Kind of a dumb question, but who do you overall feel about the current indie animation boom? Is it sustainable? Is there really a boom or is it more like people becoming aware of the stuff on the internet? Do you think indie stuff has a chance of competing against big studios?
Hoq do you overall feel about the current indie animation boom?
There's good and bad.
Overall, it's been SO inspiring to see people take their projects in their own hands and it's really nice to see such an amazing variety of projects that you'd never see a big studio pick up. I think it's really important that artists get the opportunity to make stuff just for them and feel creatively fulfilled.
As it is right now, it's not sustainable. So much of indie is done out of passion and is largely dependent on volunteer work unless you're already loaded. Because even if you kickstart, it requires that you have an audience willing to pay you a lot of money and then even if you have that, the money's usually not enough. People vastly underestimate how much money it takes to make a fully animated project with fair rates. I've seen most projects do kickstarters for maybe $30k-$50k for an 11 min fully animated pilot but in reality, a fair budget runs from $300k on the very low end and $1M being a pretty standard studio budget.
That also speaks to another issue that I see come up a lot. Often, people running indie productions don't know how to do so and don't have the proper experience. Even though they mean well and just want to make their projects, it often results in a show that's poorly run, exploitation, issues with transparency, underpaid artists and unclear schedules. This isn't to say everyone new to animation shouldn't try! I'm not trying to gatekeep or anything, but there might need to be more education around the subject and these showrunners should REALLY try to research first or at the very least COMMUNICATE AND PLAN.
Is there really a boom or is it more like people becoming aware of the stuff on the internet?
Is it a copout to say both? Because internet indie animation's been around FOREVER. Since early youtube and newgrounds. But I do think there's a difference in the kind of indie animation that's being made. Rather than just quick, funny animated shorts, artists are now trying to make series and stuff that would be on the level of something you'd see on a network. Fully animated 11s and 22s with large season runs. Getting your work out there is so accessible now and anyone can do it! Which I suppose could be considered a boom.
Do you think indie stuff has a chance of competing against big studios?
Kindaaaaa? Depends on what your meter for success is and what it means to compete. In terms of viewership and fanbase? Sure. Like the amount of eyes GLITCH gets on their stuff goes crazy and studios would kill for that amount of views. Same with Viv/Spindlehorse's stuff. But on a commercially successful and financial level? Not yet. Youtube ad rev is pennies, animation costs a lot to make, indie folks don't have shareholders and investors and usually aren't making a profit. And on the merch front, from what I've seen, even if merch does well, that money just gets reinvested into making more of the show and creators themselves don't get to pocket any of that money. Even on a smaller scale like for myself. I haven't made any money from this project. All the money I got from plushies and ad rev went right back to paying everyone for episode 2 and other aspects of the project. I'm working for free and a lot of your favorite indie creators are too. That's not sustainable like I mentioned before and sustainability imo is a large part of what is needed for indie to truly compete and be on the same level as these larger corporations