Freeman, M. (2014). 4 Cartoon Series to Watch on YouTube. [online] Hollywood.com. Available at: http://www.hollywood.com/tv/4-cartoon-series-to-watch-on-youtube-57376701/ [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
(Freeman, 2014)
'Many cartoon creators, some of whom already have network shows, have turned to the web for full creative freedom and the results are amazing'
With the number of cartoon shows geared toward adults — as well as the number of children’s cartoons that are enjoyable for all ages — it’s no mystery why cartoon web series have become popular. Many cartoon creators, some of whom already have network shows, have turned to the web for full creative freedom and the results are amazing. We’ve picked out four of our favorite series as a little starter kit.
Success story:!!
Bee and PuppyCat
Although originally a two-part one-off cartoon, Bee and PuppyCat raised funding last fall for a full series on Kickstarter and will be coming to Cartoon Hangover’s YouTube channel. The single episode follows Bee, a girl who loses her job, and her adventures with her pet PuppyCat, who is part-dog, part-cat. Created by Natasha Allegri and Frederator Studios (ChalkZone, Adventure Time), Bee and PuppyCat is equal parts weird, endearing, and hilarious.
Created by Pendleton Ward (the great mind behind Adventure Time), Bravest Warriors follows four teenaged heroes who go on adventures and save aliens by using their emotions. Bravest Warriors was also produced by Frederator Studios and runs on Cartoon Hangover. The series won a Shorty Award in 2013 for Best Web Show. Anyone who loves Adventure Time is sure to enjoy Bravest Warriors — with the added convenience of watching it all on YouTube.
Another Frederator studios cartoon, SuperF***ers is based on James Kochalka’s adult comic book series of the same name that was published from 2005 to 2007. The web series, which ran from November 2012 to May 2013, followed the SuperF***ers, a group of superheroes that never actually do any superhero work.
going from youtube to other jobs:
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Hanna, G. (2015). Self Producing an Animated Web Series. [online] Psynema. Available at: https://www.psynema.com/self-producing-an-animated-web-series/ [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
(Hanna, 2015)
Animating a web series can be hard work. For starters, remaining relevant is a gigantic challenge. You can easily spend months in between episodes, easily killing momentum and people will forget about you.
Obviously, you have to create more content to stay in the limelight. I hosted a Blab chat recently discussing ways how animators can produce more content around their series, but EFFICIENTLY.
Animation is a very involved process. You have illustration, character design and rigging, screenwriting, animating, and video editing. In addition to mainstream viewers for your animated web series, you’ll have access to artists looking at your animation, purely interested in the craft and the making of, opening up a door to making tutorials about those various art forms involved in making an animated series to get and retain more viewers.
YouTube is full of video tutorials, and they quickly gain notice by the art community. To kill two birds with one stone, get into the habit of screen recording everything you make for your episodes. Talk your way through your process and reasoning as you record, or record the dialogue later if you prefer more control and time to speak.
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Lee, D. (2017). YouTube: Home for the Independent Filmmaker - Raindance. [online] Raindance. Available at: https://www.raindance.org/independent-youtube-filmmakers/ [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
(Lee, 2017)
Over the course of film and television’s young history, it has seen a constant evolution of new media and developments outshining its predecessors. Sound and colour gave new life to the moving image while the advent of television kept more people in their homes and away from the cinema. And now, thanks to the arrival of the the internet, going to the cinema and catching the latest weekly episode on television have become novelty experiences.
Now more than ever, social media outlets are making it easy for anyone to become someone. The arrival brought forth by new technology and new media platforms have industrially and socially changed and challenged what is now considered ‘traditional media’ at a rapid pace. Twitter has bridged the gap between celebrity and fan while also allowing anyone to build a following towards the ‘celebrity’ treatment within 140 characters. Instagram has made every smartphone user a photographer by measure of followers and double-taps. Vimeo users are considered more ‘high art’ and professional compared to the bloggers, vloggers, and personalities of YouTube.
Yet YouTube was the first platform that revolutionised the potential of new media since ‘Me at the zoo’ was first uploaded on the 23rd of April 2005. Over the course of the site’s cyber existance, YouTube has proven to be more than just a hub for Keyboard Cat and the Cinnamon Challenge, and it has definitely come a long way since the days of the Back Dorm Boys’ lip sync videos, Chris Crocker’s Britney meltdown and the Flambé Disaster of 2005. By giving a platform to creatives, cultivating subscribers into a culture and turning ‘online content creator’ into a career, YouTube dominates and leads in online video content.
