Labour strife taints Sausage Party
A controversy over a hit film about a hot dog has brought to light an issue plaguing the booming animation industry — the treatment of its workers.
Some artists who worked on Sausage Party,a computer-animated comedy produced by Annapurna Pictures and released by Sony Pictures, have alleged that they were denied overtime pay, pushed to hit unrealistic production goals and stripped of their credits for complaining about work conditions at Vancouver-based Nitrogen Studios in order to meet the movie’s thrifty $19-million US budget.
The complaints, which first emerged in the comments section of the animation blog Cartoon Brew, have dampened what would have been a celebratory week at Nitrogen. The small, 13-year-old studio just saw its first feature film become a surprise box-office success, grossing $41.4 million US worldwide to date, and recently went into production on the Guillermo del Toro show Trollhunters for Netflix and Dreamworks Animation.
Nitrogen is one of several studios that have benefited from the trend of Hollywood productions outsourcing animation or visual-effects work to countries with cheaper labour forces, favourable tax incentives or both, such as Canada, Britain, France, India and South Korea.
Just as animation is becoming an increasingly lucrative medium — driving four of the 10 highest-grossing movies at the box office so far this year — animators say their working conditions are worsening. “You have young crews working long hours for minimal pay because they just want to be in the industry,” said Steve Hulett, who sits on the board of the Animation Guild. “You have lowball bids, tax subsidies and enormous pressure to bring things in on deadline and as inexpensively as possible.”
In the case of Sausage Party, a group of animators signed a letter demanding better treatment and paid overtime in December, which Annapurna ultimately paid. Nitrogen Studios chief executive Nicole Stinn disputed the workers’ complaints. “Our production adhered to all overtime laws and regulations, as well as our contractual obligations with our artists,” Stinn said in a statement.
One issue that has rankled many on the film is the withholding of credits that often help make long hours and low pay palatable. One Sausage Party artist who did not want to be identified because of fears of professional repercussions said he was surprised to be omitted from the final film credits. “In this industry … companies are not obligated to give film credit. However, hardly any company ever exercises that.”