One Last Point...

Other methods of distribution, other than the internet, are festivals. These are a good place to bring your work to a wider audience and to be able to successfully network with other animators. A list of festivals in England can be found at: http://www.animation-festivals.com/advanced-search/results/ With more notable festivals being 'Bradford Animation Festival', 'Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival' and 'London International Animation Festival'

More information

Some more written work that I have done with regards to the animation.

Why The Internet Can Be Advantageous To Animated Content.

Primarily One-By-One (OBO) is a comical animation, whose sole purpose is for it to be enjoyed on the internet. The very nature of the style used lends itself for this to be the most likely outcome. There are other places where it could be ‘distributed’ such as TV or Cinema. But as the content is a little more surreal than you would expect to find in these mediums then this would be unlikely.

At best on TV the most you could hope to achieve with something like this would be a cult following. It is for this reason that the internet is the best place for OBO to appear on. If it gains its cult following then great, but the bigger advantage is that the internet is a much more free and open place than TV and Cinema can ever be. This is because there are no commissioning producers for the internet, just ‘You’. This means that you can create whatever you want and upload to it to any number of the video sharing sites. Such as: YouTube, Vimeo, Openfilm or any number of the hundreds of sites that exist. You can create what you want and then upload it where you want, as long as you have the technological capacity to do so, something that you will NEVER be able to do for TV/ Cinema as there will always be someone “who knows what they are doing” who wants to change something.

The biggest advantage of internet intended animation is that it will not take as long for it to be seen as TV/ Cinema based animation would be. This is because, if you are doing it all yourself then, you are working on your own schedule. You will not be reliant on funding as much as mainstream content is, and can just go out and do it. It isn’t going to take you 2 years to get funding and then another 2 years to produce your content. The very nature of the internet and how wide ranging it is means that although good content will be produced it doesn’t have to be up to the same standards as that of more professional content. This means you can produce your content faster and get it seen faster.

If this happens, because of the very nature of the internet, your work can be shared. Then if you are very lucky your work can go viral. The biggest example of this being Gangnam Style which was only meant to be appreciated within South Korea.

Viral can be advantageous as you can then earn money from advertising streams, approximately $6,330 per 1000 hits on YouTube. If your primary concern is in making money then this can be a great booster to your earnings.

Another example of the internet being more beneficial than mainstream media (TV/ Cinema) is that your work can be more focused at your intended audience. Mainstream media can be seen by anyone, it may only be intended for instance to be viewed by for example the 16-30 age range, but you may not want this. Not everyone wants to be big and famous. You may have a talent and want to use it, but not want to be ‘mainstream’. The internet allows you to do this by providing sites that are dedicated to what you want. This means that you can be big in your area on the internet but never go mainstream. People are very protective over their work, and by using the internet you can protect your work by making sure that it is only ever viewed by those who are going to appreciate it, rather than those who will just want to criticise it.

What Other Zombie Content Is There?

In the last decade or so there has been a resurgence in the Zombie genre. With such content being: Shaun of the Dead (2004), Dawn of the Dead (2006), The Resident Evil Franchise (2002-2012), World War Z (2013) and many more inbetween.

The increased popularity for such content seems to have come from the increasing demand for ‘survival’ stories, and what better way to do this than to have hordes of attacking ‘creatures’ come after you.

Primarily though, whichever of the 7 basic story types you use, there is only one intended outcome. That is the portrayal of human endeavour. The Zombie genre does this but in a much more extreme way than a RomCom does. It achieves this by throwing the characters into sudden situations in which they have to survive. They have no choice, they have to keep going. People enjoy watching this, as the content plays up to people’s egos by making them think that if they were to be attacked then they would be able to survive. This is probably why, films now portray ‘Zombies’ as being faster more dangerous thinking creatures. It is because in all honesty, if there were truly proper Zombies then you would have to be very unlucky to have been overcome by them, as they move slowly and all  you would have to do to survive is to walk quite fast. From this there are ‘super zombies’ more powerful, who can do more harm. This allows for greater heroes to come along and thus now makes that audience think that if it was to happen to them, then they would no longer be a survivor but a hero.

Why Animated Zombies Matters?

Animated Zombies matters, because it isn’t trying to be clever with the genre, it just wants to use it.

By using a Zombie character it allows me to be able to create situations and outcomes that wouldn’t be able to happen to anything else. For instance, a ball flying through the air can hit someone on the head and be considered funny. But by subverting this and using a Zombie I can make the outcome more surprising and much more unlikely. I may for example have the Zombie pull off his arm and then use it as a bat. Done in the right way with the right timing this can extremely funny. You just can’t achieve this with a human or an animal character.

By the very nature of comedy when portraying a character, you either laugh at or with. If you are going to have serious harm come to them then you either need to make them the ‘bad guys’ as happened in Home Alone (1990) so that you have no empathy, or have the character with no back story so that you can’t form an emotional attachment with it. This is what I have done with Animated Zombies. I have used a Zombie character so that you can’t form an attachment, but so that I can deliver content in a quick sharp approach.

