Online Animation Networks

It's become apparent that television isn't the most efficient medium for the animation industry. Out of all the entertainment industries suffering from executive complacency, animation is the one that suffers the most. At least with video games and film, the executives invest hundreds of millions of dollars into their works and allow their teams degrees of creative freedom. Justified, as they own the names of several prestigious and well-respected IPs, so they attempt to maintain their reputation by trying to make quality works, even if most of their products turn out to be crap by release day. The publishers and studios get paid for the works directly, rather than having to rely on advertisers.

But animation has a different distribution model. Instead, cartoons make money based on the number of views an airing gets. This has caused executives to view some cartoons with contempt while playing favorites with others. They're more interested in selling advertisement space at the cheapest price possible with no regard for quality and refuse to work with anyone with creative ideas that might be expensive too produce, as evident by the programming of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. All their programming consists of either toilet humor or mundane cheap-looking "realistic" slice of life cartoons with no sense of style or uniqueness. There's also the problem with serialized cartoons. The reason networks favor episodic shows is because they don't have to worry about confusing the viewers who they think the majority of are children, and so more quality story driven content is seldom made.

In light of the animated cartoons hosted by Netflix, would it be better for animation if the networks migrated to the internet for distribution? They would have different models to sell their works from, either on a subscription based model or one where the viewers pay for the cartoons they want individually, much like the model used by Steam and other online distribution services. Some of them would sell entire seasons at once, rather than releasing them incramentlally with irregular scheduling like we see with televisio, and others might stick to releasing episodes gradually to maintain the tradition of speculation on the next episode. What do you think?

Fuck off.

I heard that it was the reason Young Justice is getting a season 3.

What's next? Ruby Gloom?

Although its a promising model it's still untested water for most studio's considering Netflix is becoming more picky in which shows it chooses to fund and hosting a show on the service is becoming more of a luxury. There are other services that are trying to fillow in netfix's steps with little success.


Besides the obvious shitpost, did te creator/ studio of Ruby ever express interest in continuing it?

The

It is

bump

Sidenote: Netflix, Hulu and the other existing providers wouldn't be the only ones in the market. Presumably, there would be new competitors in the absence of the over regulated hell hole that is television and the ease of starting an online business. Some of those new networks might have competitive advantages over Netflix and may elicit investment. Looking to get established, they may also open their doors to creative people with the most promising ideas for cartoons to make a name for themselves. We'll just have to wait and see.

Nah mate, that sounds terrible. Why would I want to pay for cartoons when the TV has them for free? And to buy each one individually?
There's something people don't seem to get, and that's the international market.

Okay, in the US, subbing to stream services is probably better off/about the same as having cable but way more convenient. Everywhere else, or at least here in the UK, it's nowhere near as good. Every TV service has streaming as part of it, so the only reason anyone gets Netflix or whatever is to watch American imports and films, maybe some of the exclusive content. (Anyone with half a brain torrents these instead of spending £7 a month per service, but that's by-the-by.) Cartoons don't lend themselves to this, since they're the easiest thing to sell and repackage to foreign networks. In fact, most English speaking channels usually wind up ahead of the US because of all of the US's weird TV holidays and seasonal strikes.

As for the future model for cartoons, TV will probably go back towards the 10-15 minute episodes of nonsense with a few 'adult' cartoons and nothing in between, until someone's brave enough to target the original family market for The Simpsons again, and then that'll be another goldrush. Maybe a few dead cult cartoons like Young Justice or whatever might get scooped up by streaming.

I think it's pretty naive to think of streaming as the savior/new frontier of TV, especially for animation. Netflix and co. are more likely to sink money into star-studded shows, specials, and revivals than into cartoons. If they do, it's either going to be niche adult stuff or for kids. And then there's the obvious ridiculousness of paying several sites just to watch their exclusive content, which would work against upstarts.

Personally, I just don't think animation lends itself well to being the sole attraction of a streaming site.

If they ever give it an actual budget

The question is, do we even know how much budget required for an animated show? I NEVER hear about how much budget spent for shows like Gumball or Steven Universe or Samurai Jack.

Except they've proven the opposite of that. Most of their good shit has "known" actors, but hardly any that are wildly famous. Winona Ryder is the only person I recognized in all of Stranger Things. Luke Cage had absolutely know one that was famous.

Does anyone have any data or statistics on that?

