Thank you for this, a fascinating article. I'm a TV animator in the UK, and I've found that the American shows I work on aren't outsourced in the conventional way, as often the directors, story artist and everything on are in the UK. But the client and money will be in america. Which then heavily influences the show, so we often make work intended to appeal to an american audience first, even though the whole creative team live and work in the UK.
It's a weird set up, but it pays better than local or indie productions, which seems to follow the examples you gave in Japan and China.
Also from now on I'll measure the quality a project by how much the team is learning on the job as well as the final output. Learning is so important to keep the animation industry doing new and interesting work!
Really glad that you liked it, and that the point about learning resonated so much! What you wrote is true: it's essential to keeping the industry vibrant and interesting.
And thanks for sharing these details about the UK outsourcing scene -- it's intriguing to find out how current outsourced projects work there. We haven't heard much about this before and it's a knowledge gap we need to fill.
I do end up wondering a bit about the current state of animation outsourcing. Is South Korea still the main player? I heard there's a lot going to the Phillippines now (from both Japan and the States), and that other countries like India are becoming more popular for it, but I don't have any numbers. Presumably European arthouse animated films use outsourcing - how does that look compared to the US and Japan? Have there been any more notably positive collaborations since the days of AtlA and Samurai Jack?
I always think it's a tragedy that, while South Korea has one of the largest animation industries in the world, there's so little interest in domestic South Korean animation. I got into aeni for the 'Animation Night' project and found all sorts of cool things - you have brutal social realism in the films of Yeon Sang-ho like *King of Pigs*, beautifully drawn pastoral nostalgia slice-of-life and magical-world stories in films like *Green Days - Dinosaur and I* and 'My Beautiful Girl Mari*, crazy chaotic flash in *Aachi & Ssipak*, really strikingly moody cyberpunk in *Sky Blue*/*Wonderful Days*, a strong Ghibli tribute in *Yobi the Five-Tailed Fox*, even cheerful shōnen in *Ghost Messenger*. A lot of it ends up feeling stylistically very similar to anime, but there's an interesting realist streak in a lot of these films which seems to be something Korean animators are very good at (much to the benefit of AtlA and Korra). And that's not even to get into the work of Peter Chung, who worked in both the US and Japan but still kept close ties with Korea throughout his career. I wish there was more appreciation abroad for aeni, just like with donghua!
And speaking of North Korean animation, there was a film called *Empress Chung* made in 2005 as a collaboration between SEK in North Korea and AKOM in South Korea, largely driven by the efforts of director Nelson Chin who spent eight years bringing it about. It sounds fascinating, and won awards at Annecy, but never got an international release so almost no trace of this movie seems to exist online anymore. I hope one day I'll be able to track down a copy. There has to be such a fascinating story there.
Thanks very much! As to your point about outsourcing -- the Philippines is definitely one of the major hotspots for it. Sometimes it feels like Snipple is involved in the majority of the animated shows that hit American TV. India is big as well, although its domestic animation scene is growing quickly. The information we've come across for those environments has been spotty, unfortunately. There's likely more to say about them that we just don't know yet.
Also, surprisingly, the European films don't often seem to use outsourcing as it's normally understood. The co-production system encourages keeping work (including in-betweens and color) in the co-producing countries, because that's how you get the grants and tax breaks! Which is very cool, and seems to be helping the overall animation scene in Europe tremendously.
Lastly, super interesting stuff about South Korean animation and Empress Chung. A lot of this is new to us and we'll have to dig deeper! We've definitely seen great work from South Korea in recent years (Persona by Sujin Moon, for example), but accessing this stuff outside festivals has been tricky, and we weren't able to see Chun Tae-il (another example) before it left the circuit and became hard to find. Even Leafie: A Hen into the Wild is one we haven't tracked down yet. You've just given us encouragement to look further into all of this, so thank you!
Jun 3·edited Jun 3Liked by Animation Obsessive Staff
In reference to the Indo-Japanese Ramayana it's worth noting that one of the beneficiaries of the early attempts by Disney studios to investigate outsourcing to Asia - they were already outsourcing animation work to the Philippines - was Ram Mohan, who trained under the Disney animator Claire Weeks, and who later became the animation director / creative director on the 1992 Indo-Japanese anime.
