Be Your Own Animator

It took me a long time to understand the concept of making your own work. I was one of those guys that came fresh out of art school thinking I was just going to walk into an animation studio and have a career.

Now, I'm really into Ralph Bakshi's idea of creating your own work with the tools you have available to you instead of dedicating 20 years to a studio just to be given a chance to have a chance to maybe work on your own idea.

acetate assassin creating your own work is a very great idea i know first one will face many problems but remember that a self made man is always confidence and can create wonders work hard and create your work . one day you will succeed

I think it's a no brainer that there are tremendous opportunities for individual creators to make their own movies now. The nagging question to me is how the heck do you monetize the fruits of your labors? Animation is very time-consuming, and it's difficult to find the time to create anything worthwhile without an adequate flow of the green stuff...which seems in increasingly short supply from an audience that expects to be entertained for free.

I've had modest success peddling DVD's of my work, but it hardly justified the time spent, and the day of the disk seems to be waning fast. Apps on a smart phone are an underwhelming and overcomplicated venue, and Youtube seems to reward people hitting themselves in the crotch more than it does truly original efforts at making art.

So where do we go?

My opinion is to do 1 minute shorts, capitalizing on economy in animation, but richness in ideas or comedy. Do a series of those, and see if they bank money--if they do run them while making something longer, to build up the audience and anticipation. Its psychology and numbers--get people keen to see your stuff, build up the numbers of people eager to see your stuff and then you become a commodity worth investing in. Stretch out the feed a bit to get new shorts to them while you work on longer, more elaborate ideas, until a point of critical mass hits. Someone getting a certain level of exposure will attract investors or sponsors, and even if there's not a pay-to-view scheme going on, the sponsors can often be willing to pay up just to get their name attached to something that works. Gain 20 ad sponsors paying $5000 a year each and you have yourself $100K just on sponsorships alone. Add in a small amount of ancillary marketing, like T-shirts or mugs and you can stream in another $25K.
True, I'm pulling numbers out of my ass, that may or may not have any basis in reality, but the principle can be expected to be sound.
If you can reach that point, if investors come along, you get a small crew to do what you were doing--while you control the ideas, and have then keep producing the spots. Then you go to work expanding what you have to a series, or a feature, depending on how you want to roll. It builds from there on.

The direction one takes is entirely up to them......one person's vibe might be through audacity, another's might be through something gentle, lyrical, but done in a what that few have seen before.

The obvious key to all this is exposure.......the work one does ain't going to work for you unless you get it out for people to see. Making it good enough in the time you have is usually enough to get people to wait for what you produce--but the more you put into it, the more likely you are to hook people. It can literally be the crude expression of throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks.

One just has to try.