A veteran board artist writes: I’ve been doing TV storyboards for 25 years and this deadline thing is really getting ridiculous. It was insane when they moved the deadline for 11 minutes of board from 6 to 5 weeks but 4 weeks for a finished board is NUTS. I am assuming that this squeezing of…

As I write, this minute, the Animation Guild has 3.467 people working under its jurisdiction. This is a long way from the 700 artists, writers and technicians who were employed under a contract in 1989, but hey. Twenty-seven years ago, animation was the ugly, beaten step-child of the movie and television industry. Now it is…

I’ll be racing around doing 401(k) enrollment meetings for the next month or two, so kindly note this: … The median household approaching retirement has a nest egg of between $10,000 and $20,000. This number is drawn down significantly because 41% of these households have no retirement savings whatsoever. … That doesn’t necessarily mean these…

At Tuesday night’s General Membership Meeting, there was a lengthy back-and-forth on storyboard artists, their current pressures and current schedules. Show schedules are too short. Production people want way more panels than a “Bill Peet” style board. You have to almost animate the action for the animatic. In features, they throw out part of a…

We continue to see increases in studio employees working under the Animation Guild’s jurisdiction in Southern California. As of today, there are 3,418 designers, animators, technical directors and writers at our contract studios. On the pension side of the ledger book, we have the same number of people enrolled in the Motion Picture Industry Individual…

The Animation Guild is happy to be attending the CTN Animation Expo this weekend at the Burbank Marriott Hotel. For the sixth year in a row, we look forward to speaking with animation professionals and enthusiasts, sharing how we strive to keep the benefits and workplace conditions in the animation industry the best they possibly…

This has been in the offing for some time: Waterman Entertainment has bought Film Roman — best known as the source animator for “The Simpsons” — for an undisclosed price from Starz Media. Waterman is headed by Steve Waterman, who has exec producer credits on “Stuart Little” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” Film Roman’s Dana…

The Guild has just received word that the up-coming negotiations between the IATSE and Walt Disney Feature Animation has been rescheduled for 2016. In the October Pegboard, the lead article spoke of the impending negotiations being scheduled for the month of November. Unfortunately, it seems schedules have conflicted and the negotiations are going to be…

Accidentally delete that email with the latest job posting? Did you hear about a posting and not get a copy in your Inbox? Now there’s a way you can review the latest job posts that have been sent out: Jobs Email Archive Thanks to the latest features in MailChimp, the bulk email program we use,…

Los Angeles doesn’t have a monopoly on animation work, not by a long shot. But L.A. does have a goodly amount of television and theatrical cartoon production going on at the present time. We list a large part of it below. (Please understand that shows and features are constantly in development and/or production, so the…

The members of The Animation Guild, Local 839 IATSE, have ratified the new 2015-2018 contract, which the Guild negotiated with animation studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) from June 29 to July 1st of this year. The Guild, though one of the West Coast production locals in the IATSE,…

The IA locals that comprise the bargaining unit for the Basic Agreement, have spoken. Members of 13 Hollywood locals of the IATSE have ratified a new film and TV contract. The deal with management’s AMPTP, which was reached in April, provides for 3% pay raises in each year of the three-year contract, as well as…