Behind The Pixel: Closing The Animation Communication Gap

In today's episode,

we're going to be talking about pros and cons

when it comes to buying and outsourcing

creative content.

We'll also talk about the challenges

that creatives face

when outsourcing each of those options.

So yeah.

DIY isn't just for mediocre house repair.

Stick around.

Let's get to it.

It's

for everyone.

Welcome back.

My name is Kathryn. And I'm Will.

And we are Open Pixel Studios.

We're the co-founders.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think

at this point we should remind we remind people

who we are

and what we do for a little bit just because,

you know,

it might be

that people are finding us

on LinkedIn,

on Instagram through different platforms, and.

They.

Might start here instead

of starting in episode zero. Mm hmm.

So who are we? What are we doing?

Yeah.

So we are the co-founders of Open Pixel Studios,

were a women owned animation studio out

in Springfield, Massachusetts.

And we basically help companies expand

with the medium of animation.

Yeah, that's what we're here for.

We've been doing it for the last six years now.

And yeah,

but this you know why we're here right now

in in your video setting or audio setting.

Whichever setting you'd. Prefer. Exactly.

This is Behind The Pixel.

It's an Open Pixel Podcast.

And it's the podcast

where we try to bridge

the knowledge gap

between those who buy creative content

and those who make it.

As a quick question, Will.

Yes?

Where would you say

is your current knowledge gap? Ooh.

Knowledge gap. That's a good question.

I really don't know anything about gap insurance.

That's the thing.

Yeah, gap insurance.

Okay. A lot of people talk about.

You know, I guess I know nothing about it.

Yeah, yeah.

Pretty sure there's such a thing.

I don't know which kinds of gaps it covers.

Yeah. Does it cover?

I don't know.

Like all gaps.

Like, is it a stop gap?

Does it cover?

Like, I see. Your clothes at The Gap.

Oh, boy. Okay,

well, similar

to comparing different insurance

options, I guess.

Why don't we jump into today's topic?

In today's topic,

we'll explore where you can buy animated content

and the pros and cons

between those different options.

Yeah, because there's a lot of different options.

Lots of different options.

So one of the problems

we notice with some of the clients that we work

is that they need to get some outside help

to get the animation done on time.

I think that's across the board.

Some of the things that we've seen,

some of the other people that we work with

have also talked about that.

And as a result,

they can turn to many different options.

You have tons of options out there

and so in this episode,

here's what we're not talking about.

We're not talking about

using your internal creative teams

like that is a whole other thing

and you absolutely can do that

when you're working with in-house.

You have a ton of options there

that we can sort of mentioned right now

that will cover in on a later episode.

You can upskill your current workforce, right?

You have some folks that you already have.

Make make them more valuable.

You can hire new talent brings in new people

in that

have some skills

that maybe your in-house doesn't have.

You can learn the tools yourself depending on

how big you are

as a as a business or agency,

depending on where you are.

Or you can use templates

and there's a lot of template options.

Again, I think we mentioned we're going to have

a whole episode on templates,

but when going internal with animated content

each of those approaches that I just mentioned

have their own pros and cons

and again,

we'll get into that in a different episode.

Yeah, I mean,

one can say that like we as Open Pixel,

we really need like an in-house

episode director for Behind the Pixel to.

Keep a track of all the things

that we kind of cover later. All the yeah.

All the episodes that we have on the back end.

Like there's so much. To cover it.

So much to cover. Yeah.

So yeah, we should track those.

But before

we get redirected,

we do a little 303 here.

Let's describe what what we are covering today.

Okay. Yeah, I can take that on.

So what we are talking about

today is the seemingly unlimited options

that marketers have

when they're outsourcing animated content.

So not doing it in-house when they're buying.

Going to the out.

They're going, yeah, yeah.

That's a reference to a previous episode.

But yeah,

when you have a bunch of those options,

that's when things can get really complicated.

Yeah.

And that can mean it's

actually really hard to know

where to look for animated content.

It's hard to determine

what the best option for you is going to be,

and that makes it hard to trust, like what

you're going to be getting

and knowing what you're going to be getting

and the goals of the content

that can actually be achieved for your piece.

So that whole outsourcing process

can be intimidated,

intimidating right from the start.

Yeah.

And then on the creative side,

the problem actually changes depending on

where and how the artist is being hired.

So I think what we're going to do

is we're going to talk about

their problems

within the context of the outsourcing option.

So it's a little bit of a departure

from what we've been doing in the past,

but we don't want to make

any blanket statements around

how creatives feel throughout all these options

because they're entirely different

depending on on your relationship

with that particular option. Right.

And we know that

because this is a departure,

it's a little bit of a change

from what we normally do.

So take a moment.

You know, take a breath. It's okay.

Let's embrace the change.

We know what to change, but trust us.

You'll understand when we get there.

So what we'll do is list out the options,

name some of those options,

talk about the pros and cons, and then address

some of the creative point of views

within those options.

Brochure that that creatives may face.

Yeah,

but what won't change here

is that I'm going to start

by giving the marketers point of view,

and then we can jump into some solutions

there and we'll go back and forth.

So brace yourselves, everyone.

Let's do it. Yeah.

So I'm taking the role of the marketers.

P.O.V. here.

Basically as a marketer

I want to know

all of my possible options

before I move forward

into making animated content.

I don't want to just Google it

because I know that typically on Google, the

the people who pay for their thing

to be seen

first are is what's going to come up first.

And they might not actually have

the best interest in mind

for what I'm trying to work on.