I discovered later that Rankin-Bass had been planning to adapt the Ramayana too, some time in the late 60's / early 70's, via a press release that I was shown around the time I was involved in promoting the Indo-Japanese version in the mid-90's, though despite my efforts I have never been able to find any further evidence to support this.
This is fascinating stuff! Thanks for this information -- we didn't realize that Mohan was part of the outsourcing world. Another group boosted by it was Topcraft in Japan, which did a lot of Rankin/Bass stuff and then produced Nausicaa. The animation director of Mohan's Ramayana film was a major Topcraft guy, involved in stuff like The Last Unicorn (and Nausicaa). It's wild to think about these crossovers.
Jun 3·edited Jun 3Liked by Animation Obsessive Staff
I make no apologies for using AI for image generation and concept work and used it recently for a BBC doc' series, however, any evidence of its use has been carefully considered and all parties were aware of how it would be used from the get-go, and the resulting images either worked over manually or collaged together, and it proved to offer an efficient workflow when considering the timeframes and budgets involved.
That Gazprom "film" though is hideous and every reason why you shouldn't try to make "animated" films entirely using AI with the tools that are currently available.
It's really unsettling stuff! You have to wonder why Gazprom thought it was ready for the public -- it almost feels like an argument against the viability of AI animation more than anything.
The en💩ification of animation has begun...or has it? I would argue that it began with the outsourcing described in your article. AI is just one more way to outsource, but this time we're outsourcing to algorithm-running machines. 😒
The history of outsourcing in animation is utterly fascinating and one I covered in a college essay I wrote almost 2 years ago about globalization's effects on the animation industry (even cited a few of your previous articles). I'm glad you're continuing to research this extensive subject and would love to see more installments where you cover the history of outsourcing in specific regions like South Korea, Philippines, India, etc.
On a side note, I'm with the commenters here that the AI "animation" was horrifying! I could only stomach a few seconds of it before being too creeped out to continue. Plus, I don't need to give it any more unwarranted visibility.
Thanks very much! We'll definitely consider further articles from here -- and great to know that our work so far was a help with your essay. As for the AI thing, absolutely. It's shocking. We don't normally draw attention to bad AI art/animation we see around, but this one was such an extreme and high-profile example that we had to mention it!
Wow, did you just write a whole article on outsourcing American animation and not mention Canada at all? Is this because you're planning another article just about Canadian outsourcing, or does Canada not count because it shares a land border with the US and (mostly) speaks English? A whole article could be written on Pixar Canada alone. Decades worth of service work for US studios has kept the Canadian industry not only afloat but a valuable training ground for people who take their talents south. There's also an increasing amount of animation being sent to Europe – and not just ex-Soviet-bloc countries which feel 'foreign'. Lots, lots more to this story!
Canada is a very important outsourcing spot, for sure! The same goes for India, the Philippines and beyond. Our goal was to cover the beginnings of animation outsourcing and then trace a small part of its development from there, based on the sources we have. There's absolutely more to say -- this is really a book-length topic, and our little article is just a brief introduction to a few parts of it.
That's amazing to hear! Glad we could bring that one to you. Technology like this really seems like it could play a big part in the future of animation -- in fact, Cartoon Saloon has already used older versions of Moho for several feature films. It's going to be thrilling to see where it all develops from here.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks as well for cluing us into this wild story about Hungary -- we've never heard about this before. Definitely going to look into it further to satisfy our own curiosity.
It's been a while since I watched the doc, but I think in that case the difference was that there wasn't really an American who was employing them, the whole business was owned by them. I could be wrong about that though.
Thank you for this, a fascinating article. I'm a TV animator in the UK, and I've found that the American shows I work on aren't outsourced in the conventional way, as often the directors, story artist and everything on are in the UK. But the client and money will be in america. Which then heavily influences the show, so we often make work intended to appeal to an american audience first, even though the whole creative team live and work in the UK.
