Stay tuned. I’m constantly working on new projects and finding creative ways to fund what is naturally a tedious process.

It takes any where from one week – two weeks to animate a single minute of actual animation. The process works just like film production … It starts with a good idea. That good idea goes to script. One page of script is considered about one minute of animation. Approximately. The next step is storyboards. After storyboards are finished, you take the storyboards and hold each panel as a slide show that emulates the real timing — this is called an “animatic.” The animatic works best if there’s at least a “scratch track” in place. A “scratch track” is a read of the script even if it’s not a final read with voice talent. Voice will be a key element in eating up time and time that can’t be creatively edited. It is what it is. After having voice in place and moving the panels of the storyboard in this “slide show” type mode — you’ll see if you have a story worth telling.

All that is really pre-production but now you have a very literal feel of the short and how it’ll come across.

The next step is breaking up scenes, doing backgrounds, pencil tests (testing animated loops and action), thinking of clever transitions and doing cinema effects to really make the script visually compelling as well. That action should have been illustrated in the storyboards but there’s still room for improvement once it’s seen more literally in the “animatic.”

Regular TV budgets allow for things called “dope sheets” to line up physical action with each syllable and inflection in speech. Think Disney as opposed to the Simpsons. I love the Simpsons but they don’t really do a lot with tight choreography. Sure they match simple body language and the right syllibols for talking but they rarely have characters talk while they’re turning or dancing. To do something like that, it takes careful planning. But working with dope sheets is really secondary to a funny script and a good idea.

A lot of my — “hey, I have $2,000 and I want 30 seconds to a minute of animation” … those are usually script dependent and come down to just a couple backgrounds and some head and shoulders talking. If the sound design is done — a clever idea can even do a lot for that budget. Anything can be creatively directed on a fairly low budget. Actual 30 second TV commercial animations take a team of 5-10 people about 5-7 weeks for at least $50,000. Depending if there’s a mix of live action. If there’s both it can range from $50,000-150,000 for a 30 second commercial. Gulp. That’s drawing every frame of a commercial that’s at least 24 frames per second and converted to 29.97 fps. After you draw every frame you have to scan it and perhaps give it a tone map — which is a fancy way of saying a drop shadow on the characters.

Can it be done cheaper? Of course it can. That system is set up for ad agency driven production. The ad agency is paid for their creativity and ability to find top talent for the job and then coordinate the production so their client is happy, the end result is amazing and everyone followed a military type system of approvals along the way. Every step is double checked with the agency and client.

So how can it be cheaper? Well, you give more power into a creator that can wear many hats and can take liberties to match the budget. Often the ad agency retainer can be 10K a month. You can get a pretty awesome results with an artist that can write, draw, direct and most importantly — get results. You still use top notch voice talent and sound production but you rely on a director to give a lot more leadership and direction on ways to tell a story within the perimeters of $2,000, $5,000 and $10,000. And like I said, it’s all about the idea. If the script and idea is good, your results are 70% there. If your voice talent and read is good — you’re another 20% there. And of course, that last 10% is the most time consuming because it’s like creative ditch digging. So that’s the part where you decide — do we cheat? Is this the Simpsons or is this a Disney film?

I take on advertising projects however, I’m inspired character & humor driven content. If this is the type of project you’re looking for — my rate goes down considerably with two ingredients — 1) Creative autonomy/latitude and 2) consistent work.