u/First_Passenger_6100

NOTE: I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on what it means to be an animator, especially with burnout, AI anxiety and industry instability becoming more common. I ended up writing this essay and thought some people here might relate to it.

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Who is an animator? Maybe you have wondered about the question, or maybe you have not. I'm not surprised if you haven't.

We're not the mighty, powerful people in the world. Nor are we famous. Our work — which is the result of creative zest, backbreaking work, creative burnout and poor pay — is still one of the most beautiful expressions of art, and yet it's commonly derided as only suitable for children. We adults are quick to dismiss the idea that children are perceptive, when in fact they are.

So, I once again ask: Who is an animator?

You might say that an animator is someone who makes cartoons. You might say that an animator is an artist who draws moving pictures. But if you look at the origin of the word 'animation' it contains the word 'anima' within it, and anima means SOUL.

So in a spiritual sense, animators breathe life into the lifeless.

From my practical viewpoint, earned through experience, we animators are actors. Making a character walk in a cycle is not animation. Making the character walk, run, stumble and stand their ground in a way that conveys personality — this is animation. And it requires us to be actors. The difference is that instead of acting with our whole body, we either act with the drawings we draw, or give performances with puppets like the puppeteers in traditional puppet shows. In digital animation, both drawings and puppets overlap, with us drawing over and rectifying glitches where the puppets do not work perfectly.

Animation is a beautiful medium. But beauty can conceal harsh realities. And we have to confront this, because the problems plaguing professional animation as a business and an industry have become both endemic and ruinous. Long hours stretching into overtime, back and neck troubles, sore eyes, creative exhaustion are all too common problems for us animators. We are chronically underpaid, sometimes not even paid and simply ghosted by certain unscrupulous clients. Here in India, animators are frequently treated as production labour despite the artistic demands of the work. But we are not even allowed the protection of unions, because we are supposedly ‘artists’. And given the upheavals caused by the ongoing wars and AI incursion, more and more of us are being forced out of the industry.

Animation is an expensive medium, and even the tools that are required to create it are costly. But we animators? We are considered disposable. This is the reality we are facing.

If this does not change, then the future of animation in India is a bleak one. The medium may wither rather than mature, if artists are treated with a use-and-throw policy. No AI can fully replace the skills and insight that years of hard work instill in professionals. And these very professionals are the ones suffering the most in today’s world.

You don’t become an animator by doing an animation course or by learning software. We are like musicians. The paper and pencil, or pen tablet, computer and software are like musical instruments. You need years of practice and mentorship from seniors to make something with these instruments that is actually impressive. But if the seniors are all gone, then who will the juniors learn from? AI? That’s not even funny. 

AI is a tool. Not an artist, nor a human with personal insight. It can only generate its outputs from preexisting data. And that is content generation, not creativity born of human experience. Not unless there are experienced artists and human beings driving its chain of thought and filtering out its glitches.

In the age of AI, artists need to be invested in, not driven out to starve as obsolete. But of course who will listen, especially when immediate profits are enormously more important than investing in people? And when AI is becoming the next industrial revolution?

Don’t forget that a lot of valued artisan crafts are now extinct because industrial machines and those who profit from these systems systematically forced the artisans out of business. We are seeing this happen all over again.

I could end here, on a bitter and jaded note. But I won’t. Because while I don’t like at all what the industry has become, I love animation as a medium. I love it as a medium capable of beauty, wisdom and emotional truth — not merely endless disposable entertainment designed for consumption and forgetfulness.

There are animated works out there that were created in defiance of commercial and industry realities. Works that speak truth, and not bow their head to greed and shareholder gains. These are the works that made me feel the magic, and choose animation. And being a contributor to such profoundly beautiful works is my life’s dream. For me at least, this is the reason I choose to be an animator. My highest spiritual calling.

So long… and thanks for all the fish!