Well I think it depens of a lot of things, first of all wich type of animation, Cut out, Stopmotion, CG, etc. In all animation, involves a lot of work and a lot of people. Now wich format super8, 16mm, 35mm or DV, I think DV is the cheapest, now you have several programs that act as a lunchbox or framegrabber. You conect your DV, mini DV camera or photo camera and you can start animating. Im making a short film 8minutes long and it cost me nearly $700, dlls. many people havs been involved but none is charging for they job.