Sausage Party Controversy

cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/sausage-party-directors-conrad-vernon-greg-tiernan-making-2016s-outlandish-animated-film-142425.html


So apparently half of the animation team on this were screwed over. Does that make the movie seem worse?

Other urls found in this thread:

screencrush.com/seth-rogen-r-rated-animated-walt-disney/
youtube.com/watch?v=9lcB9u-9mVE&feature=youtu.be
neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1263225
youtube.com/watch?v=XJzDhl-VLkA
youtube.com/watch?v=sPgR8U9kLEs
youtube.com/watch?v=vMqHVGHOidQ
youtube.com/watch?v=hKYN85WzEDQ
youtube.com/watch?v=ZXjIU65Z0I4
youtube.com/watch?v=xw30k3GAlZE
youtube.com/watch?v=D04wb7P_v-4
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

In4 Cartoon Brew

Dude slavery lmao

Reminder:

>We’re all reacting exactly the way we were intended to.

>We’re just cogs in the machine.

>Everybody’s going to go see it for the food orgy.

>Public outrage is a free billboard.

>We’re wind-up toys. Even this post is more free advertising.

We deserve this movie.

Yeah. I'm surprised people are offended when half of the jokes seem more typical than anything.

ugly movie no thanks

Well then, might as well enjoy your journey on the highway to hell

Could you copy and paste the relevant information? I don't want to read that entire interview.

>I don't want to read that entire interview.
You don't need to. The relevant info is in the comment section

>The production cost were kept low because Greg 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.

>The animation department signed a petition for better treatment and paid overtime. When the letter got to Annapurna they stepped in and saw that artist were payed and fed when overtime was needed.

>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.

Since there's no God to dictate morality, who is there to say that this is wrong?

>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.

>This was Nitrogen Studio's first animated feature and no pipeline had been set up. It was an extremely rocky production. The studio management had little knowledge on how to proceed and the film could not have been made without the hard work of experienced artists. The production went over a year of what was originally projected due to poor organization. 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. Nitrogen has been trying hard to hide this from the producers so I doubt that Seth Rogen even knows this. I hope that this can help get the word out.

>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.

>Most of the shots in the trailers were done by artists who did not receive a credit. You're welcome.

>Please hear the artists out, many sacrificed a lot of time and effort to make this movie the success that it is, and they deserve to be heard.
>This kind of behavior by a service studio like Nitrogen should not go unnoticed.

What's to stop me from becoming a god?

>Wow, I see so many points they've made that I was going to mention.

>Literally, there're no exaggeration in these comments above.
>All of the comments are truth or maybe rather written too lightly.
>I personally know & witnessed many other incidents during the production; such as an "Open Letter" to the clients, and how Greg threatened artists for it.

>I cannot put more details because I'm scared of revealing my identity.. and *I really want to keep working in this industry*

>Sickening how one can brag about production cost, when he was the one who demanded artists to work for free, otherwise get fired.

>I would really appreciate if Cartoon Brew can investigate this further, to prevent more of sacrifices from talented artist in the future.

>FACT: Most of the shots in Promotion Clips/Trailers were done by uncredited artists. Lame.

>Very disheartening to experience company like Nitrogen, knowing these kind of corrupt still exists in 2016. No other companies, I've worked in Vancouver, have treated artists any close to this.

Nobody actually reads Cartoon Brew so he has a point.
But yeah the comments are from anonymous artists who worked on the movie

> Credited Animator • 18 hours ago

>Working on this production was a wet dream for animators. We fought hard to stay positive and do our best work despite unfair working conditions. This is a movie I can be proud of but I am not proud of Nitrogen. I cannot fully celebrate until I know that everyone has been credited. We united once and we sure as hell can do it again. Time to "spill the beans" :)

They're going to get away with it because most normies don't give a shit beyond the DUDEWEEDWEENIELMAO factor. Nobody gives a shit about animation. Nobody gives a shit about adult animation.

It's fucking over, you might as well just drop everything and go watch anime to get your fix and hope to god that niche keeps running.

I wonder how Sup Forums will feel about this
screencrush.com/seth-rogen-r-rated-animated-walt-disney/

One of the animators posted in a thread about it elsewhere.

>Some other fun moments from my year at Nitrogen

>-They fired the CG Supervisor mid production (one of many supervisors who got fired during the show) because he would say "we can't do this in budget" to Greg and Conrad's ideas. Which by the way both were the worst directors I worked with and had zero direction or vision. Their idea of directing was "lets throw shit at a wall until one sticks" so you would waste a ton of work until it gets approved and sometimes that would get unapproved in the future because they were in a bad mood.

>-There was always this weird rivalry between the directors. Mostly with Greg because while Conrad was a co-director on a bunch of DW movies all Greg has under his name is the Thomas the Train episodes nitrogen did and he felt like he had to prove he is the top dog. He would get SUPER mad when he walks into dailies and finds animators talking to Conrad before he is in the room. He actually fired an animation supervisor over this.

