Suppose a unemployed wannabe animator had managed to talk a person with more dollars than sense into sponsoring a set of 6 20 minute animations...
Suppose also that what the person was proposing to do was pay for having the animations aired on 5 Metro U.S. broadcast TV stations in late-night slots.
Further, suppose that NO MONEY was to be paid to the creators of these animations, but that they would retain 80% of any revenue obtained from the animations.
Would anyone in this community be hypothetically interested? there would be, hypothetically, 60 days to prepare.

Hmmm...2D or 3D?

This should be in the jobs forum. But, that having been said... If the person with more dollars then sense has been talked into sponsoring 2 hours of animation, then maybe, perchance, the person can be talked into some up-front cash for the work involved as well. If they are sponsoring it, they are sponsoring it. What kind of back-end revenue can there be without some front-end support as well? If they are serious then let's see the contract. Don't ask for my work, for free, and then tell me, "Well... there wasn't all that much resposne, so..." Just my 2 cents worth, but don't rip-off the artist community for your own gain.

I, personally, was not asking you to do anything whatsoever. A friend of mine who actually is doing pretty well (as a lawyer) knows that i'm struggling financially and made a tentative offer; it sounded like a fairly good deal to me, to get something that might turn into a revenue stream "out there"; I thought some others who were also trying to make some $$$ might be interested. there aren't any contracts, just a conversation.

So how does "buying late night airtime" create a revenue stream?

If this offer has been made to you then you are being asked to work on sheer speculation, and "No contract just conversation" is a recipe for disaster if this guy is a lawyer could nt he hook you up with some crime scene /forensic animation work other than this pie in the sky "future revenue stream" stuff??

How do you expect to generate a revenue - when you (in a sense) are paying for the broadcast time. You would have to have a product to sell, as in the infomercial approach where they also pay for their airtime. The alternative way (and more appropriate to animation) is toy product. In the eighties it was all the rage with the saturday morning cartoons - production budgets came from the toy companies, and they paid the networks to broadcast their content - because they knew in turn that it would sell toys. So the question comes down to - just how are you proposing to generate revenue. The other (somewhat weaker option) is thinking that this method of distribution will get you a word of mouth reaction where someone may hire you for a job. If that is the target I would sincerely say avoid doing the broadcast angle, find another means of distribution.

I'd say that if the unemployed animator really had nothing else to do then he should go for it. Worst case scenario, you get ripped off but.... you're a better animator for the experience...

I don't think so. They don't JUST want you to work for free, they want 20% of anything you might make from it.

You're better off devoting your time to creating your own film than working for someone else: (a) you're still unpaid but (b) you get to do exactly what you want to do and (c) you'll still end up with more experience at the end. Of course, if people REALLY want to work on other projects for free, I could use some more computers to render my movie on ;)

Okay; this is how it works in Europe. A producer brings together the money needed for producing an animation show; usually a multi-million dollar budget is required. A professional, experienced production manager and a professional director, often also an experienced animation supervisor are brought in to take care of the logistics of a project of that magnitude, as well as accountants, legal advisors, etc. Often, from the initial idea, through script writing, design, story-boarding, sound recording, animation, compositing and post-production, months to years are needed to finish a production - a mere 60 days won't cut it. A trailer or trial episode is produced in order to sell the series at a TV convention like the MIP-con in Cannes, where TV-stations shop for products to broadcast. Usually, at first only this trailer gets produced, and the complete show will not get produced whithout being sold to TV-stations in prior. TV stations PAY fore the stuff they broadcast; that's where your revenue comes from; NO SENSIBLE PERSON WOULD PAY FOR GETTING HIS WORK BROADCASTED. Mostly, a large amount of TV stations are neccesary even to break even on the production costs; the real profit comes from the merchandize based on the show, to which you'd better make care to get a share of it. Twenty percent of just WHAT profits have you been offered if money has to be PAID TO A TV-STATION in order to get your work shown..? How about copy-rights..? How about the usual business lawyer to keep you from signing the wrong stuff..? PS; I have been a professional in cinenatic and TV traditional animation for over 15 years now, supervising an overseas animation unit for a short while, so I think that gives me some basic ideas about how things usually work. As tempting as an opportunity to get your work shown may be; please use your common sense; working for free for a period of months or years to get 80 percent of a non existing revenue sounds like an absolute rip-off to me.