Formulation of Teamwork in the Production of Iranian Animated Feature Films

 
 
 
Animation art and industry, in the case of feature films, require diverse expertise and roles. In this way, an animation production team sometimes includes up to a few hundred members. Members who besides having their tasks, play interwoven roles in their teams. It doesn't matter if a member is needed from the beginning till the end in the process of film production, or if he plays his part during a stage and says goodbye. In both cases, the animated feature film production team is like a chain that needs cooperation between its members with other members and with the organization to keep its consistency. In this regard, sometimes, not playing one proper role by a member, results in considerable damage to the whole team. Here is where the success of members and the organization shows its importance in the formation and progress of an efficient team. Effects factors are diverse and include a wide range from social and economic conditions to interaction and speech skills of the members. Therefore, various and diverse studies on the quality of teamwork during the production of animated feature films that are already been produced, help solve problems or correct points of shortcomings in animated feature film production teams in the future.
So far, various types of research on teamwork in the art- industry of animated feature films have been done inside organizations, in country-wide industries, or internationally, outside Iran. One of the most inclusive and famous references concerning teamwork in animation is the article by Edwin Catmull (2008). In this article, Catmull who is one of the chief managers of Disney and a cofounder of Pixar, has emphasized that the main investment of a team is its members and not its ideas. In this article, the secret to the success of Pixar is named as the creative management of talents and it has been mentioned that a good team can change an average idea to a successful one, but an average team can never be as good as its good idea. This is only an example of various research outside Iran, which have studied the effect of teamwork on creative industries from different perspectives.
In the same way, the art industry of animated feature films in our country needs strong and organized teamwork (Safoora & Arab, 1394). Despite recent successful animated feature films in our country, there are obvious problems due to the inefficiency of teamwork in various teams, just like in other countries in the world (Langroudi, 1390). It is clear that recognizing effective parameters on the teams that produced Iranian animated feature films, from the first one till now, can be effective in solving many of the problems related to optimizing teamwork conditions. However, such a study in the art industry of animated short films has not been performed yet and its execution for the first time, can open the way for the next studies in this manner, considering various aspects such as social, economic, and psychological. accordingly, it has been tried in this work to answer a main question: What is the situation of the production of animated feature films in Iran? The other questions are:
-       What are teamwork parameters in Iranian animated feature films?
-       How important are each of the teamwork parameters in Iranian animated feature films?
-       What is the situation of each of the teamwork parameters in Iranian animated feature films?
-       How controllable are each of the teamwork parameters in Iranian animated feature films?
-       How can each of the teamwork parameters in Iranian animated feature films be improved?
Considering research methodology, the present study is fundamental considering its goal which has been established to solve or improve teamwork problems in the art industry of Iranian animated feature films. This study is based on gathering library documents and literature in the form of books, articles, and thesis. It is also a field study based on interviews and surveys. Considering its method, it is qualitative based on the nature of explanatory-analytical research to investigate the condition of the art industry of Iranian animated feature films.
This study utilizes the Delphi method to gather and analyze raw information. Delphi method, which is a qualitative method can be explained as a method for structuring the process of group relationships (Harold Lindston, 2002).
In the present study, a group of university lecturers and managers in the field of the Iranian animated feature film art industry were selected and their comments were gathered using questionnaires and interviews. Then, the data were classified and coded and again sent to all the group members. The group members checked the comments and put comments again. Based on their comments, a general conclusion was made. The steps of this method in the present study are as follows:
-       Defining the problem
-       Gathering library documents, research, and literature review
-       Choosing the Delphi group
-       Preparing an open questionnaire
-       Confirming the validity and reliability of the questionnaire
-       Interviews
-       Analyzing the data and defining the parameters
-       Asking from Delphi group to check and comment again
- Conclusion
The statistical population of the present study includes university professors, managers, producers, and directors of Iranian animated feature films. As there are only a few Iranian animated films, and only about two decades have passed since the beginning of this industry in Iran, the period of the present study starts from the first animated feature film made in Iran till the Persian year 1399. The number of interviewees in this research is five individuals. It is noteworthy that the availability of the defined statistical population was affected by Corona pandemic. Therefore, considering that in the Delphi method, the expertise of the Delphi group is the most important, the selection of five people was considered enough to fulfill the requirements of this research.
In the interview questionnaire, questions are designed to be general and open, in such a way that when receiving data from the interviewees, no limitations are forced. These interviews were either in person or online. The interviews were performed by open questionnaires, which were designed by extracting various aspects of the subject. Each of these aspects was one of the research questions. Evaluation methods were selected in such a way as to be suitable for the variables of this study and a proper unit of measurement. To evaluate this tool, three criteria were selected, namely validity, reliability, and practicality. To define the validity of the content, the primary questionnaire was handed to several experts to confirm the questions and their analysis methods. In this study, an inter-subject agreement was used to confirm reliability. This method includes two coders who do the coding for the analysis of the interviews in this study. To do this, one of the university lecturers in animation was requested to act as a co-coder. The expert was provided with proper instructions for coding. In each interview, if the coding of the two coders (the researcher and the expert) were similar, the information was "confirmed". Otherwise, it was "non-confirmed". The percentage of confirmed information to total information was considered as the reliability parameter (Harold Lindston, 2002). If it was larger than 0.6, reliability was acceptable. In the present study, reliability was obtained as 0.71. Data analysis was carried out using coding and analysis of interview scripts using NVivo software. The following are the results:
-       According to the obtained results, it was defined that teamwork in the Iranian animated feature film art industry suffers from deficiencies that not only affect teamwork but also adversely affect this art industry.
-       Parameters that influence the present situation of the art- industry of Iranian animated feature films include; cultural and social parameters, industrialization, motivation, and then economic and political parameters, professional audience, and an art school and organizational culture.
-       According to the interviewees, all of the mentioned parameters can be controlled by enough time and effort.
-       Controlling and Improvement of the above parameters can be done in the form of short-term solutions, including encouraging policies, middle-time and long-time policies such as education starting from primary school.
-       The motivation of immigration is one of the most important parameters affecting team members' functionality which results in a feeling of not belonging to the team.
-       The art industry of Iranian animated feature films suffers from deficiencies which are due to the malfunctioning of parameters exclusively observed in this art industry in Iran.