Moho Forum

Hello there I come from a small company called Charisma Animations. We started up a while ago and ran into a few problems and to tell you the truth we were ready to call a quits but the dream we had never went away. So today I am happy to say that we are back on our feet and ready to move! We want to make an anime. The anime would be around 12 episodes long and would be featured on Youtube. We are a non profit group and do this solely for the joy of animation. We do understand that not all of you think the same way we do. While we can't guarantee any of you a steady stream of income we can guarantee you that if this is successful, any of the money we make based off of Youtube views will be sent to you guys for helping us out. We believe we can accomplish anything we want if you we put our minds to it. I know it might sound like we are selling dreams but even if you are not a 100 percent sure just give us a little bit of your time. I can promise you that we will not let you down. If interested please contact us at charismaanimations@gmail.com

CharismaAnimations wrote:Hello there I come from a small company called Charisma Animations. We started up a while ago and ran into a few problems and to tell you the truth we were ready to call a quits but the dream we had never went away. So today I am happy to say that we are back on our feet and ready to move! We want to make an anime. The anime would be around 12 episodes long and would be featured on Youtube. We are a non profit group and do this solely for the joy of animation. We do understand that not all of you think the same way we do. While we can't guarantee any of you a steady stream of income we can guarantee you that if this is successful, any of the money we make based off of Youtube views will be sent to you guys for helping us out. We believe we can accomplish anything we want if you we put our minds to it. I know it might sound like we are selling dreams but even if you are not a 100 percent sure just give us a little bit of your time. I can promise you that we will not let you down. If interested please contact us at charismaanimations@gmail.com

The animators don't just "help out" when making an animation, they to the heavy lifting of acting, directing, cinematography, editor, and often sound designer and other jobs.

From texts like this I've learned that it's enough to form a "company" and have a "dream", and leave the real work to others.

The animators don't just "help out" when making an animation, they to the heavy lifting of acting, directing, cinematography, editor, and often sound designer and other jobs.[/quote]
We realize that animators have a hard task. At the same time though, we have several other able bodies that specialize in some of the fields that you mentioned, so the animation load will be as light as possible. Thanks for your reply.

-Charisma

slowtiger wrote:From texts like this I've learned that it's enough to form a "company" and have a "dream", and leave the real work to others.

We've made a lot of progress since we've began, and things are looking pretty good. Turns out, a dollar and a dream can go a long way Thanks for your input though.

-Charisma

Here is a checklist of things you need to have done before you start trying to recruit animators:

1: Have you written out the entire story and drafted it to a screenplay?

2: Have you prepared all of the concept art for characters and important scenes?

3: Have you created a storyboard for the show?

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I'd highly suggest you guys find another avenue for distribution of your show than youtube. Youtube is extremely bias against animators and the amount of money you can expect to make per second of content is very low.

I would like to echo what dkwroot asked; are there any details about the project (script, storyboard, character designs)?

People buy into specific ideas and dreams, rather than committing themselves to creating animation (for free) to a project just because it is animation related. Please post the script and/or storyboard at a minimum. Ideally with character designs and the audio sound track (if available; you mentioned you had other people working on the project already). I am surprised at how many people ask for free help but are unwilling to take this simple step. I think it mostly stems from fear of having ideas "stolen", but you can't think in those terms. If you want help, be willing to put your ideas out there for others to evaluate and determine if this is the kind of project they want to donate their time to. Even if you do present your ideas there is still no guarantee of free help; but you won't have any chance if you don't take at least this simple leap of faith.

CharismaAnimations wrote:

The animators don't just "help out" when making an animation, they to the heavy lifting of acting, directing, cinematography, editor, and often sound designer and other jobs.

We realize that animators have a hard task. At the same time though, we have several other able bodies that specialize in some of the fields that you mentioned, so the animation load will be as light as possible. Thanks for your reply.

-Charisma

Please, do tell. Do you already have voices actors? If so, good, but the animator will still do ALL of the physical acting. Do you already have an extensive storyboard? If so, good, that will save on the planning stages of directing and cinematography, just not the actual labor of doing so. Are you going to require the animator to make a lot of extraneous footage? Because that's the only way you do any significant editing, and waste the animator's precious time to boot.

See dkwroot's list for the bare minimum you will need to do in advance of starting animation.

I do animation for free, I'm what you call a hobbyist and don't need to make any money. But will do jobs that pay sometimes.

Here is my experience from the last two months.

A film director, or should a say some kid in film school, wanted some animation to go with his project. He says 'A woman dancing to some new wave music, currently in the ruff; I ask to see each cut he plans to use with timing marks. Like this cut will be 2 minutes 10 seconds. And all the art work he has.
No response. NONE.

Another one:
Wants 7 minutes of Black and White (b&W should be easier than color? Ya right) 2d but at Disney quality. I quote 14k. I would need a team of 4 people and most likely more than the 90 days. He thinks I'm crazy.

Another:
Wants 5 minute for free. Use his Idea of adding some animation to a movie he is making and the animator do the rest. I respond with Crazy film maker. He get bent because I call him crazy. I still offered 60 seconds. He sends me a long email saying that calling him crazy was very rude. I respond with 'You have no clue on how much work I'm will be doing for free.'

So my suggestion is to post a very vague offer on freelancer, fiver, or odesk. Because I'm very tired of dealing with the clueless. You will be happy with the crappy Crazy Talk animation that you will end up with.

Dale

synthsin75 wrote:Please, do tell. Do you already have voices actors? If so, good, but the animator will still do ALL of the physical acting. Do you already have an extensive storyboard? If so, good, that will save on the planning stages of directing and cinematography, just not the actual labor of doing so. Are you going to require the animator to make a lot of extraneous footage? Because that's the only way you do any significant editing, and waste the animator's precious time to boot.

See dkwroot's list for the bare minimum you will need to do in advance of starting animation.

The 'thought process' alone could take several days and once I animate it I may still decide it's not what I want.
I once drew a simple character for a friend which took me about a week. There was no rigging involved. He showed me an example of what he wanted. When I showed him my version about a week later he was, at first, excited because it was better than he expected and he showed it to his friends. Then...he wanted edits. He sent it back four times asking for changes. Lesson learned.

3deeguy wrote:The 'thought process' alone could take several days and once I animate it I may still decide it's not what I want.
I once drew a simple character for a friend which took me about a week. There was no rigging involved. He showed me an example of what he wanted. When I showed him my version about a week later he was, at first, excited because it was better than he expected and he showed it to his friends. Then...he wanted edits. He sent it back four times asking for changes. Lesson learned.

Yeah, in paid work anyway, I offer a specific number of free edits (included in the quoted price). Additional edits have to be negotiated, with perhaps further good-faith payments. For free, I'd tell them not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

synthsin75, It's a goal of mine to become professional. I'm not quite ready yet.
No one asks a songwriter to write a song and give it to someone saying it would help "build a portfolio" or that they would "spread the word".
I also backed out of a "collaboration". I say a business agreement makes so much more sense.

No matter the product or service, people tend to value things based on what they pay, or are asked to pay. The trick is always to find what the market will bear. The problem with animation is that so many people have undersold themselves or allowed the misconception that "it's fun" somehow marginalizes the work involved.

While it's true that you never work a day in your life if you do something you love, you also have have to feed and shelter yourself to live that life.