The Magic of Indie Productions

It’s a miracle animated short films continue to exist. Mainly, it’s extremely hard to commercially justify them. Animation is an expensive medium. It costs a studio like Disney or Pixar about $1-2 million for every minute of animation. An average 90-minute animated film can cost $100-200 million. To break even, the film needs to gross about 3X its production budget at the box office [1]. Profit mainly comes from IP franchising and merchandising.

Short films don’t do any of this. They aren’t marketed and distributed like a movie. They don’t have enough weight to carry a franchise on their own or create meaningful merchandise returns. Large studios spend millions of dollars to produce them, but try to justify the cost for marketing or R&D.

Indie teams don’t have the resources of a major studio. So why go through the trouble? After hundreds of hours interviewing indie creators, I observed a common theme. It didn’t matter whether the project was a film, game, or podcast; these people just wanted to bring their stories into the world. It was so important to them, they had to create it. It was a labor of love. 

And how did they make it work? The most exceptional teams shared these characteristics: passion, autonomy, small teams, transparency, simplicity, and glue. We saw that if a production was moving too slow, didn’t match the team’s expectations or, worse, not get finished; it was because they lacked or did not fully embrace one of those traits.

Passion

Passion is the main currency of an indie project, funded or not. They might not do it consciously, but indie creators trade time for how much passion they feel. Get someone to feel more passionate about your project, and they will spend more time. Get them to care. Money enhances the trade but should not be the substitute. For example, if you get someone to care and give them money, they will simply give you more time (this is a healthy job). However, if you only give them money and don’t get them to care, they will most likely waste your time (e.g. overhead, redo work). 

I’m not saying don’t pay people. Please compensate folks for their work if you have the means. But start with passion. If you are noticing your team not completing assignments, or your production is at a standstill, you should figure out why people don’t care and address that first.

Autonomy

A great way to get people to care is to give them ownership and accountability. This is when titles have real utility. Titles are an impactful way to communicate ‘I trust you’. It is not just for social fluff at the end credits. For example, an animated short will have a clear director, producer, art director, and creative leads for production. These roles and responsibilities not only speed up efficiency but allow individuals to work freely within their domains. It allows them to bring up concerns, make important decisions, and contribute in a meaningful way.

Small Teams

An easy way to build in autonomy is to reduce the size of your team. You should aim for less than 10 [2]. This is your core team. Every single team member working on the indie project needs to be extremely important and bring something unique to the table. One effective exercise is to consider whether the project would be impossible or very difficult to complete without the presence of person X. This ensures that each person has an essential part to play. That’s not to say you can’t bring in additional people for small favors, but be careful because it can quickly lead to bloat and overhead. This is wasted time.

Transparency

It should be easy to see and access everything (communication, files, software, etc.). I remember interviewing a TV showrunner that completed his entire indie animated series on time and under budget. When I asked his secret, he said at first he was worried about how his crew was scattered across the globe. Remote productions typically mean slower iteration and scattered communication. He decided to lean into it and put his entire workflow and production in google drive. He specifically mentioned that having an extremely open workflow and accessible software allowed for faster iteration. Some folks from the team had concerns about security. He answered, “If we have leaks, that’s free marketing.” 

Simplicity

This is closely tied with transparency. Generally, when you try to make something more simple, it becomes easier to understand and more accessible. The best indie creators frequently did some form of the 80/20 exercise. What will provide 80% of the value for 20% of the work? They are constantly descoping and reducing. Can we tell this story with 1 environment instead of 5? Do we need all 15 characters? How can we go from 4 software to 1? Can we reduce our production processes from 10 steps to 2? Can we complete this with 5 people instead of 30? They routinely ask these questions and make it happen. Not only does the 80/20 exercise cut costs, but we saw the most innovative and interesting solutions come out of it. Creativity loves constraints.

Glue

The best indie teams have something that binds them together. Team members should differ in skill sets, perspectives and personalities. What unifies them is the mission, the system and shared language. They establish these things by freely communicating and working together often. Great teams create a space to congregate, whether online or in-person. Like my co-founder says, “teams that meme together, succeed together.”

The Secret Sauce

Indie stories are magic. They have an unfair advantage. They are often more personal and relatable than what any large studio can produce. Those elements are what draw us in and make us care. While the productions have some limitations, technology is pushing those limits everyday. I believe it’s only a matter of time when a team of 10 will be able to create a feature animated film rivaling Disney’s. If you are on the fence about starting or finishing your passion project – someone in this world needs it. And only you can share it with them.

If you need help, want to swap stories, or just want to chat, reach out here. There’s nothing I’d be more delighted to do 🙂.