I paid the most. I'm at the top of the list.

You're going to see me.

First, right? Right.

Which could be good or bad,

depending on the situation that.

So what I might do

instead is I might start by asking

somebody I know and trust,

because trust

is something that you don't want to.

Hard to come by these. Days.

Yeah, yeah, that's fair.

I might start to also do

my own research into those options. Right?

If that person gives me

multiple options to go off of,

then I can do my own research into their.

They're giving me basically a head start

and I can get a sense

of what each of these

different processes is like.

Yeah.

And I might even try to go

as far as

getting multiple estimates

or quotes from different sources

and sort of compare between the two. Yep.

And the goal ultimately is that

I want to get to know a little bit more deeply

who I'm going to be working with

so that I can build that trust to.

A long term relationship.

But the problem for me

is that there's no really one place to lay out

all of those different options clearly.

So it's a little overwhelming.

I wish I just had something where it was easy

and I could just be on the beach

and lay out in the sun

and everything's comfortable and nice.

Or lay out like a really nice design.

Yeah.

Or like a really nice spreadsheet.

Yeah. Lay out a spreadsheet.

Shout out to all our business folks.

You can lay out. Laying out nice spread.

Lay out your laundry. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Or lay out a baking sheet.

Oh yeah. You're still going. I see

you maybe lay out that bathroom tile.

Mm hmm.

I'm trying to think of other things you get

you laid out.

All right? You could.

You could buy some Lay's potato chips, boy.

Okay, you're on a roll.

So why don't we lay out

all of the options that people have

for all the people

who are starting

to think about outsourcing animated content,

where can they actually go to that?

So we're going to try to be unbiased here

and we're going to go through each option

sort of in succession as to like most involved

to to least involved with the creative process.

Think about it like that.

So your first option,

if you're going to be

the most involved,

is your DIY, the do it yourself

animation tools that are out there.

There are plenty of tools out there

that are browser based animation

sort of solutions to doing it yourself.

You can work either with

designs that they've already provided.

Usually they provide you

with a bunch of templates.

You can also work with the work, the

the assets, the creative graphics

and things that you have already.

You can import those into into the platforms

and you can start animating on your own

right away.

Today, today, right now. Yeah.

And so there's many pros and cons

that come with that particular option.

Again, we're not going to name them all here

because are so many,

but yeah, so pros and cons.

So one big pro is that they're cheap,

they're less expensive,

they're an alternative

to basically any other solution

and they're probably the lowest option

price point wise, that

you can that you can go to.

And then another pro is

that you're in full control

of everything that is going on in the program

that you're that you're creating that content.

Right?

Instead of asking somebody,

hey, can you move this?

You can just move it. Yeah.

And you know, you're doing the WYSIWYG of the

The what? The WYSIWYG, you don’t know it?

You don’t know WYSIWYG?

WYSIWYG is What You See Is What You Get.

It's a.

It's a terminology.

It's, it's, it's in the developers world.

I see.

Yeah, I, you know, I, I do some development

on the back end and WYSIWYG is...

It's just like what you see is what you get.

Learn something new every day.

Some cons here that we should talk about.

Yeah, obviously

it's tedious

and it's time consuming

because it's it's

all on you

as the person

who's maybe not a creative doing some of these

these things,

these programs aren't really built for animators.

Yeah, because we've used some of them

and therefore they miss a lot of the complexities

that that animators have inside their toolboxes

when they go and animate.

So it's usually a single tool

instead of what, you know, a Swiss

army knife is a good comparison.

There's a ton of tools

and programs

that animators use

that have all different kinds of things

that they can do. Within that custom and forth.

But yeah, yeah.

Whereas usually the tools

online are very limited in in their platform.

And that's intentional though too. Yeah.

Because they don't want you

to move that much that much stuff.

Yeah.

So they want to make the process

easy for you too. True. Yeah.

Another con here

is that it's difficult

to get the quality of motion

that you're looking for.

You might have a set

standard quality from like a template

that they provide you,

but it's extremely hard

to get something that actually looks good

and is representative of your brand

all at the same time.

Yeah, it's hard to change tone and yeah.

In style.

Yeah, exactly.

They don't really take into account

that separation between

visual style and motion style.

It's just like,

here's the motion that we give you, right?

And that could be good or bad again, depending.

It's a con for us because it feels like,

you know,

motion should be branded

to what your brand feels like.

It looks like an and behaves as.

So we've tried these tools ourselves.

I think we mentioned that

and they're really hard to work with even for us.

They are so hard to.

Yeah, I, I'll be honest.

I don't think I've ever made a worse animation before...

Oh, my God. In my entire life.

And that's even from, like,

the days when I was a student

making the projects that I made.

So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is, it is difficult.

It is very. Hard.

We feel for anybody that's that's trying to work.

Yes.

And again, the templates are.

Yeah.

So if you're another con here,

if you're not a designer

or an animator,

you may not know how to make the piece better.

And I think that's sort of a downside

to all DIY stuff like even not animation, right?

You don't really know

if you're going to do it yourself

whether or not that's the right approach.

It relies heavily on your knowledge of animation.

So that could be very little

depending on where you are and you know

how much experience

you have with the medium as a whole.

But you know, the templates that you use can have

that embedded motion in them

and again, we'll get into templates later.

But, but it's really hard to change that motion

to match what you're trying to do.

And then the last con here

is that the animation quality

might not meet the needs and expectations

of your audience.

And your audience

has that expectation of your brand. Right?

