What are the places where the Southeast Asian counterparts struggle, which places are worth learning from?
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Sanwen Entertainment” (ID:hi3wyu ), author Dkphhh.
More than half of the company’s annual income is less than 3.5 million yuan, and some practitioners even have a monthly salary of less than 3,000 yuan, but they still create their own original.
Have you seen Southeast Asian animation?
Most of the people’s answers are not.
This is not surprising. Southeast Asia is still at the bottom of the industry chain on the world animated map. Most animation companies can only work in outsourcing, relying on orders to live, 33% of Southeast Asian animation companies have original IP.
But this does not mean that the animation industry in Southeast Asia is not worth mentioning. According to Cartoonbrew, 90% of TV animations in the United States are produced by Asian companies. A considerable number of project producers are from Southeast Asia, and Warner’s “Rick and Moti”, “Uncle Dog”, “Cat and Mouse” are all involved in Southeast Asian companies.
This shows that although the animation industry in Southeast Asia is at the low end of the industry, it has been able to undertake high-end projects, and the future development is only a matter of time.
In fact, the animation history of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries is not shorter than China.
The late Thai animated veteran Payut Ngaokrachang independently produced a 12-minute animated short film “The Miracle” (เหตุมหัศจรรย์).
Then he was sent to Japan to study animation. After returning to China, he created the only hand-drawn animated film “Sudsakorn Adventures” (สุดสาคร) in Thailand.
Like the same generation of China’s “Heavenly Temple” and “Where is the sea”, these animations from the myths of the country have distinct national characteristics.
After the 1980s, the Southeast Asian animation industry was initially developed, and the connection with the world has become closer.
In 1984, Malaysian animation company FilmArt was founded. In 1987, another animation company, Lensamation, was born.
In the same year, Hannah Barbera Animation of the United States (Warner, which is now out of service) opened its subsidiary Fil-Cartoons in the Philippines. In 1993, the Philippine animation company Toon City was founded. The company has long produced animations for Disney and Warner, and participated in the production of the first two seasons of Rick and Moti.
So, what is the current stage of development of the Southeast Asian animation industry?
The Southeast Asian Animation Industry Report (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”) jointly launched by the Malaysian Digital Economy Group (MDEC) and the Japanese market research company Media Create unveiled the mystery of Southeast Asian animation.
Young and poor Southeast Asian animation industry
Although the history is relatively long, the animation industry in Southeast Asia, like China, really ushered in the outbreak or things in recent years.
According to the “Report”, more than half of the animation companies in Southeast Asia have been established in the past six years. Among them, the company with the largest number of companies established in 4-6 years has reached 28%, and the industry veterans have been established for more than 15 years. .
They are not only animation companies young, animation linesThe practitioners of the industry are also very young. 43% of animation practitioners are between 18 and 23 years old, and more than 80% of practitioners are under 35 years of age.
At the same time, the number of companies is generally not large. 40% of the companies are between 11 and 50 people, and the number of companies with more than 100 is less than 12%, which is equivalent to the majority of companies with less than 100 people.
Although there are not many people, but the specific output of the company, the difference between different companies is still relatively large.
The Report shows that 55% of companies produce less than four projects per year, but 21% of companies can complete more than 11 projects per year. The company with a production capacity of only 14%, which means that there is a gap between the two extremes.
From the content of the output, most of them are children’s animations. The animations of young people are less, and the adults are basically not. This is also in line with the law of industry development.
Because the company is new, they start directly with the most advanced 3D animation.
The Report says that more than half of the respondents said that 3D animation is their main business, followed by 2D animation. The next three or four are visual effects, modeling, and original art. Considering that visual effects, modeling and dynamic image technology are the keys to making 3D animations, concentration in these areas is also conducive to the future development of the industry.
However, the most important reason for their 3D animation is to save money. 3D animations have mature software and technology, and 2D animations can only be drawn in one sheet.
Why save money? Because the income of Southeast Asian animation companies is far below the world average. Their income for one year does not even have a box office high for an animated film.
96% of companies surveyed earn less than $5 million a year. 29% of companies have revenues ranging from $150,000 to $500,000, which is the most concentrated area of income. The remaining companies, with 15% annual revenues between $500,000 and $1 million, have 19% annual revenues ranging from $1 million to $5 million.
To some extent, animation companies don’t earn much because of the high cost of animation production in Southeast Asia. For example, in Singapore, the cost of producing animation is higher than that of a real drama. A half-hour cartoon can cost $60,000, and a live drama costs up to $40,000 in equal duration.
Where the animation industry in the United States and other places are more mature, the production cost of animation will not be higher than that of the same level. The cost of producing ordinary animation is about 200,000 US dollars to 500,000 US dollars, but there is no special effect like the “Breaking Bad”, the single integration is generally between $3 million and $4 million.
