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Per week...

Hello,another question for you guys that work professionally in animation,2d and 3d.

how much work has to be done per week in either medium in the industry, 10secs-30 secs of animation per person? i know its dependent on what type of project it is,but there must be an average.

thanks in advance.

We animate about 60 seconds a week per animator. That's animating in Flash. It really varies studio to studio and production to production.

Aloha,
the Ape

It sounds like a pace that can not be keep up for a long time. What would be a good pace to work toward for a long term project?

It sounds like a pace that can not be keep up for a long time. What would be a good pace to work toward for a long term project?

a great deal of it depends on your pre production. Our PP on our last short was the best we have done so far, we even had posing ready.

so it can be done, for a long term project (Flash wise) if you have your PP ready and done right.

Im surprised at these numbers. They seem pretty low. I guess it just still amazes me how much work goes into such small amount of time.

"who wouldn't want to make stuff for me? I'm awesome." -Bloo

I am still waiting for a great coordinator... For some reason or other I always end up taking care of everything. In this project that I am working on, the director after knowing that he got the gorvenment grant that would sponsor his own very personal film (let's just say that the main character is basically him), decided to celebrate by disappearing for a whole month. As time is money, we had to improvise, by this I mean, that when he came back we had done the storyboard, an animatic and a block-O-matic of his precious film. He didn't know what hit him!
this project does look much much better than anything else that we have done before and it will be a great big surprise for everyone when it (eventually) comes out. however with a producer that knows nothing about animation, time is running short, the animation suffers and everything else with it. WE do want it to be the best possible, and do believe me when I say that our team is really good, we just don't have the time to prove it...

A question for everyone... Who decides your daily/weekly rates? I s that person reliable? This might sound like silly questions but, I have still not had a animator-friendly boss... :D

"check it out, you know it makes sense!" http://miaumau.blogspot.com/

Im surprised at these numbers. They seem pretty low. I guess it just still amazes me how much work goes into such small amount of time.

you kidding? if i could find guys who do 1 min a week or more with ease

id rule the world.

wha? blinkme why do u think features take so long to make :p

i'd like to meet the guy that has the patience to do more than 60secs a week :D

dyam! animation is a task and a half,thanks for the horrible horrible insight guys :cool: ;)

and now for 3d!

when I started out in 3d we where doing 150 frames per day, but by the end going up to 250, this was animating two cartoony characters.
But maximum that I've done in one day was 877 frames in one day!! :eek: (I wasn't feeling very well by the end of that day!). It was when I was working on yet another kids' tv series and each 4 people team was producing a full 7 minute episode per week.
But, these two series were cartoony so, to save time we got away with murder (poor kids, I really do feel for them) but, doing apparently much less (700 frames per month) on a feature film, was actually much more of a strain that the kiddie's stuff. Nothing like animating a scene with 4 realistic human characters in a week!...
Right now, we're doing a 13 minute short also with realistic humans and there's only two animators, by my calculations to have the animation finished on time we need to animated 1480 frames per month!! Wish me good luck! :D

"check it out, you know it makes sense!" http://miaumau.blogspot.com/

dyam! animation is a task and a half,thanks for the horrible horrible insight guys :cool: ;)

I hope we aren't sounding discouraging. We're just trying to be honest about the amount of work that goes into it. Basically, you better love it because you're going to be spending an awful lot of time doing it!

Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com

Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight

dyam! animation is a task and a half,thanks for the horrible horrible insight guys :cool: ;)

I don't want to discourage anyone!... However, I don't exactly work as an animator for the money or the glory ;)
If you really love animation, then you should just do it and dont' pay attention to else's views on how good or how hard they've got it.
it does get frustrating sometimes, because we all do want to do our best but, there's always a dark cloud in the shape of a producer or client. that's why I've got a computer and a lightbox at home, were I have all the freedom in the world!
Just keep animating! that's what I do!