More than just a place for vloggers, beauty bloggers, gamers and Buzzfeed, YouTube remains the leading platform for independent content creators to gain exposure. The following five YouTube channels are just a few examples of those who have maximised the opportunities of the internet to cultivate global audiences and produce independent content under their terms.
PJ Liguori – ‘KickThePJ’
With over a million subscribers, PJ Liguori has come along way from making films during his secondary school days on a DV tape camera. Having spent most of his teen years telling stories before deciding to upload his films to YouTube in 2007, Liguori has cultivated an audience and made a name for himself across the internet as ‘KickThePJ.’
Subscribers of KickThePJ are a prime example of the power audiences have in supporting online content creators. PJ’s following of Tiny Planet Explorers have helped their favourite YouTuber win an award for his animated short My Utopia (2009) and the Virgin Media Short’s People’s Choice Award (2012) for PJ, Tiny Planet Explorer. As a result of the audience’s influence seen for My Utopia, Liguori continued to pursue the potential and opportunities that only YouTube and his audience could have provided for him, his films and his career.
Since 2009, PJ Liguori has traveled around the world, earned a BA (Hons) degree in Digital Film & Screen Arts (2013) from the University of Creative Arts in Farnham and continued to grow KickThePJ and develop his skills as a filmmaker.
The shorts featured on KickThePJ showcases Liguori’s distinct filmmaking style that usually involves a degree of space, psychedelia and fantasy in every film. From the utopia of tiny planets, the parties hosted by everyone’s favourite clown Wiggles, to the diner of a Chef who is stranger than his cakes and shakes, it is clear that audiences want to get lost in the worlds along with the characters born out of PJ’s fantastical imagination. Not only does he serve as writer and director for films, Liguori’s additional contributions to his films often range from acting, creating props, costuming, producing and editing.
The dedication put into over two hundred videos – ranging from short films to sit-down and travel vlogs – on KickThePJ, Liguori has attracted the attention and support of various third parties. BlackBerry commissioned the ride that was the Forever Train. ColourTV produced the night with Hades, Aubrey and Robin at Hair and Brimstone. And in 2014, New Form Digital partnered with Liguori to produce his ten part series Oscar’s Hotel for Fantastical Creatures. Due to the immense following behind KickThePJ, New Form along with the help of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop put their faith in giving life to over thirty new characters from Liguori’s imagination.
Wong Fu Productions
A production company before YouTube even existed, Wong Fu Productions’ founding trio of Wesley Chan, Ted Fu and Philip Wang met in 2004 in a visual arts class at the University of California, San Diego. Wong Fu has been producing content for over a decade, and long has gone the days when Phil, Wes and Ted use to pay for a server and bandwidth in order for people to watch their sketches from a download link they passed around the internet.
Before their first upload to YouTube in December of 2007, a trailer for their first feature film A Moment with You (2006), Wong Fu had a feature film debut at the San Diego Asian Film Festival, a twenty-five university US tour, a number of freelance jobs, plans to move to Los Angeles and three Bachelor’s degrees between the three of them.
In 2007, the company released the short that has now become synonymous with Wong Fu Productions, Just a Nice Guy. With thousands of new fans asking to purchase the brand of ‘Nice Guy’ clothing that was specifically designed for the short by Wesley, the ‘AreYouANiceGuy’ shop was born – giving Phil, Wes and Ted the financial freedom they needed to focus solely on Wong Fu Productions.
Following the success of A Moment with You and the growing popularity around the channel, producers and managers approached the trio with prospects of a new feature length film, The Sleep Shift. After various meetings with studios and independent production houses, a disagreement with executives on casting an Asian male in the film’s lead role and efforts of people trying to change the company’s three founding members, Wong Fu Productions shelved the project in favour of focusing on their company’s original vision.
Since then, Wong Fu has uploaded hundreds of videos to YouTube – that range from comedy sketches to shorts that pull at the hopeless romantic heartstrings of their viewers – earning the company over two million subscribers. Audiences relate to Wong Fu’s content as they laugh about the common predicaments they find themselves in, in an attempt to find love like in This is How We Never Met and She Has a Boyfriend. However with narratives that tell the cycle of couples becoming Strangers, Again to the pages that need to be turned to move on in Untouchable, audiences widely associate Wong Fu Productions with capturing the heartbreaks of falling in love.
