Animation – Page 12 – The Animation Anomaly

When Animation Software Hinders The Technique

Via: Rob Kohr's blog — Via: Rob Kohr’s blog

Technological developments in animation have allowed the technique to prosper considerably since the early days of Mickey Mouse. If it wasn’t applicable to film in general (colour, stereo sound, etc.) then it was specific to animation in ways such as the multi-plane camera and acetate cels. While all these improvements helped animation, software can also handicap it, which is what we’re discussing today.

Computers Are To Blame

There’s no doubt that computers and IT in general have done wonders for animation, and not just in the strictest production sense either. The internet has enabled the co-ordination and production of a single film in multiple locations around the globe and has resulted in many fine films being produced that otherwise would not have.

Where computers fail though, is in their longevity. No-one uses a computer from 15 years ago and certainly nobody is using the same software that ran on such a machine.

The issue is that the animation produced on such machines may not be able to be read on a modern machine. Sure, Pixar is still in business, but what of other studios? Plenty have either gone out of business or been shut down. The animation they produced resides somewhere but may not be accessible. There’s a big difference between the two.

Rapid changes in IT and computing technology mean that nothing that relies on them can stand still. Hardware and software must be constantly updated to remain competitive and there is always the risk that something will either get corrupted or worse, deleted.

Animation Software is Even Worse

For all the faults that hardware has, it is not the worse culprit. That title belongs to software. The impetus for this post is the recent announcement from Adobe that customers will no longer be able to purchase Creative Suite software. Instead, they will subscribe to ‘Adobe Creative Cloud’ for a monthly fee. Essentially customers will not even be renting the software but access to it.

The change caused a bit of a ruckus but rather than dwell on the merits and demerits of the move itself, let’s focus on the problems it highlights and what can be done about it.

What the Adobe Announcement Highlights

First and foremost, any proprietary software firm will be quite adamant that as a customer, you never ‘buy’ software. Rather, you buy a license for it. In most cases this is a perpetual license, but it is still a license. You cannot do what you like with the software no matter how much you paid for it (legally).

For animators and studios, what the move highlights more than anything else is that the technology that they rely upon for their continued operation is fleeting at best. Adobe, like Microsoft and Apple, does not maintain their software forever and especially in the latter’s case, has shown a willingness to cut off users of older software; essentially forcing them to upgrade or find another provider.

Finding an alternative is all grand and good, but what if there is no alternative? That is to say, what if no-one else makes the piece of software that you need to open/read files?

The Ticking Timebomb

Consider Adobe Flash. It won’t be around forever and at some point in time, Adobe will stop supporting it. That’s grand and good you say, you’ll just keep and old copy on an old dumb terminal just like Disney did with their CAPS system.

A fine theory, but completely improbable if you rent the software instead.

If Adobe decides at some point in the future (willingly or not) to suspend access to Flash or another creative program, you are quite literally very far up the creek without a paddle.

How many studios out there use Flash or a similar program? A lot. What could happen if those programs disappear? Mayhem.

That isn’t to scaremonger either. Old files are much more than just animation data; they’re content! If that isn’t cause for concern, consider the many 35mm films in Hollywood archives that literally represent history rotting away. We’re talking about the digital equivalent of that. Goodness knows Pixar got a shock when they discovered that the original Toy Story files had been corrupted while being digitally archived

What Can Be Done

First and foremost, its important to identify what is causing the problem; namely technology that is no longer profitable to produce/maintain but whose customers require access to.

Proprietary technology is notorious for causing these headaches and while they have been tolerated for the most part, we re getting to the point where there are no more excuses.

As I wrote in this post, open source software offers an alternative that may lack slightly in the features department, but more than makes up for that with its open nature that promises at least the ability to always be able to create a way to read/edit files. Proprietary systems lock this ability up and are under no obligation to release it.

Animation studios (and independent animators too!) need to consider things such as this because they have the potential to cause very expensive mistakes at some point in the future and surely it’s better to actively avoid them than to try and deal with them, right?

Existing programs such as Blender and Synfig are steps in the right direction; we just need a major studio to step up and promote the idea that if we are to rely on technology for creativity, then we should at least be able to build some permanence into the system. It works for pencils and paper after all.

Do upgrade prices give you high blood pressure? What about Adobe’s Creative Cloud? Is it a bad idea and if so, why? Let us know with a comment!

