Forum - View topicStart up cost of an Anime studio?
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DSilv3R
Posts: 6 |
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Does anyone know?
I have no idea what costs will be involved as I've done zero research....but I'm assuming US$200, 000 just to get it off the ground. [EDIT: Fixed thread title. Words beginning with a vowel sound get "an" before them, not "a".~Zalis] |
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Fallout2man
Posts: 275 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Well, looking at the average cost per episode to make certain series I'd say you'd need more along the lines of 20 million. The average episode price I've seen goes from between 150-250,000 dollars per episode (500K if you go all out like Samurai 7 did), and that's after you've got yourself set up, actual setup costs would be who knows what. The big thing though is with your starting capital I'd bet you'd want to be able to finance at least two 26 episode series plus the costs of getting studios and all that set up. You'd basically either need to be a multi-millionare or be a really smooth talker with the right connections to get loans to finance that sort of thing these days. |
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DSilv3R
Posts: 6 |
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Wow... $200, 000 - $500, 000 per ep does look realistic due to the amount of specialized people involved in production e.g voice actors/actress, animators, music composer(s) etc.
Thanks for the heads up. |
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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The costs are this low since most anime staff are paid very low wages. This is for those studios that are in Japan since most studios outsource most of the inbetween work. Some shows like Saiyun even have the key animation outsourced.
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KyuuA4
 Posts: 1361 Location: America, where anime and manga can be made |
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Well, no facility for you. Production would have to be done at your place of residence. Presuming you live in the US, you wouldn't be competing with the Japanese animation studios. Also, assuming that you're American, your work would not generally be considered an anime anyways. Even if you did call your work an anime, that may hurt your marketing, due to a strong initial fan-based backlash. Unless you can actually produce a marketable product... With that $200,000 -- it's better to actually move to Japan. Become trained in animation there. Then work for a Japanese animation studio. Eventually work yer way up that way. |
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DSilv3R
Posts: 6 |
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Yeah, I'm visiting Japan on March 08, hoping that I can get a walk through at least one major studio to get an idea of what it will take to run a anime studio,
And I do realise there is a strong bias attitude within the anime community against anything claiming to be anime but is not made in Japan. I've always wondered though....does it need to be made in Japan? Or can it be produced outside of Japan but with a strong group of animators, voice actors, writers etc, who are predominately Japanese? Location is vital, so of course, basing yourself in Japan is just common sense as it is the 'anime market' (yes, I can not ignore the fact the anime market in America is just as big). But considering there is a (atm horrendously) slow translation to streaming anime & the possibility of d/ling avi sized episode's or a whole series...would production location be a large problem? In my head, I say yes it would be... going back on the attitude, I myself have that if it isn't made in Japan...it isn't anime... but I do wonder if production outside of the Asian region could be possible.....
Are all animators in Japan free-lance or are signed to an agency or company who finds them work? |
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suchibu
Posts: 39 |
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ok I have been in the TV/film industry for a while and here is what it will take to produce a 23 minute , 26 part animation
Total employee amount should be around 35+ people( producer, director, animators, graphic artists, ect..) In a 26 episode series of 23 minutes per episode would need about 700-720 minutes of animation. This would be done all at once and then edited into the amount of episodes desired. There are 24 frames of animation for every second of the anime of a total of 1440 frames per minute. Each minute of footage will take about 3-5 hours to produce depending on the size and capabilities of the artist and animation staff. The amount of time to animate the series would run anywhere from 7 months to nearly 2 years. Please realize that most anime being released right now were started in 2005 or early 2006. Start up for the animators and other equipment will run you about 18k per animation station, a BARE MINIMUM least 6 stations would be needed. Ideally 25 stations would be preferred but then you animation staff would be quite large. So figure your monthly payroll would be about 140k per month just for staff. So on a project that would take 6 months (being optimistic) or 840k total just for overhead. Equipment costs would be about 200k, voice acting, editing and all other post production work would probably run another 150-250k. Now you can get most of the equipment on lease and spread the cost for a year or two but that is actually one of the lower end of the costs. So said and done before you see even a penny in return for the project you would spend out of pocket 1.7 mil for the series. Or roughly 67k per episode. It does not cost 500k per episode , only the most expensive shows in Hollywood have budgets like that, and about 35-55% of that is the salaries of the cast members. If you want a more better break down let me know and I can give you a educated line by line example of the costs. But suffice it to say you should have 3-5 mil in starting capitol or investors to start and you better have a few contacts so you will be able to sell the animation idea. And please do that before you start animating the project, otherwise you run the risk of not being able to sell it. Just words of advice |
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Porcupine
 Posts: 1033 |
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edit: I just saw that 'suchibu' already debunked this ridiculous claim of $500,000 per episode. Thanks. 
