Your Stage : Building an Animation Startup by Matthew R Scarpa

Good morning, Stage 32!

A peer of mine, J, and I are attempting to build a small animation studio from the ground up and we're looking for any assistance we can get with the endeavor. We're primarily focus on the 8-13 age group but we don't have a specific genre or style we're going for. We want to make anything that would be worth sitting down and watching.

A little about what we're trying to accomplish and who we are: J and I are both fascinated with animation and have spent the better part of the last decade (at the very least) working to make something of ourselves in the industry. J tends to like the more technical side of creating content, whereas I get the most enjoyment out of writing. I've been writing scripts since 2015 and I've gotten paid for it on and off since 2017.

We decided that, due to the nature of the animation industry these days, it may be in our and the community's best interest to try and strike out on our own. Now, J and I are trying to build up a team that can make content.

Why this? Why now? Well it's a few things. Animation is in a crazy spot right now, at least from an outsider's perspective. Streaming is leaning towards a cable-like culture. Major animation studios are undergoing huge changes, with a prime example being the WB Animation absorption of Cartoon Network Studios wholly. I'm not an authority on what these changes could do for or to the animation industry in the long run, but what I do know is that it's a time of crazy change and new things. J and I agree that now would be the best time to see if we can't carve out something new.

What's that new thing? Well, it's simple. It's a newer way to look at a studio. J and I agreed that we wanted to make a studio that looks out for its people and makes what we as a team of creators want to see made. We want to make it where our team comes to work, whether remotely or in an office and is as excited to be there as we are. We want to operate almost how Nintendo publicly operates. Again, I'm not an authority on this, but what I know from them is that they value their people, they make products that they want to see in the world, and if something goes wrong, it's not a "crap rolls down hill" situation.

We're trying to make our values the same.

1. Make quality content. The kind of things you would want to sit down and watch, either by yourself or with the kids in your life.

2. Treat our team and our audience with the respect they deserve. We want to take care of our people from the moment we can start until they decide that they want to move on to something else.

3. We're here for the content, not ourselves. While yes, we obviously will be doing our best to make money, neither J or I got into this to make ourselves millionaires. We know that what we want is a stable career doing what we love, and we don't need a bank account that looks like a phone number to feel fulfilled. That's why the plan is to only hold onto what we need to live without worrying about bills or food on the table and put the rest back, first to our teams and then to making our studio better.

So what's our plan? Well to start, we're going to build out our team. This is where we need the most assistance. We need the help of people who can animate and edit. I, unfortunately, do not have the skill in visual arts, and J's specialty is more technical. We also are looking for voice actors, though those will rely on a project-by-project basis.

Our next step is a series of 5-minute shorts to gain a fan base and have a product we can approach investors with. We can also monetize these through ad revenue and crowd-funding sites like Patreon. This will allow us to begin building larger projects which we can use as the basis for further funding.

After that, we're looking at full blown, animated series released on a loose schedule and possibly being picked up by another studio, such as Powerhouse. If we're successful enough, we may establish ourselves as a completely independent studio working on projects as a full service creative agency.

With that said, though, we would be building this from the ground up. It would be not only irresponsible but just a flat out lie to say that everyone would be making enough money to live off of the moment this started and I refuse to be the kind of person who lies just to get other people to do something. We'd be starting with nothing and working our way to the point where we can call it a career that supports us and our families. But until that time, I will make this promise to everyone who wants to take this leap with me and J: I'll be the last person to profit off this, period. Any money that comes to this studio will go to the people who make these things happen first, the teams who animate and act and edit and everything in between before I see anything from it.

Mine and J's end goal is to create full length, half-hour animated shows for networks and streaming services because we grew up watching them and love the feeling of going on a twenty-some-odd minute adventure with characters we connected with every week. It's as simple as that and we want to be able to say "hey, our kick-ass team made this happen!"

TL;DR: J and I are making a start-up animation studio. We need the help of animators, VAs and editors right now to launch and while we know we won't be making a lot of cash on day one, anything that comes our way goes to our cast and crew before anything else.

We'd love to get some great people to work with. Feel free to DM me or reply to the post with any questions and I'll answer as many as I can as fast as I can! We'll also set up a google meet for anyone interested in learning more so we can answer questions as face-to-face as we can get!