Well as a proffesional in animation i think if the owners of Rhythm and Hues can continue to operate profitably and yield a quality product with artist in Taiwan its better than going under with american artists. I work in 2D and having an artist thats as talented as you but costs 1 /3rd as much as you take your job isn’t fun but being a part of a market that allows the artist and producers to take advatage of more efficient production models and labor will resort in more projects being created and more markets on both the creative and production side. The Ink and paint work being done overseas didn’t mean the end of 2D it was the beginning of new avenues for 2D creators and producers and it will be the same for VFX.

Well, that’s the history of animation. It’s not a recent development, 90 percent of all major US animated television productions have had offshore components (usually studios full of animators) since the 50′s and earlier. Digital VFX is the same deal. Digi artists in LA wanna buy a house for their family, pay the mortgage. Fair enough.. but the studio I’m at in Indonesia, the artists live in dormitories and get bussed to work, 30 of ém cost one US wage. Quality? Some of the highest rated shows worldwide.

It is cheaper on paper but there are a lot of thing the studio heads aren’t considering and will have to deal with. I worked in video games for 14 years, here’s some info. Cheap outsourcing is cheap but the quality is questionable. If you can find a place and lock them in and have a good rapport then you might be in decent shape but you will still get the crap piece of art they didn’t have time for and sometimes needs to be completely redone. Also, they’re not personally invested in the project, artists just takes shots in the dark and hope for the best without understanding much context of what the project it. For a little more $ you get better quality but now it’s only about a third cheaper than hiring someone in the US. There’s also a major cultural barrier. Sometimes you’ll get choices made by the artists on shapes, colors or style that just look wacky and you have to go through an interpreter to explain what you want and hope they understand what you’re talking about. After dealing with outsourcing for several years now I think it can be a good idead overflow work but for the major bulk, I would never do it. For $30-80 hr you can hire great artists in the US. For full time employees you have to add and additional 10-20% for equipment/insurance costs for each full time employee but I wish they’d at least hire more local freelance artists.

Also, you’re essentially training a foreign company all your trademark secrets on how to do your job. So when they get big enough, they’ll just start making their own movies and making their own.