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Clodus
 Posts: 497 Location: Kansas |
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in the encyclopedia it says samurai 7 is approx ¥32,500,000 per episode so roughly 290k USD on the currency exchanger.
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suchibu
Posts: 39 |
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I don’t know samuri 7 that well so please bear with me on this, now you said it was 290k per episode,
Is this in hd format or standard definition? It it was originally done for hd and down converted then yes you can add about 45% to that cost due to the expense of the equipment used, also like I said earlier the budget given is taking into account the project lasting only 6 months and there being a limited number of key animators on the project, if that studio has 10-15+ animators on staff and the project lasted longer, lets say 1 year then yes its possible that it could get close to 290k per episode. There was also other costs that the company incurs that I did not put into the equation such as location rental, power, phones, internet , and a ton of other behind the scenes every day expenses that have to be paid from somewhere. So when you get down to it the little things can add up very quickly. |
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demonroach
 Posts: 89 |
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Take into account that the cost to make something is not the same as the price paid for something.
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Fallout2man
Posts: 275 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Samurai 7 was actually from an outside article I read on its production and how it was supposedly all made natively in HD and that listed the cost as around 500K per episode. The rest of the costs I got from reading the info on the ANN encyclopedia, since it lists production costs for certain shows. |
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Sam-I-Am
Posts: 121 Location: Midwest US |
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A few more technical points to throw in is that film and european PAL formats are 24 frames per second, australian PAL is 25 frames per second, and NTSC (US standard video) is 30 frames per second, so you have to pick a standard before you start figuring total frames to draw.
Also, even Disney doesn't always draw all 24 frames for a second of footage - you can usually get away with drawing half the frames, and low-budget animation is often done 'on the threes', or every third frame is a new drawing (in film, this is 1/8 of a second, and retinance of vision is pushed to the point that many people are able to see the individual drawings). Also, what you're drawing affects the amount of new artwork needed per frame. The anime equivalent of an 'over/over/two' shot, where you just have talking heads spouting dialogue, is often accomplished by keeping the body still and only animating the mouths. Smoothly flowing martial arts action would obviously not lend itself to shortcuts, but two people talking over coffee would. As for overhead costs, by and large most companies like retail stores and repair shops have to mark up their products 50% to cover the cost of real estate, utilities, non-billable employees, etc. (and a bit of profit), so if your out-of-pocket cost for an episode is 80K, you'd need to be able to sell for 120K to be sure of not losing much money under that model. The other model that might apply is building contractors, who charge all labor and materials costs to the client, plus about 5% profit (although in this example the labor rate already has a hefty markup to cover the office operation). From what I've read, most japanese production houses tend to work on a just-in-time schedule, delivering final product mere days before airing. If the contract is for payment on delivery, this would help the cash flow situation, since you'd be getting paid for the earlier episodes while starting work on the later ones, so you wouldn't have to have the entire series finished and paid for in one shot. This, however, assumes you already have a contract with a TV network. I'm curious about the comment about touring a studio while on a (presumably) vacation trip. Studios are working businesses, and tours seem to be rare, unless you have an inside connection. A better plan might be to start small, doing contract animation for industrial videos and commercials, and get to know the ins and outs of the business before diving into a full series. |
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Porcupine
Posts: 1033 |
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There's a huge difference between $500,000 and $290,000 per episode regardless, so at least one if not both of these sources is utterly incorrect.
And I can't believe Samurai 7 even costs $290,000 to produce because it is one of the lower-quality animes I have seen. Most Gonzo animes are cheap in general. Either that or horribly inefficient at producing quality animation. There are even several Samurai 7 episodes where the drawings are so deformed that everyone looks like pieces of snot boogers, they hardly look like people. My friend's comment was that the people in those episodes looked like 'Beavis and Butthead'. If I were to make a list of the Top 10 animes with the most degenerated cheap episodes ever, Samurai 7 would be on that list and perhaps even #1. Even I (who have no experience drawing whatsoever) could draw better than those degenerated episodes. Although I don't have any inside access to the industry, I am much more believing of suchibu's earlier estimates that a typical anime costs $50,000 to $100,000 per episode to produce. I just did some random checking of the ANN Encyclopedia and noticed that very few animes have production costs listed. So I would not say that the provided information is reliable by any means, and could have come from any wacky user who submitted random "information". Of course, if anyone can provide stronger evidence I would reconsider my stance on this. If the article that Fallout2Man could be linked to here, that might help (if that can't be done though I won't hold it against you...it might have been a print article not an online one). |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16963 |
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The 50-100k per episode is a low figure indeed. Maybe that's the case for some really low budget pieces but over all the 250-300k per episode amount is indeed more accurate. |
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