Charlie Schroder (left), vice president of Creek & River America, and CEO Christopher Bristow have seen the job market grow for animators in gaming. Photo credit: Igor Perchuk.

Animation World readers probably don't need to be told the animation industry is enduring a period of transition and metamorphosis. High-profile features like Treasure Planet haven't performed nearly as well as hoped, and even when the Disney people get behind the distribution of a seeming "sure thing" like Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, the results are not guaranteed success. Even that lovingly crafted masterwork has gone largely ignored (at least in America) despite the grass-roots efforts of fans like film critic Jack Matthews to put the movie before a more receptive public.

It's hard to know just where the industry stands, when formerly impervious venues like the Cartoon Network have come under fire for some conspicuous failures like the heavily hyped Sheep in the Big City. For audiences, the schizophrenic climate has created confusion, but few breakout hits. For professionals in the field, the current state of affairs seems bleak. Is traditional animation dead? Where have all the jobs gone? And how does one connect with work in the current depressed environment? For some animators, negotiating the uncertain terrain of the field can be frustrating and debilitating.

The poor showings of big budgeted Treasure Planet and critically acclaimed Spirited Away beg the question, "Where is this market going?" Treasure Planet © Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved; Spirited Away © 2002 Nibariki. TGNDDTM. All rights reserved.

Shifts in the Market
Recently, I spoke with Charlie Schroder, vice president of Creek & River America, a Tokyo-based talent management firm, to get her feelings on the current artist market. Ms. Schroder and CEO Christopher Bristow are in a unique position within the entertainment industry. Creek & River, Co., Ltd. currently represents over twenty thousand creative professionals — including directors, screenwriters, animators and illustrators. The agency has been instrumental in connecting these artists and writers with the kind of projects they might not discover independently. Ms. Schroder has the advantage of some first-hand experience in animation: during her tenure at Protozoa/Dot Comix, the company became the first to license an animated Internet character for television broadcast — Sister Randy (a spoof of BBC's Sister Wendy). Though Creek & River is primarily dedicated to forging relationships between artists and producers in all aspects of entertainment media, Ms. Schroder and Mr. Bristow have seen the need for animators rise in recent months — in unexpected arenas. Though the television and feature fields are staying static at best, the demand for sophisticated graphics in animated games has risen exponentially.

"Though a large percentage of our clients are in television and Websites, our talent has been an integral part of the production of over 100 game titles, including Tekken 4, Jet Set Radio Future and Final Fantasy X," Schroder says. Creek & River's function is not to produce the animation themselves, but as managing agents, to assemble the right teams for the right jobs. "We can streamline the production process by connecting multiple resources outside of [a company's] personal network."

These days, with the idea of a "Global Network" more than just a fantasy, it's more possible than ever to unite talents from different locales and cultures to create entertainment graphics unlike those seen before. We've all been aware of the fact that most television animation screened in America is drawn in Korea, but the new market, Schroder believes, will expand on this (essentially cost-saving) strategy and replace it with a symbiosis more driven by creativity than economy. Schroder and Bristow believe that with the accessibility of nearly limitless talent, "producers can afford to be choosy, now. They have their pick of very highly-skilled technicians who are extensively trained, who have high-end education."