So it might actually hurt

your brand more than helps

because you're doing template sized stuff

and it kind of looks cool,

but that might not be actually representative of

of what you're trying to do.

I want to acknowledge, too,

whether that's internally or externally, right?

If your audience is internal

and they have an expectation of your brand.

That's true.

Yeah.

We've done like employee like employee

training videos that, you know,

they have a certain level of quality internally.

It hurts morale.

I think it can. Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

So right

does the opposite of what you want

quickly put together and not,

not up to the standard

that we know that the brand's capable. Yeah.

And then you know

you get to a point where you like,

you know, my supervisor

didn't really care about this.

They put 10 minutes into. This, right?

Like how, how, how should I take that information

in if you didn't put the time in?

Yeah, it's interesting to think about for sure.

Yeah.

But yeah, I want to touch a little bit on

this is where we changed our approach

a little bit to talk

about the creative point of view here. Yeah.

So if I'm a creative and you're going,

you know,

you as the marketer,

you're going to outsource through DIY tools.

I am mostly out of the loop entirely,

but in stage, right? Yeah.

And that can be a bit scary to think like,

oh, is everybody

now going to just switch to DIY tools and am I

does my role exist anymore like that?

That's a big fear, yeah.

But I do recognize that there are people

who opt for this option for a variety of reasons.

Usually it's

that they're looking for kind of the

both the cheapest thing possible and the thing

that requires

the most creative control from them.

So they don't have to go to me to change out

every little thing all the time.

Yeah,

but what we see as open

pixel happening in this situation

is that when somebody outsources

through DIY options,

we typically find that they realize

they need to move into more of a custom solution.

At some point.

DIY will only really take you so far

and at some point you realize

it's just not cutting it

because every time you're probably redoing it

and you're paying more and you're

basically paying more to hit the redo button

every single time.

So you never want to pay for a redo.

Button, but can you imagine?

And every time you undo it.

That's like pay to play, but like like awful.

Like, well, I guess pay to play as well.

If you had. To pay for every undo that you do.

Oh, my God.

Oh, boy.

It's $0.02, though. Yeah, very little.

No, nobody, nobody take that idea.

That's a

that's a terrible

there's a difference between bad

ideas and terrible ideas.

So the next option

is freelancer platforms and databases.

So this is obviously

the gig economy is

what we're really talking about.

Some of the most famous platforms

include Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer.com

There's a ton of others.

These top Toptal

I think is how you say that lots of platforms,

these platforms

basically connect you with a freelancer.

That's their entire real job, right?

Connect. I'm trying to find someone.

Most of the time it's an individual.

Sometimes it's a company.

You can find companies on there.

Some allow you to look

through individual profiles

to find someone that you'd like to work with,

and they also require you to post your job

and the requirements of your job

that you're looking to create.

Yeah, some of that.

Sometimes it can be like a long form

and sometimes it can be just a couple sentences.

Yeah. Depends on the platform. Yeah.

So pros and cons

here, going into the pros,

you have a review system much like Yelp

or Google or I don't know,

is there a different review site?

I don't know. Apple Pay, Apple Podcasts.

I mean, anything that has a review system,

you can read through people's reviews

that people give them,

there's star ratings oftentimes.

So you get to see what they've done

for other people, it's kind of nice.

There's a pricing system

so you can see what

someone is going to charge you.

Depending.

It could be on an hourly basis,

it could be on a project basis.

Really depends on the platform.

Depending on how they're set up,

there's messaging systems.

That's another big pro.

So and oftentimes the platform will force you

to communicate directly with the freelancer

through their messaging system

so that they have a record

of what was actually said just in case.

If there's anything that goes wrong

because lots of stuff.

Goes wrong, should always have a record. Yeah.

And then, you know, it's it's all kinds.

Another pro is that it's all kinds of work.

So it's not just limited to creative work.

You can get developers on these platforms,

you can get like a lot of technical work,

but something like, you know, TaskRabbit,

you can get a plumber to your house and you know,

try to find try to find someone so

not limited to creative stuff.

Another pro

and this is

subjective is that they claim to be fast

and you know, they're generally sort of

this cheaper, faster option.

We connect you with a

with a freelancer really quickly

and they get you back your work really quickly.

Right.

Get your project made yesterday, right?

Yeah.

Yesterday.

What's beyond yesterday?

Get your project done in the.

Past, we yeah.

We connect you with time travelers

to take you back in time.

So you already have your project.

Yeah. Oh, my God. In the future.

So they claim to be fast

and, you know, cheaper, faster, therefore better.

I think that's usually what people

kind of think about.

Yeah, but I think we all really

most of us will probably know the saying,

you know, cheaper, faster or better pick you.

Yeah, that is that is a yes is not equals in the.

Industry does not equal better.

Yes.

Which brings us to the cons

long list of cons here.

We have a ton of issues with platforms.

We're not necessarily against platforms, but

we do have some issues

with the current platforms that are out there.

So one con

is that

they require you

to have some level of expertize in animation,

if that's what you're looking to get done.

The marketer.

You, the marketer,

you, the person doing the requests right,

because you need to know to some extent

exactly what you're looking for.

I mean, usually on these platforms,

they have a big old box

that says Description of your job

and you're looking to put in all of that

knowledge that you already know much.

Clearer as you possibly can. Yes.

So there's no format around

that specifically for animation,

because that's not what they're built for.

They're built for the connection,

not necessarily

for extracting the right information.

So depending on the platform,

you'll need to input input those requirements.

And you might not exactly know

what it is that you need,

especially if it's yeah.

