YouTube

The ‘You’ in YouTube is Following the ‘M’ from MTV into Irrelevance

18 Comments / Opinion /

Although the company hasn’t got as far as MTV when they chopped-off the ‘Music Television’ part of their identity, YouTube is nonetheless following them down the same beaten path. Anyone can still post content for free of course, but it is everything that surrounds that tenant of the service that has changed, and not necessarily for the better.

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The ‘You’ in YouTube is Following the ‘M’ from MTV into Irrelevance Read More »

Is The Nickelodeon OTT Service Bad for Animation?

8 Comments / Business Models /

Nickelodeon is launching an OTT service. Yes, basically it’s like Netflix, but just for Nickelodeon shows. That should be an awesome announcement, right? Well, in theory, yes, it should. However the reality is different. Nickelodeon is a major producer of animation in the US, and by launching an OTT service, it endangers the future of the artform.

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Is The Nickelodeon OTT Service Bad for Animation? Read More »

Six Questions Every Creator Needs to Ask Themselves

10 Comments / Questions /

Everyone can create, but should everyone create? Plenty of great ideas never get off the drawing board, and seemingly terrible ones manage to make it all the way to YouTube. Everybody is different of course, but before they even start creating, here’s six questions every creator needs to ask of themselves.

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Six Questions Every Creator Needs to Ask Themselves Read More »

Boomerang Relaunch is Too Little Too Late

3 Comments / Business Models /

Cartoon Network was the original home for the vast library of Hanna-Barbera and MGM cartoons that Ted Turner had at his disposal. It soon outgrew that purpose as original content began to be broadcast on the channel and eventually banishing them altogether to a new network: Boomerang. To say they languished there is an understatement, but Turner’s attempt to make amends comes too little, too late.

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Boomerang Relaunch is Too Little Too Late Read More »

Are Creative Risks Worth Taking?

3 Comments / Opinion /

Animation has always had a strong creative streak with plenty of variety to it. If you didn’t like that Walt Disney was chasing realism, all you had to do was look across town to the Warner guys on Termite Terrace and see cutting edge character comedy in full flow. Today is no different; while major studios have become increasingly bland in their offerings, there are plenty of others taking up the creative mantle. Is what they’re doing worth the effort and risk involved?

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Are Creative Risks Worth Taking? Read More »

The Animation Anomaly Podcast Episode 3

2 Comments / Podcast /

The third Animation Anomaly podcast episode. Post-website crash, post-MBA and only on the third attempt! I swear I’m slowly getting the hang of things.

Audio file download

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Is YouTube Starting to Suck

4 Comments / Business Models /

The very question is, in and of itself, potentially inflammatory in this day and age. YouTube is, after all, the all-but-crowned successor to the television. On the flip side, it is the bane of every network and movie studio out there; lashing out much the same as old Hollywood did when the television itself came along. Here’s the question though: is YouTube starting to suck? And when I say ‘starting to’ I mean in the slowest, most unnoticeable form imaginable, and when I say suck, I don’t mean viewers, I mean become bad. Let’s take a look.

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Is YouTube Starting to Suck Read More »

YouTube Shoots Self In Foot!

Business Models /

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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The Wall Street Journal on the Cartoon Hits of YouTube

1 Comment / Animation /

The Wall Street Journal, erstwhile publication of the rich, powerful and those who wish to be both, is also quite a good source of information on aspects of business (it would be even better if it weren’t behind a paywall, but what can you do). Anyway, they recently featured an article that looks at YouTube’s funded channels and how well they are doing. That in and of itself is not necessarily noteworthy but what is is the fact that quite a few of those channels are animation-oriented.

Mentioned are both Shut Up! Cartoons (it’s a Smosh property in case you are wondering) and AwesomenessTV (which I’ve covered before). Not mentioned are other channels that would be weigh heavier on the animation side like Channel Frederator and the upcoming Cartoon Hangover.

So what’s significant about all of this? Why should you care? Well, these channels are the prototypes. Think of CNN back in the 1980s. It was one of the first cable channels and literally bled money for the first decade. That’s exactly what these channels are today. It’s important to pay attention to them because they are the ones who will make all the mistakes and suffer the hiccups so you don’t have to.

So is there a future in cartoon channels on YouTube? Yes, absolutely. However, it will take some time to develop. YouTube itself is still playing around with an exact business model that will be profitable and only the very best and most subscribed-to channels generate any revenue at all. Either way, they are something to pay close attention to.

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Those YOOTOON Submission Requirements in Detail

3 Comments / Animation, Website /

So I was all set to write a post on the YOOTOON channel in general but Amid Amidi took care of that for me so instead, let’s take a closer look at those submission requirements shall we?

From the Tumblr submission page:

    1. Have fun! We want to see your style shine through your video.
    2. Make sure your video is set to UNLISTED on YouTube. Your video must be brand spanking new, not one you’ve previously uploaded.
    3. Videos should be 10 seconds to 2 minutes long.
    4. Only use licensed music or music that you’ve created. You can find free music online! If you use licensed music, we will need a copy of that license agreement.
    5. Please keep your video kid friendly to be eligible for submission. Get creative, but no nudity, swearing, bad stuff, you get the picture.
    6. Only submit your own original videos. If accepted, this video will be posted on the YOOTOON channel EXCLUSIVELY and CAN NOT be live on the internet ANYWHERE else, including your own Youtube channel.
    7. You must be over 13. If you are not over 13, please have your parent or guardian submit the video for you or have them contact us at: joinyootoon@gmail.com

Let’s break these down one by one:

1. Have fun! We want to see your style shine through your video.

Okie dokie, seems fair enough.

