Hi guys
Just clarifying some of our discussion re the animation industry. This is just off the top of my head, I will give it some thought over the next couple of days and maybe clarify some of the issues and see if there isn't anything else that comes up.

Cheers
Christian

1. High costs of labor in Australia compared to countries with a cheap and increasingly skilled workforce such as China, India, Korea. This reduces the opportunities to get lucrative production work as international competition has driven the price to a point were it is not viable to do it in Australia. This can be seen in Disney closing down its Australian operation in 2005 or 06

2. Increased competition within the animation sector. As the cost of animation technology has become more affordable the cost of animation has been reduced incredibly. This has had implications across the animation spectrum. Large companies such as Disney, Nickelodeon and The Cartoon Network can produce animation within cost effective production models leveraging new technologies to reduce cost. At the other end of the spectrum more people traditionally understood as users have become involved in creating animation product, many of these people are untrained and produce short crude animations. This has resulted in historically more seconds of screen animation produced annually than ever. Often this new animation is displayed free of charge via you tube and other mediums. Due to the nature of this new animation there has been a significant reduction in quality. This is in effect a significant competition for peoples available attention and has also driven the price of animation down as ‘buyers of animation’ can acquire cheap crude animation as time fillers and use this as a base point to negotiate on other animation products.

3. Complex & Changing distribution channels – user generated content distributed directly via you tube and other internet mediums. The proliferation of pay to view networks reducing the ability for free to air channels

4. Identifying the consumer. A complex path to success. Two considerations, one is the trade buyer and the other is the end consumer.

5. Developing and maintaining equity in developed content.