OBSERVERS OBSERVED AD ITERACTIO

I am overt about my presence, publicly taking notes, believing that the novelty of my role will wear off quickly as I am around every day. Daily research breeds familiarity, and openness is both more ethical and leads to more precise

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data, since memory tricks are minimized. Yet, this strategy leads to a justifiable desire to turn the tables. (Fine, 1996: 236)

The title of this section is borrowed from George W. Stocking’s edited book, Observers Observed: Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork. This is a useful description of my fieldwork where relational activities between research objects (i.e. interviewees) and me were not a one-way observation process but a two-way interactive process of observing and being observed. My presence as a researcher to the interviewees was obvious: first, I was with them as an intruder and stranger to their ordinary life; second, my recording device – a tiny MP3, unlike the lumbering tape recorders of old – was right in front of them, which may have been a constant reminder of why I was there; third, when interviewees asked not to be recorded on the MP3, I used a notepad and a pen to jot down what they said (though thoroughly detailed field notes were taken afterwards). In one way or another, I did and do know that my presence would have affected their acts and speech regardless of the efforts I made not to give any personal information or indication of my research.

Moreover, interviewees talk to each other and share their ‘guesswork’ (Popper, 1996:

47) in order to develop their ‘knowledge’ about ‘me’, an outsider to their community. I carried out my observation research at one company and approached other animators elsewhere individually, apart from those certain number of animators who I approached through the cyber Internet club. However, the animators’ community and animation industry are relatively small in Korea. So, somehow the story about a female student circulated. For instance, one day the animation journalist I met in London and one of the animators I interviewed in Korea shared a conversation in an online chat room. At one point,

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the topic of a female research student came up and both of them realised they were talking about the same person. I received this information through my respondent in the first interview, which happened after e-mail contact and several phone-calls. Even in recent contact (27 March 2006), the respondent informed me that they now openly talk about me and were even concerned how life was treating me in London. Not that many of the

interviewees knew exactly what I was doing with animators in various places, but I became an ‘object’ to be ‘observed’, if not with face-to-face observation, at least through curious gossips. Hence, to some extent, I am sure that my interviewees (especially above the level of producer whose network is far wider within the field than lower level animators) were prepared to ‘behave themselves’. The following observations concern elements of ‘me’

objectified to be observed by my ‘researching objects’ and how the interaction with them took place.

Class and Education: Regardless of my ‘occupation’ (a post-graduate student),

‘where I came from’ was the main curiosity for interviewees. Animators in low position (in-betweeners, colourists, assistants or animation students) were curious about my life in London and London as a foreign city. Since they were in my age group (twenty to thirty), they seemed to imagine themselves going abroad, either for their studies, travelling or working. In the very beginning, however, I could not help feeling some heartlessness from them. The similar age but different personal and educational background was probably the main reason behind this. This is where I was careful not to hurt their feelings in any way. At one point, a female animator pointed at my MP3 player (which was then fairly new and high-tech) and asked the price of it. Regretfully, I was honest about the price and I later

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learnt that her salary that month was about the same as the cost of the MP3 player. However, the reaction from animators in higher positions (directors, producers, CEOs) contrasted with the young animators. Unlike the young animators, they had already established their positions and had a considerable stable income. What they were most interested in was my capability of ‘doing’ something for them with my educational background, if I was to become involved in their business. A comment I received on numerous occasions from them was how good my English was. For many animation productions, whether in the OEM business or independent productions, recruiting people with foreign language skills is important. I actually used this point as a way of ‘payment’ or to express ‘gratitude’ for interviews with them; translating an English document into Korean or interpreting for foreign guests, for example.

Gender and Age: Gender also became an influence on the animators’ reaction. For single and male interviewees, I tried to avoid meeting them alone or in the evening. If I had to meet them in the evenings for interviews, I then asked for their permission for me to be accompanied by one of my female friends. It was to prevent any unnecessary personal involvement that could possibly happen between young single men and women. For this particular matter, rational behaviour with firmly objective research attitudes was necessary.

