November 2012 – Page 2 – The Animation Anomaly

Frederator Aims High With Cartoon Hangover and Bravest Warriors

2 Comments / Animation, Frederator / Charles Kenny

Perennial innovator Frederator Studios is currently firing on all cylinders as they gear up for the big push to launch their latest venture, Cartoon Hangover. In times past the studio has been a prime online outlet for animation through their Channel Frederator series’ and with a close relationship to the former Next New Networks (now the YouTube Next Lab), it was inevitable that the studio would continue to play a role close to the forefront of online video.

Which leads us to Cartoon Hangover, which is described as: “the home for cartoons that are too weird, wild, and crazy for television. It’ll have you saying “What a #$@!?* cartoon!” but in the good way.” In other words, the kind of content you couldonly get away with on the internet; veering near the edge but trying hard not to leap over it.

The channel has been around for a while but it was only earlier this year (April 2012) that it began streaming animated content. In addition to the series discussed below, the studio also actively solicited for ideas and/or completed animation; Elliot Cowan being one who dutifully complied with the request for wild and crazy content.

However, what really makes Cartoon Hangover stand out that we bit higher than other animation channels on YouTube is the fact that they are betting on higher quality content than others. What I mean is that in addition to the short, silly stuff, they are also producing a few original series from established creators with fairly high production values (at least for those with a sole online presence).

Two of the series’ in question are Bravest Warriors and Superf*ckers. The latter (based on the comic by James Kochalka) has yet to premiere, the former premiered yesterday with the episode ‘Time Slime’:

Bravest Warriors is created by Pendelton Ward, erstwhile genius behind smash TV show Adventure Time and is traditionally animated (believe it or not). The first episode is fairly funny and shares similar themes and styles to Adventure Time, but what’s interesting is that outside of it’s short length, it is hard to differentiate it from a traditional TV show. The production values are there, the plots are there and the vocal talent is there for all to hear.

This is undoubtedly deliberate; although the upfront cost is higher, the payoff is in the longevity of the series. Cartoons from the 90s are still paying dividends almost 20 years later; there is little reason to assume that being streamed via the internet will change that in any substantial way. Heck, the presence of so much old content on YouTube itself should evidence enough of that.

How will the series pan out? At this very early stage, it is hard to say (as of writing, the episode has been up mere hours but has garnered thousands of views; no stats are available yet) but Frederator are normally quite good at getting the word out through Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. In this regard, they are putting their experience with the Adventure Time tumblelog to good use.

Frederator have also been busy ramping up the ancillary revenue generators with T-shirts and comics. Both are designed to engage the fans and the strategy has proven to be very successful with Adventure Time.

What will be interesting to watch is not so much how successful the show is or indeed how many views it attracts but rather how the viewers behave and indeed, what demographics they fall under. This is the silent draw of online streaming, the ability to know much more about your audience. So much, in fact, that it would make a traditional broadcaster weep. No doubt the folks at YouTube and Frederator will be paying close attention to all those views in the weeks and months ahead to see exactly what viewers are watching and how they are reacting to the show (for example, writing blog posts about it).

What will make those months even more interesting is the premiere of Superf*ckers. Although there’s no date set (yet), the theme song and heck, even the title should point out that this series has a distinctly more mature tone. With Bravest Warriors aiming for a crowd slightly older than Adventure Time, Superf*ckers aims even older, possibly starting at the mid to late-teens. The strategy employed by Frederator and Cartoon Hangover is a bold one. They are muscling in on [adult swim] territory but lack the traditional TV presence.

How Cartoon Hangover plays out is still relatively unknown, however if successful, it will provide the blueprint for all other original web series for some years to come. Here’s hoping that’s the case.

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The Holy Grail of Channel 4 Idents

Animation / Charles Kenny

The video below appeared on my tumblr dashboard the other day and if you remember my post from the other week, you’ll know that there was no way I could ignore it. It’s a (very complete) compilation of just about every form of ident that the UK TV network Channel 4 used for the first 20 years of its existence. At just under half an hour, it isn’t short, but it is somewhat magical to see how animation can form the basis for a strong brand identity and reinforce it hundreds of times a day.

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Piecing Together the Animation Studio Puzzle

Animation / Charles Kenny

Via: Rotten Tomatoes

After a week of weddings, ‘Superstorm’ Sandy and general life upheaval, this blog is finally getting back to normal. In the course of my absence, Disney released Wreck-It-Ralph, a film about a video game character who’s fed up being the bad guy. The reviews have been quite glowing and it currently occupies the top spot at the box office (although that doesn’t mean everything). However, I am in no rush to see the film and in the course of trying to figure out why, it was that I began to look at the bigger picture, and tried ever so hard to fit Wreck-It-Ralph into it.

In any business, there is a goal, or multiple goals that companies and individuals aim for. They can be both long and short-term in nature but success is derived only by constantly progressing towards and eventually achieving them. In the case of an animated studio, the goals are multiple: create great content, make money, expand the business, and so forth.

But what if your business is already quite successful? What if you’ve already accomplished an awful lot, what do you do then? This appears to be Disney’s current dilemma. Walt, as everyone knows, was a fantastically driven guy. He was constantly thinking of ways to grow and improve his business but he did it through ways that are often sidelined today in favour of the quickie solution.

Without getting into too much detail, Walt rarely (if ever) grew the company through acquisition, preferring innovation instead. Compare that to today’s Disney Company, which just recently bought Lucasfilm, and previously bought Marvel Entertainment and Pixar. How do these acquisitions grow the business as opposed to bolting-on profits?

