INDIE DONE RIGHT

Imagine becoming so fed up with the animation industry, fed up with the low wages, the complete lack of creative freedom and ownership of intellectual property that you would be willing to simply quit your job. Imagine being so fed up that you'd be willing to actually leave the city, the center of all things media related, and move to the outskirts where living costs are cheaper. Imagine being out there alone, willing to do it your way, whatever way it takes, to live the dream of creating animation.

That is precisely where imagination has taken indie anime creator Ryo Ono, now famous for his self published Sugaikun to Kazokuishi anime created in Flash. Ono worked for more than ten years in the traditional media industry. Even though anime is a multi-billion dollar per year industry, the creators who provide the ideas and the knew-how receive little reward for their work. Even "big" directors are not paid very well and never own their creations. Animators on the other hand may earn as little as $900 per month to live on in a city where the cost of living makes New York, L.A., or even Hawaii seem like Austin Texas.

Sugaikun to Kazokuishi, which literally means Sguy and The Family Stone, a play on the 70's funk band, changed all that. Ono's anime about a black family living in Shimane started boasting 50,000 page views per day. His self produced DVD sold 5600 copies, netting him $96,000 dollars. I have heard, though never been able to verify, that with few exceptions, major studio anime on DVD in Japan tops out at 10,000 copies per volume in sales, so for an indie to do more than half that, shows a major change on the horizon. His success has led him to major deals with the likes of Toshiba, EMI and TV Asahi, and he always keeps his copyright. His work has since been seen on major TV broadcasts and in theaters.

Mr. Fire, Joe Vitale has said, "The Universe likes speed." Well apparently, so does the anime industry. While it traditionally takes several weeks and a lot of money to produce anime, Ono uses Flash and can do a 30 minute episode in days, even working alone and voicing all the characters. He is currently doing The Frogman Show for TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) late night programming, producing anime work at 10% of what it normally costs. He admits that his work does look as good as the creations of veterans, but it hasn't stopped his rise to success.

As I mentioned in a few previous articles, the Japanese anime industry is struggling to stay afloat. Production costs are rising even as wages for individuals are falling. This leads to mass exits fro the industry and work going overseas which, in the opinion of some, drops quality. Many of the majors are looking into co-production deals with the U.S., France and other nations which have a market for anime, but it seems that broadcasters may be ahead of them in seeking newer cheaper ways to get programming on the air for their multi-billion dollar industry.

Imagine a future where the industry belongs to indie animators or tiny studios producing their own in-house content using Flash, Anime Studio or even Poser and Vue. Broadcasters pay much, much less, but to the lone animator or small team, they are making so much more money that before. The old thinking has to go. Regardless of whether it is production technique, software or even content management, the way it was done, will soon be a relic of the past. We have to move forward.

In my next post, I will talk a bit about how old thinking has affected my current production.