Industry Advice

Hi guys, i posted this over at CGTalk, and im failing to get some replies, and i thought that i might post it here as well because i want to get as much feedback as possible, if you've got time, i't would be great if you could add your opinions:


Hi all, I'm mainly 'talking' to animation companies and Freelancers here, but I'm doing kinda like a survey, on Animation on VFX in general, and I was wondering, where best to post this than that at CGTalk? Hopefully people will just write down a few sentences.


My question is: Being in an Animation company, do you guys and gals feel that there is a lot of demand for animation out there still? Are companies still getting offered loads of work or is the industry slowing down at all?

And also, when well established big companies turn down work because they think it won't help them get anymore recognition, or simply because they have way to much work to do, what do they do with the work? Do they shed it off to smaller animation companies that they have in their books, or just tell them 'No'?

Thanks, I'd love to hear from everyone, it's for this survey I have to fill in order for people here in North Wales to get a better understanding of what's going on in this Media World.

Many thanks
-Iestyn

Hmm, I reakon you may not getting many hits at CGTalk because they are very open ended questions and are pretty subjective (as in, one guy may well be getting a shed load of work piled upon him from the boss and so he thinks the animation industry is booming! )

But anyhoo - for what it's worth, and in the hope that it helps here are my thoughts from a Thai perspective.

The first question about demand... yes, I think there is plenty of demand and it seems to be ever growing. Now, I don't really have my finger 'on the pulse' as it were, because I'm working on a single long term project, but I do have some friends in the both the advertising and education areas of the industry here and they seem to be rushed big time, working 24/7!

Now, Animation / CG is deffinately a growing industry here... I don't know how that reflects elsewhere but the idea I have on this is that it is the reverse of the 'supply and demand' scenario - where the supply and ever increasing access (to companys that produce animation / cg that is cheaper and faster etc) are creating a bigger demand for CG. Another thing that affects the demand of CG is that it is wlays getting better... with the abilities of the individual artists and studios on the increase there is more of a call to 'out do' the last effort.

Not sure how long this will last though... with the software becoming more affordable and accessible and more and more companys trying to get a slice the market may well reach saturation point. Quality may well suffer (see Hoodwinked) and the public may just get bored and move on (talking more about films here though)

Anyhoo that's just my two cents... I can't really answer the last question, though I doubt companies would be daft enough to turn down any project!

Hey Global, thanks a lot for your view, it's exactly what i wanted, it's like a survey i have to do, and i'd like to get as many views on this as possible - thanks a lot Global, much apprechiated.
-Iest

Good points mentioned Global...

I myself started out as a freelancer here in Jordan...doing basic walkthroughs and animations for big architectural projects off my Pentium 3, 5 years ago... now i happen to have 52 dual xeon servers, and 13 architects working with me on some of the biggest VR projects in the middle east! so YES, demand is EVERGROWING! CG is taking over the 'traditional' film industry... it will always be on the up!

and now to answer your other question...

If a studio turns down work..it's because of one of two reasons...:

1. They are overworked, and under resourced... in that case, usually they would simply 'say no'.... or even better ask for twice the price they would usually ask for.

2. They might believe that the project at hand is below their standard (as in, may be a 'retarted' project...or simply way over the clients budget..or expectations!).

In either case.. a studio would rather outsource than decline. We have outsourced many projects to freelance artisits when we could not (or did not want to) deal with the clients' needs..nonetheless, we held the responsibility for the outcome of those projects. it simply becomes a matter of talent management.

Hey amer, thanks a lot for your input, it's much apprechiated, this 'survey' is suppose to be in by Wensday, it would be great if i could just a get a few more replies before then.
Thanks guys

Hey man,

Well first of all you have to realize that your questions are incredibly broad, and therefore there's no real way to answer them.

Anywho....I'll try to give my input anyways

1) Nope. More than ever animation companies are being requested for work....and I don't just mean in films...watch TV for a while (the shows AND the commercials) and take note at how many times you see motion graphics, or animation or any kind of special effect. You'll be hard-pressed to spot anything on TV that doesn't feature some kind of cg (whether it be the title sequence of a tv show, or the spinning logo at the bottom of the screen showing the broadcaster logo, or some other thing). That being said, I think the average movie-goer is getting sick of animated cg films, and therefore I predict that within the next 10 years we'll see less and less of them becoming so popular.

Note that I didn't say we'll see less of them.....as with 2d animation I'm sure we'll still see tons of cg films as the medium matures....but that also means with less demand for them, production of them will become more and more streamlined and wages will go down for animators etc etc etc (possibly resulting in more jobs for less money?). But who knows.

2) Your second question is way too open for an answer so I'm just gonna say that it can be for all of the reasons you mentioned. They might not be looking for work, they might not want to do crap work, they might be too busy and/or they might decide to scope out the job to other companies as well. Any of those things can happen at any given time.

Anywho...good luck with your survey!

Hey Tyson, that's great, thanks a lot. I especially liked the fact that you put some Negateve points in there too.
After a few pointers and a whole new re-fase from Master T, i think that this question might be a lot easier to answer?

How has the desensitization of the public to cg affected the rate of growth of new animation companies.....or, what areas of the cg industry have been negatively affected by the recent mass production of cg films?

-Thanks man