Some thoughts that I forgot about

Anonymity:

The internet has many good and bad points. One of the main ones being anonymity. There are of course advantages and disadvantage to being anonymous.

Advantages being that: anonymity can protect people who are being persecuted, so that they are able to fully protest without revealing their identity. It can allow you to do research without others knowing what you are doing. If you are researching in the library, then someone just has to look over your shoulders to see what you are doing. You cannot do this with the internet as you can go on it on your own and use programs that block what you are looking.

Of course these can all be disadvantages. People can use anonymity to unfairly criticise without being able to be traced. They can use the anonymity to carry out some very questionable activity.

In all honesty it depends what you are doing. If there is a piece of media then surely criticism should be made in your own name. After all media should never be about life and death.

The Internet for Distribution:

The internet can be fantastically simple for distribution of a media product. There are any number of video streaming websites where all you need to do is to create an account and you can upload straight from your computer.

This therefore means that the internet is now the primary choice for distribution from ‘amateur’ producers. Although here amateur us a misnomer as a lot of content published on the internet is nowhere near amateur.

The major advantages of using the internet for distribution are that it is instantly available so that your work can be seen as soon as it is finished. You can create it and showcase your work as soon as it is finished. This then follows on to being able to focus your work maybe more than you would be able to do so with traditional media outlets.

The disadvantage comes from the fact that if you can do it then so can thousands of others, this means that you are always fighting to be different and to be noticed. Whilst this could also be considered to be somewhat true for more mainstream media the difference for them is that they have the budget so that they can make more considered careful decisions on the work. As it is so hard to get to this stage it means there is less work from them and so it is more likely to be noticed.

Basically on the internet to be successful you need to be different, to have a following and to be able to adapt to change as soon as it comes along, because if you don’t you will be forgotten very soon. There are numerous stories of people making money from advertising revenues on YouTube, but this can’t last and unless they are able to change they might find a time when they are no longer in demand and they might actually find that they are struggling.

So whilst the internet is a good place to distribute it cannot and should not be the only place you distribute and earn your revenue from. If your work is good enough then you should be able to get it to more mainstream media, where more work should then hopefully follow.

Social Media:

Social media described in the simplest terms are sites where like minded people can keep in contact. As the internet allows you to communicate more information faster than any other form of communication this means that change can fluctuate more so than anywhere else. However, because of social media with these like minded people, you can focus your work and target it towards people who will be interested in what you are producing. Probably one of the best sites to attempt to do this is Twitter. Not because of being able to share links for videos, but because there are celebrities on the site with millions of followers. If you are able to gain there attention then they may tweet a link to their followers. If you can do this then you open your work to the possibility of millions of people seeing your work. This is where your work can go viral.

Finished Animation

Just to notify that the animation work is now finished and all that is left to do is to add some sound effects, and that's it. Job will be done.

Update

I have now started on the production of the animation. Out of the three I have been working on the first one, which is now just about finished.

I have also been doing simple bits from the other two clips.

As I was delayed in getting the equipment and software I needed to complete the work I have been looking at the audio and some of the shots used in the animation. The dialogue of sorts is still going to remain, but there is now going to be less of this. This is to make it more realistic and appropriate to the zombie. There are now going to be less morphs within the 3 clips as these were getting in the way and deviating attention away from what really mattered.

I have also been working on background detail and cycles and working out what need to go where in relation to this. This is so that I can re-use certain pieces of animation, but alter this in certain ways so that it looks different.

Shock Horror

Scientist says that Zombies as portrayed in films would never be able to function in that way.

Such a shame. But it does mean that no one will be coming after your brains.

Viral Media

There is a lot of information out there on what it means for something to go viral on the internet.

I take it to mean that some sort of content that has gained over 100,000 views.

There doesn't seem to be any reason for what will make something go viral. It can be good or bad. Rebecca Black became infamous for her 'terrible' music video Friday. I presume that something similar was happening with 'Gangnam Style' but its popularity took over and meant people enjoyed the dance rather than making fun of something silly.

Usually something goes viral by accident, it will be shared between friends and from there will just keep on going. If something becomes big enough like Gangnam Style did then it can make it to international news where it gains exposure and will then garner even more views.

There are companies out there that profess to know how to make something go viral, but usually these will have money behind them so that they can sponsor posts on Twitter and Facebook and make it more likely to go viral.

It doesn't always work though. If a site produces good content then it may go viral, but as everything cannot go viral then the one good piece could be stuck between rather rubbish pieces. Because of these rubbish pieces people turn away. The bigger the company the more content and the more likely this can happen. This is why companies go for advertising campaigns where it will be a more drawn out process. As this can more or less guarantee that the piece will be seen. This obviously costs a lot more money, but is more likely to provide a return.