>-They put a lot of the ex nitrogen people whose only qualification was working at nitrogen before in supervisor positions. These people had no clue how to make an animated movie. At the end Annapurna had to bring in their own VFX supervisor and producer to get the movie done because they realized Nitrogen was never going to deliver otherwise.

>-In my 10+ years in this industry I never worked at a studio where so many people quit/walked out and got fired during one project.

>There are many more but I hope the original story gains traction and they get bad press over this.

Well this sort of helps to explain how the movie got made with a piddly ass 19 mil budget.

I mean, it's not the prettiest CGI film to begin with, but that's pennies in the animated film industry.

>-There was always this weird rivalry between the directors. Mostly with Greg because while Conrad was a co-director on a bunch of DW movies all Greg has under his name is the Thomas the Train episodes nitrogen did and he felt like he had to prove he is the top dog. He would get SUPER mad when he walks into dailies and finds animators talking to Conrad before he is in the room. He actually fired an animation supervisor over this.

It saddens me to think there are adult men who live and think this way, and that they're in positions of power. Like, holy shit get over yourself.

youtube.com/watch?v=9lcB9u-9mVE&feature=youtu.be

Hey, remember when the studios pulled the same shit with the VFX company for Life of Pi, to the point where the company went bankrupt two weeks before they accepted their Oscar?

Nothing happened then, and it got mainstream coverage. This isn't even going to get that.

Those guys are fucked, and they're going to stay fucked.

From the interview itself
>Greg Tiernan: Neither Conrad or I can confirm or deny that actual figure, but all I will say is that when Conrad pitched the movie to us, and we made our pact and vow to Conrad, and to Seth and Evan, and eventually to Megan Ellison at Annapurna and to Sony Columbia, we knew damn well that we could deliver a movie that looks like a $150 million movie for a fraction of the cost. That’s about as close as I can get to confirming or denying that figure. In general, that’s the whole reason we started the studio 13 years ago. After working in the L.A. industry for many years, I could see so much money just needlessly thrown down the toilet in making a lot of these movies. It doesn’t have to cost that much money when you’re well organized, and you have your mind set on the goal of what you want to do, and you get the job done with a small, determined crew. But yeah, let’s just say it was a lower budget movie.

This takes on a whole new meaning after reading the allegations, oh wow. What a piece of shit

The horrible working conditions aren't even the truly bewildering part, it's the removed credits.

That's not even money related, it's just pure childishness and venom.

>-There was always this weird rivalry between the directors. Mostly with Greg because while Conrad was a co-director on a bunch of DW movies all Greg has under his name is the Thomas the Train episodes nitrogen did and he felt like he had to prove he is the top dog.
During the interview Greg does randomly throw in Thomas the Tank Engine to talk about what high quality work Nitrogen studios has done in the past.

What about Cartoon Brew?

I hope that the home video release will have the fired/resigned crew credited.

What about suing the directors and others responsible for those firings/resignations/unfair working conditions?

This reminds me of the Rick and Morty shit.
These people belong in fucking prison.

There was a God before this movie came out.

btw he looks like this, now you can put a face to the image of him firing someone for talking to the other director.

>"what's a god to non-belieeeever who don't believe in... anything?

Welcome to free market capitalism. You don't like it, go back to Europe.

>the free market is violating labor laws

All Libertarians deserve to die.

Really makes you think.....

Do you know who I am? I directed FUCKING Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends and you will report to ME

Of course Rogan wants to do more animated films. All he has to do is write the script and record his lines in-studio, none of the "hard" work of hanging around a set for a couple months.

It's just as much money for half the effort on his part.

I almost felt bad for not wanting to support this movie.

Thank you for helping me figure out my official stance on this.

I hope they sue the faggots.

He's got this weird spergy look to him. Like, the kind of person that would throw a fit for the entire day if the cafeteria is serving mashed potatoes instead of fries.

First time I hear about VFX industry's situation. Has nothing gone better? For real?

I actually wondered why the credits seemed so short
You can honestly tell they cheaped the fuck out, the animation is kinda jerky at times and I swear multiple times they used a 2D image for an establishing shot instead of a modeled locale (most notably when they first scale the shelf and are at the top)

Heh? Rick and Morty is made under slave labor conditions?

...

shit, Zorg has really let himself go since 5th Element

That's Mark Windle, you baboon.

They deserved it for working with Rogen to bring about this abomination. What a bunch of faggots.

now you actually have a reason to be mad at this movie. It sounds like the animation studio are the assholes judging from that guy who eventually got a check from Annapurna Pics(another reason I'm pro this movie, Annapurna is a great studio).

