Search form

Cost of Animating

2 posts / 0 new
Last post
Cost of Animating

How much should I charge someone to animate (3D using Blender) a 5- or 10-minute video for them? Is there anything I should look out for or be careful of? They have the storyboard done, they just need the story animated. Thanks!

The cost is going to heavily

The cost is going to heavily depend on what you believe you should be compensated for your time. 

However, I am going to say that you should be wary of clients bearing only storyboard. There's a lot that goes into an animation and if they've done the storyboard without any help from an animator you're going to have to check it over to make sure it actually accomplishes what the director wants. You'll need to check over the story beats, make sure the board is logically organized, and ensure it fits the script. Do they have it scored? If so, does the score fit the motion of the scene? Is there already recorded dialog? How about sound effects? How detailed is the story board -- does it contain only key frames or does it actually show the full story? (When storyboarding one of my projects, for example, I started with about 20 images detailing the major scenes... then each scene had to be boarded separately including camera angles, etc... this 22 minute episode isn't finished yet, but the "final" storyboard is well over 120 images.) That's before you even get into asset creation! Of course, you could warn them that you're not a director or a producer and all you're going to do is animate what is there... but do you want to risk them being upset if it turns out poorly because you followed the story board exactly? 

Finally, the last questions you should ask them are about the assets. Do they have all the character designs? What about prop designs? Locations? Vehicles? Background characters? Are all of these designs in a format usable for you to animate or will you be expected to make them? 

The more of this they need done, the more time and effort it's going to take from you. As long as you anticipate all of the work involved I think you'll be fine with making a quote. 

 

 

-M
Check out my blog, I could definitely use some feedback:
http://www.gooddogstudios.net/tips-and-tricks/creative-endeavors/