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YouTube Shoots Self In Foot!

Business Models / Charles Kenny

YouTube_logo

Although rumours emerged just last week, it appears that YouTube has wasted no time whatsoever announcing that they are creating paid subscription channels for the site. For the low low price of 99¢ per month (or higher) you can subscribe and presumably be the first to see new content by the requisite creators.

How Do They Shoot Themselves In The Foot Then?

Well, that should be an obvious one, shouldn’t it? YouTube’s bread and butter has been videos that are free. Imprisoning them behind a paywall essentially makes them no different to plenty of other services out there such as cable or Netflix. Why would you give money to YouTube when you can give it to those instead? This is especially so when you are either a) already paying for them and b) they offer all your favourites rather than just ‘new stuff’.

The Fallacy of ‘New Content’ on YouTube

Naturally, the argument goes that you’re paying for the latest and greatest content. A fine point of view except that said content is also competing with everyone else that’s giving it away for free, on the same bloody site no less!

The sad truth that many people have yet to accept is that given the choice between paying for new content and searching for older content that’s free; the latter will win out 90% of the time. Netflix has built their customer base through offering older content, not through the likes of original content like House of Cards. The only reason they did begin producing new stuff is because they reached the natural limit with existing content, leaving the only way to expand though original material.

YouTube has no such limit, users already upload hours of new content every second and show no sign of slowing down. The site has also been massively profitable for YouTube for many years (although exact figures are hard to come by). Besides, how much revenue can Google even hope to reap from offering these paid channels? Even with a million subscribers, you’re talking a few million dollars a year; a pittance compared to the billions that ads bring in.

So What Is The Point

Well, that’s a hard one to nail down. Google clearly doesn’t really need the money, and it’s already failed twice in the past in getting consumers to pay for videos, so what does that leave? Why legacy players of course!

Yes, existing media companies are the ones who are apparently excited about this development (if judging by this list is anything to go by). There’s the Jim Henson company in there as well as, disappointingly, Sesame Workshop. In an ironic twist, animation seems to be over represented on the list of creators looking for the lazy way to make money. Long story short, many established creators have indicated to Google that they would engage more with the site only if there was some sort of paid subscription model.

All in all, the gist is to get people to cough up for something they can get for free somewhere else; a decision that has been, and still is, an unwise choice.

The Alternative for Animation

Do alternatives even exist? Sure they do! Beside the many different ways that creators can make money from their content, David OReilly suggests another one, Vimeo’s tip jar.

He raises a good point. Viewers are not averse to paying for content, just being forced to do so. Plenty of animators have found new and innovative ways to make money, be it from selling T-shirts, selling commissions, making personal appearances and what not.

For independents and small studios, it’s important to remember that subscription models only work well when the audience is extremely large. Otherwise, they act as a barrier to spreading your brand and audience.

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Will FOX Succeed In the Online Arena With Animation?

Industry / Charles Kenny

It’s no secret that FOX has long been the dominant player of all the mainstream networks when it comes to animation but with audiences slipping away to the internet, what are they to do? Well, the apparent answer is to open up a new studio and attempt to compete with the likes of Frederator’s Cartoon Hangover.

The Gist of It

The Animation Guild is reporting that the new studio is currently in full swing and has about a hundred people working there at the moment. As part of the previously-announced extension of the Animation Domination block of shows into Saturday nights, the network also took the extra step of setting up a dedicated production house. (Non-union of course, hence TAG’s gripe.)

The studio is producing not only the content for the programming block (as in, Axe Cop and High School USA!) but is also busy cranking out animated GIFs such as the wonderful specimen you see below.

Where Things Get Interesting

Although this could be just another run-of-the-mill story about a new development in animation, where it takes an interesting turn is not where you would expect. Namely, FOX purposely kept production close to home:

Fast reaction time is another key to the ADHD approach. Instead of farming out animation work to Asian firms, with a lag time of at least six weeks, the team in Hollywood can shoot out topical spoofs to stay in the social conversation.

Fox’s toons prepare episodes well over a year in advance, said Reilly. “With ADHD, I can say something today and we can have something tomorrow.”

It’s nice in a way to see FOX accepting the need for speed in the online youth media market, and addressing it by employing talent close to home. It marks a potential bright spot in the otherwise gloomy animation industry that has had too many stories of layoffs over the past few months. Although pay is obviously not the highest, there is still potential for that to change if demand heats up thanks to a success or two.

