"Preparing" when rendering frame sequence

Hello all,

I usually work over in the autodesk realm of software, but have recently been learning Cinema 4D for work and I've run into a rather confusing issue I'm hoping someone here can shed some light on.

I have a relatively simple project with a little animated machine that slides into frame and does some spins and such, and if I render a single frame C4D takes less than a minute to finish rendering. However, when I switch to rendering a frame sequence the picture viewer says it is "preparing" and renders odd grayscale versions of my frame on loop. I've watched it go through every frame of my animation twice but it never actually started rendering.

Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong? Or is this preparing thing something C4D is supposed to do? I'm accustomed to Max or Maya where it just goes straight into rendering.

Thanks in advance.