2. Make sure your video is set to UNLISTED on YouTube. Your video must be brand spanking new, not one you’ve previously uploaded.

So the video must not have been shown before. That’s OK too. A lot of few film festivals generally require that your film not be available online in order to be eligible to enter. In other words, it’s not a deal-breaker.

3. Videos should be 10 seconds to 2 minutes long.

Again, a straight-forward request.

4. Only use licensed music or music that you’ve created. You can find free music online! If you use licensed music, we will need a copy of that license agreement.

This is pretty much an indemnity clause. As you may well know, record companies love crawling YT looking for their unlicensed use of their content. Besides a quick DCMA takedown to YT, they also love to send legal nastygrams, sometimes extorting money in exchange for not suing you. With this, YOOTOON is basically saying that they won’t even consider a video without the proper licensing in place becaues of the potential legal pratfalls. Again, this is fairly standard.

5. Please keep your video kid friendly to be eligible for submission. Get creative, but no nudity, swearing, bad stuff, you get the picture.

OK, we get it; no boobies and F words.

6. Only submit your own original videos. If accepted, this video will be posted on the YOOTOON channel EXCLUSIVELY and CAN NOT be live on the internet ANYWHERE else, including your own Youtube channel.

OK, so this basically reiterates what was said above in addition to stating that the video can’t have been hosted anywhere else either.

7. You must be over 13. If you are not over 13, please have your parent or guardian submit the video for you or have them contact us at: joinyootoon@gmail.com

Fair enough.

Now, this is where it gets interesting because below those requirements, is another statement:

YOO retain all rights to your animated creation, we just own the particular video you submit. We want your idea to succeed! If it attracts an audience under the YooToon banner, we will provide the funding deemed necessary by YooToon to make more videos. If the idea REALLY takes off and goes viral, YooToon will strike a best effort deal with the creator to make the video into an online series! Imagine, you could be making an online series with Butch Hartman!

Now IANAL (I am not a lawyer) but this is most definitely an ill-drafted legal agreement if ever I’ve seen one. Let’s break this one down too:

YOO retain all rights to your animated creation, we just own the particular video you submit.

Any lawyer worth his salt could find fault with this. Who is “YOO”, he is not “you” because legal documents love specifc language. “YOO” is not specific, and could even be construed as being short for “YOOTOON”, thus making this clause a bait-n-switch kind of deal.

If it attracts an audience under the YooToon banner, we will provide the funding deemed necessary by YooToon to make more videos.

In other words, if the video is good, we’ll fund the promotion of it to an extent that we think is OK. Not sure why this is in the agreement, YT has the same basic thing in their agreement because that’s how YT makes money too! Surely no reason to call it out specifically for a channel, right?

If the idea REALLY takes off and goes viral, YooToon will strike a best effort deal with the creator to make the video into an online series!

Let’s isolate the key words here:

YooToon will strike a best effort deal with the creator

What is a “best effort deal”? Well, what that means in the context of YOOTOON is that they will make you an offer with the best intentions of hoping you’ll accept it. The gist is that “best intentions” can translate into “we hope you accept this offer, but if not, then we tried really hard to make it so that you would, and now that you don’t like it, we’re not going to offer you a different one”. In other words, we’ve fulfilled our side, you can take it or leave it.

That’s an awful lot of trust right there, because chances are, the agreement will be skewed in YOOTOON’s favour and there is little you can do about it.

Some of the particulars that aren’t described or mentioned include copyright. You can’t sign away your copyright unless the agreement specifically states so. I therefore find it hard to believe that the above agreement, where YOOTOON claims to own your video, would stand up very well (if at all) in court.

Secondly, it’s interesting to note about this channel is that it’s based on YouTube but accepts submissions through Tumblr. Yup, I haven’t quite figured that one out either because presumably, submitter’s videos will be on YT too. This adds an extra murky aspect to the whole scenario. Which license supersedes the others? YouTube because that’s where the videos are hosted? Tumblr because that’s where they were submitted? Or YOOTOON, because they are the channel’s owners?

It’s all a bit too much for a Tuesday morning before the first cup of coffee. So grab a cup and share your thoughts in the comments below.

And don’t forget:

Let’s be honest, this makes me think that Butch is siumply the frontman for the operation.

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Analysing Animation With My Little Pony

2 Comments / Animation /

YouTube user gbaudette has been posting analysis of scenes from, er, My Little Pony. While some may deride the show and its concept, the fact remains that there are more than a few industry veterans either behind or formerly behind it, so it does make sense to look at it from a technique perspective.

Thus far, gbaudette has posted videos on walk cycles, camera moves and the one below, a complex throw shot.

The nice thing about these videos is that they break things down into their elements, and prove that complexity is not necessarily all that it appears.

The series is relatively new, but has racked up over 50,000 views in just two weeks and is well worth checking out if you’re a budding animator.

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