That said, in contrast, Cartoon Hangover, instead of maintaining a studio for quick stuff, instead hires freelancers. Granted it isn’t as steady as regular employment, but if FOX did the same, they could pay animators more since the overhead of a studio wouldn’t exist.

The other interesting thing is how FOX sees the money streams:

Reilly declined to discuss specifically what kind of coin Fox is pumping into ADHD, saying that it’s not insignificant. The project will run at a “very mild deficit” for about three years before it gains ad traction, he said.

What I would like to know is why it will run a deficit for all those years. Online content has proven to be profitable already; surely it shouldn’t take an established player like FOX three whole years to make money. Of course, I’m also curious why ads are being given such weight; again, there are plenty of other revenue sources available that could suffice.

Lastly…

Before we reach the thrilling conclusion to this post; it really says something about animation as a form of entertainment that FOX sees it as the least risky way to get a foot in the door of online streaming. Can it really be that the ease of creating [quality] animation combined with its popularity among the key 18-34 demographic? It would certainly appear that way:

That noted, Reilly is convinced the model is an efficient way to develop quality content, and he’s eyeing other genres Fox might choose to replicate ADHD. “The cost structure of this stuff by its nature is different from TV,” he said. “The digital world continues to explode. It’s fun. And it has promise.”

Let’s see how this pans out. If it works, expect others to follow.

PS. Notice how FOX is about a year behind online-native efforts? Yeah, me too.

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Fan Effort To Revive Young Justice Over Before it Began

Business Models / Charles Kenny

Bringing shows back from the dead has been discussed here on the blog in the past. It’s a common scenario that often brings great expectations to legions of fans only for them to be inevitably dashed when they fail. Although shows have been brought back (most famously after fans mailed nuts to producers), the vast majority are not receiving of a Lazarus-like new lease of life and are left for history to claim. This time around, it is the DC shows, Young Justice and Green Lantern: The Animated Series that are attempting a comeback. Unfortunately, it’s over before it even really began.

The Background

Both shows ran on Cartoon Network on Saturday mornings. Young Justice beginning in 2010 and Green Lantern following in 2012. Early in 2013, both shows were absent from the Cartoon Network upfront presentation leading to rampant speculation that the shows have been cancelled.

Although the network remained silent, various animators who’d worked on the show or were familiar with the crew tweeted the obvious (sorry, I can’t find them now); the crews had already disbanded and had been for almost a year. While this fact did not get the attention it needed, Cartoon Network eventually responded and confirmed that both shows were indeed finished.

Young Justice & Green Lantern Since Cancellation

Since this announcement, there has been various efforts to get the network to change their mind, including the inevitable internet petition (with not even a please in it). None of them have had any success but that hasn’t stopped a new kid on the block from trying their hand.

The SMGO Effort

Such empty results hasn’t dissuaded internet upstart SMGO.tv (or my Show Must Go On) from attempting to collate fan support for a new series into a single effort aimed straight at Cartoon Network and Warner Bros.

Unfortunately for SMGO, Warners has already slammed the door on the attempt without saying much specifically beyond that they aren’t holding out hope for success. Even that hasn’t deterred SMGO and they’re having another crack at the whip with a ‘let’s prove them wrong’ attitude.

That, in and of itself, isn’t that big of a deal, what should be a concern is that they’re asking for funding, and they’re asking for all of $10 million for the trouble. Now I’m not sure about yourself, but even the largest Kickstarter campaign barely scraped $10 million and that was for a piece of technology that could be used by millions of people. YJ/Green Lantern pulled in just under 2 and 1.2 million viewers respectively in their highest rated episodes. If you ask me, someone has a lot of work cut out for themselves.

The Reality

So SMGO is noble in their effort, but completely oblivious to reality. Their plan is to garner support, talk to the studio/network, sign a contract (yes, really), fund the production, actually produce the show and then offer rewards a la Kickstarter.

While I’m not one to rain on a parade, this model is regrettably flawed. While Hollywood does indeed like to see the money, they generally like it to be their money, i.e. for them to keep. SMGO also doesn’t exactly specify how the funds are handled beyond ‘funding production’.

