SHADOWMACHINE Employee Reviews about "people"

Cons

Top management felt like they favored friends

Cons

-Hiatus times are normal in this industry and happen here, per usual -There can be uncertainty for artists when a project ends -Every producer and project is different so there can be a big difference in the schedule and management style -no PTO -warehouse building which needs updates

Cons

Fast paced workload. VERY fast paced, be ready to pull your weight every day, try to stay focused while you work, and remember to take breaks. Breaks are important.

Cons

Eh. I could think of some stuff, but why be negative?

Cons

No billionaires - there are little things, but not worth mentioning

Cons

I don't even know where to begin with this review. I’ve been in the industry for over a decade, and this was hands down the most toxic work environment I've ever encountered. The first, biggest issue is that they still, somehow, do not understand the animation pipeline. I think most of these directors and showrunners aren’t interested in television production, I think they only want to get paid to make their personal projects with celebrity voice acting. Production seems to have no awareness of whether or not the crew is on track, at any time. When asked point blank about deadlines, one member of production will refer you to another, who will pass the buck to another, and on and on until you give up. In lieu of providing clear deadlines, they run their productions by assuming that everyone is behind all the time, and they micromanage accordingly. They assign arbitrary quotas without taking into account the size or complexity of the task, and will get on your case if you’re “behind,” even if “behind” means you spent eight hours on an eight-hour task. Another indication that they have no idea what they’re doing: you can make production happy by submitting busywork in order to hit your quotas. All they check is the number of files/seconds of animation you uploaded that day. It’s a farce. Further, they have no sympathy for anyone who takes time off, for any reason. Production actually told us that their schedule has zero room for sick days. I saw one member of production roll their eyes because an employee had the audacity to take a week off after contracting Covid. All that would be somewhat bearable if the studio fostered an exciting creative environment, but they can’t even manage that. I think this is largely due to the fact that the hierarchy of every show is completely backwards. From what I can tell, the showrunners and art directors do very little show running or directing. Their role is to do all the creative work while the rest of the crew acts as glorified clean up artists. Maybe this is by design, because given the ridiculously tight schedules, there’s no time for creative work, anyway. Nearly all key posing and design is worked out in the boards. If you’re not a board artist, you’re basically a board tracer, not a designer or animator. On top of all of that, production frequently calls artists into to meetings with the sole purpose of chiding them, threatening them with dismissal, or even yelling at them. Nothing seems to prompt these meetings other than being “behind schedule” (which, as stated earlier, seems to be an arbitrary status. I think “behind” is code for “having an attitude”). When artists actually do fall behind, production is unwilling (or unable, more likely) to come up with solutions. Thus, employees are cowed into keeping their heads down and working unpaid overtime, which production happily turns a blind eye to. The only reason they get away with all these things is because they have "cool" projects. They take advantage of young and inexperienced artists with impostor syndrome. Even coworkers of mine who say they love working here constantly talk about burnout and needing to take months-long hiatuses after each season. Oh, and production loves talking about how terrible the underpaid overseas studio they’ve been outsourcing animation to for years and years is. Classy. Stay far, FAR away. They are not worth your time or sanity.

Cons

Most people know this place is awful, but it’s even worse than it’s reputation. Basically the 2 people in leadership underbid other studios for big productions, then underpay and overwork their artists while hoarding the budget for their own salaries. When the artists call them on it, leadership is prepared— at the outset, they hire expendable people they can claim as responsible for the guaranteed misery and burnout and all the cost cutting, who they can fire when the heat is on them. It’s all an open secret, and happens on all of their productions. HR is one person that participates in the exploitation. The misoginy is constant. The lying is constant. People are hired just to rankle and undermine eachother. The most toxic place I’ve ever worked headed by the kind of sleazeballs who usually work in bro jobs but somehow ended up making cartoons.

Cons

- None at the moment

Cons

confusing production pipeline lack of support in production change of end date last minute

Cons

a little chaotic and asked me to work late without overtime the day before the deadline