Depends on making orders, practitioners have low wages
Another reason for the low income of animation companies is related to their business model.
As we mentioned earlier, in Southeast Asia, only 33% of animation companies have their own animation IP, and quite a few animation companies rely on animated orders to maintain their lives.
Among the companies surveyed, 29% of the companies received orders directly from the producers, and another 17% were worse. They could only receive outsourcing orders from the production company.
in the eastSouth Asia, the most prosperous development of production outsourcing is Thailand and the Philippines.
Thailand mainly outsources Japanese animation. According to data provided by the Japan External Trade Organization, Thailand is the closest partner of the Japanese animation industry in Southeast Asia and the sixth largest partner in the world. Thai Animation and Japan Animation have signed 54 contracts, second only to South Korea (78), the United States (78), Taiwan (76), China (64) and Canada (57).
The Philippines has a high degree of acceptance of American culture for historical reasons. We also mentioned in the previous article that the animation company in the Philippines has a long-term cooperative relationship with the American animation company.
Philippines Animation Company Toon City’s “7D” for Disney
At present, the production orders of Southeast Asian animation companies mainly come from the United States, Europe, Japan and China. They are not the other. They are relatively cheap labor costs in Southeast Asia. For a labor-intensive industry, this is too Important.
According to the Report, the monthly salary of Southeast Asian animation practitioners is concentrated between $500 ($3,500) and $2,000 ($14,000).
The average monthly salary of animation practitioners in the United States ranges from $4,000 ($28,000) to $6,000 ($42,000). For top manufacturers like Disney, the animator’s salary is said to be between $9,600 ($67,200) and $10,400 ($7,280,000).
Specific to different countries, the Philippines has the lowest wages, with a monthly salary of only 13,000 Philippine pesos (1,790 yuan) to 16,000 Philippine pesos (2,200 yuan).
The monthly salary in Thailand is between 15,000 baht (3,468 yuan) and 18,000 baht (4,161 yuan).
The wages in Malaysia and Vietnam are slightly higher, with an average salary of 3,650 Malaysian Ringgit (6,180 yuan) and 18.6 million VND (5,638 yuan).
Vietnamese Animation “Bacon The Series”
This level of wages is good for companies to attract orders, but in the long run it will lead to brain drain in the industry.
It is also due to the business model that most of the animation practitioners in Southeast Asia are front-line animators. The largest number of positions are animators, with a percentage of 19%, followed by 9% of modelers.
Overall, the management and technical support departments were removed, and the proportion of first-line production staff was as high as 87%.
How to make IP without money? Government subsidies, overseas cooperation
Because most companies rely on making orders to live, the long-standing path dependence makes it difficult for them to have their own IP.
This is a vicious circle: because the industrial base has just formed, it can only engage in low-end outsourcing. Because of the dependence on outsourcing, almost all of the practitioners are front-line producers, and there is no creative talent for scriptwriting and conceptual design that fosters IP needs. The low cost of outsourcing also makes the company unable to afford the cost and risk of creating IP.
In Indonesia and the Philippines, they are actually caught in this infinite loop and cannot escape.
Singapore and Malaysia are slightly better and have produced some local animated IP. For example, Singapore’s “Dinosaur Train” and Malaysia’s “Elemental Heroes Wave” are not only popular in the country, but also successfully exported to Europe, America and China.
DinosaurTrain”
Want to create your own IP, the most critical question of money, where does their money come from?
The “Report” said that the financing environment in Southeast Asia is relatively imperfect, and private investment is basically not expected. Animation companies want money, they can only rely on government subsidies or commercial loans.
In order to support the development of the local film and television industry, Singapore’s Information and Communication Media Development Department (IMDA) has funded many local animation projects. In 2016, IMDA’s “development grant” averaged 150,000 SGD (770,000 yuan) for a project.
However, with the acceleration of the globalization of the animation industry in Southeast Asia, they have also found a self-reliant road outside the government’s support – overseas cooperation.
The Dinosaur Train investor, in addition to Singapore-based animation company Sparky Animation and Singapore’s government investment agency, also introduced the US company The Jim Henson Company, which is responsible for its distribution in the United States.
The producers of “Kung Fu Chicken” are not only Malaysia’s Animasia Studio but also China’s Fuzhou Zero Anime.
Children’s song video is another breakthrough direction. Unlike general animation, children’s songs are not very demanding on the fineness of the picture, and the length of a video will not exceed 5 minutes, which is a safe direction for animation companies that lack financial support.
Didi&Friends
The Malaysian animation company Digital Durian relied on YouTube to establish the children’s song IP “Didi&Friends”. Now their main account fans have reached 2.75 million, and the single video playback has exceeded 63 million.
(The exchange rate in the text is calculated according to the exchange rate in November 2019)