I may have the opportunity to develop an animation for a 30 Second TV commercial. What are the some details that I should gather prior to getting started on the animation itself?

Thinking:

Resolution, size, format?
File Format, Codex?
Delivery Method?
Frame Rate?
“Bleed”? (Donno if there is such a thing.) What would the exact time be?

Thanks!

Some questions you might think about ….

When it's due and how much control you have over the creative process? Will they pay for preproduction? Is it matched to live action and if so, do they have an FX person on set, and if not, you should probably be there. Do they know exactly what they want or are they going to tweak you to death? How many shots need animating, any effects with the animating, are the models supplied or will you have to do 100%?

Thanks for the reply!

I think I need to rescope my question.

I will be the one and only individual involved with the production. I am planning on creating this all in CG. My questions revolve around what requirements should I gather from the technical contact at the broadcast company.

Maby this is a question better suited for them to tell me. IE, what do they need specifically in the finalized product.

Yup, ask them to define the deliverables, you should be fine. Err on the side of too much information: there are lots of producers out there nowadays(especially with the permanent agency producers being a dying breed and everything being outsourced to lots of young inexperienced people) that are expecting you to know all this stuff and will happily fluff over the details because they don't even know what they are in the first place. Without being annoying about it, make sure you have a solid understanding of what they want.

Cheers,

J.C.

JColdrick
Yup, ask them to define the deliverables, you should be fine. Err on the side of too much information: there are lots of producers out there nowadays(especially with the permanent agency producers being a dying breed and everything being outsourced to lots of young inexperienced people) that are expecting you to know all this stuff and will happily fluff over the details because they don't even know what they are in the first place. Without being annoying about it, make sure you have a solid understanding of what they want.

Cheers,

J.C.

Wonderful insight and post. Thank you for the confirmation. I will be sure to squeeze all the details out of them I can.