This is what the Veronica Mars Kickstarter has produced and it’s ugly. Major studios absolutely do not want to be involved with fan efforts for lots of reasons (mostly legal), hence their often tone deaf and arms reach approach to the fan communities. The PR disasters that could happen are another reason. Say an SMGO-funded show did make it to production, and the results were dire. Who’s to blame then? Fan’s won’t want to hear the truth and it could destroy their loyalty. If you were Warners and you had to choose between letting your shows die a death or attempt a potentially disastrous comeback, the former is always much more appealing.

We haven’t even gotten as far as the real money issue: profit. Hollywood doesn’t like to make small profits (they’re too mundane.) They like to make BIG profits, especially on films, but also on TV shows. The latter aren’t publicised near as much, but a show has to make money otherwise it get’s canned.

Young Justice and Green Lantern apparently didn’t bring in as much dough as the network and studio would have liked, so they were sidelined in favour of some proven money spinners; Batman and Teen Titans.

The Truth To Saving A Beloved Show

So what’s to be done? SMGO is right in highlighting the need to factor in money into the fan revival equation, but it’s a half-effort. As I highlighted in this post, reviving a show is as much an art as it as a science. Networks need to know that:

Their shows (and therefore advertisements) are being watched
Any and all merchandise is selling (regardless of how good it actually is)
People will continue to do both of the above in the future.

Doing all three is hard enough, but proving to the network that they are being done is the impossible task. I wrote about this a long time ago, and surprisingly enough, letter-writing still works, if done correctly.

While online petitions and services like SMGO are very efficient at gathering support, they fall down in the personal department. Individual letters still work wonders, but unfortunately they still require a herculean effort to pull off successfully.

Conclusion

The depressing aspect to the entire saga is that it is no different than all the campaigns that have gone before. Yes, it’s nice to appease fans, but any show that gets cancelled is bound to upset someone. It’s reasonable to attempt to save a show, but at some point you have to call it quits, and implying that you can (and should) never give up is a false illusion.

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Merida’s Makeover and Character Continuity

2 Comments / Analysis / Charles Kenny

You’ve undoubtedly read the stories by now. You know, the ones proclaiming Merida’s coronation as the latest entrant in the ‘Disney Princess’ brand and (on the other side), the ones decrying her redesign into one with more than an air of sexuality about it. The point of this post isn’t to belabor either side (although this blogger leans heavily towards the latter), rather its to discuss how Merida proves how unwieldy characters can become within large corporations such as Disney and why they need to keep tighter grip of the reins.

Why It’s a Problem

So why would such a change be of issue in the first place? We all know that multitudes of artists work on these characters and the very nature of merchandise (with all its differing surfaces and sizes) necessitates changes to permit an acceptable level of familiarity across the range.

Well, normally it isn’t a problem because the characters remain relatively consistent. In Merida’s case, however, the change is near radical. In fact, all the Disney Princess have undergone some sort of noticeable change from their original appearance on film.

Another reason Merida’s case stands out is that she’s undergone not so much a redesign but a transformation. Even by comparing her looks (and her measurements) one can deduce that she isn’t likely to exhibit the same character traits as her CGI original. Such a transformation runs the risk of confusing consumers.

The Confusion Caused By Merida’s Transformation

In times gone past, the change wouldn’t have been given that much thought. After all, merchandise always lagged behind the films and the medium through which the largest audience would see it (home video) was released many months afterwards, when memories had faded somewhat.

Fast forward to today, and the omnipresence and semi-permanence of the internet has meant that fact-checking and comparison can be done instantaneously. If a corporation makes an overtly obvious change to a character, you can be sure that someone somewhere can confirm the change and indeed, analyse it to astonishingly high degrees of accuracy.

Changes in character can be easy for adults to gloss over, but kids can find it hard to reconcile the apparently unnecessary alterations. Kids place a lot of value in characters and they readily identify with them; changing the character can cause not only confusion, but also trauma. That’s not to say that Merida’s change will cause the latter, but it will not go unnoticed by kids (mainly girls) who’ve identified with a character who’s most significant trait is not fitting in with a crowd.

Even mature adults (and particularly parents and those of us in the field) are having trouble reconciling the change in any kind of rational light. Peggy Orenstein gets pretty close to the truth:

I’ve always said that it’s not about the movies. It’s about the bait-and-switch that happens in the merchandise, and the way the characters have evolved and proliferated off-screen.

