Looking for advice

General Moho topics.

Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger

Post Reply
Dennis Willy
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Dec 08, 2017 10:24 am

Looking for advice

Post by Dennis Willy »

I am not sure where to post this, I hope that here is o.k.
I have been hired to work on a cartoon by a good friend of a good friend, and it is ten minuits long.
He is doing a lot of the artwork himself.
Both of us want to be fair and reasonable with the other as far as payment goes.
Neither of us have any idea at this point, what a fair and reasonable amount would be.
So far we agreed to wait and see until the cartoon is almost finished.
He hopes to hire me regularly in the future if this all goes well and we are both happy.
I've never had a paying customer before.
Any advice on how to arrive at an agreeable number would be much appreciated, or even better, suggestions of ballparks would be nice.
I've never had a shred of business sense, and I doubt I ever will.
My dream is to be able to do anything creative for a living as long as I could make the same as my day job.
I am a janitor for a living, so it is not an unrealistic goal.
ernpchan
Posts: 154
Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 7:18 pm
Contact:

Re: Looking for advice

Post by ernpchan »

Ten minutes is a lot of footage. Some of our shows are 22 minutes with them being two 11 minute stories so you're being asked to almost do an entire half episode by yourself where a team of animators over a few weeks produces what we want. Granted I don't know the complexity of your friend's project but to produce that much quantity of at least decent quality will take you awhile. Especially if you're only going to be able to do this off hours. Knowing how complex the animation needs to be will help. Going from just one to two characters is a huge leap in the amount of work.

How many seconds can you produce in an 8 hour day?

Cheap-Fast-Good.

The general joke is that you're only allowed to pick two out three. Hopefully you and your friend can come to an agreement that is fair to both of you because working on a project where you're not getting your fair value is no fun.
My opinions and comments do not represent those of my employer.
http://www.ernestpchan.com
http://www.zazzle.com/gopuggo
User avatar
synthsin75
Posts: 9934
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:20 pm
Location: Oklahoma
Contact:

Re: Looking for advice

Post by synthsin75 »

What hourly rate do you need to live? What do you make at other jobs to support yourself? At least until you can prove that you have a high demand skill, that's really the only thing that determines your rate. You can keep track of your hours and let your customer know how long it took for each deliverable (maybe like every minute or two of animation in a ten minute project). Multiplying those hours by your rate lets them estimate how much they can expect to pay for the whole project.

Be careful about "wait and see until the cartoon is almost finished", as stuff can happen that even the best customers can't predict that could hinder payment. I'd require payment at each deliverable, if not also a deposit to start work. If I really trust the guy, because I know him personally or a friend vouches for him, I might forgo the deposit and first deliverable payment, but then if he's happy with the first deliverable (and we're not talking Moho work files here), the deposit and/or first payment will be required to start the next deliverable.

This is just my take, so you can be as flexible with any of that as you're comfortable with.
User avatar
dueyftw
Posts: 2174
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2006 10:32 am
Location: kingston NY
Contact:

Re: Looking for advice

Post by dueyftw »

10 minutes long?

I would try to get it down. 9 minutes is better than 10. With out seeing the job I don't know, but I'm willing to guess that something can be cut. Most animation that is 10 minutes can be done with just 4 to 5. Not all but most.

Price?

Look at the amount details that you have to animate and how long it take you to animate it. Charge accordingly.

I might try to do 5 seconds of a job and look at how much time it took.

Dale
User avatar
InfoCentral
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri May 26, 2006 8:35 pm
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Re: Looking for advice

Post by InfoCentral »

Make sure you keep a log book! Always log your hrs and better yet log the amount of time you are working on various parts of the animation. When your done it will be valuable insight to just how long various parts take to complete and overall the amount of time it took to complete x amount of animation. Then you can decide just how much your time is worth. If not it's a guessing game.
MEETUP.COM - start or join a group
Dennis Willy
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Dec 08, 2017 10:24 am

Re: Looking for advice

Post by Dennis Willy »

Thank you all very much for your replies.
I have another potential customer who wants me to make many 4-10 second long animations for his youtube channel.
I made a pile of little animations for a good friend's youtube channel, and that is what has sparked other people trying to hire me.
Hopefully this trend continues.
Post Reply