Sole Trader or Limited Company - Which is Best?

As a freelance animator, considering whether to set up a Limited Company or become a Sole Trader can be a tricky decision. There are many things to think about when identifying which route would be right for you.  So, what is the difference, and which route is best?

Sole Trading
Becoming a Sole Trader (self-employed) is the simplest way to run a small business, especially if you’re just starting out. Many contractors and freelancers - including animators - operate as Sole Traders at the beginning of their careers. As a Sole Trader you will be operating your business as a self-employed individual.

What Sort of Deal Terms Do Film Investors Want?

How do movies get financed? Image: Wikipedia

In a previous blog post about animation film finance we looked at what sort of investors put money into film finance, and how film makers and film entrepreneurs can find them. At Closing the Gap, a European film finance conference, Perrine Hamon of Media Deals and Thierry Beaugard of Peaceful Fish explained what sort of deal terms an equity investor would be likely to ask for when you are trying to raise money for an independent film. Sounds dry? Well, maybe. But any animator who is serious about taking their project to the big screen needs to know at least a little bit about how movie finance works.

A New Project For Nano Films!

Here at animation Apprentice we believe not just in training our students for a career in the animation industry, but we think we can do better - and actually find them jobs. Partly, this involves placing students in internships, recommending them for work whenever opportunities arise. But we can be more proactive than this, by taking on small freelance jobs at Nano Films, making short films for commercial clients and utisiling our pool of talented students to do the animation. Just recently we brought in a new job for a repeat customer, on our tight deadline. So, what can our apprentice animators expect if they get involved?

Just One Week to Submit Your Animated TV Series to Cartoon Forum!

Do you have an animated TV series or TV special in development? And if not, why not? Our animation students are not just technicians, they are creators, brainstorming new ideas and concepts in animation, searching for the next Peppa Pig or Charlie and Lola.  But you can't do it alone - animation is a team sport.  A successful TV series needs co-producers, financing, broadcasters and new media partners. And where do you find those? Well, Cartoon Forum is where.

Five Rules For Dealing With a Tricky Client

How do you deal with a tricky client?  Difficult clients are so common that there are websites such as are clientsfromhell.net, dedicated entirely to horror stories written by freelancers about having to deal with hard-to-please clients. So, if you are starting off on your career, how do you handle a difficult client? Below are our five rules for success

Two weeks to go until Cartoon Business

Cartoon Business

Cartoon Business is the finance and business counterpart to Cartoon Movie and Cartoon Forum. If you are interested in the business side of producing animation, but don't know how to assemble, package and sell an animated TV series or feature film, then Cartoon Business is the place to learn. Supported by MEDIA, the EU fund for the creative industries, and backed by the French Government, Cartoon Business will walk you through all the steps needed to bring your ideas to the market. And you don't even need to speak French - the event is conducted in English, the international language of media and animation.

Should Freelance Animators Operate as Sole Traders or Set Up a Limited Company?

A freelancer

Part of our job at Animation Apprentice is to teach our students to be working professionals, which includes not only the ability to do excellent work at a high level of professional skill,  but also the ability to run a small business and tackle freelance work.

Almost all digital artists take on freelance work of one kind or another, and we help our students out by bringing in small commercial projects at our virtual online studio at nano-films.com, giving our students paid experience on live briefs.

Being a freelancer involves learning a lot of new business skills, and one of the most common questions asked by students is: "Do I Need to Set Up a Company before I become a freelancer?" The short answer is "no", but it's not quite as simple as that - it all depends on your personal circumstances.

How Do You Finance Your Animated Film at Kickstarter?

Kickstarter

Writer and film-maker Allen Stroud, author of Elite: Lave Revolution, explains how to get a Kickstarter project off the ground. The rules of raising finance for film projects is changing fast. If you have a good enough idea, there is no reason why you cannot crowd fund your project and get fans all across the globe to make your dreams come to life. Here is how it is done.

How Do You Get Your First Book Published?

A good animator is also a storyteller, and it's not unusual for animators to be writers, graphic novelists, or illustrators of children's books. But how do you get your work published? The good news is, it has never been easier to get into print. The bad news is, the economics of publishing have never been worse for both publishers and writers. Plus, writing a whole book is going to be a major effort, so you don't want to waste your time on something that no-one wants to read. So what is secret to success? Like so many things in media, what you need is a great pitch. Below is our simple guide to getting it right and ensuring that a good publisher will (hopefully) pick up your first book.

Golden Street Animation - How to Found Your Own Animation Company

Golden Street Productions was founded by Scott Petersen in 2009

In this 2013 interview at our sister blog FLiP, Scott Petersen, the founder of Golden Street Animation, talks about the perils and pitfalls of setting up his own independent animation company. What are the obtacles to going it alone? And what should anyone hoping to set up their own independent animation business do to make a success of it?

Eight steps to start your own small animation business

www.nano-films.com

One of the most common questions asked by our students is "how do I start my own animation business?". Our job as an online school is not just to train animators and digital artists to do excellent work, it's also about helping our students to turn that knowledge into a successful career. The most obvious route to success is to get a job, but another possibility is to set up your own small business.

In media production of any kind, jobs for life are nowadays almost non-existent. Even highly successful artists tend to be freelancers of one kind or another. But there is another way of dealing with the perpetual uncertainty of finding paid work in the arts - and that is to start your own business. So how, exactly, might you go about doing that?