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.