CGI Thomas is a joke; irl sets or nothing.

imagine if meat was alive and could feel things lmao what a hoot

fuck this film

Reports of actual bullying and exploitation that went on during production are far more important than some autistic meme about how a silly comedy is an 'abomination' desu.

Labor laws are socialism.

Yeah we should have cheap illegal immigrants working for pennies so they can undercut our domestic workers :^)

People hate that site. They make things a bigger deal than they need to be

It's better than shipping those jobs overseas to China, why export the jobs when you can import labor?

I knew there was no way they could make a movie like this for under 75 mil. Would they have been desperate enough to do this if it wasn't R-rated?

>animators
>money

This actually sounds pretty solely like a studio issue
Assholes

so what? should we stop going to see this movie now?
It won't change anything

Animators are fucking slaves, nothing new

>elsewhere
Where?

It was neogaf: neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1263225

Why does Sup Forums hate Cartoon Brew again? I mean they won't get off Sausage Party's LCD dick because of "muh adult theatrical animation", but what's actually bad about them (other than sometimes getting disproportionately annoyed over shitty CG kids films)?

Amid Amidi, the guy who practically runs it, is a bit of a faggot. I do think, however, that the hate is overblown, because when CartoonBrew is the only news website that takes animation seriously, beggars can't be choosers.

See

>people are going to see it because they enjoy talking about how stupid a scene is

the cogs in your machine are broken, friend

That's how capitalism works. If you don't like it, then learn to succeed instead of blaming others for your failures.

Hey, CB staffer here. I'm gonna leak a deleted section of Cartoon Brew's interview last week

Amid: So, Greg, how'd you make a movie that looks like it cost $150,000,000 for only $19,000,000?

Greg: Well, it only cost $19,000,000 because of the rebates. It actually cost $30,000,000. In Canada, digital animation gets subsidized to help boost our local economy.

CB: I see. So, how'd you make a movie that looks $150,000,000 for 1/5 of the cost?

Greg: Oh, I just routinely violated labor laws.

(Beat.)

CB: Routinely?

Greg: Yeah. And spitefully, too! Like, this one time, I didn't put an animator's name in the credits. And this other time, I did the same thing. And this other other time, I did the same thing. You get the idea.

Amid: Why would you do that?

Greg: (chuckling) So they can't even put it on their resume! I'm like a real cartoon character, here!

>It won't change anything
>Animators are fucking slaves, nothing new.

This. Many animators for the Life Of Pi where screwed over and never got paid while the movie got a freaking Oscar. It happens all the time and the only reason why media is NOW bringing this up because this is an adult movie that looks like a kids movie.

>Their names were omitted from the final credits despite working for over a year on this film.

From the looks of things that might not be a bad thing.

You mean their hard work resulting in a movie that is a hit success?

>tfw you're an autismo who follows thomas the tank engine, so you've known nitrogen is a bunch of hacks for 8 years
the world will finally know the truth

Why the fuck are animators always treated like dirt? They've got this fucking amazing skill they've honed over years of hard work for a medium that goes on TV and in cinemas and is known by people worldwide, and they're just shat on all the time.

Why do you autists like Thomas the Tank Engine? I've read it was because each character keeps and holds their highly exaggerated emotional face for long periods of time while the announcer clearly states what emotion they're feeling, allowing autists to actually grasp what's going on inside a character's head.

Because animation is still seen as "for kids", so anyone associated with it is seen as childish or unworthy of respect

kind of like teachers

Because animation is for children, and besides my 10 year old nephew can draw, why don't you get a real job?

Yeah I've got a friend who's brother is waaaaaay up on the Autism scale and he loves Thomas as well. Also Disney Singalong.

...

Also, autistic kids love trains. Why? I have no idea, but they do.

Because capitalism doesn't care about skill or effort, only supply and demand.

>they will get away with this and nothing will be done

Which is why we need to bring it up whenever it happens, dumbass. That's how change happens.

What they need is to do what Hollywood extras did in the 30's and form their own union, like what Voice Actors keep trying to do.

What about Animation Scoop? Jerry Beck left Cartoon Brew to found it.

Sounds kinda typical for animation

>He thinks it's still possible to unionize in 2016

It's something like that. The visuals are also inoffensive and calm, like real trains are. The colors and shapes of the characters also makes it easy to identify who is who (the funny part is autistic kids know the difference between Percy, Duck and Oliver while a normal person sees those characters and sees three Percy). To add, the first 12 seasons used actual model trains, adding an extra layer of calm visuals and easily identifyable facial expressions.

On that note, let me go into detail Nitrogens relation with Thomas.

