish the film. What we currently see in the credits are the students as well as animators who have stayed until the end of the production, and a couple who have left the production. Most of the animators who are not credited have been on the show for more than a year and a half, which is most of the production time. These are the people who have worked hard to set the style of the show and have their work used as promotion for the film.
Working at Nitrogen was a very tough experience for many many artists. If they weren’t satisfied with your work ( often it was for reasons beyond your control, that they didn’t want to hear about) you were pulled into a room and threatened to be fired. Many left due to this sort of treatment.
If you left the contract early you were pulled into a room, given a speech about how you might never work in the industry again because of what you have done.
During the production itself artists were treated more like children then adults and the professionals that they are. Little regard was given to maintain respectful collaboration, and many were treated in a harsh, draconian manner.
Variety also reports on Nitrogen Studios’ response to these allegations, with Mr. Tiernan stating that there is no merit to any of the claims and that the company complied with overtime pay laws. However, he added that they won’t ignore these complaints either. A signed petition letter from some of these animators made its way to Sausage Party co-producter and co-financier Annapurna, who did step in to pay and feed the overworked staff according to one of the anonymous uncredited animators.
However, the credits of the movie only list about half the animators that worked on the film. The IMDB.com has the full list of all the animators who have worked on the movie, including ones the movie did not list in the credit roll.
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