If it's a medium that you're working with

that's new like animation.

You might not know exactly what you're

needing out of that description.

But hopefully through Behind The Pixel

you will have some knowledge to go off of

that will give you,

you know,

that level of expertize

that you need to work on your next project.

Good upsell, good.

Often we've seen things on these platforms

like, you know, quote,

need a two minute explainer video right

and no context whatsoever on strategy and

what the project entails,

what style type we're talking about, does it

include characters?

What kinds of assets do we need to make all the.

Things that help determine the price? Yeah. Yeah.

And also

that determine

how the freelancer approaches

that project and make creative decisions

they're going to make.

And so, you know, a big disconnect there.

Another big con is additional fees.

So the fee structure for these platforms

kind of changes

depending on which platform you're dealing

with some charge on a recurring basis

because you're content,

you know, you're consistent,

they're a SAS company,

they're software as a service.

They're charging recurring.

Some are based on the freelancer.

So the freelancer has a rate,

they're charging you a thing,

and then they'll do a percentage of that rate.

And actually most platforms

actually charge twice.

So they'll charge you for putting up the job

and then they'll charge the freelancer

for taking the job.

So they're actually getting paid twice

to make a single. Connection, right?

Which, you know, no shame on them.

That's how they're running their business model.

It's a business model.

Just one thing to keep in mind,

the other sort of con

is that

you're searching

through a pool of mixed level talent.

And what we mean by that is,

you know,

the industry as a whole,

the animation industry hasn't really defined

what it means to be a junior or a senior

or a mid-level.

I mean, it's just in the title, but you can.

Sometimes it's just years of experience,

but you can have years of experience

and maybe not be at the at the right level.

You need to be like there's there's

so many ways you can misinterpret. That, right?

So the con here is that

the platform is charging you

to get someone

who could have a lot of creative talent

but doesn't actually have a lot of experience

working on

multiple clients

or working with clients

through their process and workflow. Right?

So it's a double edged sword.

So you have to kind of decide

what kinds of risks

you want to take

when going to these platforms

with a specific person.

And then the other last con here is that,

you know,

again, pro or con kind of your view on it.

It's it's global.

The platforms are global.

They're not necessarily tied to the U.S.

So you could run into a language barrier

that happens a lot.

I think famously,

I think it was Upwork

who put in a checkbox button

that said, like only show this job to the U.S.

clients or something like that,

because they were getting so many issues

with language barriers on projects.

So most projects require multiple revisions.

You're going back and forth

and sometimes that language barrier

can come into play.

Yeah, which I would say as a

as a clicks I'd note solution here.

You know,

if you're

running into language barriers,

you could just learn a new language.

Yeah, that is one aspect right now.

Hong Yoga and I say must. Mm hmm.

I go gonna say Muska. There it is.

We're learning Japanese.

Yes. So learn new languages.

It's actually a wonderful thing to do.

Yes, it takes time,

but could be worth it for the long run.

Yeah. To help expand your capacity too.

If you know somebody that's super talented

but you know there's a language

barrier there, help!

Help it out. Yeah.

Yes.

So we've

talked a lot about the pros and cons here.

I want to talk from the creative

point of view again. Yeah.

So for me as a creative, if I'm a freelancer, I'm

setting up a profile and it's actually,

you know, pretty easy to do for the super simple.

Yeah.

I mean, I have a nice portfolio of work

that I can pull from

and I can showcase and I probably have

like profiles at all of the

platforms that I possibly can write

because I want to get

exposed as much as possible

to the different clients.

But what that means is that selling

my service can actually be a lot harder

because my potential customer

has so many different options to choose from.

How do I convince them

that going with me, either

directly or going through this platform

or wherever it might be, is the right way to go.

And I might not have thought

about selling my services

through a platform, right?

I might have thought about it from

just making a website or whatever,

or going through Instagram.

And so because I might I might,

I need the work, right?

I need this work to come in.

So in a way, I have to use the platform.

And as a result, I'm

now competing

against all of these other creatives.

And I might have to reduce my price

to get the amount of projects.

That are released. You feel like you do?

Yeah.

And I feel like

I'm just

doing that whole thing that we see

in the creative industry of racing to the bottom.

Yeah. And that's frustrating.

Yeah.

So it's important to kind of remember

from the marketer's

point of view

when you're getting this outsource work

from these platforms, you, the marketer,

you, the communications person,

whoever's buying the content,

you might not be paying the creative

what they're actually worth.

So, you know,

you have to sort of have a conscious lens

when going through

and searching through those platforms

because the platforms incentivize

creatives to basically fight each other on price.

Yeah.

And the more we fight, the more we get paid,

they get paid, you know.

And so yeah, it's,

it's a lose lose situation there.

And I cannot stress this enough

that people deserve to be paid for their time.

Okay.

And that includes us.

I want to acknowledge

so if for any reason

you're thinking about

becoming a sponsor for this time.

Oh, wow. Okay.

Trying to throw in a little thing

that we're not taking sponsorship dollars

just throwing that in.

So another option.

Yeah, moving. Along. Right.

So if we're talking

kind of staying in the freelancer realm.

Yeah.

About platforms,

but another option that you have

is just hiring an independent freelancer.

So directly director. Free.

Yes, this is someone who is paid

for the thing directly.

D to f direct to freelance.

There you go.

That's that's not going to get John.

But sure.

So typically we've seen freelancers

hired for tasks

within a specific stage

of the animation workflow.

Though this is not always the case.

