Thread by @CozyJamble

I do the SAME EXACT JOB as a high-level live action writer, yet I make 1/3 what live action does, all because the AMPTP refuses to pay us fair wages. It’s time for the studios to pay what they owe — if you love cartoons, join us in saying it’s time to #PayAnimationWriters

https://twitter.com/TAGwriters/status/1461001184609660933

I feel VERY strongly about this, so in the lead-up to negotiations, I'm going to use this space to share my personal stories about being an animation writer, and why we need to make things better for ourselves and for the next generation. Stay tuned! #WePowerAnimation #WeAre839

While negotiations happen this week, I want to share some of my stories of working in animation, because the best way to show why we need to #PayAnimationWriters is to hear from us! Let's start my stories in the ancient bygone year of 2013... 1/8

I was breaking into animation. I had impressed my execs enough to be consistently brought in to pitch freelance episodes. I was working non-stop…and getting paid the minimum unit rate for ALL of it. I was pitching on EVERY SINGLE SHOW they had, and couldn’t make ends meet. 2/8

I got a full-time job, pitched during lunch, and wrote every weekend as fast as I could, so I could invoice as fast as I could (because it took months to get paid), to pitch the next thing as fast as I could. It was unsustainable. My name was on TV, and I could not pay rent. 3/8

I calculated that I would have had to write (outline to second draft) about 11-15 episodes a year to get by. Not JUST outlines (then the number I had to write would go up). This was not feasible. I thought this was my failing, that I wasn’t good enough, until one Saturday… 4/8

I went to a café and saw the barista in an Animation Guild T-Shirt. She was also a writer, in the same boat I was: enough freelance to qualify for insurance, not enough to get by. Then she introduced me to her coworkers: all freelance TAG writers, all working second jobs. 5/8

There were no writers’ rooms to be hired into. At many studios there was ONE “staff” position, the Story Editor, and that was done by a Producer. We had worked on the same stuff, including THE MOST POPULAR KIDS SHOWS ON AIR, and we were calling BA to beg to get paid on time. 6/8

This wasn’t a personal failure. The unit rates were (and are) so low that it's impossible to get by on freelance. It’s impossible to break into an industry when there’s NO JOB to break into, just endless calls for premises. It was exploitive then, and it’s exploitive now. 7/8

A couple years after this I was hired as a staff writer, and I was able to further my career, working on some of the biggest shows out there. But as long as there's "all freelance rooms" there are many writers who will never get this chance. We need to #PayAnimationWriters 8/8