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But that's the most interesting part of the article - that Amazon and HBO projects are being worked on by NORTH KOREAN workers!!! I totally agree with the HN h

But that's the most interesting part of the article - that Amazon and HBO projects are being worked on by NORTH KOREAN workers!!! I totally agree with the HN headline and I'm glad it got me to click and read the entire article.

karaterobot 2y ago
If the headline is factually wrong, it doesn't matter whether you agree with it or not.
- zdw 2y ago
  Original title "buried the lede" and was too long for HN, so I edited it. It may be useful to see how others linked to this news - the original place I found this was at Engadget, which had this title: "Some Amazon and Max cartoons may have been partially animated in North Korea" https://www.engadget.com/some-amazon-and-max-cartoons-may-have-been-partially-animated-in-north-korea-160036603.html https://www.engadget.com/some-amazon-and-max-cartoons-may-ha... Which linked to Reuters: "North Koreans may have helped create Western cartoons, report says" : https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreans-may-have-helped-create-western-cartoons-report-says-2024-04-22/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreans-may... I linked the original report, which makes no mention of animation, but is the obvious focus of the article. The point isn't who did the outsourcing, but what was done, IMO. The length limit on HN titles sometimes makes nuance difficult - maybe I should have added "may have been outsourced" instead. I was not going for clickbait/misrepresentation.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  But it's not. The original headline was just vague, and HN tends to ignore headlines that are too abstract or vague.
x0x0 2y ago
It's also wild that it somehow makes financial sense to outsource a core input into your product. A company that makes animations outsourcing animation makes as much sense to me as a software company outsourcing engineering. Though we do have a plane company that outsources making planes, but that's going some sort of way right now...
- laborcontract 2y ago
  To be fair, the outsourced tasks seem to be for edits, and not for original artwork. There’s a lot you can hide with outsourced software engineering. With animation it’s all on display.
- bathtub365 2y ago
  Animation has been outsourced for decades, typically with in-house artists providing the key frames and outsourced animators doing the “in between” frames. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing_of_animation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing_of_animation
- dannyphantom 2y ago
  Oooh I can try tackling a bit of this (I'll try not to ramble... ) But anyway studios have been outsourcing animation work to Asian countries for a while now. You might have seen some of the work product from one of the larger Japanese animation studios: TMS Enterainment who has worked on things like Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, The New Batman Adventures in addition to shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and Transformers in the 80-90s. Some more recent(ish) examples are Cartoon Network outsourcing the animation for Steven Universe to Rough Draft Korea located South Korea and Nickelodeon outsourced some of the work for Korra to a Japanese company called Pierrot. I'm just rambling at this point so I'm going to just leave a few links below that can do a better job of illustrating than I'm able to. Wikipedia, Outsourcing of Animation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing_of_animation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing_of_animation [DCAU Fandom Wiki, TMS Entertainment: https://dcau.fandom.com/wiki/TMS_Entertainment,_Ltd https://dcau.fandom.com/wiki/TMS_Entertainment,_Ltd. Reddit thread, Stylistic differences between two studios: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/1m4wbn/stylistic_differences_from_the_switch_to_studio/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/1m4wbn/st... AnimeNewsNetwork, American animation outsourced to Japan (2015): https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-11-02/.94920 https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-11-02/.94920
  - XajniN 2y ago
    I guess everyone remembers those strange Tom & Jerry episodes that felt like watching Twilight Zone. They were made in Czechoslovakia. https://www.awn.com/animationworld/tom-jerry-produced-prague https://www.awn.com/animationworld/tom-jerry-produced-prague

karaterobot 2y ago

If the headline is factually wrong, it doesn't matter whether you agree with it or not.

zdw 2y ago
Original title "buried the lede" and was too long for HN, so I edited it. It may be useful to see how others linked to this news - the original place I found this was at Engadget, which had this title: "Some Amazon and Max cartoons may have been partially animated in North Korea" https://www.engadget.com/some-amazon-and-max-cartoons-may-have-been-partially-animated-in-north-korea-160036603.html https://www.engadget.com/some-amazon-and-max-cartoons-may-ha... Which linked to Reuters: "North Koreans may have helped create Western cartoons, report says" : https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreans-may-have-helped-create-western-cartoons-report-says-2024-04-22/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreans-may... I linked the original report, which makes no mention of animation, but is the obvious focus of the article. The point isn't who did the outsourcing, but what was done, IMO. The length limit on HN titles sometimes makes nuance difficult - maybe I should have added "may have been outsourced" instead. I was not going for clickbait/misrepresentation.
anigbrowl 2y ago
But it's not. The original headline was just vague, and HN tends to ignore headlines that are too abstract or vague.

x0x0 2y ago

It's also wild that it somehow makes financial sense to outsource a core input into your product. A company that makes animations outsourcing animation makes as much sense to me as a software company outsourcing engineering. Though we do have a plane company that outsources making planes, but that's going some sort of way right now...

laborcontract 2y ago
To be fair, the outsourced tasks seem to be for edits, and not for original artwork. There’s a lot you can hide with outsourced software engineering. With animation it’s all on display.
bathtub365 2y ago
Animation has been outsourced for decades, typically with in-house artists providing the key frames and outsourced animators doing the “in between” frames. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing_of_animation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing_of_animation
dannyphantom 2y ago
Oooh I can try tackling a bit of this (I'll try not to ramble... ) But anyway studios have been outsourcing animation work to Asian countries for a while now. You might have seen some of the work product from one of the larger Japanese animation studios: TMS Enterainment who has worked on things like Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, The New Batman Adventures in addition to shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and Transformers in the 80-90s. Some more recent(ish) examples are Cartoon Network outsourcing the animation for Steven Universe to Rough Draft Korea located South Korea and Nickelodeon outsourced some of the work for Korra to a Japanese company called Pierrot. I'm just rambling at this point so I'm going to just leave a few links below that can do a better job of illustrating than I'm able to. Wikipedia, Outsourcing of Animation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing_of_animation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing_of_animation [DCAU Fandom Wiki, TMS Entertainment: https://dcau.fandom.com/wiki/TMS_Entertainment,_Ltd https://dcau.fandom.com/wiki/TMS_Entertainment,_Ltd. Reddit thread, Stylistic differences between two studios: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/1m4wbn/stylistic_differences_from_the_switch_to_studio/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/1m4wbn/st... AnimeNewsNetwork, American animation outsourced to Japan (2015): https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-11-02/.94920 https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-11-02/.94920
- XajniN 2y ago
  I guess everyone remembers those strange Tom & Jerry episodes that felt like watching Twilight Zone. They were made in Czechoslovakia. https://www.awn.com/animationworld/tom-jerry-produced-prague https://www.awn.com/animationworld/tom-jerry-produced-prague