This is true, and certainly part of the cause. The Disney Princess brand relies upon a broad range of characters to appeal to all types, but who still reside inside a statistically maximising percentage of the population. In other words, the characters can be different, but not too different lest they be marginalised and hence, unprofitable.

How To Fix It

Since the confusion and frustrations that are caused seem to be emanating from the changes made, wouldn’t the simplest thing be to just keep them the same as they were in the film (or concepts in the case of CGI)? We’re long, long past the time when merchandise had to look different on account of manufacturing technology and the like. Today, it’s possible to maintain a high degree of quality across the board. There really is no reason why a Merida doll has a different structure to her animated counterpart, or for that matter for a stock image of her on a T-shirt requires a redesign.

Heck, even the Disney Princesses themselves do not need such a standardised sense of design. What it amounts to is the merchandising or marketing division of the corporation attempting to stamp their impression on characters created somewhere else (by animators). It amounts to overstepping their boundaries insofar as they may adapt characters to their work, but outright changing them is unconscionable.

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Public Broadcasters and the Looming Crunch

Opinion / Charles Kenny

The topic of today’s post will seem a bit foreign to a lot of this blog’s readers for the simple reason that the United States doesn’t have a state broadcaster in the traditional sense. Yes, PBS (and NPR) are public broadcasters, but their funding model is a complicated one. Funds come from a variety of sources including corporate and private donations, sponsorships and indirect government funding. In stark contrast, many public broadcasters around the world are subsidised by direct taxation; often in the form of a TV license.

The Crunch

What has been noted in recent times is the fact that TV licenses generally only cover televisions (with some exceptions). You and I know, however, that a lot of content is also watched on computers and mobile devices; notably exempt from TV licensing requirements. That places broadcasters in a crunch; people are not buying TVs like they used to and license revenues (and by extension, their funding) are falling as a result.

The reason this blog is discussing the entire saga is that state broadcasters, particularly in Europe, not only create, but also purchase and commission large amounts of animated content.

The Pessimistic View

Consider if TV license (or similar) revenues continued to fall. State broadcasters would trim back their spending on new content, given that they have less money with which to play with. Such a reduction would not only hurt those studios that make content explicitly for such entities, but also those studios that create content independently and sell it to public broadcasters through the open market.

Even the US would not be immune to the effect. While there is naturally a greater choice of content on this side of the pond, there remains a large contingent of content that is purchased from overseas. Kinks in this supply chain could have negative (and positive) impacts on animation broadcasting there. Likewise, many European broadcasters purchase US-made content for local broadcast and fewer resources would endanger those actions.

Undoubtedly, the notion that animation production in Europe an elsewhere could be in trouble runs contrary to how it should be. The problem is that countries such as the UK are attempting to make animation more appealing to outside sources at the very time they should be refocusing on internal sources. The UK could make itself a very cheap place to make animation, but if the majority of the sources of the production budgets run into difficulty, being cheap won’t matter; no-one will do it for free.

The Optimistic View

Some states (such as Ireland, regrettably) have considered placing a non-descriptive ‘broadcast tax’ on either every residence in the state or on device sales within their borders. The outcome of this is intended to shore up public broadcasters’ revenue sources. The problem is that this is out of place with the shift to digital platforms. Revenue levels may be maintained, but they do so at the expense of the free market.

A TV license is one thing because it burdens those who are most likely to reap the benefits of state-sponsored content. A flat tax on the general populace however, acts as an incentive to no-one and does not promote production of better content.

The role model to follow in all of this is the BBC, an institution that has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last 10 years. While still funded by a TV license, the corporation has done remarkably well to market and sell its content in markets around the world, bringing in much additional revenue.

State and public broadcaster therefore need to redouble their efforts to make content that can be sold across borders. Some do so already and the vast majority of independents cannot comprehend doing anything else; their margins are too thin. With marketable content, state broadcasters can be sure that their content and the content they commission is self-supporting and possibly even revenue-generating. By doing so, they mitigate the crunch that comes from falling TV license issues and maintain production at the current levels.

