Grammar frustration

O_o My brothers say that I use curses inappropriately and weird, its better off I not use any in life and my work.

Er, that got me wondering, do I really use curse words weirdly?

Or they just don't like to see me use curses?

Also, Another thing... Lisa from Developing the animated series class told me my pitchbook still has grammar mistakes and typo, which resulted my A+ to A.

That reason REALLY bothers me, more than the half a grade down... since I asked 3-4 people to correct my grammar and they even rewrote most of my work, (as well as rereading it myself, but I hope I had the time to have someone else re-read it) which I regret, actually... I find that I lost my own voice under all that rewrite, and it becomes a frustrating experience, and Lisa corrected most of my work as well except the last minute character info, and be honest to God, I hated all the rewrites, it not just frustration, it's a constant battles of trying to make my own voice stay, because people keep changing my messages.

The pitch book class has been the most frustrating class I have had since English Literature. The fact that I can never shake my grammar problem as a writer is just frustrating, even though I know editors are a profession for a reason.

Then I have my brothers tell me I even use curses incorrectly, what a way to blow my confidence in English language even lower. Lisa keeps saying if I had done it in my native language, I would have done better. Truth is, my Chinese is about as good as my English right now, my Chinese friends will always correct me of my grammar in Chinese too. However...... I did notice the way my teacher would correct something is completely different from the people my age, what's acceptable saying for people in their 20s, sounds weird for people in their 50s, the way a Canadian would correct my English is different from an American would correct it.... if English varies this much from age, and area, it's a bit hard to say which is acceptable which is not. Adding onto my confusion... -_-b

2009

the cost of production in JP

http://bayoab.info/live/old.php?panel=43

http://trainwreck.ggkthx.org/2008/08/20/changing-the-time-changing-the-show/

I got curious of the cost of production in Japan, googled it and found this... seemingly interesting source.

Japanese production is...... surprisingly.... cheap to me, for standards like Code Geass.

09:24:37 main characters 38000 yen... sub characters 100k, prop design 100k, art design, 100k, color planning 77k
09:26:12 story boarding 250k, director 250k, chief anim director 100k, animation coordination 200k, animation direction 400k
09:26:56 (most of these are per ep)
09:28:41 (typically 2-4 people on animation direction)
09:28:48 (makig a piece of that)
09:30:11 layout 600k (2k/cut, 300 cuts), keyframes 600k (ditto), tween frames 840k (210ea, 4000 frames), finish 798k (190 each, 4200 frames)
09:30:30 (running total is 4.899 mil so far)

average workday 10.2 hours, average of 25 days worked a month... 60 hr workweeks
09:31:48 outsourcing has reducied number of tween frame animators below keyframe animators)
09:32:10 average page per tweenframe is 186.9 as of 2005
09:32:12 (as per the union)
09:32:47 animators salary, under 1M, 26.8%, 1-2 mil, 19.8?, 2-3 mil, 18.6,
09:33:14 tweener's salary: under 1m: 73.7%, over 1 mil, 26.33%
09:34:25 production : animation check 80k, color coordination (70k), finishing inspection 70k, production assistants 300k, setting managment 60k, coordination desk 60k (all 1 month beside production assistants which are 2, the last two don't have a length)
09:36:34 filming: special effects (folded into overall filming budget... about 1 million yen), cg processing (100k), backgrounds & filming 1.050 mil each, line shot reserves
09:36:45 (also folded into filming budget)
09:37:40 composition: editing 200k, video lab 100k, sound 1.3 mil
09:37:44 (running total is 9.339 mil)
09:38:21 sound includes voice acting(?)
09:39:08 va's are paid per ep, no residuals...
09:39:18 a good portion will go to their management compay
09:41:26 goes up to 50k/60k, 1/3rd to the management company... 1/3rd to something else...
09:41:37 the sound includes sfx, music and other stuff
09:42:07 other expenses: misc 15k, op/ed 200k (5.2m/26 eps)
09:42:56 the music, op and ed usually is 1/2 the budget of the ep....
09:44:01 production expenses: 9.554 mil, production reserves 10% of budget (955.4k), total internal budget 10.5 mil...
09:44:08 expected profit 2.49mil

Even if they did say their episode cost runs up to (13 million yen=130K USD), that's still lower compare to what Nick spends on their ep to get similar quality. (I guess that's why people outsource) But if I look at it as yen, yeah, it's expensive for JPs to produce it in house.

their animators work 10 hours shifts on a 5 weeks time schedule... too. Looks like workaholic and crazy artists there is a norm. Their animators are most certainly... underpaid.

This gets me going

Seeing a finished sequence really gets me pumped and excited, this is what cause an addiction to film making. XD

What it takes to make animation TV series

General Notes.... reference from http://www.tv.com/avatar-the-last-airbender/show/28841/summary.html

Avatar the last air bender production usually takes about $1 million and 9-10 months per episode.

The quality on the Kids Next Door is 350-400'000 per esp and 9-10 months to make as well.

The quality of adult cartoon like Venture Bros operate on 1/10 of that...

A pilot is about 20'000-25'000, 1 year of production time, about 6-11 min.

So if I want to make my series in the ideal situation... it's 20 millions down.

That's some scary amount of money....

Now I got to know the people in the industry, the cool folks who kept their child-heart, I am starting to see the products from the entertainment quite differently. Unlike a pure consumer in the past, where you get to pick and choose and say you hate this or love that.... once you are in the show biz, you get affected by the people who started the show/series and simply learn to love what they love, and look at the shows from a different way. (and also... you quickly learn the rule of not bad mouthing anyone's work, it's bad for your career)

I figured I want to live as an honest and humble artist, so.... if I shouldn't bad mouth anyone, then I will need to learn to love their work as they love them. If I can't, at least I will support them and share their enthusiasm, this perspective makes me a happy artist working under others.