It’s the late 90s.
Smartphones aren’t a thing, the internet is a Wild West of dot-coms and YouTube is
just a twinkle in someone’s eye.
When I was a kid, all I needed was a beanbag and a TV to watch cartoons.
In 1996, Cartoon Network launched their Cartoon Cartoon series which featured original shows
from indie creators and they were WEIRD.
Not as gritty or experimental as Adult Swim, not as safe & formulaic as other more kid-friendly
shows; they existed in a grey area - sarcastic and off-beat and just downright strange.
At the same time, Pixar released Toy Story to rival Disney - it’s hard to imagine a
time before Pixar these days, but even so I remember my friends dragging me to cinemas
to watch it saying you’ve GOT to see this movie - and rightly so: it blew me away.
We’d even line up our toys after that, waiting for them to move like they did in the film.
I had a similar reaction to Into The Spiderverse - it wasn’t just the animation, it was the
quality of the writing that stunned me.
There are so many other cartoons and animes that I could talk about, like how Dragon Ball
Z and Sailor Moon brought anime into the limelight with serialised storytelling and the tons
of other animations I haven’t had the chance to watch coming out these days.
But let’s fast forward.
2019 Hey.
I’m Danger Dolan.
I’ve done gaming videos, and countdowns, art & animation.
Here is an artist's impression of what I look like today.
I started Planet Dolan from my bedroom when I was about 23 years old.
It’s been a long, weird journey to get where I am today and lots of things have changed.
But one thing has always stayed the same.
Our goal.
Our one goal.
Make a cartoon.
One lousy season.
That hasn’t quite happened yet.
We’ve made edutainment videos.
We’ve done music.
We’ve made a visual novel.
A book.
A video game.
We dance around cartoons but we don’t touch them because YouTube isn’t quite there yet
to support them - don’t get me wrong, it’s CLOSE, but not quite.
We want to make things with longevity focusing on original characters and brands like a film/TV
show/cartoon with rewatchability - a new or existing IP, completely separate from Planet
Dolan.
In a lot of ways, YouTube is a dream job.
You get to make content you love, work from home on your schedule, interact with fans
and be your own boss.
I’ll always be grateful to the platform, it’s changed my life in endless ways.
The part I’ve ALWAYS loved is the idea that anyone can make it, no matter where you’re
from (just like the lesson you’ll learn at the end of Ratatouille).
You don’t need to network to succeed, you just need to make quality content and the
algorithm will help you find your tribe somewhere online.
Right now we at Planet Dolan work on the YouTube treadmill - produce a thing, produce more
things, upload or people will leave.
As many can attest, it can become a fast-produced, fast-consumed impersonal burnout factory.
Working alone.
Words on a screen.
I live in Australia far away from our staff - it might as well be Pluto.
Trending on YouTube you’ll find celebrities on American talk shows, hunky people doing
social experiments, movie trailers, apology & break-up videos, politics, high budget studio
music videos, makeup tutorials and vlogs - and occasionally a storytime animation.
You might be tempted to be salty about this list, but that’s what people like to watch.
Tomorrow it’ll change.
You can fight the tide or adapt to it.
Now, if you’ll permit me to geek out a bit, there’s already lots of wonderful animated
content on this platform, my favourite being fictional cartoon-like story videos that are
just getting started.
The same guys who started Cartoon Cartoon over at Frederator helped Natasha kickstart
Bee & Puppycat on YouTube which has since turned into a cartoon on VRV and a comic series
too.
Vivienne started Hazbin Hotel on her channel funded by fans on her Patreon which is shaping
up to be incredible.
Mystery Skulls which started as a type of Scooby Doo parody went to extreme with visual
storytelling, always a treat to rewatch.
I first got introduced to Michael Cusack’s work through the Rick & Morty episode Bushworld
Adventures - the writing was so good I had to tweet him about it.
And I’m sure I’m not the only one waiting for Ross O’Donovan’s Gameoverse project.
Some series were written/boarded/directed and animated by one person alone over months
or years.
If you ever want a lesson on how to make an goal-oriented character, check out Felix Colgrave’s
DOUBLE KING on his youtube channel.
