The Next Wave: Animation on the Internet

The Next Wave: Animation on the Internet
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Eric Oldrin, senior animation producer of Shockwave, says: "Everyone is searching for the holy grail of interactive animation."

Even now, companies like AtomFilms and Shockwave are toying with this kind of dynamic animation. You will see, in the coming months, the introduction of such characters as Suckup Guy, and the Stock Market Psychic. You will be able to e-mail tailor-made animated characters right to your friend’s inbox, to taunt them with the dialogue, and look, of your choosing.

A Flash In The Pan?
Among Internet animators, Macromedia’s Flash is the product of choice these days, though, increasingly, other companies are putting out similar programs to compete with it. Why bother with Flash? As Karl Kronenberger says: "Flash just blows everything else out of the water." Flash has tie-ins to other software like Director and Generator, and it can even accommodate the import of 3D-generated imagery. Flash is an elegant vector-based (calculus-based) program, allowing for smaller file sizes, and thus a smoother streaming of data to viewers, unlike the oftentimes cumbersome bit-map files that require a huge amount of time to download. (And you thought math was useless.) Most importantly, Flash allows for that magical, desirous goal of interactivity.

Kronenberger explains that four years ago, "It might have cost $300,000 to get an episode on TV; and now, maybe for $50,000, someone can get a show out there. Flash has limitations of 10-12 frames per second, but it is incredibly cost-effective. For $25,000, one can produce a pilot show. And once all of the ‘asset libraries’ are in place, future episodes might cost somewhere between $8,000-$12,000."

With the advent of broadband, DSL, faster processors and the whole hullabaloo, we may be able to get back up to 24 frames per second, as with traditional cel animation, but for now, Flash remains the most attractive tool for one very simple, pragmatic reason: it is the cheapest.

The Bottom Line
Despite one’s love for animation as an art form, in the context of Hollywood, it is ultimately a business. The dollar dictates.

The Internet may appear like a new medium, but in terms of its marketing and distribution, it seems to be following the same basic principles and models of cable and early television. Francisco del Cueto, product manager for Toon Boom Technologies, speculates that currently animation on the Internet is in the same condition as cartoons on television 25 or 30 years ago. No one quite understands the possibilities for the medium yet; we are limited by technical considerations and the content is varied and simple.

Richie Rich has a resurgence on SpunkyTown.com, but will he be speaking French in the not so distant future too? © & TM 1996 Harvey Comics Inc., A Harvey Entertainment Co.

But the Internet serves the function of being a huge test market; it is a kind of facile development tool.

While there are smaller efforts geared toward businesses or education, much of the animation being done naturally involves entertainment. Karl Kronenberger says, "You can reach more people than you do with TV; you can do it faster and with the same or better quality." Spunkytown, as a Web site for children under 12, has the unique challenge of juggling the education, entertainment and business values of its shows. Market research suggests that 85% of its content is being watched by children with the supervision of their parents. It is not a trivial hurdle: how does one integrate content intended for kids with e-commerce intended for adults?

Dan March, executive director of new media at Harvey Entertainment, agrees: "We approach the Web a little differently. Targeting kids, the demographic is a completely different business on-line." With children, there are no credit cards, the advertising is not the same and federal regulations preclude collecting e-mail addresses. "The economics of the Internet are working against us," March says.

So, how are people generating income?

Dean Terry, senior vice president of creative development at AtomFilms, explains: "You’d be surprised at the enormous amount of money that can be gotten from a product mass-introduced on the Net." AtomFilms just recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of its launch, and much of its financial success is directly attributable to its sales of DVDs and videos.

Kate Connally, manager of content acquisitions at Shockwave, summarizes: "There are different streams of revenue: banner ads; special corporate sponsorships; product placement (which is a little more involved); pay per view, and pay per save (in the future); syndication (licensing your material out to other sites); and the big payoff -- ancillary media (television, film, games and merchandising)."

"Basically," Connally says, "we are incubating properties for better success in other media."