Animation is a pretty big industry in the Philippines. Most of the people we know who graduated from Fine Arts end up in an advertising agency or an animation office. Though the BPO industry mostly deals with voice accounts or “call centers”, the outsourcing business also extends to animation. We interviewed some artists and came up with a list of things that you may not know about the Animation Industry.
Most Cartoon Series and Movies are Made in the Philippines
Pinoy Pride! There are many animation offices here in the Philippines, most of which are outsourced to make different drawings for series and movies. The most in-demand type of animation in the Philippines is the ‘traditional’ or hand-drawn kind. Though digital animation is booming, Filipino artists are known to have excellent drawing skills. Traditional drawings make cartoons softer and more life-like. Some of the classics that were made in the Philippines include Land Before Time, Mickey Mouse and Friends, Kim Possible, Curious George and Emperors New Groove.
The movements and backgrounds of these cartoons were made here in the Philippines and put together in the head studio.
Drawings are Priced Per Piece
Here’s the deal: if you want to work freelance, this is the road for you. Though there are regular jobs in animation, many of the offices here in the Philippines pay their artists by piece (i.e. a certain amount per drawing or per page).
According to our source, an in-between artist gets paid at least Php20 per drawing. Each paper or drawing of an in-between artist has one character movement. They can draw at least 30 drawings per day and as many as 200 drawings, depending on the detail of the character.
Photographers Can Work in Animation
If you are a different kind of artist, like a photographer, you can work in the animation industry, too. Some photographers take actual photos of landscapes or seascapes on which animation backgrounds are based. Some photographers take photos of all of the drawings to digitize them. They then collate all of the drawings to turn them digital, color them, and make them move. They are basically the middle ground between traditional and digital.
It Takes More Than 100 drawings to Make a 1-minute Clip
Even the simplest movements of a character may require lots of drawings. A 1-minute clip may consist of more than 100 drawings! And that doesn’t even count the background drawings or the characters’ surroundings yet.
There are More Than 20 Kinds of Animation Artists
When people hear “animator”, people often think of people drawing the characters. What you might not know is that there are over 20 kinds of animation artists here in the Philippines. The character designer is based in the head studio. The base character draft is sent to the Philippines or to the animation studio to make movements and studies. The in-between artists make the movements of the characters. The clean-up artists check all of the drawings for adjustments, straighter lines, additional in-between drawings, or drawing erasures.
If you are a painter, there are also background artists in the industry who paint the background like the sky, beach, mountains, and other settings. These are just there of the most known kinds of animation artists that are outsourced here in the Philippines.
Animators Doodle to Practice
If you like doodling, that is actually the perfect training for you to get that animation vibe going. Artists who work in the industry doodle all the time.
They make studies of their characters, settings and backgrounds all the time. This is also where the animators sneak in the Hidden Mickeys and their initials.
Doodling can actually help animators get a basis of what their characters will look like with different emotions, looks, and movements.
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