Independent animation has recently gained a ton of traction. People want new types of shows that have more heart in them. Not that there aren’t any well made cartoons anymore, but major studios are very iffy about taking chances on projects unless they are sure they will make money. So when a person, or small group of people, forms their very own studio to show the world their idea, people pay attention because they want to see something new.
For those of you who are unsure of what it is, independent animation, or indie animation, is animated media that is produced outside of major animation studios. However some noteworthy shows started out as indie shows but then were picked up to be produced by a larger studio.
A lot of studios have a hard time picking up different types of animated show ideas for fear that they’ll lose money in them. A good example of an animation studio that was largely well known that took a chance on tons of animations was Cartoon Network. They had a lot of extremely unique cartoons, however that network has now been adopted by Warner Bros Inc. so they are a lot more corporately produced now.
Indie animation is important and there have been some pretty successful ones, along with some popular ones that have been picked up by larger studios.
Why is Indie Animation So Important?
When running a large entertainment based company you have billions of viewers to cater to. The entire world watches the content your company is producing and expects it to meet their expectations. Usually studios like this care more about producing content that will make as much money as possible over genuinely well written content. The risk of unique ideas could lose money, so you stick with a formula that is well known and loved.
The thing is, good content makes money. Yes that content can only be enjoyed by certain audiences but as a viewer you can tell when the creator is passionate about their story and they put it into their art. It’s personal, and to young artists and writers who see someone go from small stories online to producing massively enjoyed content, it’s extremely inspirational. The idea that an individual’s creative ideas are loved sparks so much motivation!
On top of that the cultural significance of being in a time where people can just make their own content is massively important. For example Glitch Productions put out a show on Youtube, The Amazing Digital Circus, and within one month it became the most viewed indie pilot with over 100 million views. It doesn’t matter if you enjoy that content or not, that is an insane achievement!
Now a large complaint I hear about a lot of animation is the fact that most of it is more so geared towards adult audiences. First off cartoons aren’t just for kids, if you think that, then you are just a little bit joyless. Cartoons are fun and nice to watch, both for adults and kids. Second, there should be more indie animation made for children, the thing is advertising to children is more difficult, especially when you don’t have a lot of funds. An adult knows their interests better and knows how to look for entertainment that caters to it, while a child is still developing theirs. Another thing is these smaller shows make a ton of their money off merch and donations and kids don’t really have money to do that.
Studio Adaptive/Adopted Shows
On the topic of more kid friendly shows Bee and Puppycat (BP) originally started out as an indie show with 2 seasons on youtube and now has a season on Netflix. For the record this show isn’t rated as PG but it is more geared towards younger teens. Fun fact the creator, Natasha Allegri, worked on Adventure Time.
Now here’s the important part of the discussion, is it a good or a bad thing that it was bought out and made into a Netflix series? Here are the pros, BP is a gorgeous show both before and after it was funded by Netflix allowing for her and the team working on it to provide more high quality content, allowing her to truly go above and beyond on the show. It also provides more advertisement so more people watch the show.
The cons to this are a lot of studios don’t continue to fund these shows after the first season or two so a creator can’t tell their full story. BP released on Netflix in 2022 and there has been no announcement regarding continuing the show. That really isn’t an uncommon thing in animated shows, the list could go on and on of the shows that have been canceled. A24 picked up an indie show, Hazbin Hotel (HH), and one of the main issues the audience had with it was that they found the show to be really fast paced. Which it kind of was, but in defense of the creator Vivziepop, if I had spent years making my own show and developing a fanbase for it to be bought out I would shove as much content as I could in what I was given too. Not because I want my viewers to be overwhelmed but because I want the chance to tell the story I’ve been working on. I would be terrified of it getting canceled.
So a lot of indie creators have to face the dilemma of “Do I take the chance with a studio to give me funding to tell my story at the risk of me never being able to finish my work or do I just do it myself?”. It’s difficult and doing it yourself can be risky, but Vivziepop has another show proving that it’s entirely possible to get that funding yourself. Helluva Boss (HB), which is set in the same universe as HH has two seasons out and more content is coming, and compared to the pilot episode of the show the funding and animation quality has grown astronomically just because people liked it and supported her making it so she was able to make it better without being picked up by another studio.
It is so important to support people who give so much of themselves to put their creative visions out there and work to make them a reality. Studios should stop picking up shows if they’re going to cancel them, it would just be better if people supported individual shows instead of subscribing to bigger companies like Netflix or Disney, because it’s a whole lot harder to make your own independent ideas come to life than you would think.