Thinking of Wreck-It-Ralph, where does it fit into the bigger puzzle? Where is the Disney Company actually going? It’s getting bigger, sure, but bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better and the ultimate goal (short of being the largest media company in the world) is startlingly unclear.

Compare that to DreamWorks. It’s a far smaller company and is heavily centred around its animation studio, but at least it seems to be going in a clear direction. Jeffrey Katzenberg is slowly but surely steering the studio away from being a strictly entertainment company and is instead attempting to meld both entertainment and technology; a strategy that is quite apt given the current ‘digital’ shifts in the industry.

For a company as large as Disney, it’s hard to zero in on the feature films as the engine of the empire, but they do play a critical part in driving the rest of the business (TV shows, merchandise, parks, etc.) and every single one should at least nudge the company towards its goals. However, with Ralph, it’s becoming increasingly hard (at least for me) to see what those goals are and how the film helps move the company towards them.

When Walt was alive, The Disney Company had some lofty ambitions and goals that it has sadly lost since then; becoming much more content to gun for short term successes, quarterly gains for the investors and betting on historically successful properties. The sad thing is that people who only look at the road in front of the car fail to see the curve that’s rapidly approaching; the same is true for companies.

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When Suits Confuse Animation And Cartoons

Animation / Charles Kenny

Via: Broadsheet.ie

Normal blog service will resume shortly.

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What else could Disney have done with 4 Billion dollars?

Disney / Charles Kenny

By Dave Callan via The Guardian

OK, so by now we all know that Disney is coughing up just over $4 Billion for Lucasfilm with the entire amount (half in cash, half in Disney stock) going entirely to Mr. Lucas himself who wisely maintained ownership of the entire company. Much analysis has been done by this point with plenty of people falling on both sides of the “is it a good thing?” line. However, what isn’t being asked is what else could Disney have done with 4 Billion dollars? This post proposes a few ideas.

1. Release a LOT of films (or TV shows for that matter)

Four Billion dollars. That’s $4,000,000,000.00 or a heck of a lot of money. The most expensive film in the world cost not even a quarter of that and the vast majority cost only a fraction of that amount. When Disney bought Pixar a few years ago, the point was raised that for the $11 Billion they paid for that studio, they could have released a ton of films instead, with the theory going that however good Pixar was, Disney could have easily caught up with better products.

The same holds true now. Although studio accounting is notoriously murky, even a film like Toy Story 3 or Tangled, both rumoured to have cost in and around $300-350 million each, could have been made 11 times over what Disney just paid Lucas; all in the hope that the Star Wars franshise will pay dividends. The real question is, will it pay ones larger than releasing 11 films would? I’m going to say no.

Eleven chances at getting it right can be worth far more than that, especially given the potential for the films to live on after the original. Even if you had, say, three duds in there, that still leaves 8 potential Lion Kings, right? How much dough has that film brought in over the years? Oh sure, Star Wars does too, and likely will for some time to come, but that is just one idea/concept. If you go in a different direction each time, you discover many brilliant ideas you can build upon.

2. Expand the parks even further

Disney is the master of the theme park but even the company’s Imagineers have limits. Investing in the existing parks (or even a new one, say in South America) would go even further to bringing in the dough, but more importantly, the customers. Just think, an entire continent could be waiting to discover Walt’s dream. Would $4 Billion get a project started? It surely would, even in this day and age. You wouldn’t even have to create new content! The existing stuff that’s already paid for will do just fine (with some regional adjustments of course).

4. Give everybody in the company a raise.

I’m deadly serious. With about 156,000 employees, $4 Billion would be enough to give everyone a bonus of nearly $26,000. Heck even just the cash they’re paying out could give everyone $13K in their back pocket. How do you think that would affect morale and productivity within the company? How about instead of a cash raise, they use the money to give perks to valued employees, maybe a day off for employee of the month or an extra week for employee of the year. Or give everyone a paid lunch break?

These are just a few of the ideas that employees could be rewarded and would all enhance their working lives. Do you think happier employees are more productive? You’d be right if you said yes, just look at DreamWorks; a studio that’s considered one of the best companies to work for in the entire country.

5. Make a Serious Effort to Transition the business model.

OK, a bit left of field with this one, but imagine the kind of experimentation that Disney could do with $4 Billion. Right now everyone and their cat is trying to figure out how to make internet/online content work and while some people are making progress, it’ll really take a big investment from an established company to truly crack the nut. Disney wouldn’t even have to spend the $4 Billion or maybe even half that to figure it out.

The studio has the content, it has people willing to pay for it, and it has the resources and brains to make something work. All it has to do is stump up the finance to get something great together. And before you say it, no, I’m not talking about Key Chest; I’m talking about a Hulu-like variant that will give consumers what they want. The money would cover the losses that would be likely during the initial phases of the project.

Just think, if Disney could get a decent platform together that is popular with customers, it could license it, share it and get everyone on board. It’s exactly how Microsoft steamrolled Apple. The latter wanted to control everything, the former was happy just to control that key that made it all work; and they made sure that they did. Disney could do the same, and make money in a similar manner by charging studios access to the audience.

Conclusion

The fact of the matter is, someone, somewhere within the Disney machine ran the numbers and algorithms and determined that Lucasfilm was good value for money. That’s really it at the end of the day. People will proclaim that it was a perfect merger that fits both brands, but at the end of the day, Disney is banking on Star Wars continuing to mint money for decades to come. Whether that will be the case is yet to be seen. What is known, is that will $4 Billion spent, Disney (and its shareholders) will be praying that it does, because spending that kind of money in one go is an awful lot like going all in at the poker table.

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