COST EXPLAINER
An explainer ABOUT ANIMATION cost
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room; “How much does animation cost?” The short answer is; “It’s really up to you.” It all depends on how long and complex your project is. It can range from moderately prices to insanely expensive. Here is a short Q and A about animation cost and how you can make it cheaper for yourself.
notice: These examples are for hand drawn animations specifically.
Q: “Does it really cost that much to draw some pictures?”
A: I can see why you’d say that, animators make it look easy. Many people underestimate how much work goes into animation so it’s common to think it should be easy but it’s a huge undertaking. Here is why:
Let’s say you want a pilot episode for a tv show idea. No big deal, it’ll only be about 12 minutes, right? Animation (usually) runs at 24 frames per second. If animated on two’s (I’ll spare you the details) it comes to 12 drawings per second of animation.
The magic numbers to remember here is “12 drawings for 1 second of animation”.(…usually)
Each of those drawings have to be…
Roughed out (drawn by hand)
Cleaned up (Traced with cleaner lines so it looks nice and sharp)
Colored (Color is added to the character)
Shaded (Shadows are added to the character)
Toned (Making sure the characters color and shading matches the scene)
Possibly more depending on the style of the animation.
It could take an animator roughly 30 minutes to complete one drawing for just one character. Now let’s do the math.
You wanted a 12 minute pilot right?
12 minute episode = 720 seconds of animation
720 seconds of animation (12 drawings per second) = 8,640 drawings
8,640 drawings (30 minutes to draw each one) = 259,200 minutes of work
That is exactly 180 days, or, 6 months of time to make that animation. But don’t forget that your animator needs to sleep so they’ll only be working an 8 hour day. That extends the time to a year and a half. Bad news though. That’s just for one character. If you want your character to have a friend in the scene or an enemy to fight, that second character has to go through that same process. Double that time to 3 years. MORE BAD NEWS! There are effects like fire and smoke that need to be added, that’s more animation! He has a cape that flutters independently of his body, that’s more animation! Then there’s background painting, voice recording, sound effects, music, compositing (basically the person who color corrects everything and makes the camera all cool and shaky before exporting the final animation) and you can see why these projects can come with a hefty price tag.
Q: “So how do I afford animation? I’m not a huge studio!”
A: Well, the last example is the worst case scenario. Most studios have more than one animator on a project and they know how to use cost-cutting methods to make things cheaper and faster. Take anime for example. Here are some of the masterful techniques they use to cut costs…
Cost saving techniques in anime
Reusable Intros and Outros- Combined, these things can take as long as 5 minutes which cuts a 24 minute episode (because of commercials and such) down to 19 minutes. Amazing savings!
Reused Animation- They did it a lot in the 90s (Sailor Moon’s transformation sequence for example). Nowadays, they just repeat the same shots but animate the characters a bit differently so it’s not exactly the same.
Limited Animation- Anime characters don’t move around a lot. The scenes where they actually do move a lot are referred to as “sakuga” and is only reserved for special episodes, making them rather rare. For every other shot, the characters are mostly still or moving with very few drawings.
Holds- Similar to Limited Animation, Holds refer to when a character speaks, often only their mouths are moving. Everything else is totally still.
Q: “How DOES BENTOWOLF HELP ME?”
A: We can take advantage of the cost saving stuff for you! What you can do is let us know how long you want your animation to be. Longer animations can be very expensive so you may have to sacrifice quality to stay on budget but if you want a shorter animation, you can go balls to the wall with insane quality for the same budget.
I know you want a flat price to start with but because every project is so wildly different, it isn’t possible to give you a starting quote until we know what you’re looking for but I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told other clients in the past. “If you are hesitant about spending over $1,500 for animation, you aren’t serious about it”. Animation is an investment. It’s meant to be part of your larger game plan, a way to promote a project or brand that you’re working on, not a casual curiosity. If you had an idea back in high school and just want to see what it looks like animated with no plan in place, this service might not be the right fit. Remember, we’re the ones who have to commit our time to making it. Please be respectful.
And there you have it! You just learned about the process of making animation, tricks to make it cheaper, and whether it’s a right investment for you. You are now a graduate of BentoWolf University! Use this knowledge in good faith and we hope to work with you soon!
-the management
Bleach; couresy of Pierrot Co., Ltd.
Naruto: Shippuden; couresy of Pierrot Co., Ltd.