It's a weird set up, but it pays better than local or indie productions, which seems to follow the examples you gave in Japan and China.
Also from now on I'll measure the quality a project by how much the team is learning on the job as well as the final output. Learning is so important to keep the animation industry doing new and interesting work!
Really glad that you liked it, and that the point about learning resonated so much! What you wrote is true: it's essential to keeping the industry vibrant and interesting.
And thanks for sharing these details about the UK outsourcing scene -- it's intriguing to find out how current outsourced projects work there. We haven't heard much about this before and it's a knowledge gap we need to fill.
Was a great article last year, still is.
I do end up wondering a bit about the current state of animation outsourcing. Is South Korea still the main player? I heard there's a lot going to the Phillippines now (from both Japan and the States), and that other countries like India are becoming more popular for it, but I don't have any numbers. Presumably European arthouse animated films use outsourcing - how does that look compared to the US and Japan? Have there been any more notably positive collaborations since the days of AtlA and Samurai Jack?
I always think it's a tragedy that, while South Korea has one of the largest animation industries in the world, there's so little interest in domestic South Korean animation. I got into aeni for the 'Animation Night' project and found all sorts of cool things - you have brutal social realism in the films of Yeon Sang-ho like *King of Pigs*, beautifully drawn pastoral nostalgia slice-of-life and magical-world stories in films like *Green Days - Dinosaur and I* and 'My Beautiful Girl Mari*, crazy chaotic flash in *Aachi & Ssipak*, really strikingly moody cyberpunk in *Sky Blue*/*Wonderful Days*, a strong Ghibli tribute in *Yobi the Five-Tailed Fox*, even cheerful shōnen in *Ghost Messenger*. A lot of it ends up feeling stylistically very similar to anime, but there's an interesting realist streak in a lot of these films which seems to be something Korean animators are very good at (much to the benefit of AtlA and Korra). And that's not even to get into the work of Peter Chung, who worked in both the US and Japan but still kept close ties with Korea throughout his career. I wish there was more appreciation abroad for aeni, just like with donghua!
And speaking of North Korean animation, there was a film called *Empress Chung* made in 2005 as a collaboration between SEK in North Korea and AKOM in South Korea, largely driven by the efforts of director Nelson Chin who spent eight years bringing it about. It sounds fascinating, and won awards at Annecy, but never got an international release so almost no trace of this movie seems to exist online anymore. I hope one day I'll be able to track down a copy. There has to be such a fascinating story there.
Thanks very much! As to your point about outsourcing -- the Philippines is definitely one of the major hotspots for it. Sometimes it feels like Snipple is involved in the majority of the animated shows that hit American TV. India is big as well, although its domestic animation scene is growing quickly. The information we've come across for those environments has been spotty, unfortunately. There's likely more to say about them that we just don't know yet.
Also, surprisingly, the European films don't often seem to use outsourcing as it's normally understood. The co-production system encourages keeping work (including in-betweens and color) in the co-producing countries, because that's how you get the grants and tax breaks! Which is very cool, and seems to be helping the overall animation scene in Europe tremendously.
Lastly, super interesting stuff about South Korean animation and Empress Chung. A lot of this is new to us and we'll have to dig deeper! We've definitely seen great work from South Korea in recent years (Persona by Sujin Moon, for example), but accessing this stuff outside festivals has been tricky, and we weren't able to see Chun Tae-il (another example) before it left the circuit and became hard to find. Even Leafie: A Hen into the Wild is one we haven't tracked down yet. You've just given us encouragement to look further into all of this, so thank you!
In reference to the Indo-Japanese Ramayana it's worth noting that one of the beneficiaries of the early attempts by Disney studios to investigate outsourcing to Asia - they were already outsourcing animation work to the Philippines - was Ram Mohan, who trained under the Disney animator Claire Weeks, and who later became the animation director / creative director on the 1992 Indo-Japanese anime.
I discovered later that Rankin-Bass had been planning to adapt the Ramayana too, some time in the late 60's / early 70's, via a press release that I was shown around the time I was involved in promoting the Indo-Japanese version in the mid-90's, though despite my efforts I have never been able to find any further evidence to support this.