Jeremey from TerminalMontage’s Something Series is a super interesting case study on
mixing animation with inventive sound design - another animation channel funded by Patreon
and fans.
The biggest success story is my eyes is Rooster Teeth - going from YouTube machinima Red vs
Blue to the 3D animation Monty Oum’s RWBY using nothing but Poser to get started and
now Gen:Lock with A-list celebrity voice actors which I see as a banner over Times Square
earlier this year - that is insane.
It was a thrill to hear Burnie Burns talk about this journey in person at PAX Australia
2017.
And I’m sure there are tons of new & classic animations on YouTube that I just don’t
know about yet
In 2018 at VIDCON Australia I was on an art & animation panel along with DrawWithJazza,
TheAmaazing, JaidenAnimations & Odd1sout feeling super out-of-place considering these guys
all knew each other and I’m the only one of the group who can’t draw at all - personal
shoutout to Jaiden for going out of her way to chat to me and make me feel welcome before
the panel.
On the panel we were all asked what our goals were and I was surprised when the others said
they were taking it one day at a time, and when I said our only goal from day one has
been to make a cartoon I was even more surprised when the audience cheered.
James suggested we do a kickstarter to make it happen and I replied the reason we haven’t?
We want to prove ourselves first - and we’ll need help or it’ll take years and waste
everyone’s time.
There’s an initiative in Australia called Skip Ahead which funds story pilots like DrawWithJazza’s
Tale Teller, who wrote/directed/animated and even did the music for himself with backgrounds
by another Aussie Greg Bartlett from backgroundart.net - it’s a ton of work to apply for this grant
and get accepted, so mad respect there.
We’ve been making animations monthly since 2015 with animators like Sweetcommando, GhostToast,
ReturnoftheGoo, Spinalpalm, Robo, Jameshark and the legendary sound design team Epic Mountain
Music known for their work on the Kurzgesagt animations.
Recently we released the two part music videos: Origin of Gooby: Waiting animated by a single
artist: Robo, and Origin of Gooby: Searching which was a team effort of about 10 key-frame/clean-up/board
and background artists throughout most of 2019.
As you’ll see from board, to roughs, to clean-up and final comp, we approached it
as if it were a studio project thanks in no small part to our art director Wolfgang, who
we met at VIDCON.
Likewise our visual novel End of Doopie was a proof of concept with a shoestring budget
and basic dialogue, comic-style key frame scenes - purely to show handling a longer
cartoon-episode-length production from the ground up.
What we learned from a high budget short project and a lower budget long project is this: animation
takes an ungodly amount of time if you want to keep your vision intact.
If you don’t have a network or team (aka if you're independent), you will be working
around this issue.
You can cut corners by rigging characters or reusing assets.
You can lower the scope of the project.
You can accept you’ll be working on a short thing for years, more as a proof of concept,
side work or as a shining gem for your portfolio.
But unless you’re a human juggernaut like TerminalMontage, you might be relying on machinima
for your 20 minute episode animated series on YouTube.
Let’s talk about a bad awful word that might offend some people.
NETWORKING Oh.
Hey.
Another introvert.
Welcome.
Take a seat.
Here’s your complimentary cup of anxiety.
Make sure you don’t talk to anyone in the room or you will be judged, but put yourself
out there.
Not too much though.
Everyone on YouTube has a public persona, they are experts at interacting with fans,
supporting their community and collaborating with other creators.
I’m not.
I’m horrible at talking to humans, I’m the LEAST qualified for this job.
In fact, I have no interest in going to events and I’m most comfortable talking to nobody
unless it’s purely for work reasons, I don’t want to be an influencer or E-FAMOUS - because
all I want to do is help make cool stuff.
I met Hideo Kojima, famous for the Metal Gear Solid series of games at RTX Sydney 2017 and
on one of his panels when someone asked him a personal question, he replied “don’t
concern yourself with who I am, let my work and characters speak for me” which I can
completely relate to.
Most of the PD team came to us through direct job applications and almost all of the Origin
of Gooby: Searching staff were found through “I know a guy” connections.