Over the years, Wong Fu has collaborated with independent musicians, like David Choi, on music videos, teamed up with Domics in telling animated Awksome Adventures, made Agents of Secret Stuff with YouTube’s own Ryan Higa (Nigahiga), and worked with Glee’s Harry Shum Jr. and Fresh Off the Boat’s Randall Park on a number of shorts. In addition to the content created as a company based in Southern California, Wong Fu has also expanded globally and traveled around the world making films in Hong Kong, Italy and Japan; each film made in the country’s respective language.
As their audience grew so did the attention the company received from third party sponsors. AT&T sponsored the audience driven and interactive web series Away We Happened. Subaru partnered with the trio in creating the most awkward ‘meeting-the-parents-and-the-kayak’ conversation in Meet the Kayak. JC Penny helped capture the struggles of back to school in Picture Day. And in 2016 New Form Digital partnered with Wong Fu in creating the company’s first studio-funded project: an eight episode web series, Single by 30, for YouTube Red.
After years of creating content, in February of 2015, Wes, Ted and Phil announced their plan to make their first proper feature length film. Thanks to the supportive fan base that continually gave Wong Fu Productions the freedom of independence and the 6,678 backers who surpassed the goal of $200,000 by $158,308 on Indiegogo, the company was was able to independently create, produce and release Everything Before Us on the 23rd of April 2015.
Wong Fu Production has come a long way from the lip synching videos Phil use to make around the UCSD campus in 2003. Wesley, Ted and Philip were the first of their kind in utilising YouTube’s platform for producing and creating original films. Thanks to YouTube and the support from their ever growing following, a new world of opportunity and exposure opened up for Wong Fu Productions to independently grow their company, brand and content into what it is today. For over a decade Wong Fu has continually told stories on their terms while bringing forth a voice for and shining a spotlight on Asian and Asian American voices and creatives.
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared
‘What’s your favourite idea?’ For Becky Sloan and Joe Pelling it’s probably their brainchild Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared.
Over the course of the series’s original five year run, the British animated surreal-horror-comedy web series graced, and continues to grace, the internet and people’s nightmares with graphic plot twists and jump scares blanketed under catchy songs.
Born out of the free time Sloan and Pelling had while studying Fine Art and Animation, respectively, at Kingston University, on no budget and with the help of a few friends that made up the THIS IS IT Collective, the first episode of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared was uploaded to YouTube on July 29, 2011. Although Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared was initially developed with the intention of becoming a series, the idea was quickly dropped after the first episode was completed. But thanks to Sloan and Pelling’s puppets who sing, dance and eat raw meat, the original short became a viral internet sensation and its newfound audience convinced the duo to expand the series.
Due to Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared’s large following and the viral potential behind the series, the second installment – uploaded to YouTube on the 8th of January 2014 – was commissioned by Channel 4’s Random Acts and the series continued to attract the attention of mainstream commissioners. However, Sloan and Pelling turned their offers down in favor of a Kickstarter campaign to fund the final four episodes of the six part series.
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared’s crowdfunding campaign began on May 20, 2014 with the goal of £96,000 to finish guiding and teaching the show’s characters and its audience about the most important subjects of life. With an overwhelming number of cosplayers, fan artists and subscribers that have dedicated hours to analysing the show’s every detail and formulating theories, the Kickstarter campaign came to an end on the 19th of June 2014 with a total £104,905 raised by 3,540 backers.
Pelling and Sloan’s decision to crowdfund – and successfully crowdfund – the remainder of their project that required £24,000 per episode to uphold the first two episodes’ production quality that mixes live action, stop motion, 2D animation and puppetry, is a testament to the power of the internet in supporting independent content creators. Turning down mainstream support for Pelling and Sloan was a matter of creative freedom and refusal to compromise their collective brainchild. The cult phenomenon of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared was born out of the internet and it deserved to stay on the internet – funded by the people that cared the most about Yellow Guy, Red Guy and Duck Guy. As a result, Sloan and Pelling were able to keep all the quirks of their anthropomorphic Sesame Street inspired puppets, rotten pig heart cakes and baskets of dead fish to its final episode that was uploaded on June 19, 2016.