This is fascinating stuff! Thanks for this information -- we didn't realize that Mohan was part of the outsourcing world. Another group boosted by it was Topcraft in Japan, which did a lot of Rankin/Bass stuff and then produced Nausicaa. The animation director of Mohan's Ramayana film was a major Topcraft guy, involved in stuff like The Last Unicorn (and Nausicaa). It's wild to think about these crossovers.
I make no apologies for using AI for image generation and concept work and used it recently for a BBC doc' series, however, any evidence of its use has been carefully considered and all parties were aware of how it would be used from the get-go, and the resulting images either worked over manually or collaged together, and it proved to offer an efficient workflow when considering the timeframes and budgets involved.
That Gazprom "film" though is hideous and every reason why you shouldn't try to make "animated" films entirely using AI with the tools that are currently available.
Russian AI "animation":
Reaction A: Well, it does have some nice backgrounds.
Reaction B: In space, no one uses footwear? 🤨
Reaction C: She must have watched the "Blink" episode because she never does it a single time during the video. 😱
It's really unsettling stuff! You have to wonder why Gazprom thought it was ready for the public -- it almost feels like an argument against the viability of AI animation more than anything.
The en💩ification of animation has begun...or has it? I would argue that it began with the outsourcing described in your article. AI is just one more way to outsource, but this time we're outsourcing to algorithm-running machines. 😒
This was a wonderful article!!
Thank you!
Oh man, the Rankin/Bass Pinocchio nobody talks about!? I'm gonna have to read this later.
Great Article.
Thank you!
The history of outsourcing in animation is utterly fascinating and one I covered in a college essay I wrote almost 2 years ago about globalization's effects on the animation industry (even cited a few of your previous articles). I'm glad you're continuing to research this extensive subject and would love to see more installments where you cover the history of outsourcing in specific regions like South Korea, Philippines, India, etc.
On a side note, I'm with the commenters here that the AI "animation" was horrifying! I could only stomach a few seconds of it before being too creeped out to continue. Plus, I don't need to give it any more unwarranted visibility.
Thanks very much! We'll definitely consider further articles from here -- and great to know that our work so far was a help with your essay. As for the AI thing, absolutely. It's shocking. We don't normally draw attention to bad AI art/animation we see around, but this one was such an extreme and high-profile example that we had to mention it!
Wow, did you just write a whole article on outsourcing American animation and not mention Canada at all? Is this because you're planning another article just about Canadian outsourcing, or does Canada not count because it shares a land border with the US and (mostly) speaks English? A whole article could be written on Pixar Canada alone. Decades worth of service work for US studios has kept the Canadian industry not only afloat but a valuable training ground for people who take their talents south. There's also an increasing amount of animation being sent to Europe – and not just ex-Soviet-bloc countries which feel 'foreign'. Lots, lots more to this story!
Canada is a very important outsourcing spot, for sure! The same goes for India, the Philippines and beyond. Our goal was to cover the beginnings of animation outsourcing and then trace a small part of its development from there, based on the sources we have. There's absolutely more to say -- this is really a book-length topic, and our little article is just a brief introduction to a few parts of it.
Thanks for sharing the Darcy animation test! You’ve Just opened up a huge Pandora’s box for the next iteration of Stoker Machine animations 🫶🏽🙌🏽
That's amazing to hear! Glad we could bring that one to you. Technology like this really seems like it could play a big part in the future of animation -- in fact, Cartoon Saloon has already used older versions of Moho for several feature films. It's going to be thrilling to see where it all develops from here.
Great article, reminds me of a similar story about a game dev studio in Communist Hungary in the 80s. There's a documentary about it called Moleman 4.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks as well for cluing us into this wild story about Hungary -- we've never heard about this before. Definitely going to look into it further to satisfy our own curiosity.
It's been a while since I watched the doc, but I think in that case the difference was that there wasn't really an American who was employing them, the whole business was owned by them. I could be wrong about that though.