Looking To The Future
But surely there must be something animators can do. Both Weiss and Hulett believe that something is computer animation. In fact, Hulett has been encouraging traditional animators to get skilled in such programs as Maya, Photoshop and Renderman.

"CGI is where the industry is going," says Hulett. "And the more arrows somebody has in their quiver, the more marketable, the more employable they are. There is a great need and a lot of people end up getting hired and employed, especially when they have an artistic background, in those programs."

For an animator like Kausler who has been drawing since he was eight years-old, learning to computer animate is a bit of an emotional challenge. "I'm doing a little experimental study in Maya. I'm figuring it out, but very little of it has the feel of animation," Kausler remarks. "It feels like learning a lot of menus and commands. You can get used to them, but I don't know if I would ever have the love for them that I have for drawing."

Weiss understands this frustration, but agrees with Hulett that retraining is utterly necessary to an animator's future. "If you were a carpenter and someone handed you a powersaw and you've been working your whole life with a handsaw, you're going to take a step back," says Weiss. "Eventually you are going to work faster, probably be able to do more with the powersaw. But initially you're going to miss the handsaw because you knew exactly what to do with it."

Imageworks, thus far, has been very successful at training traditional animators in computer animation programs. And the Union is in the process of working under an H1B grant to retrain a lot of their members. Does this mean 2D animation is dead? Hulett doesn't think so.

"Two-D animation will not go away," he remarks. "It will mutate and change, but it'll still be there in some way, shape or form. I see new technology continuing to develop and layer over old technology."

So essentially employability in animation is not just a case of who you know, but what you know. In the end, it's simple. The more skills an animator has, the more employable he or she is.

Says Hulett, "I think the industry is going to continue to grow overall, but people are going to have to retrain like mad to stay current.

"There's going to be different layers and levels of employment," he adds, "and I think people will find that overall the animation industry (including CGI animation, traditional animation, television animation, theatrical animation, live-action visual effects) is merging. It's all becoming a big ball of the same kind of stuff. If you know where to look for work and if you have the right, marketable skills, [animation] is still very lucrative and fulfilling. For those who aren't trained for the future, it's gonna be much, much more difficult. I think that's just the reality."

So, hopefully, just as the once-exiled Simba returned to Pride Rock stronger than ever, the American Animator King can make a significant comeback.

Ilene Renee Gannaway is a freelance writer who served as Director of Development for Turner Feature Animation and as Manager of Development, Motion Pictures for Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. She is currently pursuing her Master's Degree in English Literature and after graduation will, like many animation folks, be in need of a job.