Sunday, April 02, 2006

Service vs. Original Content

In The Dreaming the preferred means of transportation is scarab beetle.

In running a small studio the bills have to be paid. This is done by taking on service work which means doing work for other studios. Sometimes the work is fun but it is often tedious. If you do enough service work, a studio can make a lot of money especially if it is a large feature project. It is also lucrative to do commercials if your studio can handle the hectic pace of advertising. The problem is that if a studio is to grow over the long term they need to own their ideas. But how do you develop properties while your busy trying to make money to keep the studio a float? It's tough but if you keep in mind what the goal is, spending the extra time and cash to produce original content doesn't seem to hurt as much.

2 comments:

Andre said...

I think in the start of a studio it is about work. the thing is to get lots of it, well as much as you can and to do it with as much skill as you know.

just like drawing you do the gestures the warm up this work will be your warm up. once the work is coming in and you can handle it, as well as handle the slow time (keeping your guys to work on the studio's own ip).learn to work slim and trim but always learning and moving forward.

once you get the flow of your studio down money coming in and your guys working and learning .(all on someone else dime )
you get you ip's organized and pitch the shit out of them every place you can sell sell sell .

you know you got work to keep your people fed and happy and doing things in life that they want to do. when you do sell an idea then it is gravy you may not make loads of money on the first idea out but you now know and others know you can do the job and you are not just a service studio you got ideas.

i think it is hard work and lots of time and patience ,money does not get you there it is drive.money just helps and sometimes money is a crutch if you learn to fix your problems in the beginning with money you do not learn to fix them you just learn to patch them up.

i think service work is great it keeps you alive so you can do the Original Content that you will make, and makes that Content that much sweeter.

oh and i love your stuff but you all ready know that. and dam if i cant think of a better name for a studio.i love it all !!!!

Sandra Khoo said...

Them's the life. Me and my group of artist friends are just scratching the surface here. We all keep our day jobs but work night shifts for our own personal projects. We hope to one day have enough to stand on our own and start up a studio by ourselves but that dream seems still very far away. U guys have given the boost we all need to better know the circumstances and the drive to better ourselves. Thanx! ;)