Hiring a Flash Artist

[AmazingAndrex]

I've been kind of lurking these forums for the past half-year, mostly checking out threads requesting an animator or artist so I'd know what to do and not to do, but please forgive me if I make a mistake. During this time I'd been pinching pennies on the side to get this project off the ground.

This project has been in development on and off for almost two years now. During this time it's gotten a lot of false starts, as drawing in Flash is very difficult for me. However, this time was actually extremely beneficial to the overall concept, and it's reached a level of quality that I've finally decided to pay for it to get made.

The concept for this project is for a Flash series comprised of five episodes of varying length (~5 - 15 minutes, it's hard to tell.) I'm requesting to work very closely with an established Flash animator to bring this concept to life; he/she must have skills at doing both "slow", dialogue scenes and "fight" scenes, as well as matching movements to background music.

Now, the most important part: payment. Because of their content, I will pay $70 for three of the normal episodes, and $80 for the fighting episodes. The normal episodes will be longer, but the fight episodes will be harder to do (or at least, that's what I'd guess, as it has a lot more animation to it.) This brings the subtotal to $370, but this doesn't include the (currently undetermined) amount I will add as a bonus and for the opening. I should be able to do PayPal, and you'll be paid on the completion of each episode.

The plot actually sounds somewhat silly- A few characters based on their forum avatars clash in a city based on that forum- but I'm confident that, done properly, it could be very good. And while I can't draw well in Flash, I can provide sketches and storyboards to make things easier for you.

I'm currently clueless as to how long this would take to get done, so if anyone could tell me that'd be great.

Please only post if you're interested or requesting information; also depending on what you've uploaded to the portal so far, you may not be chosen. Thanks for reading this far, by the way. :D

[uyersuyer]

I'm not an animator, but I think $80 might be pretty slim for 15 minutes of solid animation, especially if a lot of it is going to be pretty graphically intensive. I'd say you're either going to have to lower your standards or shell out more doughby. But that's just my opinion; you might be able to catch a break if you find someone else who's interested in your idea or that just wants the opportunity to make a name for themselves.

Either way, good luck.

[AmazingAndrex]

At 9/17/08 06:21 PM, uyersuyer wrote: I'm not an animator, but I think $80 might be pretty slim for 15 minutes of solid animation, especially if a lot of it is going to be pretty graphically intensive. I'd say you're either going to have to lower your standards or shell out more doughby. But that's just my opinion; you might be able to catch a break if you find someone else who's interested in your idea or that just wants the opportunity to make a name for themselves.

Either way, good luck.

Thanks for your reply.

And the thought did cross my mind, originally it was going to be $90/100 (and depending on the results, it may be), but I had to scale back a bit. But not every episode will be 15 minutes (in fact, the only candidate for this length so far is the first episode, which may be as short as 10) and I'm not even really looking for "solid animation". Just average or a little above.

Breaking it down, it's something like this:
Ep 1 ($70) 10 ~ 14 minutes
Ep 2 ($70) 7 ~ 10 minutes
Ep 3 ($80) 4 minutes
Ep 4 ($70) 5 ~ 7 minutes
Ep 5 ($70) 5 ~ 6 minutes

So yes, the first episode will be the worst in terms of $/minute, but it evens out as the series goes on. In addition, I mentioned a bonus which is both for the opening (1 minute) and the animator's hard work- could be $30 to $80.

But thank you very much for your advice, it's definitely something to think about.

[AmazingAndrex]

At 9/17/08 07:36 PM, AmazingAndrex wrote: Ep 5 ($70) 5 ~ 6 minutes

Ah, and this should be $80, my mistake.

[SLiPZ]

Any chance you could PM me a summary of your plot?

[AmazingAndrex]

At 9/17/08 07:42 PM, SLiPZ wrote: Any chance you could PM me a summary of your plot?

Sure thing.

[Alpharius120]

Sorry, but a ten minute flash movie is worth about 200-300 dollars (from my experiences, which I've had ALOT).

Good Luck.

[Fro]

It looks like we may have this one wrapped up on AIM guys. No one is going to steal my client. >: ( Unless of course you are a better animator then my friend. >.<

[uyersuyer]

By "solid," I just meant continuous... not really a level of quality. Seeing as 10 minutes of animation could take -months,- doing it for $80 would be less effective money-wise than sitting on a street corner in tattered rags, waving a cup around and ranting about how you lost your leg in 'Nam.