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3D animation series for Youtube channel – An inspiration from Cocomelon success
3D animation series prevails Youtube channel for kids edutainment. Before we discover how Unreal Engine can help create engaging, inspiring, motivational content from simple concept and production, let’s have a look at below video first.
Cocomelon channel is run by Treasure Studio Inc. The company is owned by a couple in Orange County, California. They have been producing children’s entertainment videos since 2006. For the first time, in February 2020, 55-year-old Jay Jeon along with his wife were discovered as the owners of Treasure Studio.
Moved to Los Angeles from as early as the mid-1990s, Jeon chose to work in commercial directing after finishing studying film at a local Los Angeles arts school. His wife at that time was a children’s book author. A decade later, they decided to begin making short cartoons stories told to their two young sons in an attempt to entertain them better. After being shown some of the clips, many of their friends suggested the couple post them on YouTube. Thus, the channel ABCKidTV was born as a channel of the Jeons’ clips for kids.
ABCKidTV posted classic singalongs of such types as Wheels on the Bus and The Alphabet Song. Viewership steadily rose, which help the Jeons earn enough from YouTube ads to hire animators and songwriters to invest more into the channel. First, an animated toddler named J.J. began to star in most of the videos. Later his mom, dad and other family members, as well as many other animal friends joined the channel. His parents play and sing along with their kids in all the videos. Mom does most of the parenting and Dad often assists her in family chores. The characters all contribute to create family scenes and cozy atmosphere for all videos. The voices of kids and adults together create balance and connect to the kids immediately with familiar bonding.
2018 recorded Cocomelon explosion in YouTube viewership, after channel’s re-branding and embracing 3D animation styled- videos
Instead of steadily rising in viewership as a decade earlier. The channel suddenly recorded peak and record-breaking viewerships thanks to a dramatic change in the second half of 2017. The team begun producing 3D animation-styled videos. As a result, monthly views nearly doubled just two months after the change according to Tubular Labs Inc..
In 2018, Jeon rebranded the channel into a more kid-friendly and sweeter-looking one with coconut and watermelon brand identity. A new name for the channel, Cocomelon – Nursery Rhymes, thus, replaced the previously-known name ABCKidTV. The Cocomelon channel produces approximately two videos a week. Each video features recurring animation characters singing along to either a popular nursery song or their own original kid song.
Image source: Bloomberg
For more than a decade, the Jeons ran their channel more or less by themselves. So Cocomelon’s success has caught everyone off guard, including Jeon. By the end of 2018, monthly views totaled about 2 billion. After rebranding and rendering all the channel’s video to 3D animation form, Cocomelon is the most subscribed YouTube channel in the U.S, and the third most subscribed in the world. YouTube Kids recommends Cocomelon as one of the top channels for preschool children of 4 or younger age. The 3D animation-styled videos of Cocomelon outranks other videos of same genre in YouTube’s algorithm for recommending kids video according to a Pew Research study.
Youtube statistics says it all. The Jeons and their team of about 20 employees has turned this channel into the most successful channel for kid on Youtube with 82billion views in total. To be specific, Cocomelon is the first YouTube channel to surpass 1 billion of weekly views regarding animated kid’s nursery rhymes. Up to more than 1.600 people watch any of its videos every second. In February 2020, the channel even received 2.5 billion views a month on average. Such viewership would earn Treasure Studio an estimated $11.3 million from monthly ad through Google’s AdSense program. According to Forbes, Cocomelon recently broke another record in video streaming channel – Netflix. By remaining in this channel’s top 10 most-watched shows for 62 days consecutively. That’s longer than Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Tiger King or the hottest dating show – Love is Blind. These triumph were beyond the Jeons and the production team’s wildest expectations.
Image source: Bloomberg
Animation Series focused on storytelling, simple concept and production with Unreal Engine
After all those beyond-imagination successes of Cocomelon, Jeon says he’s simply a storyteller. Story and concept plays a vital role. Instead of complicated stories, simple story and concept become the first choice for those who wish to develop for kid series to upload on their Youtube channel. Youtube videos shouldn’t be complicated. It needs high quality, modern 3D looks. Simplified story and better sound effect, then, would take these channels to leading position. That’s what we can learn from Cocomelon nursery rhymes‘ success.
We have been familiar with the Unreal Engine as a tool for real time and virtual production. And many Unreal Engine based studios and production companies have collaborated to create cinematic scenes for blockbuster movies.
However, focusing on storytelling, simple concept and production still can be source of record makers. Besides Cocomelon as an excellent evidence, below video is another one:
A skillful, experienced New Zealand animator – Peter Monga – saw a simple way to tell stories to preschool, toddler kids by making 3D animation series without the need for renderfarms. The idea was totally made possible by using Unreal Engine 4.
An Unreal Engine screenshot for an episode from Morgan Lives in a Rocket House.
Below is a sample episode from the series.
Read more >> 3D Animation series for Youtube channel – Simple Concept and Production with Unreal Engine prevails – P2 via this link
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Reference Sources:
- Animation World Network: https://www.awn.com/
- Cartoon Brew – Technology: https://www.cartoonbrew.com/tech
- Befores & Afters – Visual effects and animation journalist: https://beforesandafters.com/
- Bloomberg News: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
- Insider: https://www.insider.com/