The few times I’ve reached out I’ve gotten lovely replies, the CEO of Mercury Filmworks
(responsible for Hilda, Mickey, Tangled, Lion Guard) personally contacted me about our cartoon
pilot, and the guys at Next Animation Studio gave us tons of helpful tips and even some
invaluable distributor contacts.
No, instead of making connections in the industry, I just read a ton of books from other people
who made it.
My bookcase is full of them, filmmaking ones, behind-the-scenes, tutorials, too many to
mention.
I’ve scoured bookstores across multiple continents in non-fiction and biographies.
It actually pumps me up to hear from others who found their break - like Charlie Brooker
who created Black Mirror, he did an episode talking about it on the screenwriting podcast
Scriptnotes.
Mike Reiss did a book called Springfield Confidential which goes into deep-dive on what it’s like
to write for the Simpsons since the beginning - one of the best reads I’ve ever had.
I joined a screenwriting discord (but of course, never said anything in it because I’m bad
at networking) and as soon as people were asked what type of screenplays they’d want
to work with, I expected them to say films, TV shows and plays.
But a whole slew said ANIMATION.
I had no idea so many writers were interested - glad to know it’s not just me!
This has all led me to the conclusion that YouTube maybe isn’t the platform for the
next project we want to do.
When Bee & Puppycat kickstarted their show, they broke down the series into a budget sheet
which I’m super grateful for as you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find this info ANYWHERE.
If anyone’s read To Pixar and Beyond by their Chief Financial Officer Lawrence Levy,
you’ll know Pixar floundered for over 10 years before they figured out how to support
and recoup investment for animated films by a stroke of luck.
The dream is to gather our team of writers, voice actors, editors, artists & animators
in a real location for any number of months, hash out & work on our plan for a years worth
of cartoon and spend the rest of the year working our butts off to make it happen.
Every year.
Forever, if need be.
I met one of our artists Froggywithfries in Vancouver and he asked what we’d be willing
to do to make a cartoon and I had to laugh.
My answer was anything: I’d sell my house to fund production, I’d upend my life and
live on the other side of the planet if it meant a completed pilot, you would be SCARED
at what I’d do to make a cartoon.
Creating creative works is my big passion - overseeing writing/music/art/animation/editing/production,
most of all writing stories.
To be honest most days I’m totally bummed out.
Half the time I feel like I’m not running my life properly and it’s true what they
say, time speeds up faster and faster as you get older - but the one thing I’m confident
about is that I want to work with cartoons.
Most of my days are spent at cafes writing animation screenplays that might never get
made and I’ll admit: it’s frustrating being so close but just not quite there.
So I’m going to commit the most dire FAUX PAS and just ask you guys directly if you
have any references or you know someone in the industry or you have suggestions about
what to do next.
Show this video to anyone you like, feel free to share your own story if you’re in a similar
situation.
And let me finish by saying even if this goes nowhere and we never end up making anything
worthwhile - there are two artists who I dearly wish this video would help.
The first is Honeybits, she’s done almost all the references for the entire PD cast,
the reference sheets, and she single-handedly did the storyboards for Origin of Gooby: Waiting
& Origin of Gooby: Searching.
She’s done character designs for our cartoon pilot and tackled almost the entire board
and helped shape it over several years.
She’s a massive hidden gem who deserves a chance to board cartoons even if it’s
not from us - she’s based in L.A and I’d love to see her find storyboarding opportunities,
be it local or remote.
Jameshark has been our animation rock on SPD for years now, just like Sweetcommando was
before him.
He gives the episodes a crazy amount of personality, he’s a super hard worker, reliable and it
was an honour meeting him for the first time at VIDCON Australia where he drew tons of
fan art at our booth just to support the community.
His dream job would be a storyboard or comic artist, even if it’s international and nothing
would make me happier than to see this happen for him.
Likewise, there are an endless number of incredible artists who shared their work for #portfolioday
through most of July 2019 looking for work.
I get upset when talented artists apply to PD and I can’t give them the opportunity
they deserve - let alone the hundreds and thousands of them you’ll see in this hashtag
alone.
Life can be unfair, man.
Everything is a dice roll.
If you want to get in touch, you can reach me with the email contact@planetdolan.com
- I read everything that comes through there, even if I can’t reply to each one.
Thanks for listening.