I used to frequent halfchan Holla Forums several years ago and even back then no one know the amount of budget spent for animated series. It's still a tightly guarded secret.

we have a good general idea for nipponese stuff, but they probably spend a lot more money on coke and hookers in SJW Fransisco

Google suggests that most cartoons seem to be in the ballpark of at least 10k per episode, which can quickly add up to more than a million for an entire order of episodes. Even if Netflix and its peers are splurging billions on original content, financial scrutiny is still a must since they do want to see returns on such investments.


Hardly. I imagine there isn't an exact number to cite because of additional costs and tax credit subtractions.

Netflix are showing there's definitely a better way for shows to get made, but their animated series so far were lackluster.
Also, they seem to greenlight a LOT of shitty shows/movies on top of the ones that work. They're throwing a lot of money at the wall, and only 50% or so is actually sticking.

If Young Justice goes well, they very well may pick up other shows that got cancelled in similar ways, as they've proven people will stick around for a show 6 years after it ends. Green Lantern TAS never ever.

I doubt they'd chuck a large amount of money towards another original series, as they've not been doing well, but picking up scraps from networks may be a very rewarding thing for them in the end.

They'd probably have to start shipping these shows/movies to networks eventually. As other anons pointed out, outside of the US, Netflix is gimped in terms of content. Here in Australia, we get something like a third of the number of titles, but they're also often 1 or 2 seasons out of a 5 season show, or just shit movies that the US customers don't watch anyways.
That has to do with how licensing works, but it will need to be addressed if they want to do well. Selling shows to networks is a safe bet, as they can back up why the network should buy them with very specific viewing statistics that networks can only dream of, currently.

If I had the money, I'd definitely start a service similar to Netflix that specialises in animation, and just buy as many series as I can, with exclusive rights, then try to buy people for original series. A partnership with either Marvel or DC, as well as others like Dark Horse or 2000AD would also be something I or Netflix would want.

Oh, and they have to start making mature animations, not just stuff for kids. Despite how bad The Killing Joke ended up, it showed execs that adults will and do want to watch animated things.

What about Voltron? What did you and Holla Forums think of that? show?

*that show?

It was pretty average.
I've only seen two threads on it here, one on release and one last week, but it seemed to be disliked in both.

I personally found it shit, the characters were dull and hamfisted, the plot was boring and predictable, and the animation was average at best.

What were the most egregious aspects you can think of?

While I think streaming provides a better front for animation in terms of creative freedom and distribution, it's going to be a long time until television dies out for services like Netflix to be widely adopted, let alone they create animation actually worth a damn.

I think the only way out is if there's a better way to create animation with cheaper cost. Imagine we have robots that can draw inbetweeners faster. Like robots programmed to follow a certain artstyle and people can draw rough sketch for movements and the robots can fill in later. Of course it's a pipe dream for now.

Hire North Korean slaves

While that seems like a great idea, video games and movies are made at high costs, and at least some of them turn out to be good.

What we need to do is encourage networks and executives to open up and invest more into unique animation. How to do that is the real question.

It's a pipe dream because you'd still need people on stand by to maintain that kind of automation, iron out its bugs, and fill in whenever something doesn't come out right. It'd be just as expensive, and most studios don't need that kind of potential havoc in their production pipelines.

Human labor will always be the most practical and cheapest around.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix the industry?

I guess try to make animated movies that are done by a mid level studio? I don't know if Hollywood is representative of the animation industry in america but its either big budget blockbusters or small indie films. No middle ground. I think we may need more of that middle ground.,

Neural net inbetweening will probably pop up in the next few years, image and video synthesis are coming a long way. This won't make things better though since animation studios are more concerned with shrinking the budgets than increasing quality.

Even with some hiccups it's still faster with robots or softwares. Since time = money less time consumed means less money spent.

Maybe animators might form their own works online and get funding through patreon or kickstart? I know both are flawed but it does seem like a way for them to start their own works.

They have Pidge being a girl as a plot point, but they haven't really done anything with it and the characters don't have much development.

Or they could just make the cartoons with Poser of Miku Miku Dance or Gary's Mod or whatever and cel-shade it.

If those were effective ways to make full-fledged series, we'd see hundreds of great works. The executive-creator dynamic isn't going away anytime soon. The problem isn't the executives themselves. It's more so the lack of incentives for them to allow creators to make good works.

