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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

CARTOONS–Animation Post-Production Firm Bucks Overseas Trend

Post-production work for animated programming has virtually disappeared from the United States, with low-cost companies overseas now handling most of that time-intensive work. Also, an increasing number of animators have themselves bought digital equipment to handle the post-production process in-house. Nonetheless, North Hollywood-based VirtualMagic Animation Inc. has managed to stay in business and even thrive by focusing on doing post-production work on short-form animation, such as the Chester Cheetah Cheetos commercials, MTV’s “Beevis and Butthead” show, and TV promo spots. Because the amount of labor on such projects is relatively little, and turnaround times are often short, short-form animation producers often opt to use VirtualMagic rather than ship the work overseas. But where does VirtualMagic go from here? “We found our niche with commercials,” said VirtualMagic President Don Spielvogel. “But there’s a limitation on the size of the short-form market, and we had desires to grow as a company.” Breaking into the growing market for long-form programming, especially prime-time animated TV shows and movies, would be virtually impossible. Turnaround times on such projects are much longer, and the amount of time required for post-production work is considerably longer, making lower-cost foreign labor hard to compete against. “Episodic business is driven by cost,” said Spielvogel. “In the U.S. there’s no serious (long-form) animation post-production being done.” So what did VirtualMagic do? It teamed up with Filipino animator and post-production company ImagineAsia Studio and last May opened a new digital facility in the Philippines, called VirtualMagic Asia. The move is already paying off. It has enabled VirtualMagic to snag a piece of stateside animated TV series and small-budget movies. One of VirtualMagic’s first major shows, Carsey-Werner Co.’s animated series “God, the Devil and Bob,” begins airing March 7 on NBC. “What’s happening in the marketplace is, the long-term arena in terms of episodic work is looking for a digital solution,” said Andrea Romero, Virtual Magic vice president and executive producer. “We want to be able to fit into a $20 million to $30 million film budget. This allows us to offer a low-cost alternative.” Animation post-production work has traditionally involved the animation producer handing over black-and-white pencil drawings of cartoons to post-production animators, who would then clean up the drawings, redraw the lines and fill in the colors all by hand. The work was painstaking, with a single 22-minute TV episode containing as many as 25,000 individual slides. But like so much else in the last decade, animation has gone digital. Unlike the traditional “ink-and-paint” post-production facilities, which hand draw and hand paint each slide on acetate paper, digital post-production houses like VirtualMagic scan the drawings into a computer, and then a worker uses a software program to do the ink and paint digitally. Now VirtualMagic is taking advantage of the digital revolution by having low-cost workers in its Philippines studio handle the labor-intensive post-production work on long-form programming, and then digitally monitoring the job’s progress from L.A. The animators’ drawings and color scenes are scanned and colored in the Philippines, and then the program is digitally transmitted periodically to VirtualMagic’s office in North Hollywood, where a producer or studio exec can review the work to make sure it’s on track, offering them the chance to make changes before the show is finished. “Most production studios overseas don’t have an L.A. base for episodic work,” Romero said. “For years, producers handed over (their work) to Asia. Now it’s possible to change things on a prime-time show. The idea is to offer the client the range of services.” And still keep a production within budget. With that cost-saving system now in place, VirtualMagic is hoping to expand on relationships it has built with animation heavyweights including Walt Disney Co. and Film Roman. While VirtualMagic’s work for such giants in the past has been limited to show promos, videos and other short-form projects, it is now looking to expand into animated movies and TV shows. Spielvogel wouldn’t disclose how much business has grown since the expansion, but said 1999 was the company’s top production year yet. VirtualMagic also plans to expand into the online arena within the next year. Spielvogel said he would like to partner with a medium-sized animation company to move VirtualMagic into production work and other parts of the animation process. “We want to expand into different areas to reduce the risk of being involved in just one side of the business,” Spielvogel said. “We’re keeping a close eye on potential strategic partners.”

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