Annecy Panelists Nora Twomey and Ramsey Naito Urge Animation Industry to ‘Humanize’ the Workplace at WIA: ‘It Makes Our Stories Better’

variety.com:

Marta Balaga It’s time to finally “humanize” the workplace, argued Oscar-nominated director Nora Twomey at Annecy. And women are leading the way. “There was a point when I wanted to prove myself and would spend long hours immersed in animation.

It took me until I had kids to start working smarter,” she said.   “Then I got sick in the middle of making ‘The Breadwinner’ and that also made me think about working in a way that could empower people around me.

Now, I really don’t give a fuck anymore,” she added to thunderous applause. During her “fireside chat” with Ramsey Naito at the Women in Animation (WIA) World Summit, Twomey – co-founder and creative director at Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon – also underlined the importance of representation.  “If you don’t see someone [like you] doing the job you would like to do in five years, you don’t think it’s open to you.

Having someone else having messy days, days when their kids are ill, humanizes the entire workplace and is great for everybody.” As pointed out by Naito, president at Paramount Animation & Nickelodeon Animation, the pandemic, when co-workers got to see each other’s “barking dogs, talking cats and screaming children” made such an approach much more common. “I hope it’s something we won’t lose and that we will still ask each other: ‘How are you doing?’,” she said, opening up about the positive example she got to experience at the very beginning of her career. “When I first started working at Nickelodeon at 28, it was a company run by women, mostly mothers making content for kids.