Making an Animation is Like Baking a Cake

By: Michael Saba, President, Saba Studios

Making a 3d animation is a foreign subject to many. It’s not like the general population sits at home producing animation. So it’s no surprise that we often get the same questions accompanied by new inquiries. So I figured I would address the most common ones here, in hopes to clear some things up. The top four questions are:

Okay, those are all valid questions and as you can see, three out of the four have to do with cost and the fourth is time. So in short, how much and how fast?

Well, the answer is not that straight forward. Believe me, I wish it were. What I would give to just have a menu with a price list, you know … like a restaurant. “I’ll take #2 with a side of compositing. Oh, and throw in some music while you’re at it”. At which point, we would just ring them up and hand them the check. But no, it’s not that easy. You see, producing an animation is indeed like baking a cake – a custom cake that is. To explain this, I will address one question at a time.

How much does it cost to make an animation?
So let’s rephrase that with, how much does it cost to bake a custom cake? I’m sure any baker would respond with something like, “Well, what kind of cake do you want? I will need more information so that I can determine the size of the cake, the ingredients to use and what kind of decorations to apply.”

Just like the baker, we take a handful of variables into consideration when costing out an animation. Here are a few:

This goes on and on, but I think you get the picture.

How much does an animation cost per minute?
Now let’s ask the baker, “How much will the cake cost per slice?” The baker would likely tell you that he can’t price it by the slice because each customized cake requires a different level of effort. Therefor, it makes more sense to provide you with a total cost of the entire cake, based on time and materials. It’s no different for animation.

An animation of a car engine, showing a cross section of firing pistons, pulleys, an alternator and a timing chain for 30 seconds, would require considerable more effort than an animation of a bicycle peddling for 1 minute. It would be impossible to provide a standard per-minute cost, based on the endless possibilities.

If we cut the animation time in half, would it cost half as much?
So after you provide the baker with all the details for a full sheet cake, you ask, “If I reduce my custom cake to half a sheet, will the cake cost me half as much?” The baker would tell you that while the half sheet may cost less than the full sheet, the baker still has to go through the same motions to make either size cake, therefore, the savings would not equate to half the cost.

It’s the same concept for an animation. Reducing the run time of an animation will save on render time (outputting the final frames) and some post production work, but usually does not save a significant amount of time in production. Much like the baker, the steps are the same and require the same time to assemble it. However, in producing an animation, there is more emphasis on production, because once it’s complete, unlike a cake, it can serve infinite customers!

How long does an animation take to produce?
So, Mr. Baker, how long does it take to make a custom cake? While the baker may give you a broad estimate, he would ultimately be able to answer your question after he has gathered all the requirements for the cake. I’m sure it would take him longer to make a fancy wedding cake than it would a kid’s birthday cake.

Back to us, we provide you an estimated time frame based on the collective hours we believe it will take to produce your animation. After all, every animation we produce is in fact, a custom job.

I hope that demystifies some of the questions around what it takes to produce an animation. I’m sure you have more. The good news is, we’re here for you and ready to listen. It’s what we do.

Drop us a line and let’s discuss your project. For now, I think I’m going to grab me some cake.