"check it out, you know it makes sense!" http://miaumau.blogspot.com/

when I started out in 3d we where doing 150 frames per day, but by the end going up to 250, this was animating two cartoony characters.
But maximum that I've done in one day was 877 frames in one day!! :eek: (I wasn't feeling very well by the end of that day!). It was when I was working on yet another kids' tv series and each 4 people team was producing a full 7 minute episode per week.
But, these two series were cartoony so, to save time we got away with murder (poor kids, I really do feel for them) but, doing apparently much less (700 frames per month) on a feature film, was actually much more of a strain that the kiddie's stuff. Nothing like animating a scene with 4 realistic human characters in a week!...
Right now, we're doing a 13 minute short also with realistic humans and there's only two animators, by my calculations to have the animation finished on time we need to animated 1480 frames per month!! Wish me good luck! :D

christ. thats some insanity right there.

it does get frustrating sometimes, because we all do want to do our best but, there's always a dark cloud in the shape of a producer or client. that's I've got a computer and a lightbox at home, were I have all the freedom in the world!
Just keep animating! that's what I do!

That's funny, I've always said how much cooler this career would be if it weren't for the clients :D

Yeah, if you want to do your own thing, chances are you aren't going to get paid for it (at least not in the beginning). Not many people make the leap from paid service providers to original content providers. Not that it can't and isn't done, it's just a very scary leap. Jib Jab still hires their services out even with all their success on their independent work. Of course, their success means they can afford more indy work.

Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com

Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight

lol,i guess that the sacrafice u have to make as an animator.

I get about 10 seconds done per week, but I'm not working for any studio. If I were, I'd probably be expected to do a whole lot more.

I suppose it greatly depends on overall animation quality and character complexity, too. Ten to fifteen seconds a week for fluid, Disney-style traditional animation, that sound feasible?

My company specializes in online shorts... so we do things a little differently than a typical studio. Each animator is responsible for 2 projects per week... each ranging from 30 seconds to a minute. The team rotates animators to work on our "Big Big Toon" (Licensed To Pill) which is typically in production for about four weeks... those projects run right around 2 minutes.

I suppose it greatly depends on overall animation quality and character complexity, too. Ten to fifteen seconds a week for fluid, Disney-style traditional animation, that sound feasible?

So, about fourty (40) finished frames per day in a six day week and that is just the characters. I am guessing that background, effects, and sound must take up another six (6) day week.

Also depends, I'd say. An intricate layout, like the pan shots in Disney's Hunchback, can take as long as two weeks to sketch and clean and twice as long to paint.

Here's a spin-off to this: Storyboards.

On a good day, the pace can be 10-20 pages--at 3 panels per page. The usual average is to the low side.
That means about 70 to 100 pages of 'boards a week.
I've done more in a pinch, up to around 40 pages in a day, but that's a long damn day.

My students visibly blanch when I ask them to do TEN pages per week.

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

I think, but I'm not sure, but most of us are talking TV pace. With talking to my mentors, who are on Features, they're quotas are much lower. My last mentor almost pasted out when I told him we have to animate around 1 minute a week. :D Really it all comes down to budget. The bigger the budget, the more time you get to animate, or for Ken, storyboard. For a minute a week, you're not going to get fully animated scenes with wind blowing through the hair in slow motion. For that speed, you'll maybe get a leaf or two blowing past the camera. :D

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Oh, and it also depends on where you spend your time on your shots. Don't just fly through your posing, just to spend the rest of the week noodling every last inbetween and every bit of overlapping action. If your poses aren't good, it won't matter how good everything else is, it'll still look like poop. Just like figure drawing. Make sure the construction, pose and anatomy is right befor going into shadding mode.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Oh, and it also depends on where you spend your time on your shots. Don't just fly through your posing, just to spend the rest of the week noodling every last inbetween and every bit of overlapping action. If your poses aren't good, it won't matter how good everything else is, it'll still look like poop. Just like figure drawing. Make sure the construction, pose and anatomy is right befor going into shadding mode.

