Animation techspertise With "Bratz" and "Alien Racers, MGA has solved the riddle of low-cost, high-qualitycomputer-generated animation for television.
By Paula Parisi
The time and budgetary constraints of series television have made it something of a last mile for high-quality computer-generated animation.
With "Bratz: The Animated Series" and, particularly, the cinematic boy-themed "Alien Racers," MGA vp entertainment Jay Fukuto overcame those hurdles using a pair of San Fernando Valley-based firms that design and do major creative on shows, as well as postproduction, here in the U.S., while shipping the animation overseas.
SD Entertainment, producer of "Racers," was formed in 2000 by two former MGM Animation executives, Paul Sabella and Jonathan Dern. "We've launched quite a few boys' action shows -- 'Robocop' at MGM, 'Transformers Armada' and 'Tonka: Tough Truck Adventures,'" Dern says.
For the 26-episode order of "Racers," SD tapped CGCG animation studio in Taiwan. The first episodes have aired on the Fox Box kids' service. Fukuto says MGA, which financed both series itself, is in advanced discussions with network sources as to where the remaining "Racers" episodes will be aired.
For "Bratz," MGA selected Mike Young Prods. to create three 72-minute movies and 26 half-hour episodes, all in 3-D CGI. Mike Young outsourced the animation to Crest Studios in India. "Because we're connected to them with T1 lines and FTP sites, it's as if they were in the next room," says Young, who founded his company 20 years ago, segueing from traditional animation to CG and Flash (a 2-D form of cartooning that's done on computer).
"With CGI, we actually wind up doing a lot more of the work in the states because that's where we build the digital assets," Young says. "On a show like 'Bratz,' they're always changing their hair and their clothes, and every time they do, it requires us to build a new model. We build that here."
These days, 3-D CGI costs about $400,000 per episode to produce, as opposed to roughly $300,000 for hand-drawn animation. Flash is a bit cheaper at about $250,000.
"The price of hand-drawn 2-D really hasn't gone up in 20 years," Young says, noting "the digital domain has made labor more efficient."