Bertie Gilbert
Probably most well known for playing Scorpius Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Bertie Gilbert has put his wand away and made a name for himself aside from the Malfoy family name through YouTube.
A ‘YouTuber’ in the conventional sense since he was fourteen years old, Gilbert got his start on the site through vlogging. But at the age of sixteen through his ‘what i’m thinking about’ upload on October 11, 2013, Gilbert expressed his concerns about his future on Youtube, wanting to pursue filmmaking and wanting to be taken seriously as a filmmaker within the home of people who eat cinnamon for views. Since then, he has dedicated his time and channel to producing shorts and films.
Part of this rising generation of independent, self-taught filmmakers who are cultivating an audience on the internet, Gilbert’s involvement in his films are relentlessly hands-on. Bertie Gilbert’s name can be found at least three times in the credits of his films. Serving as director/co-director on all his uploads,Gilbert’s credits across all his films also include actor, producer, writer and editor.
Not only has Gilbert’s idiosyncratic filmmaking style, carefully constructed colour pallets and melancholy-coated original narratives earned him thousands of subscribers and views, his films have also attracted the attention of third-party distribution and production companies, New Form Digital and ColourTV. Of Gilbert’s nine films, New Form funded two of his films, one in collaboration with ColourTV.
Will Darbyshire
From uploading skateboarding videos to YouTube when he was thirteen and making shorts throughout his teens with his childhood friends, Jack and Finn who would be later known on the internet as the twins of JacksGap, Will Darbyshire has come a long way as a filmmaker.
After graduating the Met Film School in 2013 with a BA (Hons) in Practical Filmmaking, the next logical step for Will was to continue and further his presence on YouTube as a way into directing. Since 2014 Darbyshire has put his own cinematic spin on the typical ‘YouTube vlog.’ From sharing his opinions and fears through sit down vlogs – that occasionally incorporate elements of animation – and visual snapshots of his life and travels, Will’s distinctive minimalistic filmmaking style has earned him thousands subscribers and views.
In addition to his personal YouTube channel, on the 9th of October 2016, Darbyshire announced that he had teamed up with his friend, and vlogger, Adrian Bliss in co-creating, The Watercooler, on their collabortive channel ‘vanilla.’ The series is a dark comedy that follows the mundane work week of two men repressed by a female staff member told in five parts, each under three minutes. Although The Watercooler has a much darker tone than the videos on his personal channel, the series is indicative of Darbyshire’s intricate, detail oriented and minimalistic filmmaking style.
End Screen
Although these five featured channels are mainly independent, it is clear that new production companies like New Form Digital and ColourTV and a number of companies and brands have caught onto the power YouTube and its content creators have in reaching a global audience. In addition to the aforementioned films and series supported by New Form, the company has also reached out in helping other YouTubers produce films and web series, such as the films by Sammy Paul and Emily Diana Ruth’s series Cold.
With YouTube joining Netflix and Hulu in creating paid subscription based services, it is obvious that new media has radically changed and challenged itself and traditional media since ‘Me at the zoo’ was first uploaded.
In recent years, the lines between new and old media have blurred and crossed over. Showtime took Web Therapy from the web to television from 2011 to 2015, Issa Rae found HBO fame out of her YouTube web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, the Kotex sponsored Carmilla gained an online cult following, the Vimeo original High Maintenance found a national audience on HBO and Broad City made its way to Comedy Central with a little help from Amy Poehler.
But as seen by these five feature channels, YouTube was the first and continues to be the leading platform in opening up opportunities for independent filmmakers that go far beyond a computer screen.
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Geaney, J. (2013). The Revolution Won’t Be Televised - 4 Reasons the Future of Filmmaking is Online - Raindance. [online] Raindance. Available at: https://www.raindance.org/the-revolution-wont-be-televised-4-reasons-the-future-of-filmmaking-is-online/ [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
(Geaney, 2013)
With the likes of Harvey Weinstein turning his eye (and funds) online, there has been a noticeable change in the coverage of the web series. Industry websites have gone from ‘Is this the destroyer of Broadcast TV?’ to interviews with creators and tips for producing and promoting.
The future is online.
In the years since the rise of big name web series like Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog following the 2007 writer’s strike, when writers wanted to keep working on professional, quality productions while still supporting the unions, the medium has become legitimate platform for creators of original pieces to both showcase their talent and engage with their audience. It is this sense of community that sets the medium apart from the more traditional options.
