Marktoonery.com
Rent-A-Toon Affordable
Animation For Local/Independent Producers
Rent-A-Toon
Television Commercial Animation:
The
going rate for animation (according to one of the Cartoon
Network VP's) is $1,000 per finished second.
That would make a 10-second tag $10,000 and
a 30-second spot $30,000!
Most local advertisers are either unwilling (if not
downright unable) to budget this much money for a
local TV spot. That's where Rent-A-Toon
Commercials come in. If you've ever used "clip art" you've
already got a pretty good idea how it works. For a smaller price than
you'd pay for most local live-action commercials, you simply pay a
6-month licensing fee for an animated video that you're sharing with
other producers (in different viewing areas). You can even customize
each spot with local video.
Featuring
budget and specialty packages to fit your needs
as well as pricing for custom exclusive TV spots
and annual contract animation.
Email us at
for more info!
Animation
Style/Quality Budget Options
Samples
are from cheapest/quickest to
most expensive/time-consuming:
Beginner's
Budget - Minimalist 50s
Here's
a great place to start for someone wanting to
do some animated advertising, but doesn't have a huge
budget. Here at MarkToonery.com, we like to think of
ourselves serving that "modest- to medium-sized" budget
production range. The characters are extremely simple.
The colors range from black and white to as
many as two additional colors, perhaps one for skin
color, and another for clothes.
Many times we get kinda tired of people telling us, "I
can't even draw a stick figure!" Well, whoever would
want to? We prefer to call these characters"
Gingerbread figures," or "Body stocking figures," because
that's what they look like... someone wearing a full-body
stocking that minimizes their features and
maximizes their expressive potential.
The backgrounds, also, are sparsely detailed, with 2-3
colors. Believe it or not, in some cases (depending
on length of the cartoon), simple animation like this
can start in the three figure range.
Moose & Squirrel
- The Stylized 60s Here's
the next step up, budget-wise. You've obviously got a slightly
wider choice of colors, and
the characters have a somewhat wider range of
movement. We're still talking limited animation
(although the politically cartoon correct term is
"
stylized animation"), but it's a little more fun to
watch!
The characters are a lot more "cartoony" (as
we think
of the classic sense of the word) so don't be
surprised to see talking ducks, mice, and of course,
wabbits alongside your next-door neighbor's animated
caricature.
The background details are sketchy at best, but very
cartoony and quite colorful. As far as budget goes,
depending on the length of your project (usually 30
seconds and up, anyway), here's where we step into the
four-figure range.
Saturday
Morning - The Mystery-Solvin' 70s All right, if we've got a favorite,
it's somewhere around here. The 1970s was the era of the "Comedy"
Adventure cartoon." The characters are slightly more"
realistic" in their design (although we prefer the
term "believable" to "realistic"),
and for the most
part, you're dealing with a human cast. Sure, you may
see the occasional werewolf (until we take off his
mask to see who he REALLY is), and one talking dog or
gator may be hanging around... but hey, that's
animation! Right?
The backgrounds, like the characters, have a bit more
attention to detail as well.
So please don't be thinking to yourself, "I can't
afford animation!" (Seriously, why do you have to
be
so negative?) Any business has to advertise to
survive. That much is a given, we can all agree.
Come up with a production budget you can live with, to
be spent on the animation cost. If you're wanting to
do a TV commercial, remember to allow yourself enough
to actually run the commercial on local stations. If
you're wanting to do a web banner or ad, remember to
allow yourself enough to pay a website to run your ad
(for instance, here in Atlanta, a local consumer
magazine charges about $95/month to run an animated
banner on their website). Or, if you want to
distribute your animated commercial or
informational/sales video via business card on
mini-DVD, remember to save part of your budget for
DVD-duplication and postage.
See? There are so many ways to get your message out
there! Please, won't you empower us to help you?
Producer's
Budget Package
Here's
a set of thumbnails and video samples from the Producer's Budget
Package, which is currently
available for independent video producers, local cable company
offices, local network affiliates, and creative service departments.
Don't Be Late/Penguin's Cool Deal View
sample video of "Don't Be Late" -
884 KB - QuickTime required.
Holiday/Wedding
Package
Here are a few samples from our Holiday/Wedding package, with intros/tags for
Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Weddings, 4th of July, and even a Moonlight
Madness Sale.
Christmas
Halloween
Savings
4th
of July Eagle
Moonlight
Madness
Valentine's/Wedding
MarkToons
Custom Exclusive Animation
For
Custom Exclusive Animation, as well as Contract Animation,
we require a deposit of 1/3 of the budget up front
to begin work, 1/3 of budget on delivery
of the pose reel (a sort of "onscreen comic book with a soundtrack"--on
VHS), and the remaining 1/3 of the budget on delivery of fully-animated
tape. Revisions are done at $60/hour beyond pose reel approval, and it
takes an
approximate average of 2 weeks production per 10 seconds of character animation
(not counting
special projects such as live-action/animation combos).
If you're interested in any listed or unlisted prices, receiving a demo, ordering
either/both of our Rent-A-Toon tapes, or any of our other services, please
email us:
Rent-A-Toon
Television Commercial Animation:
For
Custom Exclusive Animation, as well as Contract Animation,
we require a deposit of 1/3 of the budget up front
to begin work, 1/3 of budget on delivery
of the pose reel (a sort of "onscreen comic book with a soundtrack"--on
VHS), and the remaining 1/3 of the budget on delivery of fully-animated
tape. Revisions are done at $60/hour beyond pose reel approval, and it
takes an
approximate average of 2 weeks production per 10 seconds of character animation
(not counting
special projects such as live-action/animation combos).