Why are most games, movies and animation crap? Because the executives are guaranteed to make profit no matter how bad their works are. They own the rights to well-respected properties and would gladly cut costs and limit creativity at the expense of the consumers. That's the mentality of EA, Ubisoft, and Hollywood among others.

Im curious why no studio hasnt used smf as a legitimate animation program.

MMD and GM are shit programs.

Has anyone considered looking at anime/cartoons funded by netflix already?

From what people say, most of them are shit. Not surprising, since they have slightly less contempt for animation as the big 3 on tv.

Gotta fill the cheap seats

Cheap seats?

That's what we're calling them now? Not against it, it's just that I've never heard them been called that before.

So is EVERYTHING ON TELEVISION.

Is TV honestly going to survive that long? Last I checked the majority of viewers are boomers and even they're cutting the cord at higher rates.

what is it with anime schoolgirls eating toast in the morning?

Probably not.

user probably replying to this thread during breakfast. I mean last night I ate dinner while browsing /d/, nothing faze me anymore

Try giving /trap/ a shot

Dude, I just read a thread about men got their balls cut while they beg for mercy. I think the shame part in my brain already short circuited a long time ago.

The death of television is inevitable. And good riddance. It's an outdated medium that's long overdue to being replaced.

...

Look I know people seem to have a hard-on for Young Justice, but it was really fucking bland.

I'd probably be able to like the show a lot more if Miss Martian wasn't in it, but since she is the show becomes pretty fuckin shitty. Justice League Unlimited at least had interesting characters and focused on some lesser-known DC characters, but the Young Justice universe never explained why Martian Manhunter is a superhero if all Martians still exist and he's just some normal dude. Like, come to Earth and help out you fucks.

same, bro. MM is a dumbass & mary sue in season 1 & a cunt in season 2
iirc, they mostly focused on Green Arrow & Question with the odd 3rd party hero getting a spotlight in one episode out of the dozen, but they mostly focused on the main 7
still loved the one where they focused on the non-powered superheroes
he's supposed to be a space cop or something, similar to GL, so it would make sense that he'd help out (cops from different districts working together to keep their neck of the woods safe)

The problem with young justice is that it all follows a cringe worthy and angsty formula. New characters are only introduced just to cause drama or solve drama only to further later cause more drama. IT all revolves around drama from new characters causing friction between each other and drama from relationship shit. Then you get random deaths that are done just for shock factor and to cause more drama from relationship garbage.

A few episodes stood out to me and annoyed me enough to stop watching halfway through, only to pick it back up and finish a few months later.

- There was that point where Beast Boy needed a blood transfusion and Miss Martian stated she can change her body on the cellular level. If that's the case then she doesn't just have "shapeshifting" powers, she can become anything. She could get all the powers of a Kryptonian if she made her cells Kryptonian but the writers just used it as a throwaway comment.
- I think this was 2nd season, but when they went to Rann and she was able to link everyone's mind via telepathy, and make them able to understand Rann language. She apparently has the power to understand all things and beings now.
- In many other episodes she conveniently gets a specific power she needs for the time

So basically Miss Martian can speak all languages, can shapeshift on a cellular level meaning she can become any organism, and can also create mass out of nowhere. So what purpose do the other characters serve? She can become Superman on a fucking whim, Martians are the most powerful organisms in the fucking universe.

By that logic Martian Manhunter doesn't need the league at all and can do his own stuff. Though season 2 pissed me off the most with her character. I remember another user doing a thread a while back saying that it'd be awesome if Starfire ended up dating Superboy since she was the real deal in terms of being a genuinely nice person while MM was a fake and mind raped everyone.

That is true, and it fucking annoyed me. In the comics Martian Manhunter can alter his molecular structure, so what could conceivably trouble him? They know he can do that but they don't use it because if they made him use it, he'd be overpowered. But why give him the power at all? What's to stop him or Miss Martian from turning into a Guardian? If they mimic it they get the powers of the biology too, and I know I'm rambling but "shapeshifting" needs limitations to not be OP and they just never gave enough of a fuck to limit it.

I just hate Miss Martian because at the end of the day at least Martian Manhunter is a nice guy, but Megann is just a cunt. I hate powers that don't have restriction. I hate reality warpers for the same reason, writers never make them actually use their fucking powers.

good point. Though is Miss Martian this much of a cunt in the original comics?

