Chapter 155 Sylph, The Big Sister
While the candidates exited the studio building, Theo and Ryoko started evaluating the teams.
Theo decided to release the results of this phase two days later because evaluating these projects was much more time-consuming compared to when he evaluated the second phase projects in just one hour.
Theo estimated that they would finish judging all teams tomorrow.
Tonight he had to cook at the restaurant.
But tomorrow, he would work all day with Ryoko to finish evaluating the projects.
Theo and Ryoko needed to not only judge the animation that the teams made.
They needed to evaluate how each team member behaved throughout the last five days.
If there were any one of the candidates who showed behaviors like racism, misogynistic, xenophobia, or violence.
Theo and Ryoko would eliminate them, even if these people were talented.
Both of them didn't want people that could hurt the mood inside the studio.
Imagine if there was a person in the studio work that constantly said things about a specific ethnicity, the environment inside the studio would be negatively affected.
And the footage of the five days when the candidates were working served to find these people.
People often forget that there's always someone watching.
And in these five days with the building stress on all candidates, they forgot that there were cameras everywhere in the studio.
Theo and Ryoko started looking at the Team 1 animation.
They produced a short video about a spy trying to get inside a fortified house.
It was a great animation.
Both of them were impressed by the amazing editing of the scenes.
"It seems that the team had a great leader and a talented editor to arrange this animation." Theo commented when the animation ended.
"Yeah, it clears that the drawings frames are not the best. But somehow they produced a great animation. And that could only happen if there was a good leader and a talented editor." Ryoko complemented.
"Let's watch their footage of the last 5 days." Theo said as he motioned to play the footage.
Ryoko nodded and paid attention to the screen as she took notes of things she deemed important about Team 1.
They watched the footage with attentive eyes.
And it is obvious that they were not watching 120 hours of footage.
Theo had Sylph's help.
As she was always watching the teams, she made a short cut of all the moments she thought were important.
Theo was not worried that she might miss anything, after all, Sylph had a highly intelligent mind.
And with her high processing computer power, she could watch the 35 teams without worries.
They watched and the more they watched, the more Theo and Ryoko were furious.
They could not believe someone had the audacity to do something like that on the test.
To understand why Theo and Ryoko were mad, it is needed to explain Team 1's past days.
This team was an average team, but there was a man that took the position of the leader as soon as the task started.
Aryan Shaw, was 29 years old, and he was an assertive person.
He showed determination and great commanding skills at the beginning of the task.
And with his leadership, even though there weren't talented people in his team, they managed to get a good result after they finished drawing the frames.
He seemed a likable person, and the whole team thought they were lucky to have a great leader.
But when the editing process started, he started to show his true face.
The editing process was in charge of two people that had experience with it.
Nora Wells was 26 yo, and she was a genius at editing.
The other was a man with average skills, he is so insignificant that it is not even worth saying his name.
Nora showed great skill when she started editing the team's animation.
The team was happy when they saw that Nora had such a great talent.
But there was someone who didn't like someone stealing his thunder.
Aryan was actually glad that he ended up in an average team, he thought that this way he could stand out more.
And when he saw someone even more talented than him, he was jealous.
Then he started demanding impossible things from Nora, and when she wasn't able to deliver. He started verbally abusing her.
"How can you not do what I told you to??" He screamed at her.
Nora just stayed silent, she was a quiet girl.
And she was used to men trying to undermine her, so she just stopped fighting at some time.
Seeing Aryan screaming at her just made her even more determined to enter this studio.
She chose to believe that what she was suffering would not be passed without punishment to this guy.
Aryan got even madder when he saw that she was not reacting to his abuse.
So, his abuses got worse.
He even started bad-mouthing Nora to other team members.
"I told you. Women are useless. Look at her." Aryan commented.
The things he said got even worse.
But in the end, Nora managed to deliver a great job.
And it was because of her that Team 1's animation was so good.
"I don't even have to say. But this guy is banned from even entering the building on Tuesday." Theo said with a cold voice.
"I agree. And the guys that also approved Aryan's behavior and bad-mouthed Nora will be also eliminated." Ryoko said with an equally cold voice.
She would not tolerate any type of abuse like the one she saw in this footage.
As someone who suffered abuse for a year, she knew how hurtful it is for the victim.
She knew how powerless the victims feel when their bosses abuse their power.
And she would not have this in this company!
"I agree!" Theo said.
Theo didn't want a studio that had this type of people, he hated any type of abuse.
After all, this company was the result of his dream to launch his favorite animes in this life.
How could he realize his dream when there were people like that in his company?
Theo and Ryoko continued evaluating the rest of the team with even more attentive eyes.
They did not want to miss anything on these footages.
And they indeed found people with abusive behaviors.
There was a black candidate on Team 3.
His name was Aidan Davies, and he had immigrant parents but he was born in Sakura Abode Country.
Even though he was a talented man, he suffered the same thing that Nora did.
His teammates made sarcastic comments and offensive jokes about his skin color.
Aidan didn't say anything, unfortunately, he was also used to these things.
It is important to notice that Aidan showed great talent compositing process of the animation.
Theo and Ryoko immediately eliminated the candidates that abused Aidan.
They would not tolerate racism in the studio, they never believed that someone was better just because of their skin color.
They hoped that their studio would be a place where people of all skin colors could work without racism.
They also noted Aidan as a candidate that would get the chance to pass to the fourth phase of interviews.
They continued evaluating the teams until Theo had to leave for the restaurant.
"Let's finish tomorrow. I have to go to the restaurant." Theo said.
"Oh okay. We can resume this tomorrow then." She replied with a tired voice.
After all, she came to the studio directly from the airport.
She wanted to go to her hotel room, take a shower, and sleep.
Ryoko didn't rent an apartment yet, she was waiting for her payment at the end of the month to do that.
They said goodbye to each other and went away.
Tomorrow they would judge the other teams.
Would they find any other talented people?