Is animation developing greatly in South Korea? Is it a good opportunity for an animator to find job in Seoul? im currently a student studying at emily carr, vancouver - canada and I'm thinking about finding a job in animation in Seoul in 2010 when I graduate. But I dont know if animation really is developing in that country or not. For any of you who knows, will you please answer my question and give me tips if that is possible.
_____________________________
yahoo keyword tool ~ overture ~ traffic estimator ~ adwords traffic estimator
animation job
-
- AV Forum Member
- Posts: 1
- Joined: November 15th, 2011
animation job
Last edited by marelenex on November 21st, 2011, 2:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
Animators generally get paid a lot less overseas than they do in in Canada or the US.
Economic conditions are generally also a lot harder overseas, too.
Japan is a notoriously expensive place to live -- food costs alone can be 3-5 times more than North America (!) -- and Hong Kong is also expensive.
As far as South Korea is concerned, talk to a military friend (if you have one) or someone who's done business in South Korea...
I don't know how friendly the environment is for foreigners in Korea but I would suspect it's not great unless you're native Korean or can converse in Korean. There's a lot of anti-American sentiment in that country. I hear it's not great for other nationalities, either.
Korea is the capital of TV animation for the time being... The Simpsons and most other shows you see on TV get inked, colored, and animated over there. Most of what's done in the US (and probably Canadian productions) is storyboarding, layout and character designs in addition to voice-over. It's become too expensive to economically produce the rest of animation in North America.
A lot of Japanese animated TV productions are also subcontracted/sourced to Korea for economic reasons (cheaper) in addition to the fact that the Japanese studios are overworked and can't keep up with demand.
The labor market in Korea is much cheaper... take that as a bit of caution! You won't become a millionaire in animation anywhere unless you're a producer or director but you can also be a lot poorer depending on where you decide to live and work.
Economic conditions are generally also a lot harder overseas, too.
Japan is a notoriously expensive place to live -- food costs alone can be 3-5 times more than North America (!) -- and Hong Kong is also expensive.
As far as South Korea is concerned, talk to a military friend (if you have one) or someone who's done business in South Korea...
I don't know how friendly the environment is for foreigners in Korea but I would suspect it's not great unless you're native Korean or can converse in Korean. There's a lot of anti-American sentiment in that country. I hear it's not great for other nationalities, either.
Korea is the capital of TV animation for the time being... The Simpsons and most other shows you see on TV get inked, colored, and animated over there. Most of what's done in the US (and probably Canadian productions) is storyboarding, layout and character designs in addition to voice-over. It's become too expensive to economically produce the rest of animation in North America.
A lot of Japanese animated TV productions are also subcontracted/sourced to Korea for economic reasons (cheaper) in addition to the fact that the Japanese studios are overworked and can't keep up with demand.
The labor market in Korea is much cheaper... take that as a bit of caution! You won't become a millionaire in animation anywhere unless you're a producer or director but you can also be a lot poorer depending on where you decide to live and work.
-
- AV Forum Member
- Posts: 1979
- Joined: December 16th, 2004
- Location: Burbank, Calif.
Re: animation job
I haven't worked overseas in animation, professionally, so I can't answer with too many specifics .. but I do have several friends who have done so, in Korea, Shanghai, Hong Kong, New Zealand and India .. all of whom seemed to enjoy the experience, to varying degrees.
Most of them were supervisors for domestic productions which were outsourced to those countries, though; they were not 'front-line' artists in the trenches. My understanding is that they were paid quite a bit more than the foreign nationals who worked for them (nearly what they might have made for a supervisory role in the U.S., perhaps a bit less). Though, the local artists were able to live quite well on the wages paid in their local economies, since their 'cost-of-living' is much lower (but, ironically, rising all the time -- due to the increased business of outsourcing!)
-----------------------
Animation World Network has a Career Connections page, which can be used to search for animation positions world-wide (no current listings in Korea, though).
Creative Planet has a VFX and Animation job listing forum .. it's likewise world-wide in scope.
Most of them were supervisors for domestic productions which were outsourced to those countries, though; they were not 'front-line' artists in the trenches. My understanding is that they were paid quite a bit more than the foreign nationals who worked for them (nearly what they might have made for a supervisory role in the U.S., perhaps a bit less). Though, the local artists were able to live quite well on the wages paid in their local economies, since their 'cost-of-living' is much lower (but, ironically, rising all the time -- due to the increased business of outsourcing!)
-----------------------
Animation World Network has a Career Connections page, which can be used to search for animation positions world-wide (no current listings in Korea, though).
Creative Planet has a VFX and Animation job listing forum .. it's likewise world-wide in scope.