Sometimes a freelancer can get hired

from start to finish on a project. Yeah.

So some of the pros that you have here

are that you're having direct contact

with that freelancer, right?

You don't have to go through a platform

or a third party or a middleman.

You don't get charged.

For connecting with someone.

Exactly in charge.

So you get the direct contact with them

and you get to maintain that contact.

I mean, you can just send them a DM

on Instagram or LinkedIn, right?

It's actually super easy to distance.

Like, why would I have to pay someone else?

Right. Right.

Another pro here is that

their workflow is typically customized

to their own needs.

So based on the work that they do,

both their tools,

their workflows

and their systems are actually custom

to how they operate.

And what that means

is that you don't actually need

to fit your project request into sort of this

one size fits all platform.

Yeah.

Usually just an open box that's says description.

Right, right. Yeah.

So the way in which you're requesting

that work to the freelancer

is actually going to be a lot easier

because they can help guide you

through their workflow

and you can get a better sense

of what that process is like.

They'll be the ones to kind of ask

you those questions that you need

to get to get to that.

Correct.

Like budget for the project. Yeah.

So they're going to be helpful

in, in guiding you through that process.

Yeah.

A third pro here is just consistency.

You know what you're going to be

getting stylistically

for every project that you work on with them,

which is a beautiful thing

to not have to question it, to say like,

I know what they're capable of doing.

Here it is.

I know what I'm getting.

Yeah, and that's that's great. Yeah.

That's like, you know,

consistency

across both communication

but also style in other options.

I think sometimes

when you get into multiple animators

on a project, it's a little bit harder

to get consistent animation

in motion across the project. So.

All right. We'll talk about that. Yeah. Yeah.

But I want to take a second here

to shout out

all of the great, fantastic freelancers

that we've worked with over the years.

Yeah, there's a. Couple of them.

We love all our freelancers.

Yeah, yeah.

It's one

that's something to maybe keep in mind

that, you know,

on our side as studios,

we're also hiring freelancers. Absolutely.

So there's it's

there's a beautiful market of freelancers that

you should consider hiring.

Yeah.

We have our own database that we use and,

you know, feel free if you're a freelancer to

to check that out,

you know, different kind of platform, but.

Yeah, yeah.

We're trying to find ways to support

freelancers on multiple fronts. Yeah.

Yeah. So

you want to talk about some of the cons?

Yeah, it is to acknowledge that

because that said, there are pros and there are.

Yes, let's let's talk about it.

So

as a marketer,

you're going to need

to be active about staying compliant

with different state laws.

Right, because you might be hiring

people from different states

and also all over the world.

Right? Yeah.

So each state in the U.S.

has different thresholds

for what they define

as what a freelancer is,

or you might see it as a contractor.

So you need to look at those laws

to make sure you're staying compliant.

Ten, ten. Any night.

An example of this is

if you're continuously hiring one person

over the course of the year

for a certain amount of hours

or certain amount of,

you know, time in the schedule,

the state might actually consider them

a full time worker. Yeah.

And this actually it

it goes to the last option for the platforms.

It's a big selling point for the platforms

to hire them

instead of hiring a freelancer directly. Right.

So try to make sure you're staying compliant.

Correct.

It's all about compliance

whether you know,

if you're talking

about a giant corporation like Pepsi or Coke or,

you know, some big entity like that,

the platforms are saying,

hey, we keep you compliant.

If if we go through like I don't know if

if you're a freelancer out there

that's on some of these platforms,

they'll actually call you if you've only had one,

one person on, on or one job

through their platform,

they'll call you and triple check that

you have other invoices out to other

companies and clients.

Right. So.

You know,

they are doing a little bit of that legal fee.

It is

just a note

that you won't get that

if you're just hiring a freelancer directly.

Yes.

So another con that we see here

is what we're calling these sort of all eggs

in one basket problem.

And it's basically if a freelancer becomes

unavailable for any reason, you know,

you run the risk of needing to hire

somebody else for that project,

which can create some scheduling conflicts

and create a little more stress

that you might not have been prepared for.

So a potential solution

there is to just always

make sure you have like a backup option

just in case.

But yeah, that can definitely create some issues.

One more con that we see here is that cost

tend to fluctuate.

This is pretty standard.

Yeah,

every freelancer will have a different way

of charging for their services,

which means

as always, just a general solution here.

Always add padding to your budget

because depending on who you're hiring,

especially if you have to bring on

somebody else in the middle of the project,

their rate might be different. Yeah.

And also in this economy, I mean, I feel like,

you know, in this economy you're trying to do

you're doing more with less,

which is a terrible way of looking at it.

But that's

that is the situation

that a lot of marketers find

themselves in is I got to do way more with a lot

less money. So.

Right.

And it's just keeping in mind

that there's no one standard

like to determine those costs. Yeah.

So keep it in mind.

The final con that we see

here is sort of a limited skill set.

And what that means

is that, you know,

a freelancer can be incredibly awesome

and talented and do amazing work,

but they might not be able to meet

all of your creative needs. Right.

If you have different projects

with different styles

and different challenges

that you're working with.

So it might be that you again

need to find somebody else

or for some other aspect of the project

or other things that a freelancer

wouldn't be able to provide.

You know, I mean, it's typically why

a lot of companies will hire

multiple freelancers

or have a freelancer database, right?

Yeah. And, you know,

it's I think it's safe to say that,

you know, if you studied animation

or you're

an animator specifically, that you're

you might not be the best designer

you're really good at.

You're really good at motion

and less on the design. Yeah.