I know he gets a lot of flak here for being a 90's raver acid head, probably bi, and not Alan Moore, but I genuinely feel Grant Morrison was the only writer (OK, and Kieth Giffen) with the imagination to pull off Martian Manhunter without him conveniently seeming to forget about half of his powers at any time.

When he and Superman were stuck in a dimensional maze created by the Joker, and Superman was trying to find the way out with his supersenses, and beginning to sweat and freak out because this place ran on Joker logic and made ZERO sense, so J'onn uses his shapeshifting to expand the creative right side of his own brain to better follow the Joker's thought process, and he gives this odd smile, a creepy laugh and leads Superman out, like he just got a joke he couldn't really explain…

Or when Joker got the Worlogog and was about to make the Earth smile by splitting it open like a melon, suddenly he stops and says "What am I doing? What have I been doing with my life? I've hurt people…"
And we cut to J'onn, who is straining, and says he's using his telepathy to manually organise Joker's thoughts, but he can't hold him for long because it's like trying to hold back a river…

No, but she's incredibly bland in the comics. To the point where she's forgotten often because she's got no character development beyond 'Martian Manhunter but younger and girl".


Bingo, Morrison was one of the only good ones for him because he wrote him in situations where pure force wasn't applicable. Martian Manhunter can work, but he just can't work in the DCU, because he invalidates so many other heroes.

He worked well with Morrison because Morrison creates the most amazing enemies, like Epoch, Azmodel, Mageddon the Anti-Sun, Grandfather Box, the kind of Lovecraftian enemies that pure power isn't enough to stop, it takes a fucking epic mini-cycle and some heroic sacrifice to put them down. Yeah, the only way to stop the ultimate supervillains is STORYTELLING, the way it should be.
And J'onn works just fine when you approach it like that. Any goddamn character works just fine when you understand story structure.

am I awful for liking it when they made J'onn a villain? when he removed his weakness to fire & became this infinitely expanding mass with psychic energy coming after anyone & everyone?

I also like how Plastic Man is the only thing able to really challenge him because he's kinda broken too

Yes you are.

idk, I guess I just like it when invincible heroes turn evil

Still better than using forgettable C-Grade superhero as the villain.

Which is why blue beetle will not be heard from in season 3 or will just be there

Its becoming as generic as the princess saving the day.

Okay, why hasn't someone brought up RoosterTeeth yet?

They make their own shit other than RWBY?

Because we'd rather forget they exist.

Okay, why?

BECAUSE THEIR SHIT SUCKS, YOU RETARD

They must be doing something right, otherwise the company wouldn't be expanding the way it is.

They make shit, but people have shit taste.
Not too hard to figure out lad.

there, answered your question
there's the door, bash your skull in with it

What's wrong with them buying ScrewAttack?
That's the first I've heard of that, especially given the infamously politically incorrect nature of Funhaus.
Compared to what?
Have you seen any of their stuff since 2005? The language is there, but it isn't as pronounced, nor is it their crutch.

I didn't know they made those?
Sad to hear they went to shit. I like Red Vs Blue when I was in highschool. I stopped watching it after the beginning of Season 9 since it turned into a shitty role reversal gag.

Are you referring to what happened with Red Team while in the memory unit?

So how many RTX tickets did you buy?

So far, none.

I suppose you do get a staff pass, so you wouldn't need them.

I was referring to where they defeat the Omega and its revealed that Church is an AI so he goes back into the memory box. The Reds and Blues learn that their war is fake so they go about their lives and Washington joins the Blues. I thought it was a good ending and didn't need to continue. But I guess Burnie Burns needs to fuel his sandwich addiction.

Their attitude with "RvB" is that if people still watch, they'll still make it. And, yeah, I cam see the displeasure in the ending of Season 8, and then them continuing onto Season 9.


Is it because someone wants an actually reason given to dislike a company that makes you assume they are a part of it? Just saying "X company is shit" doesn't show anything.

They really should've stopped at 9

No, it's that when plenty of reasons are given you straight up deny them or pretend they're not even negatives. You sound bought and paid for.

The only thing I denied was their humor relying on swearing. Everything else was a question.

They will most likely ruin blue beetle as well with some good old fashioned teenage drama. I bet there will be some love triangle between Robin, Wonder Girl, and some other character. Artemis will probably be in some relationship but more drama happens when Wally comes back.

Or worse one of them has a kid

Probably

...

Im surprised they haven't gone under