How does the process work and how much is it going to cost you?
Don`t be afraid to contact a post production/ 3d animation studio with your idea even if you`ve not fully developed the script. VFX artists can often give you advice on the most effective way to make your video production work, and will instantly be able to answer a lot of your questions on how to develop the visual effects to your timescales and budget. The more time you can give your VFX team, the more detail and quality they can add. The better your budget, the more time can be devoted to your project. Special effects quality really is all about time.
Spendings Of VFX Team
Visual effects get to become pricey because of a lot of factors. These may include the hiring of multiple artists, procuring laborers for props and equipment, renting or purchasing of strong computers and storage hardware, and lastly, the duration and costs of production. These factors make the visual effects budget higher than the regular production budget.
Visual Effects expenses:
Visual effects companies have to provide at least one high end computer per worker. These tend to be top of the line fast computers with a lot of memory, large hard disks and advanced graphics cards and graphics tablets. Each needs to be loaded with high end graphics software. In addition there’s typically at least a render farm and usually it has special power and air conditioning needs that make them very expensive. All of these computer systems require advanced and costly wiring along with an IT department to support it all. Hundreds or thousands of shots at 24 high resolution images a second times dozens of elements equates to a lot of storage space that needs to be maintained and archived to avoid losing critical work.
If the project was shot on film a small team will be going through every frame and painting out the dirt. Yes, there are a number of jobs in visual effects that require working on every frame. By hand. Others are hand tracing actors in specific scenes so new backgrounds can be replaced. Anywhere something had to be removed (stunt rig, etc) needs someone to hand paint it out. Remember that film is running at 24/30/60 frames per second. Visual effects on a 2 hour movie could be a lot of frames (172,800 frames). Most movies probably around 2000 shots - visual effects films likely have at least 500 or more shots. In some cases every shot in the film is worked on.
Matchmovers or 3D tracking artists have to create a computer camera that exactly matches what the real camera did. Animators have to animate any computer graphics actors or creatures. Lighters and others will have to light scenes just like a cinematographer. All of these images have to be calculated and rendered. And then compositing artists work to combine all of these images into the final shot to be used in the movie. In addition visual effects requires a supervisor, producer, editor and numerous other support people.
How to reduce your video FX costs
The best way to reduce your visual effects and 3d animation budget is to avoid assuming that you can fix everything in post production. Get the shots your FX artist needs at the quality they need them and you`ll spend less time trying to get a good composite.
Payment
Most animation companies will ask for 25%-50% of the cost up front, and the remaining 50% at the end of the project (often – if no changes are needed.
Extra costs: But that's not the end of the story. Many decisions may be delayed. There's usually no one keeping the post-production moving in the manner that the live action was. Sequences aren't turned over while edits and re-edits are done. The studio and director may have conflicting ideas. Test screenings popup with little notice. Results of test screenings require more changes. Sequences are added. Shots and sequences that had been approved 2 months earlier need to be redone with major changes. In some cases the majority of the visual effects happen in the last month or day, if we tal about commercials and music videos.