The Long-Term View

If one is to look at the situation from a long-term perspective, public broadcasters are rapidly approaching the point where they will be forced to play on a level playing field with private producers. The internet doesn’t discriminate between content sources and just because public money funded one show, doesn’t mean that anyone will actually watch it. Yes, state broadcasters are tasked with producing content that would not otherwise be profitable, but the internet will take up some of the slack as independent producers proliferate. State broadcasters may create niche or acute-interest programming, but if they get too far from the mainstream, they run the risk of being accused of wasting public money.

Thankfully, animation rarely if ever is seen as a waste of public money, and it would be real shame if that ever came to pass. That said, state broadcasters must consider the changes we are currently seeing. Animation studios and those who run them would be wise to consider them as well, and plan accordingly.

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Teenagerobotlove: Serving the MLaaTR Fans

Animation, MLaaTR / Charles Kenny

MLaaTR_Approved_Press_Art_by_Frederator_Studios

While many current and upcoming shows have devoted fans, just because a show has ended does not mean the end for the fan community. Far from it. Fans have been instrumental in keeping shows such as Star Trek alive for decades after the show wrapped up and it far from alone in that respect.

Fans currently have a remarkable set of tools at their disposal to help keep memories and interests alive. In years gone past, there were fanzines, clubs and conventions. Today many of these tools continue to connect fans and have been joined by new tools, such as message boards, blogs and social networks like Facebook.

Maintaining the interest is imperative if fan communities are to continue to exist, and that relies upon continued upkeep of any sites and also moving beyond just the show itself; hence the reason many message boards have off-topic threads or ones in areas of similar interest to members.

Today we’re focusing on one fan blog for My Life as a Teenage Robot. Long ago, there was a traditional, official blog that was created and run during the series’ production. (If memory serves, it was one of, if not the first ever production blogs for an animated show). While it continued to run after the show ended, it has been dormant for a number of years.

The rise of Tumblr as a fan-friendly platform has not gone unnoticed thanks to its emphasis on particular post types and easy sharing amongst the site’s many members. The proliferation of fan creations on Tumblr have been nailed down to the ease with which people can create, post and share content in addition to the ease with which Tumblelogs can be maintained. Combined with a submission feature, it becomes easy to see why so many fans and fandoms use Tumblr as a tool to serve their interests. (In a coincidental twist, Tumblr emerged from the same office as Frederator; the creative studio responsible for My Life as a Teenage Robot.)

Hence blogs like Teenagerobotlove that serve to perpetuate fans love for the show as well as providing a focal point for things like fanart. I’m glad that such blogs exist and that people are willing to create and maintain them. They provide enjoyment for those of us who simply do not have the time to undertake one themselves and serve as a reminder that fans still exist for the show.

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Week Links 17-2013

Week Links / Charles Kenny

Fewer week links than normal today; it’s been a busy week.

Elliot Cowan on Film Making

The New York-based animator continues production on his feature film and comments on the process thus:

Making a film is like deciding to adopt an orphan from some war torn, strife ridden corner of the world. At first it seems like a great idea. There’s a lot of energy and excitement of what’s to come. Then after a while it starts waking you up screaming in the night, and freaking out in company.
Shitting all over your regular plans and costing you more than you expected.
Eventually you want to avoid it but you can’t, because if you do it’ll wither away and die and by now you feel some responsibility for it.
And people keep asking “How’s the film? Is it doing well?”.
So you stick with it, through the exhaustion and late nights and drama.
One day it grows up and it heads out on it’s own and you’ve either grown to love it or you never want to see it again.

Hopefully Elliot loves it, as will everyone else 🙂

Warner Brothers sued for unauthorized use of Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat

Ars Technica (amongst others) reports on the lawsuit being brought by the creators of Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat against major Hollywood studio Warner Bros. The issue concerns the use of said cats in a video game published by them and created by 5th Cell.

It’s still at an early stage and some aspects of the complaint are slightly dubious but expect Warners to settle this one fairly quickly. The central issue of copyright infringement should serve as a reminder that the onus is on creators to defend their work.

‘Rise of the Guardians’ Rebounds for DreamWorks Animation

I’m putting this down as yet another reason to not believe most of what you read from mainstream sources. As it turns out. Rise of the Guardians has done better on home media than expected and raising profits at the independent studio.

