Hello.
I have questions and no one in my circles has worked on traditional (2D) animation.
What does a budget breakdown look like for episodic/indie animation?
Are animators (background artists, in-betweeners, painters, etc.) paid a flat rate or are they on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis?
What is the typical turn around for a 30 minute episode or short film?
I typically work behind a camera. I have played around with some animating but have never been in a professional setting.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
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Hi Landis,
Traditionally speaking, artists at studios are paid hourly - especially the union ones. For 2D animation, a 22-minute episode can take weeks or months to execute from concept to final edit. For series, you would have multiple episodes in production at a time and teams to handle the volume.
For indie productions, you could try and find freelancers to work flat rate with a set amount of revisions and a defined deadline. You would have to schedule based on the availability and the quotas for each artist.
Thank you!
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Hi Landis Stokes Bob is on the money for artists being paid hourly. And as a small production company I can share a bit of insight as well.
For example a show like Nickelodeon Casagrandes - from start to finish takes 55 weeks. And that's an 11-minute episode. Writing alone on an episode can take up to 10 weeks. The animation was completed by Jam Filled Studios in Ottawa.
3D animation can jump very high and it all depends on style. Something like Star Wars Rebels to a more hard surface design, non-cloth sim or hair / groom but modeled can be 800k-1million + per episode. The animation is expensive because it's so labor-intensive.
For higher-end commercial work price per second can run 7k - 12k+ for 3D. Anywhere from 200k-500k depending. I'd love to know the cost of Katy Perry's latest music video which has some great 3D. I'm assuming it's north of a million.
You can also see some Kickstarter projects and how much funds were raised. Hair Love which is a 6+ min short film cost north of 300k. So if you have an idea that's been worked over at the script level your next phase would be going to boards. There are cheaper options of course over seas but it always comes back to you get what you pay for. The cost savings you think you'll get will come back on the backend with the amount of feedback, reviews and fixes you'll be doing. Let alone the cost of energy. Hope that helps!
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Ooo, YASS, Toby Cochran! Thank you so much for sharing! This 11-minute episode thing is a wonder to me. Is it enough screentime to get emotionally invested (a topic for another lounge HA!), but also, does the math track? I.e. If Casagrandes was a 22-minute episode, same number of episodes, would it take 110 weeks? I feel like they'd just hire more people on it, right?
wow, Toby Cochran what an insight bruh, me also being a small production company, wondering how to win these Episodes directly with nick, We did an Animated show for nick jr. India 11mins per episode through a Nick vendor, for just $70k, and it took 8 weeks to complete one 11min ep. How to win/bid these projects for real value, I am afraid my stage32 family would start thinking of me desperate for animation projects.
Thank you, Toby Cochran ! Great suggestion for looking at KickStarter. Karen "Kay" Ross I think either way they're paying for more staff or overtime. I remember 11-minute episodes of "BananaMan" on Nick back in the 80's. They weren't deep but were a lot of fun.