So that's that's what we mean

by limited skill set.

Why don't you talk to us

a little bit about the creative

point of view here? Yeah.

So depending on my experience

as a creative,

I may or may not be used to freelancing.

So it depends on who you are as a freelancer.

You might be just starting out.

Some people have been freelancers for decades.

They've been all over the industry

very well known

freelancers out there that that work

solo.

So I think, oh look,

I don't know that song.

Oh, Frank Ocean.

Oh, okay. Sorry. Go ahead.

Sometimes, though, I get put into a position

where it feels like

I need to do everything that the client wants.

I think that's a position that freelancers are

consistently in, which can get frustrating,

especially if I have multiple clients

doing sort of the same things.

To me,

or I'm in a position where I'm a new freelancer,

maybe I want to impress and like

make sure that I get everything done on time

and with their expectations and and or

I'm in a position where I'm running short on time

and that could be a little bit of a hiccup.

So in all these scenarios, yeah,

I feel like there's the

from my perspective as a creative, I'm,

I might be ebbing and flowing from

being comfortable

with a client

to being being sort of constricted by a client.

I think that's fair to say.

If I'm a seasoned freelancer,

I have probably a typical workflow that I have

that works really well for me.

But I might be actually

running into with newer clients

some misinformation on terminology

that people are using

when they're in the conversations

that that I now have to go through

and probably find myself

explaining that over and over

and over again to many different clients

that are new,

that don't that don't quite know

how to use those terms.

We covered this

in a separate episode on terminology.

It's not all the terminology

that you need to know,

but it's it's

some of the ones that we come across for sure.

It doesn't this

this misinformation problem doesn't

prevent the work from happening.

Right.

So you still kind of get the work done,

but it makes the conversation

a little bit harder.

Communication can sort of fall

because you're not quite expecting the right

the right thing.

Yeah. On both sides of this. Yeah.

Those conversations, you know, and misinformation

for the algorithm sake

is not only applicable to elections

and vaccines, it's all in saying.

Sure, sure,

you're not wrong. You're not wrong.

Misinformation is everywhere.

So hopefully we're providing you

with as much truthful in.

The algorithm. As possible.

As a freelancer.

I'm basically a business.

I'm a solo business.

Solopreneur is

is a thing,

but I want to build relationships directly.

I have those relationships

that I know

I want to reach new clients,

but I might actually have

my own marketing problems.

All right I'm

I'm a business with marketing problems.

I just have one person at my business

and this whole topic

is like a whole other episode really.

And we can talk about in the future

if you're interested.

We're not really here to teach freelancers

how to be better business owners.

Because there's other programs, there's.

So many programs out there

that are fantastic by the. Way. Yes.

They look into it.

You're freelancing.

Absolutely.

And, you know, we can name some,

but we don't want to push anyone

in any direction.

But if you're a freelancer and I would absolutely

look through through those options

because they're they're fantastic.

Yeah.

And I don't you know,

I don't think we're actually qualified

to talk about being really good business owners.

Reminds me of like a

like I'm shaking in April right now

and I'm

looking at it being like,

you know, are we qualified?

Looks hazy.

Try again.

Which brings us to the next option.

Right? Right. The animation studio.

Is hiring an animation.

We're going to take a hard look at ourselves.

Yes, you're doing some introspect in here.

Yeah. Yeah.

To provide hopefully some some clarity.

So. Yeah, pros and.

Cons, tell us about that option. Yeah.

So if you're hiring either an animation studio

or you might call it a production company.

You know what I heard?

Sorry to cut you off, but you know what I heard?

Prod co.

Prod co. Yeah, boy.

Oh, I.

I saw it

written and I was like,

what is a prod co production company?

I got that totally makes sense.

Okay, well, I won't be using that, but

we define a

production studio or animation studio

as having multiple team members.

So more than one. Yeah.

With multiple skill sets that create all sorts

of different creative projects,

namely in the medium of animation.

That's what we're talking about

when we define this right now.

So this is slightly different from what

you might know as a creative agency,

but we will get there. So hang tight.

Or just an agent? It was just an agency. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

So some of the pros here

for working with an animation studio,

you are going to have creative flexibility

and reliability.

So, for example,

if one person has to step away from a project,

another person within the team

can immediately take it on.

And generally,

there's always more than one person

that has an eye on the project at any given time.

So there's a level of accountability there

in terms of schedule,

in terms of creative content,

yeah, you have a little more reliability

to make sure that your project's always

being at the forefront. Yeah.

You also have the benefit of management, right?

Typically you'll have

a dedicated project manager,

sometimes on both sides of the project,

but almost always within the animation studio.

And they're going to help you navigate

both the client relationship that you have,

and they're also going to help

navigate the communication with the artist.

So they're keeping everybody

on track in the same schedule.

That's their primary focus.

It's a beautiful thing.

A third pro here is that as a team,

you're going to have

a deeper understanding

of the overall strategy

of an animated video project as it pertains

to executing on your campaign as a marketer.

So a team of people is going to be more involved

in the different

of the production workflow that are going to help

to build something that complements

your strategy as a whole.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I think,

you know, the size of your composition

becomes really important here. Yeah.

The size of your team composition,

because you never want a situation

where you have

too many cooks in the kitchen

and it becomes a kitchen nightmare.

Boy. Shout out to that show.

Boy, you.

You nailed it.

Nice. Yeah.

Also a good show.

Yeah.

We'll have a bake off later. Nice.

We're going to keep

yeah, we're going to do a whole episode,

just a bonus episode about our favorite, you.

Know, favorite. Cook shows.

Cooking shows. Yeah.

So what are some of the cons with studios?

As much as we like to admit we're perfect.

They're definitely you know, I actually.

Sorry, I take that back. There are no cons.

There are no cons. Right, right.

All right.

So we just keep going.

Reality check. There are cons.

Let's talk about them.

So one of the cons here

is that working with an animation

studio can be more expensive, right?

The studio tends to be more expensive because of

additional costs

that you might not be considering

when you first thinking about hiring them.

Yeah, things

like especially

if they're in a physical location

dealing with overhead. Yeah, right.

And if a company's not remote.

So that's something to keep in mind.

Yeah, they're we're remote.

We don't have that issue.

But yeah.

But there are different costs

that are associated. Yeah.

So another thing to think about

that's a con is capacity.

So this varies from studio to studio

based on both the size

and the artistic limitations that they have.

Yeah, studios may take on too much work at one

time, right?

We're taking on as many projects

as we can expense.

We're trying to survive or we're trying to like,

you know, try to grow and grow.

We're trying to expand.

And that might mean that one

or more projects might suffer on the back end.

Yeah, because of the strain on the creative team.

So that's something to keep in mind about

maybe even asking a studio

how they manage their projects.

Because if you're talking us

and we're working on anywhere

from five to as many

as like 15 projects in a given month,

how do we ensure that everything stays intact?

Yeah. And on time, really? It's really on time.

Yeah, exactly.

So something else to think about

that's a con here is the stylistic range.

As much as we might hate to admit this style

choices are also limited

within a studio environment. Yeah.

Depending on the set up that they have

or the total talent that they have at the studio,

it also limits the styles

that they can hit for your project,

and they might have to go and hire freelancers

or hire other people in house. Hire other.

Studios, hire the studios.

That happens for sure. Yeah.

So that's something to keep in mind

because that might up the cost

on your project as well to consider.

Yeah, a final con here that we have is

sort of the

internal studio dynamics that are happening

within the projects we're talking about.

There's no issues.

It's never issues in companies.

So studios will

might also hate to admit this, but

there's always a layer of office politics

that are going around

with other people at the studio

who are probably running your project, right?

Yeah.

And those politics can sometimes get in the way.

They can vary the level of success

or effectiveness on a project.

So it's really just something to be mindful

and looking out for.

One thing

you could try to determine for yourself is like

looking at a studio is this studio

approaching things on

sort of like a Game of Thrones vibe, office

politics,

or are we talking about like Ted Lasso politics

very two. Very different.

Both shows.

Very great shows. Yes.

Fantastic.

Very different approaches to team building.

Sure.

Absolutely.

So keep that in mind.

Not cutthroat.

Right? Right. Yeah.

Creative point of view.

Yeah.

In a studio environment.

So as a creative working in the industry,

the reality is that I'm

basically staying employed

because of the work that comes into the studio,

because of the sales

that the studio is is giving us.

So

that means that some projects

might not be exactly what I want to work on.

Yeah. Right.

As a creative, you kind of have these

these ideas about what you should be working on

on your own,

and the studio is giving you work

that you may not be entirely excited about others

I might be really excited about.

So there might be different levels

of of excitement

depending on the projects that come in

as an artist.

I never

really have considered your marketing strategy

right at a studio necessarily.

I usually as an artist

leave that to the strategy people

because almost always

there's a separation there between

at the sales point.

Here's the strategy we're going for, right?

That's a different role.

That's a different set of people.

Usually that that aren't

necessarily

the people who are working on the project. Right.

Or the creative directors

focusing on the strategy curve of the artists

and then rolling that information back. Yeah.

So I, I also really just want to expand my own

skillset, right?

I'm again

internally working through some of the stuff.

So it's at artists,

at studios

might struggle between

producing the best content that they possibly can

for a project that they

may not actually believe in. Yeah.

So that's kind of the,

the point of view there

usually and that's a whole

I think that's a whole other episode as well.

How do you work on things

that you're not super excited about?

Yeah, sure.

But it's important for studios to recognize

this of their artists. Yeah.

And where they. Are. Yeah, that's.

All right.

Well,

so why don't we jump a little bit further up

the ladder here into your last option?

So we're talking about now hiring an agency.

Yeah, which we mentioned a little bit before,

but I think it's really important

to start by defining what we mean by agency here.

So agencies are multiple people again,

but they're working on multiple aspects

of different business goals

for a company or for a client.

And this is typically generating

more revenue or profit over time. Yeah.

So agencies are developing strategies

and executing on campaigns

with their internal marketing and creative teams.

Right.

So you wouldn't necessarily hire them

for just a single piece of content.

You usually you're looking for a broad range

of services

that they can provide

in this sort of all in one inclusive package.

Yeah.

So a pro to working with them

is that you can work

on multiple campaigns at a time,

especially if you're a company

that's expanding

and trying to test out multiple things.

The largest agencies have hundreds,

if not thousands of people.

Yeah, so all be able to work on your project.

They are downsizing today. But.

But yes, they are still pretty big. Yeah.

But they're set up for a larger scale.

Yeah. Regardless. Right.

So agencies will usually need to work

on large

projects and longer projects

so they're able to understand

the needs at that scale. Yeah.

And they're also highly knowledgeable

of the different global trends that are happening

that might help

to make some of your business decisions

a lot easier.

So, you know, in a way, I can use all of the data

that tells me that

I need to trend towards a culture of

toxic nostalgia, perhaps.

