About animation studios

From: Kevin L. Knoles <klknole_at_rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 12:01:02 -0600 (CST)

> overseas studios often have a two or three tier system whereby they
> "stream" their animators according to expertise as kind of "A", "B", and "C"
> crews; assigning them to different projects based on the nature of the
> project, and how well it pays.

    I already knew that. But based on what I've seen, Hanho's best animation
teams are worse than Mook's worst. Starchaser was a multimillion dollar
theatrical project, so I don't think it's all that unreasonable to assume that
it had some of their A animators working on it, yet it still looked awful.

> "SwatKats" doesn't look as though it had the same budget allotted for each
> episode, so it's possible that some of the Hanho eps drew "A" crews, some
> "B" and others "C". I've seen some episodes of "Animaniacs" done by

    I've noticed the same thing among both the Hanho and Mook eps. The finest
Hanho animation I've seen on SWAT Kats IMO was in Enter The MadKat, with all
those bouncing balls, and the worst Kats Mook animation looked better.
Mark Lungo told me that Hanho was actually more expensive than Mook, and when
Mook animated, the producers tried (And sometimes succeeded) to get the A
animators to work on them. If they could get the best of Mook to at least
sometimes work on SK's, then do you suppose that the best of Hanho worked on
the show as well? If what I'm seeing in the best looking SK's eps is the A
animation for each studio, then the best of Mook's animation is not just
"better", it *crushes* the best of Hanho's.

> a fine Japanese Studio - Tokyo Movie Shinsha - that varied considerably
> *within* the very same ep: the work of two very different crews clearly
> evident.

    Like I just said, it appears to be the same way for SWAT Kats, and it's a
question of how good the best is.

    Oh, and thanks for complimenting TMS. Reminds me of an old
rec.arts.animation thread I have yet to follow up on...

> Hanho Heung-Up is *not* a lousy studio, Korean or otherwise, as they've
> animted some fine things in the past ("Tale Spin" comes to mind), and I

    "Lousy" is a term that varies with opinion. I don't know about you, but I'm
keeping it to describe Hanho.

    My Tale Spine memories are fuzzy and I never bothered to keep permanet
tapes of the series. Offhand, what episodes did they animate? (Maybe this is
best kept to E-mail if it's so off topic.) Here I go with another wild
assumption, but I'm betting it wasn't the series best, probably those
episodes that looked like their Winnie the Pooh work.

> didn't personally think that their Katseps were all that bad. Mook was just
> better.

    I *do* think Hanho's Kats stuff was bad, and I can start in on the worst
looking portions if you want. That's of course in no way anything against the
series - Make no mistake, I LOVE SWAT Kats - just what I feel is a well
deserved slap for ruining what could have been some incredibly animated action
sequences. The series just feels incomplete without animation of consistently
high quality. If anything, my Hanho basing is in defense of the series;
SWAT Kats deserved better. I dunno, maybe I've been spoiled by anime or
something.

  |\ __ /| Kevin L. Knoles klknole_at_rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu |\ __ /|
  | | | |
   \ / The Long Lost, but now found Kats Fan \ /
     \/ \/

Received on Wed Mar 27 1996 - 13:43:55 PST