However, it could not be avoided that some conversational attitudes became more ‘friendly’.

In addition to that, either because of my gender (female) or my age (relatively younger than most of the male respondents), most of the time they insisted on paying for all expenses incurred during the course of the interview. In Korean culture, men are accustomed to paying on behalf of women, especially those who are younger, unmarried and single (including paying for meals and drink, and transport if not driving, for example). Most of

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time they ‘insist’ on paying for everything to impress women. Even when they are only with men, there tends to be one or two men who insist on paying for everybody. I would suggest this kind of behaviour is to confirm one’s paternalistic position as well as social supremacy over others.

On the contrary, female animators in my age group (twenty to thirty) were generally friendly but I experienced a different kind of ‘friendliness’. More ‘sharing’ activities took place. After the interviews and staying in the same place for a certain period of time, we engaged in ‘girls talk’: diet, fashion, relationship, hair, etc. I believe that by sharing these topics rather than losing ‘objectivity’ in research, I could achieve more ‘intimate’ and

‘deeper’ results from them. Class issues, educational background or occupation level did not matter in the same gender circle where many similarities could be shared in any case.

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Chapter 6

Inevitable egotiation: In-between the Global and the ational

6.1 ITRODUCTIO

In this chapter and the following chapter, I will explore the first in-between state of the Korean animators with examples of their own lived experiences in the industry, which I propose to position in the in-between of the global and the national. This chapter focuses on the global division of labour in the context of the Korean national economy. I seek to analyse today’s Korean animators’ struggles and difficulties in their everyday lives, particularly, those of the OEM animators who get direct influences from the global others (i.e. foreign producers). OEM stands for ‘original equipment manufacturer’. OEM

countries receive orders from foreign (e.g. multinational or transnational) companies to make certain parts of the products or models. And, these OEM producing countries tend to be less developed or developing countries where relatively cheap labour can be used for the production process. In this sense, as we will see in the rest of the chapter, the

employing companies can make profits from it with surplus margins.

What I aim to demonstrate in this chapter is two-fold: 1) that the first in-between state is a negotiation generated and driven mainly by the push and pull factors of globalisation and that it delivers the Korean animators’ globalisation experience in the form of economic and political struggles; 2) that while experiencing this in-between state, the animators’

artistic and creative merits are ignored, and they are regarded as simple labourers, which consequently lead to their emotional instability. For analytic purposes, the chapter will be

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divided into two parts: the Korean animation industry in the present and the past. It will begin by introducing the present state of the Korean animation industry, where financial insecurity and fears of unemployment have become problematic issues. Then, the chapter moves to examining the reasons behind the OEM involvement in the past, and

demonstrates that the weak economic situation of Korea was the very push factor that led the animators to participate in the global division of labour.

6.2 KOREA AIMATIO OEM IDUSTRY: PAST AD PRESET

6.2.1 HOW IT IS OW: THE PRESET: OEM AIMATORS’ DAILY LIVES AD WORK

Figure 6. 1 A Portrait of An Animator

‘By tomorrow! I must finish this by tomorrow!’

This is a portrait of me working hard to meet the deadline. I can’t go home till I finish everything. Hence, I eat and sleep in the office all the time. This is my life. (Animation art director KHK, male, working for 16 years, 28 September 2005)

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Globalisation is indeed a way the global and the local meet and interact with each other. The influences of global forces directly affect the local in various ways. In the case of the Korean OEM animation industry decisions about animators’ workloads,

time-management, and schedules are all dependent on the plans of their foreign employers. This situation clearly illustrates the impact of the international division of labour and how it fosters the fragmentation and division of labour within local workplaces as well. This is shown in the following example.

Mornings in Anifactory: the air in the company feels stuffy because of the animators’

over-night breath. Girls with swollen eyes yawn and stretch and boys sleep with their faces over the light-box desks. After a short while, around the corner, automatic pencil sharpeners spin loudly and the volume of popular Korean music from the radio is turned up. It is the cue to the start of the day as the deadline (i.e. delivery time to the airport) draws near. No interviews can be conducted until they finish drawing a certain amount of pages given to each one of them. They say only superficial greetings to me and there are no other words or actions. Their hands move faster and the chief animator’s voice gets desperately louder.

‘You should all finish by 3 p.m.!’ This is what happens in the in-betweeners’ cubicle.

Meanwhile, in the producer’s office, a phone never stops ringing and the facsimile machine runs continuously. The producer’s apologies in a foreign language (Japanese) sound

unfamiliar to my ears and yet are understandable from her soft and gentle voice tone. With twenty years experience as an animation producer, PKS, is the wife of the director and CEO of Anifactory, PNY, who will soon be introduced in the later part of this chapter. She

expresses her frustration with dealing with foreign partners and the company’s animators:

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I have to do this all the time. We are shackled by tight schedules and

bombarded by deadlines. Our animators are stressed by the overloaded work and surrounded by end-of-the-day fatigue. The whole work should be sent out to the airport for flight time and yet it is very hard to keep that punctual. So, I constantly have to say sorry to people in foreign offices and urge our animators to finish work quickly. What a tiring job this is!

(Producer PKS, female, twenty years in the industry)

As the tension between employers and employees increases, status hierarchies become clearer. This fact clearly illustrates how capital/financial power is the tool to distance the global (employers) from the local (employees). It is perhaps not surprising then that such distanciation also occurs between the local workers (i.e. between producers and

in-betweeners/animators themselves). Producers feel compelled to raise their voices to order low-level animators to work faster, while in-betweeners themselves are then overloaded with work and threatened with wage penalties. For example, if the so-called ‘retake’ (which means redoing the job) is necessary,

After 3 p.m. when an assistant KDH (male, 2 years in the industry) snaps up a bag of collected work from the animators and dashes off to the airport in a hurry, the entire company becomes more peaceful and quiet. Some animators go back home to take shower and others stay to do more work, or practise their lines.Animators need to acquire skills to draw ‘lines’ – clear, straight, and various kinds - for animation work. Animators’ wages are directly related to their skill levels in drawing particular qualities of lines. For this reason, trainees do, as they refer to as, ‘practising lines’ in their spare time. While taking a rest, the

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animators explain how difficult their lives and work are. An animation art supervisor KM, who has worked for thirteen years, explains, and an animator LHJ tells of her earnings:

We often work overnight. So much work to be done in a short period of time.

Japanese animation OEM work is supposed to be completed over two nights and three days. When the work arrives off a flight, we distribute work

according to individual animator’s skill level and work speed (pages per hour).

After that, whatever happens, we have to finish them on time. Once the work is completed, it’s taken to the airport with other OEM companies’ works and carried by a Japanese delivery person.

(Animation art supervisor KM, female, age 37, 13 years in the industry)

I worked overnight for over twenty-eight days last month, and can you guess how much I earned from it? \380,000 (￡190) only! I was broke, a total beggar! How sad is this life, huh?

(Animator LHJ, female, age 23, 3 years in the industry)

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Figure 6. 2 & Figure 6. 3 Portraits of Animators

2. Killed? Suicide? By whom?

Why?

3. ‘I can’t do any more….

Could you draw my bit, plea…se?’

Source: Animator S.M

Korean animators’ labour costs are relatively low (here, I specifically refer to the lowest ranked animators) and they are paid by the number of pages they draw. Although top animators and directors make a big sum of money, low ranked animators, i.e. in-betweeners, colourists or those who have just started working, earn very little for their labour and work.

It is because there is no basic salary given but only a ‘pay-as-you-draw’ system. (More detailed working conditions of the Korean animators will be explored in Chapter 7.) Hence, animators’ industrial experiences and skills directly affect their income. The following are the payment ratio, based on the collective interview data from fieldwork period (July – October 2005):

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a) for Japanese OEM work, in-betweeners earn \ 1,000 (￡0.50) per page and digital colour artists \ 800 (￡0.40) per page;

b) for American OEM work, in-betweeners earn \ 800 (￡0.40) per page and for digital colour artists, a similar rate to or less than Japanese OEM colour artists (American OEM work is paid less than Japanese as it requires simpler drawing skills.)

I have already mentioned that wage rates and drawing skills are closely related to each other. Having discussed in-betweeners’ wages above in a general way, here, let us look into the wage and employment structure of Anifactory per se (See Chapter 5 for other detailed information and structural elements; e.g. location, size of the company, history, gender ratio, education, ages and animators’ informal cultures.).

Inside Anifactory, there are total twenty four employees (See Chapter 5. Table 5.1 for a detailed breakdown.). Apart from the producer PKS who deals directly with foreign

customers (either on the phone, by e-mail, or via fax), other animators’ positions are decided according to their level of drawing skills and years of working experience.

Animators who have just started animation work are allocated to the in-betweeners’ cubicle.

As in-betweeners need to deliver many pages of drawings daily, in-between work is believed to be a starting point for animation rookies. In Antifactory there are about ten in-betweeners (four males and six females). Next to the in-in-betweeners’ cubicle, there is the computer colouring department where seven female members work. As with the

in-betweeners, colourists are paid low wages as not much skill is required for these positions.

It is interesting to point out however, that while these two departments (in-betweeners and

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colourists) are located in the company’s hall using partitions to divide their working space into cubicles, the original drawing department¹¹ is located in a separate office, next to the directors’ room. Inside the original drawing department, there are a total of five staff members (three male and two female). During the period of my fieldwork, however, only one man and one woman were present, both of whom were also relatively new to the field, which indicates that the other three more senior members of staff were able to have more private time outside the company. This again illustrates how wages and status are

dependent on animators’ dexterity and drawing skills (i.e. fast drawing means higher wages and more free time). Original drawing animators must have better drawing skills and longer work experience than in-betweeners, which means their wages are far higher than those of in-betweeners as well. Their wages are, however, not fixed and therefore they can vary dependent on their previous working experiences. In Anifactory, I was not given access to information about their exact wage rates. It is also worth noting where the producer’s office was located. The producers’ office was situated next to the colourists and the

in-betweeners. Staff at Antifactory themselves would argue that the floor plan of the company office is laid in such a way as to promote the best conditions for work efficiency and productivity. Nevertheless, the impression I received from the entire floor layout of the company was different. To me it seemed as though the layout itself silently but clearly

11 Original drawing animators draw animation characters’ main motions. For example, if a drawing of a person lifting a ball is required, an original drawing animator will draw two motion sequences: the first motion is that of a ball being held at a person’s waistline, and the second motion is that of a ball being held above the head. In-betweeners draw the numerous motions between those two main motions.

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spoke to the strict status hierarchy and created a kind of panoptic structure the animators were disciplined within. While this stark fragmentation between the local animators and their superiors exists, animators’ unhappiness in the face of the continued dominance of foreign animation houses increases, which re-emphasises globalisation’s uneven process once again.

Globalisation is indeed not a balanced or fair process from which everybody can enjoy equal benefits. Instead, globalisation generates diverse forms of inequality. Economic measurements (e.g. the wage rate shown above) are one of the ways in which the global inequality can be explicitly recognised. Likewise, such a low wage rate and long hours of work instantly lead the animators to suspect unfair and unbalanced managerial power of the global others. In addition, for animators, there is another element from which they

recognise discrimination. They feel that, sometimes, only difficult and complicated drawings are deliberately sent, and they question if the foreign animators are lazy, do not

recognise discrimination. They feel that, sometimes, only difficult and complicated drawings are deliberately sent, and they question if the foreign animators are lazy, do not