Newscape Studios reviews

I believe most, if not all, problems that pertain to this company have to do with the lack of experience from management on how to run an animation studio as well as relying on YouTube for a steady source of income. Unrealistic goals and expectations were set from the very beginning, with a week turnaround for 8-10 minute animated videos made by a 6 person team. Holidays and time off had to be “earned” by a required crunch of work time and hours beforehand. Management based promotions off of willingness to work overtime and on the weekends not artistic or leadership ability. Not enough time was devoted to preproduction/pre-visualization and resulted in storyboards being revised mid week with multiple corrections having to be made mid production. Positions were left vacant while the rest of the team was expected to pick up the slack. There were inconsistencies in wages among positions and extra roles were often expected outside of job descriptions. Accommodations were only given or offered to certain employees. No formal training was offered to employees or those promoted to a lead position. Apart from all this, management was consistently unresponsive when approached with solutions or suggestions brought by the animation department despite the fact their animation team exhibited more knowledge of the field.

Management is keen on providing "industry standard" without providing the time or necessary resources to produce high-quality animation. The standard in animation is at least 2-3 months with a large team of animators on one episode. An average episode had 120-150 shots of animation in one WEEK. The process was only made manageable by severely cutting down quality, and looking for every viable shortcut imaginable to send out a video. 23 artists were either terminated or resigned due to private messaging regarding issues with management via a personal instant messenger, including working towards a discussion on providing more time and better wages. Management claimed ownership of it on company property, even though the application used is a general service and contains personal sections of employees- therefore an invasion of privacy. The supervisors cherry-picked the complaints regarding the company and actively chose to ignore or disregard the need for restructuring. Terrible communication from management- one particular supervisor consistently cut off employees when speaking and disregarded concerns about the lack of pre-production. Consistent criticism from management- supervisors would also blame the production team regarding general production issues that were created due to a lack of production time, even after continually lengthening videos. Higher pressure on rigging animators, who were often grilled for matters based on rushed storyboards, lack of assets, lack of time, or the general attitude of management. Lack of onboarding training- later hires received no initial training or orientation, and we're immediately placed on production with no chance for success. Some employees were placed in positions they didn't apply for and struggled to keep up with production. The only instruction anyone received was turning around to the employee next to them and asking how they managed their work while also creating content. Various artists were paid severely less than the rest of the team, even after multiple years of being staffed. One artist, in particular, was receiving significantly less despite being one of the first artists hired on board. Artists were encouraged not to disclose pay with others on production. The CEO is inexperienced at running a company, only having experience from running YouTube channels. He has a history of ghosting his audience and reacts negatively to backlash- oftentimes getting into arguments online with his fanbase. The rest of the management does not have either an animation or artistic background and lacks an understanding of how to give consistent and quality feedback.