pricing & estimation

[alweb]

Hi,

 

I try to figure out how much should I charge for a 90 sec animation ?

 

details:

 

- upper half character animation ( tv speaker character doing presentation) no walking or full body movement

- basic lipsynch and facial expression...

- character rigged with squetche already done

- dialogue audio files include

 

- rendering 640X480 ( with 16:9) simple rendering setting , no extra effect or multipass

- computer power : one guys with one machine

 

any estimation in time or in money will be helpful

 

Thanks in advance

Al

[HomeSlice]

Buy "The Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines"

It is put out by the Graphic Artists Guild, or GAG for short. I bought mine at a Barnes and Noble Bookstore.

I only have an old version from 2003 or 2004. In there it says the average pricing for 3D computer animation was between $300 and $3000 (USD) per second of animation. It sounds like your job is in the low end, $300-$350 per second of animation.

Prices may have risen (or lowered) since 2004 though. Your best bet is to get a current edition of the Handbook.

 

I don't know what the current "Globalization" trend has done to affect these prices.

[KenH]

I'd say to do it right, it would take a couple of weeks.....maybe three. I assume you're not going Pixar quality/charges on it. So, you can work out how much by what you charge per week.

 

Wow, Holmes. I didn't think they charged that much....ever!

[alweb]

Well,

 

Holmes $300 / second for a 90 seconds clip , this would be something around $27,000.00 !!!

 

hehehe... and this is a low rate !

 

Probably those cost are for an average scene of a Pixar/Disney like project, and cover everything from scratch to final edition.

 

Ken, 2-3 three weeks at 40 hrs /week , so minimum 80hrs, at 25$/hrs rate , it turn around $2000

 

not far away from my own estimation.

 

I had put 25 hrs to do the animation and 90 hrs for rendering

so at 25$/hrs for animation and 10$/hrs for rendering it would look like 625$ + 900 $ = $1525

I would add a 25% to have some leeway...so let say around 375$ for a total of $1900.00

 

What do you think ?

 

Al

[Eric2575]

Sound very reasonable to me Al.

[John Bigboote]

That sounds like a fair price for that amount of work...round it up to an even $2K. One trick I've had some success with when bidding on a job, is to try and get the interested party to 'tip their hand' by asking a question like "Do you have a budget for this animation I should try to stay within?" and if it's a real low number then decline the job and refer them to the local community college...

 

You should also find out if it's 'under the table' or if they are gonna sock you with a W2 at the end of the year...if they plan to tax you, reflect it in the price! (Tax 'em right back!)

 

Another 'ice-breaker' joke I like to tell is when they ask my payment terms I'll say, "Two-thirds up front- and the other Two-thirds on delivery!" It always gets a laugh and lets them know 'I'm serious.'

 

Hope you are able to collect.

[3DArtZ]

You are grossly short changing yourself.

I know, as I've done that to myself more then a few times in the past.

90 seconds of lip synch is going to be a real chore to work through.

then, the whole idea about not a lot of body animation thing while this character

is presenting or talking.... is a real joke.

For some reason 3d characters that don't move stick out and are very hard to watch.

You'll probably end up having to spend a lot of time animating the upper body to make this watchable.

 

I did a job over the summer for a restaurant chain at over 4xtimes what you are thinking of charging

and financially, I lost out. A mistake I won't make again.

It was 2minutes and 20 seconds long.

[John Bigboote]

Good point Artz...I Was figuring that since it was to be a simple render with NO multipass that this was simply a test, or an industrial video or something... if this is meant for broadcast you will end up putting a LOT of time into. The end market has a big effect on the cost.

 

A friend of mine once did a 'cheesy-cheap' 2D animation for a local retailer...and because they had next to no money he did an especially lax job on it. It ended up airing 'TO DEATH' (over and over for years) and people would grow to hate it and eventually ask..."who did that piece of $#it?" He became known as 'that guy' and his business suffered because of that 'branding'... morale of story- Don't be 'that guy'.

[alweb]

Hmmm?

 

This give me some stuff to think about.

 

Maybe I should try to figure out some sort of scalable budget?

Splitting animation in step would give me some "flexibility" in the budget

---------

I have to mention here that a video file would be available...

...acting the scene with audio to use as a template

---------

 

Maybe I should cut it like that and see with the client at each step:

 

 

first step : body and head animation over a video template (10 hrs) ------- small render ------ evaluate quality

 

second step: rough lip synch and eyes moves (15 hrs) ------ small render ------ see with client if good enough ---- final render (based on average by frame)

 

thirs step : refine lip synch ----- final render (based on average by frame)------ this step would need budget extend

 

fourth step: refine ------ budget extend ----- final render (based on average by frame)

 

 

 

In this scenario I would restrict my working hours on every step.

see if the result is good enought for the client expectation and in the same time if it needed, ask for more budget .

 

My tought is to fit animation "quality"( I prefer ask about animation "resolution") with the client budget.

And get the best clip for the budget.

 

In my previous estimation , I'm probably under estimate the animation time and over-estimate rendering time...(2min/frames should be lower)

 

This would be a pre-project for a potential dvd...so got to get a "starting project" price

to keep the odds good and at the same don't want to burn my shorts if it go further.

 

 

thanks for your lights folks

More comments on this topics will still be good to hear

 

Al

[Bendytoons]

I think the 27,000 number sounds a lot closer to what this oughtta cost than the 2000 number, especially if you are doing by hand. As everyone has observed 90 seconds is a huge amount of animation.

One time saving thought though, what about using Zign Track to do the lip synch? You would have to mouth along with the audio and motion capture it. You can see an example in this clip:

 

 

I lip synched (in the Milli-Vanilli sense) to the song with little dots on my face and let ZignTrack turn it into animtion.

 

ZT is 100 or 150 bucks, doesn't take too much ramp up and gives great results. Even if you used it only for the mouth it would probably save you a lot of time.

 

Good luck, don't sell yourself short.

[robcat2075]

90 seconds of animation is a lot of aniamtion unless it's done really badly.

 

What you oughta do is get them to show you either an example of something they have commissioned and paid for in the past or a clip of something they have seen that they imagine they are hiring you to do on the same level.

 

Then you'll have an idea of their expectations and you can see if their expectations are realistic for what they will pay.

[jzawacki]

is $25/hr a reasonable rate for animating? Seems low.

[alweb]

Well

... as some friend say , to cover your freelancer charge like ...office rent , electricity , phone , manage e-mail etc

I should go for 60-70$/hrs

 

In this case , I got to fix an estimated price to cover everything

my hourly rate just help me in my estimation

note that I add a 25 % extra on everything to get some leeway...

 

As a freelance graphic artist , I try to work at 25$/hrs and I don't achieve this goal all the time.

Competition is hard . more and more people are able to do graphic things...

But doing it the right way...we're not so much after all

 

And for 3d animation maybe I should charge higher!

 

 

so.... I WILL CRANK UP MY RATE !

 

hehehe!

here an off topic URL

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jm3Zb-HSvo...feature=related

 

 

Al

[Gerry]

Hi Al- Just came across this thread, which is about 2 months old now, and wondering how this worked out for you. Not that hindsight is any use to you but it seemed you were really lowballing yourself. It's almost always better to start high and have some negotiating room. It's much easier to lower a high estimate than increase a low one, and 90 seconds is a TON of animation. Let us know how it went.

 

Gerry