Old School (Part 10)

By: Brian Mah

(A question was requested to Jan regarding animation production.)
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What have you seen in recent trends in terms of anime content and production?
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Jan Scot-Fraizer: I don't feel any kind of strong inspiration from any of the shows I see other than some movies. I don't see anything that's so original and interesting and well-executed that I am drawn to watch it much anymore although I continue to do so with movies and books.

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During your time in Japan, have you gained a better respect on how the Japanese do their production work?
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Jan Scot-Fraizer: I did production work there for 14 years and it formed me as a production worker and as a producer. It made me learn to work with a tight budget and make the best thing I could, to get the best team I could and motivate them strongly, to walk my talk and to keep at it until it's done.

I hear a LOT of talk from people saying they want to start their own company, do their own comic/TV show/movie, get some sort of major creative project off the ground and so on but I don't see much of it materialize. A couple years ago I decided to make a couple of rock albums for charity but I had NO idea how it was done. As a Japanese-taught producer, I hunted down the people who could do the best job of helping me make it happen, scratched the money and gear together, put together a band, recorded in 5 different states (and a cheap hotel bathroom), and put the first one together in 5 months. The second took 2 years but it was a much bigger project. What I learned from anime production and from running my own production company allowed me to be able to do this.