One movie that took the world by storm recently was Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and it is now the topic of a hot new but much-needed debate. The Comic-book superhero movie had one of the finest animations ever done in the history of cinema and all the hard work behind the project was very evident to the audiences as well. But turns out, as much as it was a visual treat for the viewers, it wasn’t as fun for the animators. The media outlet, Vulture most recently came out with a feature on the magic makers behind the drawing board of the movie, accompanied by some interesting yet terrible revelations.
The working conditions that the workers were put through were inhuman to say the very least. To make matters worse, the former Sony producer’s insensitive remarks to the animators’ complaints took things to a new level.
Amy Pascal on the Working Conditions of the Movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Although Across the Spider-Verse looked perfect, the working conditions that the animators were put through were far from the word perfect. Under the leadership of the famous duo, Phil Lord and Chris Miller often referred to as Lord and Miller, Sony Pictures Animation has delivered hits one after the another, shattering their own records on the way. But the process that goes on behind the scenes is not as commendable as the people thought. Vulture’s expose on the matter shed light on some grueling truths.
It revealed approximately a hundred workers were forced to leave the project hanging mid-way to save their lives. The childish demands and the managers breathing down their necks made the environment even more hostile. The animators were forced to work 11-hour shifts per day, seven days a week for a full year. They were also forced to revise the perfectly made product five times to match the vision the executives had in mind.
It was especially Lord, who was said to cause these inconveniences for the workers, overtaking all the operations under his wings. Miller was said to be dormant throughout. To make matters worse, Amy Pascal the former Sony co-chairman, who was fired for the leaks of her racist emails, during the massive hack in the Sony system in the year 2015, completely disregarded the workers’ well-being. She reportedly said,
“One of the things about animation that makes it such a wonderful thing to work on is that you get to keep going until the story is right,–If the story isn’t right, you have to keep going until it is–I guess, Welcome to making a movie.”
Her defending the terrible conditions caused the internet to erupt once again after recently calling out the MCU for the very same.
MCU Faces Backlash for Terrible Working Conditions
Numerous former Marvel employees have voiced their opinion that the company is the “worst” to work for because of the alleged stringent deadlines and extended periods of work. A VFX artist, Dhruv Govil, who was a former Marvel employee thus decide to speak out about his experience regarding the matter. Although the future of the studio seems promising, the working environment is not at all a sustainable one.
After The Gamer put out an article on Twitter asserting that VFX artists were refusing to team up with Marvel, Govil gave an account of his own encounters. The ex-VFX artist described the scene of his fellow workers “breaking down” due to being “overworked,” and declared that it was his work on Marvel projects that prompted him to switch to a different location. Thus, people are now outrageous upon hearing the accounts of the former employees that helped make their favorite films.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is now out in the theatres.
Source: Vulture
