Animation And Outsourcing

Economics Final Paper:

Production and Political Economy in the Animation Industry: Why Insourcing and Outsourcing Occur

Katherine Carrillo A31

Introduction

In animation there are various fields with in it, 2D and 3D as well as the jobs within the various stages of production, such as storyboarding and modelling. But sometimes companies may not have the equipment, or enough workers to finish these tasks. This is why some will turn to outsourcing their work to other countries.

An initial idea may have been made in one country but the actual project may have been made in another. Such companies, including Disney, Warner Brothers and Cartoon Network, have outsourced their work to the Philippines. The Philippines, are one of many countries,

Some important steps in this stage include, concept designs, storyboarding, model sheets and animatics. During pre-production, this is where the artists get the main idea of their production, whether it would be an a short film or TV show. The concept stage is were initial ideas are made and tested to see if the idea works. This stage is focused more on getting various ideas, rather than one finalised idea straight away. The ideas created can either be unique, or can be based of other works. For example, Dreamworks Animation mention in their production process, that some of their ideas "are inspired by children's books and comic

Animators will make a rough animation at first. After this is made, a clearer version of the animation is made. This is called the tie down. The animators will then make another version, which is the clean up of the tie down. This version is what would be featured in the final piece, also known as line work. Once this is completed, the animation is coloured, backgrounds.

Post-production

This is the final stage of producing the animation. At this point the main focus is final touches and rendering the final piece. In this stage, special effects will be added to the animation, as well as the audio for the animation. Also at this step, the animation is still being edited, for instance, some scenes may become longer or cut shorter. Some scenes may even be cut out completely.

What is insourcing and outsourcing?

Insourcing is when a company does all the work within their company. However outsourcing is the opposite, and is when a company will send the work out to a third party. Some situations companies may resort to outsourcing because they are able to find areas to outsource with lower labour costs. Another reason is that there isn't enough employees that are skilled in a certain area of a business process. Also, the company may need to put their focus on other goals for the