Aloha,
the Ape

i think thats right for just bout anything where you work with posing. I have found preproduction to be a boon. i feel so proud of how we did our current short, its been done in record time and all because we had the pre-prod down right.

that is where god is. in your storyboard.

well... the 1480 frames per month that I am meant to do (it is just not happening because, the director starts crying...) are for a festival film that will also be shown on cinemas and concerts... my producer hopes!...
But, I've found that the animation reates for the two feature films that I've worked on were almost as heavy as this film. But, saying this I still haven't worked on a nice film... sniff... :(

"check it out, you know it makes sense!" http://miaumau.blogspot.com/

Hi Noob.

Back in my home country (the Philippines), we use to do a weekly quota of 10 feet of traditional animation per week (sorry, its been a long time since I worked in 2D that I have forgotten how to convert footages to seconds, I hope some of the guys here can help us out with that). Any excess of footages will be paid, ofcourse. The best animators there can do 30-40 feet a week, even more!

In Flash animation, we were required a quota of 35 seconds a week. Most of the guys I worked with usually break the 60 second barrier.

Right now I am working at around 40 seconds of animation per week in Flash. When I go nocturnal and deprive myself of sleep, that goes up to 60-70 seconds a week.

So that is based on my experience. I am curious too on how it goes in other studios here and overseas.

Cheers,

Sandrock

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is this completely finished animation,or just rough 30 secs i'm guessin maybe you have seperate guys on clean-up and colour,but maybe you don't?

ofcourse i agree with SL that the gold is all in the pre-prod,nothing better than good planning,instead of guess work :rolleyes: .

In 2D animation, yes, there is a separate department for clean up and inbetween, and yes it is rough animation (I started out as a clean up artist before moving on to animation). Coloring done digitally using US Animation.

In Flash animation, all the drawings, coloring and animation are done in Flash. The setup is very much like in traditional animation, except there is no more clean up and inbetween department because the animator does all that for a scene.

Skinnylizard will probably have lots of inputs on this too because I believe he runs a studio.

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oh i see,thanks for the information. :D

Noobster. its difficult to say , i reckon it depends on how complicated the animation is and what it is. we are looking to do about 5 seconds a day per animator for the feature weve planned whcih is a Flash - 2d hybrid.

presently we are doing a short which for animation took 3 guys one week to do and its timing in about 3 mins.

Should this thread include some discussion about the different standards that have been referred too, feature film versus another production types.

Should this thread include some discussion about the different standards that have been referred too, feature film versus another production types.

Absolutely.

For 3d:
While working previs, we could be expected to do up to 5-10 minutes per week, which included rough animation, model construction, textures, etc. (think game res from the late '90's, much of it from scratch). The expectation for quality is growing, but the time expected isn't shrinking. Luckily computers and software are making it easier. Either way it's very demanding work.

In feature animation (for VFX), on the Matrix Revolutions, there were scenes (1-30 seconds) that animators worked on for weeks (several went for months, but those were the exceptions with all the APU's in one shot). But most scenes (again 1-30 seconds) were done in about a week. It really depends on how much is happening, how many characters, the complexity of the characters (the sentinels walking were much harder to animate than the APU's for instance), and what the characters are doing (the sentinels flying were much easier than the sentinels walking).

Typically, an animator will be working on more than one shot at a time. Working on one, waiting for feedback and working on another while waiting to hear what to fix.

It all really hinges on the production coordinator. These underpaid, overworked people can make your job in the studio the best job you've ever had or a complete nightmare. I've been pretty fortunate to be involved with some pretty amazing coordinators (and only a couple that didn't really understand what was going on). A coordinator who can look at a shot and understand what needs to be done and schedule properly is a dream come true.

Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com

Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight

We animate about 60 seconds a week per animator. That's animating in Flash. It really varies studio to studio and production to production.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."