Tweets of the Week

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/BoxnRoundhead/status/329653507122679808″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/LouiedelCarmen/status/329866181542543360″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/jasontammemagi/status/330037949733416960″]

Lastly, Disney Princesses as Sailor Senshi

Buzzfeed has the entire collection of this fan-made mashup that’s oddly appropriate. Hat tip to Sarah Marino for the link 🙂

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The Enemy of Animation: Ignorance

3 Comments / Opinion / Charles Kenny

To be fair, you could say that ignorance is the enemy of just about anything, but consider for a second how it affects animation as a whole.

The Issues

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised that there’s simply too much information in the world for one person to know it all (that didn’t stop me from trying when I was younger though). It’s impossible to know too much, but it’s completely possible to know too little.

You may not need to know how to correctly design a curve in the road to enjoy life, but would your enjoyment of a film be enhanced if you knew more about how it was made? The answer points to yes thanks to the mandatory making-of videos that are available for just about every piece of entertainment out there.

That said, how many people amongst the general public know how an animated film is made? Not many; heck there are people in the industry who don’t even know how it’s made. One smiles at the story of the newly arrived executive at Disney who asked to see the “retakes” of a particular scene.

Thankfully Jeffrey Katzenberg did his homework and the industry is all the better for it, but how many other people don’t know even the basic facts behind creating animation?

I would go so far as to say that the problem is endemic and seriously undermines artists’ ability to function as well as supressing the quality of the industry’s output.

The Results

What ignorance results in has been on view ever since animation became a commercial enterprise. Plowing through the creative and technological obstacles without disregard has resulted in more than enough poor quality content being produced over the last 80 years. Plenty of Disney’s early competitors made that mistake and you’re well aware of how popular they are nowadays.

Today, ignorance manifests itself in many forms. Much more than the poor quality of content that’s out there is the disregard for the efforts that goes into it. I’m sure you’ve all seen something like this:

We can blame CGI for the expansion of such notions in recent years, but they are proliferating at a speedy rate. Pressures at the lower end of the budget scale are putting artists into increasingly tight positions in regards to their work and their ability to carve out a successful and fulfilling career.

Do costs have something to do with it? Sure they do, but on a deeper level is an ignorance of how animation production relates to unit costs and output levels. A client who expects a 1 minute animated commercial to be made in a week is clearly ignorant. What sucks is that they will attempt to find someone to meet his deadline rather than educating themselves on how much time it actually takes to make it and adjusting their schedule accordingly.

TV shows and features are no different save for being overseen by people acutely familiar with animation.

The Solution

Solving the ignorance problem is easier said than done. Animation is far from a solely entertaining technique but the vast majority of animation is designed for entertainment purposes. Education is clearly the key to solving the problem but raises issues of its own.

Whom do you educate? Besides those within the industry and devoted fans familiar with how it works, it’s a complicated task to nail down who needs to know more about animation.

Let’s start with those within the wider entertainment industry itself. God knows I felt for both Michael Sporn and Amid Amidi when they appeared on a Fox News segment and were asked questions that any 5 years old with access to Google could tell you. That episode simply illustrated in a perfectly clear manner how little most people know about animation. The questions posed served to ‘educate’ viewers on animation but ideally should be common knowledge already.

Educating those within the wider entertainment industry should be a priority followed by those within the industries reliant on animation in some way shape or form. Advertising ought to be the big one; too many executives know next to nothing about a creative technique that makes their bread and butter. They should be followed by the general public. Documentaries on animation are not lacking, but focus much more on the creativity rather than the large mass of skill behind it.

In a way, I’m reminded of the Reluctant Dragon; entertaining sure, but it also served to educate the wider public about the many stages that are involved with making an animated film.

The Payoff

Lastly, what is there to be gained from all this time and effort?

For one, we’d see a larger uptake of careers as parents, no longer able to claim ignorance, see careers in animation in a much more favourable light. Producers would better understand what goes into making animation and executives (TV, film, ad or otherwise) would be better able to plan out their schedules and budgets with artists getting a fairer deal into the bargain. Lastly, the public at large would better appreciate animation on a level comparable to the way it discusses and analyses a live-action performance; c’mon, everyone has an opinion on the acting in the latest blockbuster, but they could barely discuss the movements in the latest Pixar hit.

How would you tackle the widespread ignorance of animation? Would you take a more convention approach or prefer something innovative?

