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Looking for animators who are interested in a collaboration

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Looking for animators who are interested in a collaboration

I'm a writer, not an animator, but I've got a political satire all written up and ready to be animated in case anybody is interested. The idea is sort of a mock theatrical trailer for The T Files, the X Files people are asked to investigate this strange phenomenon, the tea party movement, and how it's possible for so many people to believe such ridiculous things and what dark forces are behind it.

If anyone thinks they might be interested in this project, let me know and I'll send you the script. If you like my script, show me your work, and we can make this project a reality. I'm not in a position to pay, although of course if it makes money I'm more than willing to share and I'll bear in mind that it will take you longer to animate it than I took writing it. But the bottom line is, you should only work with me on this if you like the idea, like the script after reading it, and want to be involved in it, it'll be fun.

You can reply here or write me at capitalocracy at gmail.com.

Offers like yours aren't uncommon here but I am afraid you're not going to get serious replies, at least not from professionals or semi-professionals. Since you're not in the animation business you likely don't have too good of an idea of what kind of effort lies behind animation production.
I don't blame you for not knowing but if what you offer is only a script and no budget and movie-making experience then there's no way you'll ever get what you may be thinking of in a quality way. Animation is a very real, very demanding job people (like me) do to pay their bills, and well, the sad truth is that just fun doesn't pay any bills.
Your best bet would be taking your script and not going to the people who make animation but to the people who fund it.

I know it's annoying, but I think there's a difference

I think there's a difference between people who have funding and come asking for spec projects for "experience" or for your "portfolio" when they have the money to pay you and want to keep it for themselves. And I'm an independent worker myself, in translation, transcription, writing, that sort of thing, and believe me, we get screwed too, otherwise I would have money to pay. I'm actually extremely poor.

What I'm looking for is an animator who's interested in politics and current events and would like to do this project, and of course, if it ended up making money I would share it. I'm not looking for free employees, I'm looking for someone who is looking to work as a team for themselves like I'm trying to do, and put in the same sweat equity I am at the same risk of either making money or not. I understand that the animator will be the person who puts in the most work for this project, and honestly, if I were capable of doing it I would, but I'm not kidding myself here, I know my limits. I'm not expecting a super professional job working for free either. I will also be putting in work finding voice actors, directing them, doing sound editing, basically everything I have the capability of doing, and at the same risk of not making any money.

Anyway, if you want to take a look at the script and tell me how much you would charge for this animation work if I could find a way to pay for it, that would help me out and I would appreciate it.

Working animators are rarely looking for "just" experience because a real animation job usually gives it to them, plus the pay. Plus portfolio material. Also, most animators have their own pet projects that they're more likely to want to work on during their free time than team up with complete strangers.
The argument "Will pay if it ever makes money" is also very common and, if you'll excuse my being blunt, an empty promise on a business level. And business is what it is, regardless of how you might see it. What securities could you possibly offer? I would assume no serious professional would be willing to enter any sort of valid agreement or contract if there wasn't anything substantial to back it up. And without a contract, how would questions of creatorship and copyright and so forth be resolved?

I must be blunt again, you are technically looking for free workers. If you don't pay the service you expect to receive it is free work you're looking for, simple as that. Your goodwill alone, which I'm not debating, just won't cut it.

OK, then help me out with budgeting. How do you price an animation job? Say I had a script for a short, not sure yet but say it timed out at about 5 minutes, with a high volume of short individual scenes making for about 20 total backgrounds and maybe 10 figures, much of the animation involving dubbed dialogue. How much would you charge for that project, ball park?

OK, then help me out with budgeting. How do you price an animation job? Say I had a script for a short, not sure yet but say it timed out at about 5 minutes, with a high volume of short individual scenes making for about 20 total backgrounds and maybe 10 figures, much of the animation involving dubbed dialogue. How much would you charge for that project, ball park?

$10,000 a minute.

Seriously.

See, for one person, one minute of animation will take approximately 6 months to do.
You say you have a script, but that is all. You need designs, a storyboard, either layouts or builds, sheet timing for lip sync, and then the animation itself.
6 months is about the average for a student film to be completed--most of those coming in around 1 minute long.
That is a full-time schedule 8-12 hour days minimum. It budgets time for feedback, mistakes and screw-ups, as well as some exploration to see how things work.

5 minutes of animation......$50,000.

The upside of that is that after designs and stuff are done, the remaining 4 minutes of animation itself could proba
bly be done in about 6 months--giving you a reasonable year-long schedule. Then there is painting, editing etc.
If someone does this on the side, say 4-hours a day-you'd be looking at a 2 year commitment--because the timetable will effectively double. ( and you'll need to ask yourself if the political "voice" of your piece will be relevant 2 years down the road!)

Now, you'll get a lot of off-shore folks coming along and chiming in that they can do it for "far less".
Sure they can, but you will get what you pay for--and they will not be interested in "collaboration" as much as they will be providing animation services for pay.
You could probably do it for less time, and money using FLASH, but then again, you need to have the characters built in FLASH to do that.

The thing is, that no matter what kind of style you want the finished product to look like, you still want the thing presented professionally. The reasons are simple: it makes you look good. Shitty animation will not save anything, South Park/ Kevin Spencer/ Beavis and Butthead notwithstanding.

So, really........the most viable option is to make pals with an animator, or two....find someone with a like political bent and about a year's free time ( or dispensation to animate as a hobby) and go from there.

The other option is the harder one: to do it yourself.
Look, don't dismiss becoming an animator yourself so readily.
The advantages are that you can learn a completely new set of marketable skills, you can retain 100% control of the work and your own voice, and you'll never, ever have to argue with someone else about getting it done or doing it the way you want.
There's a ton of tutorial material on-line about how to go into this, and the only thing it requires from you is to cast aside your fears and take the plunge.
It'll also be a far sight cheaper than $50,000 too!

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

Nice I´m learning too with this post of how to budget animation!

@Capitalocracy: As I understand, 1 well done script page is equal to 1 minute, counting that you can know aproximately the time of your project.

If u are an administrator please unlock me :(

Hi, I am seeking for a 2D

Hi, I am seeking for a 2D animator who would like to collab with me on a small project I have in mind. I do drawings such as painting Digital art and landscapes. If any chance you would like to work on a small project of a few second animation trailer I would love to collaborate with you. I have been doing some digital illustrations of sunset landscapes recently, check it here on my instagram @artri000 It would be amazing if we could create a second animation of characters walking along the beach I want to implemented my landscape illustrations in to the Animation. Let me know if you are interested, we can talk about it further.