Budgeting for Video and Animation Projects

• Budgeting is simple once broken down individually and accurately.
• It applies to independent/unfinanced productions and contract jobs.

Job Parameters

• Knowing the job's parameters is the most important part of budgeting.
• Consider the length, deadline, delivery format, and elements provided.
• Determine who is responsible for audio (music/voice), casting, and voice acting.
• Before budgeting dollars, budget time and talent.
• Even a simple schedule, like 8 weeks for a 1-minute animation, determines how to allot finances.

Budget Cover Page

• A budget cover page/top sheet is a line budget synopsis.
• The top box lists logistical information: who/what is producing/being produced.
• The bottom box contains "comments" and disclaimers.
• Disclaimers include what is not covered in the budget and special considerations.

Summary of Production Costs

• The budget is a variation on the AICP budget form, designed for live action.
• Live action contains one line for "animation", animation production categories come from here.
• There are five production phases, future posts will explain these in detail.
• "Animation" should cover about 30% of production costs for animators, assistants, and inbetweeners.
• Lines A-E total $90k and should be detailed in the body of the budget.
• Producers shouldn't mark up director/creative fees on work-for-hire projects.
• Budget directors around 10% of A-E, under "Creative/Subtotal A-E".
• "Production Fee" is a markup including profit, contingency, and operating expenses.
• Operating expenses include tax preparation, water, and daily company costs
• Many overhead costs should be covered as line items.
• Advertising production fees were 28%, but now 15% is common.
• Some clients insist on a lower fee which makes the fee will be shifted to line items.
• Insurance, is figured at 1.5% of A-E, is separate from the Production Fee.

Scheduling

• In big-budget films, costs are divided into ABOVE THE LINE and BELOW THE LINE.
• Above the line costs: Story and Script, Producers, Director, Casting, and Actors and occur before filming.
• Animation costs are below-the-line, most animation money spent is during production
• Development costs and storyboards don't help understand the numbers.
• Schedules determined by the client's deadline or needed work amount.

Scenarios

• In scenario (a) an agency requires a 4-minute promotional film in 6 weeks.
• Immediately block in one week at the beginning for client delays, plus storyboarding and character design
• One week at the end goes to post-production (editing, audio mixing, rendering, compressing deliveries).
• This leaves four weeks for the middle.
• Voice recording occurs in the first week or Week 2, Day 2 at the latest.
• Voice needs to be edited with the storyboard so animation starts mid-Week 2.
• Consider client delays, which leaves three weeks for animation and art production.
• Estimating bad things happening beyond our control will slow things down.
• The technique doesn't matter (stop motion, drawn, cut outs, CG) if you can estimate how long to create a 0:15 animation in the chosen style.
• It for instance takes one person one week to draw the film by hand the animator will take 16 weeks to do the whole thing by herself. Since only 3 weeks are provided you need 6 animators for 3 weeks.
• The starting point will likely change, rarely use 6 animators on a short project, rather 3 animators and 3 assistants would be used
• Art production and compositing follow the same guidelines.
• In 3 weeks we control the variables of clients, color models, voice talent or approvals.
• The animation producer can add another artist, pay overtime or change layouts.
• In scenario (b) schedules are determined by film length.
• Two weeks at the beginning are for goofing off/boarding, one week at the end for editing/delivery.
• For a four minute animation, a single person animating requires 16 weeks. Adding a second brings that down to 8 weeks.
• Timeframes aren't absolute, being able to estimate accurately is key.
• During the animation for "The Buddha", compressing the beginning sped up initial milestones, created stress at the beginning forcing pre-production to be more efficient, payments triggered at delivery points were made sooner.
• The schedule should feature "breathing room".
• The producer for "The Buddha" finished a week ahead of the moved-up deadline.
• Figure out your time parameters which will dictate cost, before scribbling one cent.