The Ready and Willing Audience
This willingness of the audience to venture outside television shows that it is the quality of the programming that matters most to the audience and not the medium it is shown on. This is where accessibility becomes central to online programming. It needs to be as accessible, if not more so, than television and film. Web series largely rely on word of mouth. You’re not going to stumble upon shows by flicking around. The most well known web series have big names associated with them while other smaller channels and filmmakers may struggle to get those views and exposure. But even if a channel doesn’t reach a high volume of people, the instant feedback, a sense of immediacy and indeed intimacy that can achieved online can be just as important to the maintenance and future of the series. Like the premium cable channels, it can be more about the quality of the audience you are reaching than the quantity when it comes to the likelihood of survival.
Low Cost – High Value
Web series creators are dealing with a unique situation where audiences expect quality writing and acting worthy of ‘real TV’ but can also get away with lower production value because the audience can understand the lack of studio backing for independent channels and lack or resources especially when there are no big names attached. If the writing is good, and a real passion is there, it will find an audience.
Such is the case with this years winner of the Creative Emmy’s Original Interactive Program, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. A popular online, but little known in the traditional media, web series about a modern take on Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in the form of a video blog with views reaching into the millions for some episodes and a loyal and active fan following. And now, an Emmy. Which is more than some broadcast programs could even dream of. The series has since ended but the team behind it are now working on Emma Approved, their take on Austen’s Emma using the same format, bringing with them the hoards of viewers ensuring an instant fan base for the new series.
If it’s good enough for Kevin Spacey…
Some series attract viewers just by the name attached to it such as the case with House of Cards and Arrested Development, both exclusive to Netflix subscribers, for a fee. It is not uncommon to hear of people buying a subscription to Netflix for one show in particular, these exclusive new shows usually being the culprit. The most recent hit for the streaming service ‘Orange is the New Black’, generated more views in its first week online than both House of Cards and Arrested Development showing the growth in trust of the audience for the service. It is hard to imagine a large audience for a comparatively small production without the success of House of Cards preceding it.
Freedom!
The real beauty of the web series is the freedom of the creators in terms of censorship and the restrictions of a film company or broadcast channel. It is available to anyone who wants to experience it, regardless of time and location re-enforcing that sense of community between the creator and the audience. Formats that wouldn’t work within the traditional half hour or hour episode length on television have found a home online. “How-to” instructional videos, vblogs and parodies are a common alternative to narrative storytelling in web series’, giving the filmmaker a broader spectrum of formats to tell the story.
With the audience so willing to come to them, for writers and creators of web series’ the online platform is a distinct part of their career path, perhaps even the destination and not just as a precursor to a ‘proper’ career in film or TV but a viable option in itself with real prospects. It doesn’t have to be one of the other.
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Petrucci, A. (2017). Top 5 Animated Web Series - Raindance. [online] Raindance. Available at: https://www.raindance.org/top-5-animated-web-series/ [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
(Petrucci, 2017)
Animated web shorts have been growing massively in popularity over the years. Why? An animated web series is a fantastic way to engage an audience on so many levels. They are relatable, funny, colourful, dramatic, and sure to attract a crowd. A huge advantage web shorts have, is the ability to expand across all platforms of social media at a lighting fast pace. This will generate views and popularity, and have your audience begging for more! So if you’re interested in animation, a web series is an excellent way to get your work noticed!
(Varun Aggarwal, 2019)
Varun Aggarwal (2019). Now one can watch web series on Instagram’s IGTV. [online] @businessline. Available at: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/social-media/now-watch-web-series-on-instagrams-igtv/article29775101.ece [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
This feature which will open to the public from Thursday, will see the IGTV platform support web series content creation
Content creators now have something to cheer as Instagram's video platform IGTV will now support creation of web series, allowing creators to organize their IGTV videos into a “series” with a consistent title and theme.
The feature which will open for public on Thursday will see Instagram officially supporting series content on IGTV and making it easier for anyone to create their own.
What this means for content creators is that fans will now be able to turn on notifications and have another distribution channel for your IGTV videos, something which has been seen on Youtube for a long time.
A series title will allow creators to start channels in a web series format and organize their videos on a series page and have each video badged with their series name so it’s differentiated from other IGTV videos.
Similar to Youtube and Netflix, IGTV series will automatically play the next episode, allowing longer engagement from fans and viewers.
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