How to get started with animation (movies/series)

I’m starting this thread mostly just because I’m curious. Lately, I’ve been kind of obsessed with animated movies and cartoons—especially anime—so I’ve started wondering about how any of this actually gets made.

First off, what kind of budget are we talking about to pull this off? Or, more specifically, for a series? Like, if I were to dream up thirty episodes of a twenty-minute show, how much cash would I actually need to sink into it?

Then there's the logistics—how do writers and animators even connect? And how do you actually "sell" a series idea to a major network like Netflix or HBO? Oh, and finally, what does everyone actually get paid? Like, creators, writers, animators... anyone else involved in the production.

I think I might have a knack for screenwriting in this niche, but I honestly don't have a clue how the animation industry operates, so if anyone knows anything about it, please, help a guy out.

I work with Aztec (3D software) myself, so I’m pretty much looking into the same stuff.
Look, here’s the thing—those massive animated blockbusters? They’re sitting on multi-million dollar budgets.

Now, I'm just an amateur, so don't come for me if I don't get every technicality perfect, but a standard workflow generally looks something like this:

- Scriptwriting
- Storyboarding (basically a comic book style layout of the script scenes to give the 3D modelers a roadmap)
- Character creation (modeling, texturing, and rigging)
- Environment modeling (building the sets and texturing them)
- Voice acting and dialogue recording
- Animation based on the storyboard (usually starting with low poly)
- Directing
- Scene lighting
- Rendering everything out (in passes)
- Compositing
- Music and sound effects

With a TV series, once you've finished those characters, you reuse them constantly; you might just need to churn out some new backgrounds from time to time.

That's for 3D animation. For something like anime, the process is probably similar, except instead of all that computer-generated 3D crap, they're actually drawing things (though obviously, even that is done on computers nowadays).

The big studios have dedicated teams for every single one of those steps. We're talking separate crews for modeling, texturing, animation, drawing, compositing, and so on.

I guess it might be a little naive to start at the summit by asking about the production costs for a full 30-episode series. It feels like a bit of a mismatch if you haven't actually produced any audiovisual content before.
Maybe try starting from the ground up—perhaps attempt a one-minute puppet or animated short just to see how it goes. If you can pull that off, then you could look into bigger steps.

If you're just curious about the general side of production without actually getting your hands dirty, I think what was said above is right. It involves so many people, tons of gear, and an incredible amount of work.

Thanks a ton, you two.

@Group Queen: I’m strictly interested in screenwriting, but since I'm still pretty young, I'm mostly just trying to soak up as much info as possible. I swear, I have piles of ideas. And that bit about "producing a 30-episode series" was kind of just a random thought—I just wanted to wrap my head around how those massive projects actually get structured, especially since there’s never really been an initiative for stuff like that here in the States (even though there's a huge audience for it), so I guess I automatically wondered if you need a massive budget for it, seeing as money is hard to come by around here. That's my Point.

@frozenheron7/">@@frozenheron7: From what I gathered from your post, I guess you need a full creative team regardless of whether the animation studio is huge or not—and I’m not even counting the voice actors in that. Because, man, just animating all of that has to be a hell of a job.

Yeah, I really think they need a full crew for this. Especially if they’re actually looking at turning this into a series rather than just a one-off project.

I mean, even a single 20-minute episode is a massive undertaking.
Think about the math for a second—you've got 24 frames per second depending on the standard you're using, but let's stick with 24 for simplicity.
That means you're looking at 1,440 individual frames just to get through one minute. By the time you hit the 20-minute mark, you're staring down the barrel of 28,800 frames.

Whether you're hand-drawing every single shot or running heavy renders through a farm, the sheer volume of work is staggering. It's an insane amount of labor.

I've been messing around with Flash for a few months now. My style is pretty much in the vein of South Park. Even though I went into this thinking it would be some kind of shortcut for animation, it turns out it’s still a massive amount of work.
Even if I had the cash and the right tools, I'd still need a small crew of people who actually know what they're doing to help me out.

I honestly don't think there's much heavy lifting involved when it comes to the actual animation for South Park, especially if you compare it to those high-budget animated features that look absolutely stunning. But if you really want to understand what goes on behind the scenes, you should check out this documentary. It gives you a pretty solid look at how the whole process actually functions from the other side. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2076781/

There’s an animation film festival over in Miami—went once with my school class. It's a bit of a trek to get there, though. 😍

silvertiger11 said:I've been messing around in Flash for a few months now. My style is pretty similar to South Park. And even though I went into this thinking it would save me a ton of work on the animation side, it turns out the whole thing is just a massive amount of damn work.
Even if I had the cash and all the right tools, I’d still need to hire a handful of pros who actually know what they're doing just to help me out.

The guys behind South Park actually use Maya for their workflow. If they tried to animate everything in Flash, there's no way they could hit those insane turnaround times they manage. Maya has absolutely phenomenal animation tools

Jamie Baker3 said:So, let me throw this out there... if you were looking to bankroll a series consisting of thirty episodes, with each one running about twenty minutes, how much capital would you actually need to sink into a project like that?...

I have to say, I was absolutely floored when I finally sat down to look at the production budgets for these massive animated blockbusters... It’s actually staggering how much capital they're throwing at these projects, with some of them easily burning through hundreds of millions of dollars just to get a single film onto the big screen...😲

I was just revisiting the data on Shrek the Third, and honestly, looking back at the numbers and the critical reception, it’s hard not to feel a certain level of frustration regarding how the franchise's momentum stalled out... You have this massive powerhouse of a series that had completely redefined the animated landscape, only to hit this specific wall where the storytelling felt significantly more rushed and less cohesive than its predecessors. When you look at the actual financials—it had a budget of $160 million and pulled in a box office of $798,958,162—the sheer scale of the commercial success is undeniable, yet the creative soul of the trilogy feels like it was spread much too thin to satisfy the fans who had grown up with the first two films... It’s one of those instances where the industry math says "home run," but anyone who actually sat through the runtime can feel the lack of narrative weight that made the earlier entries so special... It's just a shame when a studio leans so heavily into the spectacle and the brand recognition that the actual substance starts to fray at the edges...
The production costs were sitting right at a budget $ 160 million...
The total box office earnings reached a staggering $798,958,162...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ce_performance

Only Toy Story feels a bit out of place here. 😁

They didn't make their debut until 1995, which is probably why the numbers look a little underwhelming... It was the first film to feature this updated, modern style of tailoring.