Glitch Productions achieved some major mainstream success with the release of The Amazing Digital Circus pilot last year, although the animation studio already had a massive following beforehand — but recently the company’s fortunes have taken a turn for the worse.
The Tari VA drama
It all started back in February when Glitch Studios replaced the voice actor for Tari in one of its other shows, SMG4. The problem was, the original VA, Celeste Notley-Smith, was never informed of the decision, so she found out the same day as everybody else. Obviously that isn’t the way to go about letting go of your staff, as it’s pretty disrespectful to Celeste and not to mention unprofessional. To make matters worse, the narrative being pushed was that Celeste had been replaced due to her schedule being too busy, something which the VA herself denied.
Whilst this certainly reflected poorly on Glitch Productions, many were willing to give the benefit of the doubt, opting to wait until the CEO of the company, Kevin Lerdwichagul, came back with a response. Well; days passed and still there had been no attempt from Glitch Productions to address the issues, so Celeste decided to follow up with a a lengthy post detailing her experience with the company. To summarize briefly, nobody was able to give her a solid reason as to why she had been let go. After Celeste came forward with her experience, the floodgates opened and things only got worse for Glitch Productions.
Ex-employees began speaking out
In solidarity with Celeste, the VA for SMG2, who goes by the handle AnimeAmerica on X, resigned from their role calling out @SMG4Official on X (formerly Twitter) for being “heartless and unprofessional.”Others on X began to call out the company, with many pointing to the bad reviews on Glassdoor. Much of the blame was put on Glitch Productions taking on too much, with four pretty big shows all in production: SMG4, Meta Runner, Murder Drones, and of course, The Amazing Digital Circus.
Much of the criticism was aimed at the upper management, with claims that the animators were overworked and expected to meet impossible deadlines. Sadly, this isn’t really surprising anymore; there have been so many stories about studios treating the animating staff like machines. Even massive Hollywood studios like Marvel have faced heavy criticisms for doing this — being an animator really does sound like one of the toughest jobs in the industry.
AnimeAmerica also boosted the stories of many ex-animators for Glitch Productions who had bad experiences whilst employed. The sad part was that people really saw Kevin and his brother Luke as beacons of light in the animation industry; in interviews talking about how they started out , they both seem like real down to earth guys who have a genuine passion for what they’re creating. It’s worth pointing out, many people think that Luke Lerdwichagul is more innocent compared to his brother; most of the anger towards Glitch Productions has been aimed at Kevin, who many blame for the bad decisions like letting go of Celeste.
People even started talking about boycotting shows from the animation studio as more and more came to light. On the other side of the coin, some employees came forward to defend the company, claiming that they did not feel overworked, that the work schedule was pretty flexible, and in general, they loved working with the company. Although they did not work in the SMG4 department, which is where most of the drama seems to be coming from. Things ultimately went too far when Kevin Lerdwichagul was doxed.
Glitch Productions’ response
More than a week after the initial drama with Celeste, Kevin released a statement in which he claims that some of the claims are true, whilst others are exaggerations. He admits that in the beginning he was lacking in terms experience and training in management, and he takes accountability for his mistakes back then. Kevin points out that Glitch Productions have come a long way from where they started.
“Since those early days, we’ve brought on and built a proper leadership/management team. All of whom have received training to run, manage, and look after a team.”
For many fans who have accepted Kevin’s apology, his case was apparently probably helped by the positive statements from animators who had, or still do, work there. Many praised him for taking accountability, although still pressed the CEO to make a statement regarding Celeste’s firing, which his apology never addresses.
Whilst it seems that Glitch Productions may not be as bad as initially thought, this doesn’t invalidate the experiences of those who have come forward with there stories so far; it’s great the company has changed, but that doesn’t undo past mistakes. Up until this point, there still hasn’t been any new developments regarding the controversy, and many are still a little sour on the company for what it did to Celeste, but it seems we likely we may never get a satisfactory answer for that.