Have you been a nineties Khan yet?

Oh, my gosh, no. Is that a thing?

Very nostalgic.

Yes, it's here.

It's in Connecticut.

Oh, man.

They're probably all over at this point.

I could see the multiple ones.

Yeah, but speaking of cons.

Yeah, let's get into, like, the guns.

So top of the list, they're expensive.

Number one, agencies tend to be super pricey.

You know, they employ lots of people.

They have lots of overhead.

Therefore, they need lots of money.

And you need to be sort of

at the top of their list

in terms of their client list,

in order to make the sort of

move them to do anything for you.

Their strategies

might not totally align

with your morals or your values or your goals.

Usually your goals, but not morals and values

depends on the agency.

But some agencies tend to have a process

for success

that you might have a different view on.

And if those don't sort of jive and work well,

you might face some pushback in unexpected ways.

Another big con here

is that the results that you get from

these agencies could be skewed

after the agencies run reports.

They have to run reports

to sort of prove their effectiveness.

That's their whole job. Right.

So those reports can really be made to say

whatever they want.

You know.

I think public facing side,

they want to look good.

Everybody wants what want.

Yeah.

So manipulating numbers

kind of comes becomes part of the job.

Another con that you may not be aware of.

Agencies also outsource their creative work.

Almost all.

All agencies. Studios. Yeah.

So where on some of those list

they have an approved vendors list.

Almost always.

And they go through that which usually ends up

marking up the price on those things.

Right.

And then last con here, agency personnel

move around a lot.

The one account manager might change

over the course of the campaign.

So, you know, you're running campaigns

for about six months to a year

and, you know,

the people there might change over the course

at the time that you're running that campaign.

So the next person might not be as good,

might not be as in. Fact, companies might merge.

All sorts of things can happen.

Yeah.

Okay,

so let's talk a little bit about the creative

point of view here. Working at an agency.

So as a creative at an agency,

I am typically well aware of my role

and the function of being a creative year.

Yeah, right.

I'm usually better equipped

to understand that sort of y behind

what we're doing.

Yes.

Because it's talked about more frequently

and I can even work on things really fast.

Usually I have to yeah.

I'm used to be able to being able to juggle

around multiple projects

and different timelines all at once.

But with that does come this sort of like base

level of stress.

Yeah, right.

And it's

because the expectations

that I'm working off of are quite high now.

I need to be able to do it.

A little bit everywhere.

Everyone's doing less with more,

more with less mirthless.

Yeah. Yeah.

So and so sometimes as an addition here

I am dealing with a lot

more of those office politics

that are going around.

Yeah, I might need different levels of approval

at different

points of the production from multiple people,

which can actually block

some of my creative capability

for being able to do

the work that you're asking me.

Yeah, we talked a little bit about going upstairs

and that staircase gets way bigger and bigger.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah.

It's an escalator at that one. Yeah. Yeah.

And in this situation,

there's a lot more cooks in the kitchen.

Yeah, there's a lot more.

Paul, Hollywood's that you're trying

to get a handshake from.

Right. And it's very difficult.

Like one handshake is hard enough.

You're trying to do that

like multiple times over.

I think we watch too many cooking shows that

there might be too many

cooking shows in the world.

That's. Oh, that's.

Yeah, that's a debate.

Is there enough.

Well I think that's it.

That's, that's the end of the episode

in terms of our content.

Yeah.

I mean hopefully you got

a sense of some of the pros

and cons between each of the options

that you have

just to give a sense of maybe

which one you might be leaning to.

Yeah, more than another.

So just to summarize,

you have a couple of options here.

You have your DIY option, you do it yourself.

Go to the

go to go,

go to a browser and animate on your own.

You get your platform solution.

Find a middleman

that will connect you to a freelancer.

You've got your direct

a freelancer situation, you've got your hire

a studio production company

somewhere in the middle there.

Or you can go all the way up to an agency model

that again will help you with strategy

from the

jump on a larger kind of thing.

Yeah so we hope you can you.

It'll give you some thought

about which options to consider. Yeah.

Which options might be right for you,

which options might not be right.

And let's also to say that like,

you might go with different options

at different times. Sure you can. Yeah.

So here's the tease for the next episode.

Our next episode will be another hack.

Got to get our hack game

in order

to make doing some of that short form content.

We also have a bonus episode

where we are going to talk to the creative

this time.

Nice about working on creative content,

how they handle those issues

as communication issues.

What is it that they experience?

This is someone we haven't worked with before,

but we are very excited to talk to.

You always this person.

Really, really good conversations.

So yeah.

Yeah.

And we're excited

to be on their podcast later on.

That'll be a bonus episode for us as well.

So it's going to be a special episode.

It'll be great.

So yeah, so at least for this episode,

a big

thank you to Emilia for producing this podcast.

Yeah, the producer is Jackson Foote and our music

was created by Hidden

and licensed to film meet dot com.

Until next time.

You jump right into it.

I was I was shocked usually we usually we

you know we say.

I'm just trying to get over it.

I'm trying to get over it.

Let's see how this is.

Trying to I'm trying to get over it quickly.

Uh huh.

So you're prolonging.

This. I see.

That was my.

Until next time.

Stay open line wrong.

I did it wrong.

Now I'm now I'm just in an excuse

to prolong it even further. Until next time.

Stay on us.

Stay open.

You did it right.

This is brilliant. Keep it going.

Okay, we've got this.

Until next time,

stay honest.

Stay creative. Stay seated.

We should do it.