Asterisk Budget Category A

• This will begin to detail specific work values.
• Congratulations to Steve Brodner and agency PJA for the National Cartoonist's Society Reuben Award for their work on Infor's "Down with BigERP" campaign.
• Spreadsheets can be used for budgeting and project management.
• Microsoft Excel can be substituted with OpenOffice
• Blank spaces are available in the spreadsheet budget

Category A - Pre-Production, Line by Line

• There are blank spaces with room for more lines allowing for extra detail i.e. holes poked into 10 yards of vellum, or a storage of 100 pounds of ground beef for two weeks.
• Vague budget lines can cover these things under "props" or "rentals"
• Always attempt to be specific.
• It cannot be said a budget is "wrong" if the costs are accurately accounted for.
• Budgets are "wrong" if costs are knowingly underestimated to the point of impacting the project.
• Hiring a lawyer gives a big piece of money upfront while other contractors bill you for labor and materials.
• The business expects one to know what things will cost beforehand and stick to those costs.
• A represents the line number, and is only used for referencing.
• Pre-Pro represents "Accounts" accounts in your accounting software accounts payable.
• The left-hand section represents people while the right-hand section represents things.
• Units is how many of a thing (this works with RATE).
• Rate is the cost per unit.
• Type is what the factor of the Unit. Hour/Day/Week/Flat
• Bid calculates Unit TIMES Rate. For example: Line Producer : 5 [units] weeks [type] at 1000 [rate] = $5000 [bid].
• A Line Producer is on an animation project from start to finish, though they become less important during art production
• At this point The "production coordinator" often becomes the key manager in many cases
• The can bill weekly, ranging from $800 week to $3500 and up with studio costs being lower.
• A Design Director is where animation gets tricky compared to live action.
• The live action director is "above the line" and outside the production budget cost (usually 10% before mark ups.)
• Animation needs, the director is on the job for months in a way a live action is not.
• To accommodate that, you can sometimes bill him or her under a line item.
• Sometimes it happens here. Sometimes it happens in the "animation" section. More often, this is a line for the "illustrator".
• The Story/Treatment and 104. Screenplay The Writer's Guild (WGA) sets standards for writers.
• In unlikely events an animation project will have a WGA deal but they're standards are a good guide. You can find the rates from their latest collective bargaining agreement on their website.
• On long projects the Storyboard Supervisor keeps everything consistent.
• There multiple storyboard artists. They are usually experienced storyboard artists that are rarely needed for short projects.
• The Storyboard Artist line holds blanks since it's a common place for multiple artists who can be paid on salary (weekly/hourly) or at a flat rate per board.
• Artists paid at flat rates are generally independent contractors who work from home with no direct supervision of their daily work, they are given a flat assignment
• A Storyboard Revisionist is used to make corrections to all boards, this can be faster and helps "senior" artists to continue creative planning of new scenes instead of re-working already complete work.
• A Development Artist can have three or four people creating alternate looks, or create a "vision"
• An Associate Producer, Assistant Producer, Assistant to Producer, Assistant to Director are like their live action counterparts.
• Production Interns must be paid due to the XIII Amendment which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude.
• Legal Fees are rarely included but can be hefty
• Production contracts are boilerplate as they spell out the costs, what will be made buyer and due dates
• In the events a lawyer gets involved on a work-for-hire project you're already losing. This is not the case for development deals or others specific situations, lawyers can be helpful on big projects.
• Office Manager, Office Intern, Production Accounting, Reception, Shipping Manager are salaried positions usually hourly or weekly. Most budgets we create don't use these categories,
• We include them here to give the idea costs should be isolate to the most precise detail possible.

Pre-production Costs

• Physical costs associated with Pre-production.
• This helps unbundle overhead costs and apply specific budget lines making it better.
• Subtotal A.1 represents total people costs in Category A
• Payroll, Pension and Welfare (P&W) means income is all grossed up and you've got to pay taxes like you're all growed up!
• Fringes for production related guilds are17.1% and need to be paid through a "paymaster -a union signatory. For all employees you'll need to pay these taxes.
• Make sure you charge your clients for Medical/Dental
• Subtotal A.2 represents the the total from the right side of the page.
• Subtotal A is the total for the entire category. Budgeting

Preparation

• Budget process comes from the AICP (Association of Independent Commercial Producers) guides which are geared explicitly for live action.
• Their budget only contains a single line item for "animation expanded categories.
• Budget categories run through "A" through "K" plus director as "L".
• It's hard to break animation into small pieces especially Drawing based animation (Drawing based animation), stop motion, under camera techniques which all require varying amounts of alternate costs.
• Category B typically features prep/record costs.