Anyway, around 2007-2008, HiT, the owner of Thomas, was trying to reduce the cost of producing the show with models. The idea HiT intitially had was to keep filming the show with models in England, but use CGI faces and CGI people done by an outside studio. This is when Nitrogen came in as a VERY cheap Canadian animation studio who could output the work for an ideally cheap price. Pic related shows you how the process was done. This resulted in Season 12, which you can see an episode of here:
youtube.com/watch?v=XJzDhl-VLkA
At this point, Nitrogens involvement was minimal, but after one season and a few CGI tests, the show went full CGI and was going to be handled entirely by Nitrogen Studios. Here's that first test, which didn't make it to the public for awhile:
youtube.com/watch?v=sPgR8U9kLEs

I'm gonna break this into multiple posts, mainly to share accompanying images.

>The team believed in this film and poured their hearts and souls into it.
Okay, I know it's fucked they're not getting credited and were all but driven out, but come the fuck on. Who puts their heart and soul into Nihilist Food Orgie: The Movie?

Ronald Reagan showed us the way. Fire them all and hire more.

>Who puts their heart and soul into Nihilist Food Orgie: The Movie?
You have to, if you want to make something quite that...individual.

Thank god for Ronald Reagan. Best thing to happen to the country since the founding fathers. Who knew electing a film actor as president would be such a smart idea?

Nitrogen was commissioned to do 80 episodes of Thomas, 4 seasons of 20 episodes basically, as well as 4 DVD specials. This was a lot of work for 4 years, and the quality of the CGI shows for it.
youtube.com/watch?v=vMqHVGHOidQ
Hero of the Rails was the first full CGI Thomas feature Nitrogen did. Needless to say, it looks mediocre. It's soulless, and true to Nitrogen nature, cheap.
4 years later, Season 16 was their last season, and the CGI stayed consistently garbage.
youtube.com/watch?v=hKYN85WzEDQ

My favorite examples of laziness are in Henry's Magic Box and The Christmas Express
youtube.com/watch?v=ZXjIU65Z0I4
3:30 and 6:33 are literally the same scene and same camera angle.

youtube.com/watch?v=xw30k3GAlZE
3:55-4:09 and 5:18-5:30 is literally the same clip repeated. Same dialogue, same scenery, same everything.

I'm not gonna make Sup Forums watch 4 seasons and 4 DVDs of this trash though. Just know in a nutshell, the CGI stagnated in quality for 4-5 years, location sets were heavily re-used to the point of head-banging repetitiveness, and it made the fan base livid.

The new writing team that had been going on since Season 6-8 was doing nothing to help, since they were having a field day doing the dreckest, most repetitive, Dr. Seuss wanna-be tripe, led by writers who had zero knowledge of the franchise or its prior set lore (hard to believe, but it's there) and no respect for the established canon up to Season 4-5, but this unrelated to Nitrogen.

Anyway, Gregs a hack, and he had ways to pacify the fan base. In interviews with Thomas fans, he would always name-drop old episodes and stories, and claimed to fans that he had a copy of both The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways and Sodor: Reading Between the Lines (in laymans terms, these are the Thomas "bibles" written by the original creators) which is a redudant point because his studio only did the CGI, not write the episodes. Contd.

This is very interesting user, keep going.

so how expensive is moving toy trains in front of the camera to still warrant further budget reduction?

To be fair, trains are kind of cool.

user, I may have some bad news for you.

I think Nitrogen did the episodes with the Moving Faces, maybe even the ones done entirely in CGI.

Not autistic, but I am an engineering student.

So yeah, I'm probably somewhere on the spectrum...

Yeah, I don't know why autists would love something which can only move in predefined lines and has to keep a strict schedule.

youtube.com/watch?v=D04wb7P_v-4

That's makes absolutely no sense but have a (you) anyway

Greg knew how to pacify a bunch of autists. Maybe he's one himself, and knows how the game works. It's not hard to make a conclusion on that yourself. He'd occasionally throw in obscure autistic things that the fan base loved, like the remains of a locomotive prop that was only used during filming of Season 1. Another example is his team actually flying out to the Talyllyn Railway (the basis for the Skarloey engines) to do measurements for new CGI models of the Skarloey engines. They also went ahead and made just about every Welsh narrow gauge rolling stock that ever existed, and put it into the show. This is just pure fluff to make the fans believe they were listening though, when it was just set pieces that sat in the background, and the fans would watch these shitty episodes and look for Easter Eggs as if it was a game of Where's Waldo. The CGI remained trash, Nitrogen made no effort to actually improve their work, but overall just throwing a bone to the whiners to keep them quiet. It was pretty scummy considering Greg was talking about fixing things he had no control over (the writing), while maintaining subpar CGI, which due to the Easter Eggs he gave autists and saying things that made him sound like he was "with them," they ate that shit up. You'll still hear fans to this day say they like Greg and wish Nitrogen could work on the show again. It's kind of creepy.

I don't remember, but the camera equipment was expensive to film in HD. I recall (but don't quote me on this) a single episode costed about $150,000.
Season 12 was models with CGI faces, Season 13-16 full CGI done by Nitrogen.