We’ve reduced our fees on all videos, streaming and downloads, to 10%. That means 90% goes directly to you, the artist. And you don’t pay for anything that doesn’t sell.

How’s that for simple?

Check out http://partypoker.com/ for a simple way to win money online.

For streaming videos, the new prices are as follows:

- Videos less than 10 minutes are completely free to watch
- Videos between 10-30 minutes cost $1
- Videos over 30 minutes in length cost $3 to watch

For downloads:

- Videos less than 10 minutes cost $1 to download
- Videos between 10-30 minutes cost $2 to download
- Videos over 30 minutes in length cost $10 to download

We made these changes to ensure greater exposure to artists’ works while allowing them to make more money.

And support our IndieGogo Campaign to bring Nocturna to the US.

Todd Brown’s Review and Michael Guillen’s Review.

In addition to the film, we will present never before seen behind-the-scenes footage and artwork as well as interviews with the filmmakers.

You can help us purchase advertising and upgrade our servers by contributing to our IndieGogo campaign or purchasing any number of products and videos on Deptap.com.

Deptap presents it’s first ever online competition - Make Me Laugh!®

Enter and you could win a Wacom Intuos4 tablet.

Here’s how it works:

- Email us a link to your cartoon to enter.

- Our jury will select up to 10 finalists and viewers will vote for their favorite.

- The grand prize winner will win a Wacom Intuos 4 Medium Tablet.

- First runner up will win $100 in cash.

- Second runner up will win an awesome T-shirt of his or her choice from our catalog.

- Finalists will be selected based on the following criteria: humor, animation quality, visual design, and creativity/originality.

Deadline to enter is July 19th, 2011, 11:59pm PST.

Finalists will be notified on August 11th, 2011. Polls open Auguest 11th and close August 30th at 11:59pm PST.

Winners will be announced September 1st, 2011.

The fine print:

1. You retain all rights to your work.

2. Finalists’ films will be uploaded to Deptap.com for audience voting.

3. Films cannot have been completed earlier than December 1st, 2010.

4. Films must be between 1-7 minutes long.

5. You must own all copyrights to your film or have permission to use any third-party copyrighted material.

6. If you qualify as a finalist, you agree to let us use portions of your film in promoting future contests.

7. Contestants not living in the US or Canada agree to pay for shipping to collect their prizes.

8. Prizes will be shipped thirty (30) days after announcement of the winners.

9. No more than one entry per contestant.

10. Winners will be determined by the number of audience votes. In the event of a tie, Deptap.com casts the deciding vote.

11. Deptap.com and its jury retain the right to select finalists.

12. Thanks for the grand prize, Wacom!

Get started now, it’s free!

Considering that a single student animated cartoon by a more sophisticated animator on YouTube can easily have more than 10 times his viewership, it’s easy to conclude Stansberry doesn’t have a lot of views and doesn’t make a lot of money from his shorts.

And that conclusion is correct - if one were to only take into account the money he earned from YouTube viewings, as many animators hope for when they choose to give their shorts away for free online.

But Mr. Stansberry has what many animators in our field do not have - hustle. He sells DVDs of his cartoons on the NY Subway for a dollar each. In the past two years, he’s sold $40,000 worth of DVDs.

Considering his low viewer base, I have to ask how many animation students, who regularly score hundreds of thousands of views on their YouTube and Vimeo based videos, have earned even a tenth of that on their animated shorts?

They receive “exposure,” but in the end the kind of “exposure” they receive has more in common with high school popularity contests and does little to foster situations that would allow them to make independent shorts a career choice in the same way Don Hertzfeld and Bill Plympton make a living from animating their own cartoons.

Not every artist wants to make it as an independent animator (which is very different from being a freelance animator). But to those that do choose creative control and commercial success, being an independent commercial animator is a lot like being a small business: you have to treat your artform as a business. And that means not giving the products of your imagination away for free.

To use a rather crude example, sex is free. But there are women who refuse to have sex for free because while a guy can get any woman for free, they won’t be getting her for free.

It doesn’t matter that other cartoons are available for free. As long as the only way to see your cartoons, your individual voice and style, is not free, people will pay you for that privilege of seeing your cartoons.

The power of economics rests in the hands of creators not consumers. Thank you Mark Stansberry for showing hustle, not “exposure,” is what puts money in the pockets of creators.

It’s the same workshop given to students at Les Gobelins, the world’s leading animation school.

Held in October, the month long workshop will be held in Los Angeles and also feature the talents of Flavie Darchen (animator, director, and producer at tigoboAnimation), Olivier Parnis (screenwriter, composer, and sound designer) and Christopher Lautrette (project management at Dreamworks) with other talents from Disney stopping in from time to time.

For more information, contact tigoborecrutement [at] hotmail [dot] fr.