Business & Production Skills for Animation & Digital Media

Course details

Business & Production Skills in Animation & Digital Media is an intensive course aimed at inpiduals in production and creative roles within the animation and related industries. The principles taught will benefit those who are interested in establishing their own production company or are looking to learn more about the management practice of animation development and production. Participants will be immersed in the business and day-to-day operations of a typical contemporary animation production studio. Whether the studio produces for a client or creates its original intellectual property, similar production pipelines must be efficiently established in order to meet tight schedules and even tighter budgets.

By the end of the course, the participant will be familiar with industry nomenclature, marketing, financing, co-production, funding sources, common production software for budgeting and scheduling and basic contracts.

Key Skills covered are:

Distribution, how it works and realistic expectations.

• Animation and related Markets, including MIPCOM, MIPTV, Kidscreen, The Children’s Media Conference, Cartoon Forum and Annecy.
• Asset Tracking including; Breaking down a script, breaking down a storyboard.
• Scheduling including issues; ramping up/down, critical lead times, maintaining and troubleshooting.
• Budgeting including issues; cash flow, the relation between schedule and budget.
• Contracts including; hiring talent, common production and development contracts.
• Common Software including; 2D and CGI software packages, Compositing, Scheduling, Asset Tracking and Budgeting.
• Key Personnel including; creative heads/production heads and making a production matrix.
• Distribution, how it works and realistic expectations.
• Animation and related Markets, including MIPCOM, MIPTV, Kidscreen, The Children’s Media Conference, Cartoon Forum and Annecy.

The course has two parts: the lectures and the hands-on workshop. In the workshop portion of the course, the participants will be broken into production teams. Incorporating the topics covered in the lecture portion, each team will create an animation project. The teams will create a finance plan, a marketing plan, and a production budget and schedule using their own project, and they will present these to the other teams.

Course Syllabus

DAY ONE

• Formats & Demographics
• Project demographics, Babies, Preschool and its subcategories, Children 6 to 11, animation versus live action, mixed media, and Boys v Girls.
• The Production Pipeline
• A basic pipeline explained. Issues associated with Music and Songs.
• Key Personnel
• Department Heads and qualifications. Who answers to who?
• Contracts & Intellectual Property Rights
• Issues explored: Intellectual Property. Chain of Title Issues. Work for
• Hire/Freelance. Special Issues for Music Rights.

Workshop 01:

• Creating an animation project for a specific target audience.

DAY TWO

• Common Animation Software
• 2D, CGI, Compositing, Editing, Audio and Foley. Stereoscopic Issues.
• Asset Tracking & Software
• Breaking down a script and a storyboard.
• Tracking with Databases/Software/Service. The Asset Manager and team.
• Financing & Funding
• Creating a realistic finance plan. Co-productions – Pros and Cons.
• Tailoring your project to available financing. Funding Bodies.
• Budgeting & Scheduling 101
• A Schedule starts with the deadline. Approval Process. A basic budget.
• Setting up realistic production quotas. Preparing for Lead Times. The Cash-Flow Schedule. Over costs. Contingency.

Workshop 02:

• Creating a finance plan, a basic budget and a schedule.

DAY THREE

• Distribution Basics
• Distributors and Sales Agents. Minimum Guarantees (MGs).
• Markets and Marketing
• Animation and Film Markets. The costs and working it into a budget.
• Pitching Projects
• The pitch bible – what goes into it, and what shouldn’t. Teasers, trailers and pilots. The “Hook.”