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AwesomenessTV Proves Its A Winner

Industry / Charles Kenny

AwesomenessTV

About a year ago, I pondered which animation-based YouTube channel would succeed. Still later I looked at whether or not AwesomenessTV was the prototype for YouTube channels. I wrote at the time that:

If AwesomenessTV can create a viable funding model and retain an audience, we might have a winner on our hands.

As it turns out, I was right! The company has just been snapped up by DreamWorks Animation for at least $33 million.

The deal is an important one for a number of reasons but the chief one to take away is that this is a serious investment in terms of both audience and talent on the part of DreamWorks.

On the talent side, AwesomenessTV has a subscriber base of ~~14 million~~ 500,000 up from a comparatively paltry 11,000 in just 9 months. That’s truly explosive growth and it’s natural that DWA will want to have a front row seat in that. Secondly, acquiring the team behind the channel will ensure that its growth is imbued with the same hands that have guided it so far. A wise decision on the part of DreamWorks.

The audience side is where the real investment is though. With 14 million consumers and a direct line to them, DreamWorks stands to exponentially increase its exposure. The hidden fact is that you can expect a lot of data to flow up from those subscribers which leads us nicely to the truly intriguing (and overlooked) aspect to the deal.

Teenagers!

Yes, teenagers! AwesomenessTV is aimed directly at them and I will eat my hat if the vast majority of their subscriber base aren’t in their awkward years or damned close to them. You know which other animation studios actively court teenagers? None! Disney tends to ignore teens in favour of the more moldable tweens, Nickelodeon doesn’t put a profound effort into anybody above the age of 12, Cartoon Network is just about the only network that has a presence in the teen market thanks to [Adult Swim], but they have no theatrical film division. Oother large-scale animation studios like Sony, Blue Sky, etc. play similar games; they all cater to younger audiences only.

Is Jeffrey Katzenberg subtly attempting a coup d’état of sorts of the teen market with animation? It’s certainly possible. AwesomenessTV has a history of animated content and animation is what DWA is good at, so it would seem reasonable to see the former leverage the high quality content of the latter and for both to grow their audiences as a result.

Going even further, you could parlay those teenage animation fans into adult animation fans. That’s not a far stretch especially given that the animation age ghetto currently occupies the very age group that AwesomenessTV caters to.

How will it pan out? It’s hard to say, but I was right before so can only hope that I’m right again 🙂

Your thoughts?

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Help Shape The Future of Animation Paper

1 Comment / Animation / Charles Kenny

The Future of Animation_1

Next in the series of papers I’m writing concerns the future of animation. It’s a topic that’s wide open at its extreme, but can still be boiled down into a few precise concepts based on developments in other areas of the media landscape. If you don’t mind, I’m going to pick your brain with a few notions about where the paper might dive into.

The Two Sides of Animation

Animation can be divided on the simplest level into two areas: production and consumption. The paper will look at both sides and the various forces that will affect animation as it inhabits them. Essentially, they are both sides of the same coin, but they will not experience the same changes. What will cause shifts in one, will case opposite shifts in the other. Here’s the outline as it is currently.

Animation Production

Smaller studios putting content out on a more frequent basis
Greater emphasis on speed, new episodes every two weeks at most
Overseas operations will become more important
Greater input from the audience
streamlined studio operations

The following questions are posed:

Competition will increase but how can studios ensure they remain at the top for sustained periods?
In the Golden Age, studios put out one short every two weeks, what kind of cost pressures can studios (and animators) expect to face?
Speed will become paramount and production is likely to shift overseas in at least some capacity. What exactly will that capacity be?
How can a studio codify audience input? Even more important, how can they measure, interact and learn from it?
Larger studios will undoubtedly downsize even further, what positions can expect to get the axe?

Animation Consumption

Short form content; <10 minutes with the half-hour show obsolete
Animation everywhere; no distinction between online and airwaves
Features remain but on much tighter budgets
Emphasis on timelessness
Platform “exclusive” content
The social dimension

These pose the following questions:

Just what will the internet’s preferred content length be?
Will small outfits on YouTube be able to compete with cable networks?
How will features adapt to a rapidly different revenue market?
CGI dates notoriously quickly, how will the style of animated content change to imply a timeless quality?
Should animated content aim for platform “exclusivity”?
Will social viewing help or hinder new animated content?

Please feel free to answer any of the above questions or even pose your own. Animation is changing and it’s only right to plan ahead.

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