Tuesday, July 05, 2016

"Unlimited Budget Works" Has Zero Basis


Ufotable productions suffer a lot from the equivalence between something looking good and it costing a lot of money. In any other industry it might make sense, a fancy meal will cost more than something a teenager slapped together at Burger King.However, as I've been forced to accept over the past year, the anime industry makes very little sense in regards to these standards. There's a constant conversation around budgeting in regards to animation that many sakuga figures have tried to stop in the name of accurate discussion. Honestly if you compare the pay of staff members, animation staff are seeing very little in comparison to sound directors or many others in different departments.In short, the budget is not balanced. And there's never been any evidence to suggest this is not the case at Ufotable. Honestly, if you look at the wages for Ufotable Cinema employees, the implication is actually very much that they get paid like shit.The production values we see in shows like Tales of Zestiria the X are very much the results of the "Ufotable Digital Team" and particuarly the head of department, Director of Photography Yuichi Terao. This small dedicated team take the opportunity to go over what often isn't hugely impressive animation (Unless Nozomu Abe stops by) and amplifies it with digital effects, sparks, rain, lighting and colour design (Often with Colour Designer Emi Chiba).In conclusion, there is zero evidence to suggest that Ufotable shows have a significantly larger budget and much of the quality is due to other real life factors that we do know about. So for those that actually take that meme seriously, can we please stop?EDIT: The only evidence to suggest the application of budget within animation is in regards to in-between frames. This was stated again by Bones President Masahiko Minami at his AnimeExpo panel. http://ift.tt/29mJzcc

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