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The Production Spectrum

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The Production Spectrum

After much searching I find questions about budgets and production pipelines and the like popping up very frequently. There's also a lot from people (myself included) looking to get their own projects produced but have trouble with crew/resources/funding, and such.

There's a book on film production called From Reel to Deal by Dov Simens. In it he explains the broad spectrum of production values and budgets. From the "eight figure blockbuster" to the "one room garage film with two actors", and everything in between. He points out who can expect to start where (experience, money, and clout being the deciding factors), and describes what each level entails; stars, design value, locations, unions/guilds, distribution, etc.

What I'm wondering is if anyone here knows of, or can create, a similar spectrum of animation production values and what we aspiring newbies can expect/look for in each one; say level 10 being Sleeping Beauty, and level 0 being 8 fps rotoscoping with MS paint.

If anything it would put a large part of the industry into perspective, helping people not to aim too low or bite off more than we can chew.:eek:

There's a LOT of questions about budgets, but, y'know....there's a reason why there's so few useful answers:
The information is largely considered proprietary.

The best you'd get from a forum like this would be a very generalized answer.......something that will not help anyone in a business sense.

To get a legit answer, you need to do two things:
Break down ALL the steps in a animation production into tasks.......that is to say, jobs that people will hold and tasks that need outside services. Then you need to assign a wage for people undertaking those jobs, AND for other parties performing services such as post-production, printing the film and distribution.

That means both research , and getting on the phone to suppliers to get quotes on what those services cost. There is no other way to get this info but by actually doing all the scutwork yourself--you cannot trust the info a book gives as being up-to-date.

This information is considered proprietary because not a lot of people want it let out on how they cut deals or what they are paying out for talent or services. It tends to tip off their competition a bit too much.
And it tends to be no-one else's business.

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

I think this is might be what you're looking for "Producing Animation".

My recommendations for newbies is to get an entry level job/internship at a studio just to see how things are run. Where the money goes - more specifically, how the money is saved. Experience = short cuts and cheats.

For inspiration, especially for the youngsters out there - here's a great clip of Ralph Bakshi "Surviving in Hard Times".