Category B Prep/Record

• You'll note there are blank budget lines for unexpected costs, which can fill with multiple artists in the same position.
• A casting director typically gets a flat fee to read the script and give you a cost discussion before casting "types" for instance "For the lead I'm thinking someone like Bruce Campbell."
• In animation, celebrity talent will often say yes because Animation voice work is viewed as pretty easy by most actors.
• A casting directors work brings in others with similar styles to audition, you can always do the casting yourself.
• Offer the talent the part without asking them to read for it.
• Once talent is cast, they must be paid.
• Voice talent rates are determined by SAG and AFTRA and their respective agreements with producers, though if you are a Joe Schmoe animator you won't actually be able to pay your actors.
• The need a "signatory" to SAG/AFTRA agreement to be your paymaster who can bypass the guild stuff and hire non union talent or ask a pro to do the work as a scab though many voice actors will have stage names outside union registers.
• It could be you directing the voices or somebody to be in there with the actors letting them know what to do
• A Sound Editor strings together the best takes, sometimes Animatic editor will do this.
• The animatic editor determines timings and fixes mistakes.
• Track analysis, frame by frame reading of the track is generally done with higher rates for lip sync vs. soft sync.
• Sheet timing is for overseas animators generally done by a specialist with some transposing of the animatic.
• The Storyboard Conform person makes sure the video board in the animatic exists on paper.
• Prop designers can come in
• A designer nudges and changes all your default Arial to default Helvetica
• A PreVisualization Artist is used when an animatic isn't enough and is mostly found in 3D projects
• A researcher digs up the material to base the film on.

Music

• Scratch Track is when you read the track into Final Cut so you could get timings.
• Record in a professional studio will typically $300/hour or between $75 to $500.
• A Style Guide is needed during licensing to layout how the characters are used with design firms making them.
• Character Bible is the practical version of a style guide for the animators.
• Permits are required in NY based on outdoor work.

Production Costs

• Rough mixes, stock, and sound effects are pre-production
• Post-production typically happens again
• Animation section animation budget should be easiest, falling into other categories.
• Here you just have the costs of the men and women who make the pictures move.

Budget Percentage

• Get this section to account for 30% to 40% of the line entries.
• If A through E is $100,000 then Category C will be be no less than $30,000, no more than $40,000
• An animator should be the most skilled, most talented person on a project with large animation departments
• Clients are paying for animation, that's where the want to see the money being spent and where the section the budget the client will be the most willing to defend against cost analysis.
• When facing cost analysis make it simple and make sure you can justify you prices, i.e. "Our bookkeeper gets $15 an hour, that's what we should be paying"
• Response: "Yes, that's what they cost -plus P&W -and we'll 2 for two weeks if we want to get this done correctly."

How Animators get Paid

• Budgets list "Supervising Animator" and "2D Animator for tier distinctions
• "Supervising Animator" is usually better
• Generally these two positions get paid by the foot where 1 foot = 16 frames with $20/$200 rate ranges
• Most animators can rightly be considered independent contractors, which is a huge reason why foot rates are important to fix the fee.
• If a footage rate gives the producer a known cost quantity like 15 feet @ $100 = $1500 its vital for budgeting.
• The lower the footage rate, the simpler the animator will make the animation.
• Other animation personnel are typically employees and are paid weekly or hourly wages.
• No reason to cheap on these positions when a production has the money -many times (and I mean MANY times) these artists will reciprocate by taking lower rates when you need them to.
• We've paid CG artists as employees and as independent contractors breaking down similar to tradional animators
• Make sure there is a dedicated Section C1 and lines for computer platforms or any software.

Post-Production

• It's tricky because post is different on every project, may not cost anything.
• Film post-production was extremely expensive with about $350 film development and printing
• To start costs you need to add film to tape color correction and video online that would run you $1000 an hour.
• All cost add to make simple over live action costs about $5000 with matte passes
• The machines you need are Paintbox/Discreet machines.
• Most animation no longer needs all that stuff because it's all conatined in one or two consumer grade computers.
• You must know your specs, what is the delivery format is it on tape an what is your method of output?
• As questions such as, Can you rent a deck to output to? and Can you export a quicktime and supervise its run to tape at a facility?
• Ask questions before the project begins because they can have major cost implications.
• Aspect ratios, 720p, 1080i, NTSC, DV?
• Post production include audio mix, sound effects, ADR (voice over re-dos), close captioning, subtitles, tape duplication, archiving, and delivery costs.
• Film producers sell a product -this is the final delivery whether it's a tape or disk to the client with receipt of delivery.
• If work is purchased from out of state, it's critical to keep delivery for the clients sales tax.