Starting an animated series on Youtube, any advice?

Hey guys and gals,
I’m starting an animated series (in french, sorry) created entirely with free software (Inkscape, Synfig and Kdenlive) and I’m interested to know in you have any experience or suggestions to share to help make it a success.

I’m doing it in french because that’s the language where I live and want to make content for here to start with. I’ll definitely do something in english down the line.

So, I’m curious to hear your thoughts, rants, criticisms or anything else you have to say on the matter.

You can check out the animation here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yGHtq7_iis

I like so much the style.

About the language, you can use the traduction application of Youtube, and upload your own subtitles to english (or whatever you want/need).

The one advice is… work and patience. : )

I thought about translating (I’m bilingual so I can do that) but the jokes include a lot of play on words that don’t translate, so I’m not sure if it would be helpful or just confusing.

I posted this first spot on facebook and reddit and the reactions were mixed. Some people like it, others thought the joke wasn’t that funny (it’s not the funniest, but some of my friends laugh when I show it to them). It was downvoted on /r/quebec (hard to get love on that sub). People said the outro was too long and it hurst people’s data caps (for a 1 minute cartoon, seriously?). Some people thought the intro was too long for such a short gag.

I also had comments that my name ressembled that of another cartoon made in Montreal. Should I change it? Tough questions.

Overall I’m glad it got around to get that initial feedback. I’m going to do another one next week and we’ll see how that goes. I guess these things really do take time.

Oh, and I might get some work (someone mentionned that they might need my animating skills) soooo that’s good news if it goes through.

Hey guys, I thought I’d post a quick update.

I’ve created five cartoons so far. I’m trying something new everytime and I’m getting incremental improvements in most departments. I find that sound is where I need to improve the most at this stage.

The first three were pretty short and I got them done within a two week time frame, but this latest one had new characters, had three times the lenght in original content and took about a month to get done.

I added english subtitles on this last one so that you guys can enjoy it too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJsrZXOocDQ

As always, comments and criticisms are welcome!

I really like your style, very clean, and well thought out, in both characters and background. I think your intro and outro lengths are fine ( and this coming from a guy who has tried to make his end credits go as quickly as possible ). I don’t know of any rule of thumb for title and credit length, but maybe a 1 to 10 ratio is good. One second of credits for every ten seconds of content. I’ve seen where this is reversed, and it just seems like a joke, an insult, or the creator caring more about ‘branding’, than content. So it is a viable concern. As far as your audio goes, I found this tutorial for Audacity very helpful in cleaning my own tracks. http://www.geeks.com/techtips/2006/techtips-10dec06.htm . Thanks for the subtitles! All my knowledge of French is from the movies, so I can only pick out a word or two at a time. Doing English versions may broaden your audience, but I think you’re better off finding your niche, and making animations you care about. Your audience will find you. Otherwise the more you do, the better you get. I’m always learning something new, either about animation in general, or Synfig in the specific.

Keep up the great work!

Thanks for the feedback Headtoon!

And thanks for the Audacity link too. I’m starting my next ‘episode’ and want to improve the bits that suffer the most. Right now I’ve identified the ‘worst parts’ as sound and the mouths of the characters. I’ll see what I can do about the sound, and I’ll redraw the mouths and export them at a higher resolution (need to use png to allow the lst files to work).

I’m grateful that the subtitles are useful. I chose to create the toons in french because all my friends are french speaking (I live in Quebec city), and I’ve added the subtitles following a request from an english speaking friend of mine. I’m sure there will be english videos down the line, butI don’t need the extra work at the moment. Perhaps when I reach a certain ‘stage’ of proficiency with Synfig.

I think you’re right about doing something you care about. Animation is a lot of work, and it has to be a labor of love if you’re going to follow through and bring it to fruition.

Update: Tonight I’m showing my next cartoon at a local cinema. It’s the first time my toons will be seen by a crowd of people so I’m looking forward to seeing their reaction. I’ll be posting the cartoon online shortly thereafter, and with subtitles so non-french speakers can enjoy it too.

I’ve been told that cartoon series can be popular in local screenings like these. Have you shown your creations locally yet?

Congratulations! It’s a great success. I hope it will be well accepted by the audience.

Hipa !

humm… any feedback? … the quebec crowd did not like your humor? try in france, frenchies are more sensitive… you know … :slight_smile: