Nick's Shorts Program

[Trombone77]

Recently, I heard about this article from a Twitter post by Paul Tibbitt:
Why Nick’s Pitch Program Doesn’t Work | Cartoon Brew

Here's the Twitter post as proof: https://twitter.com/paultibbitt/status/543681441637208064

About a few days ago, this article was posted:
Nick Believes Key To Success Is Developing In-House Talent | Cartoon Brew

What are your opinions on the articles? Also, do you believe that Nick's shorts program and the upcoming program that they are getting ready to enact will be successful? And, do you think there is something else that Nick could do to better its animation division?

 

[CoolEric158]

I'm down with the shorts program if the cartoons that actually get picked up are ones that I and/or the target audience will enjoy. If they're not, I don't want none.

 

[Russelrules44]

That sounds like a good idea. I wonder if they'll accept one of my animations.

 

[MadMan400096]

Part of me thinks that Nick's change in stance came about not because Amid pointed out what he saw as flaws in the program's logic (I somehow doubt the Nick execs care about what a controversial animation historian has to say), but rather because they realized it'd be easier to actually hire the producers first. I think the big reason why The Loud House was greenlit for a full series was because Chris Savino is already a force in the industry, having directed the final seasons of Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls. With this update to the program, it'll more than likely be easier for a potential creator to get their idea noticed by the executives, then do a bit of work on other cartoons before getting to take on the challenge of making a show of their own.

To be honest, I've actually thought about entering myself. I don't expect my idea to picked up, though. I'm mainly doing it to teach myself about what a TV cartoonist goes through to come up with a story.

 

[DHB8008]

We will just have to wait and see.

 

[ILDC]

If only they didn't show a short with such tired tropes.

 

[acquah]

I say that the articles are bull. Here's why.

The first article (Why Nick's Pitch Program Doesn't Work) is basically about the news of who won at Comic-Con the chance to have their own pilot. It was Trevor Reece with Cupcakery of Doom, do you remember that? In that context, Amidi acts like the Shorts Program doesn't focus on artists in-house and instead go for the "magic bullet idea", picking up random untrained nimrods off the street. Now, I would agree that Nick should look for the talent inside... if only they haven't been doing this at all before.

I looked back at the lists of the pilots made, and about 40 percent were from those who had worked with Nick or currently working. Among the people are Derek Iversen, Laura Sreebny, Chris Savino--as we should all know, Carl Faruolo, and Chris McRobb + Will Viscardi. So, the Shorts Program is a morale killer for artists working at Nickelodeon Animation Studios because their dreams are taking away from untrained college students when they're all placed on an equal playing field?

And as for that kid getting his short, this is what he had to say about the article above and the Shorts Program:

I have REALLY been resisting commenting on this post, but after two months of working with Nickelodeon, I don't like this negative representation of them being spread around. I'm not flaming or trolling or whatever. I just want to set the record straight. I have to; I'm a newspaper writer. Which we already know from my art
I have had nothing but a rewarding experience with Nickelodeon since they accepted my pitch. The people I have met and worked with at Nickelodeon have been incredibly supportive, not only of me, but of the people they already have in house. They are incredibly artist/writer friendly and just plain regular friendly.

Everyone should watch the shorts that Nickelodeon has already produced and is currently producing (at the very least, you should watch them because you need to have watched them if you want to argue against the Shorts Program). But honestly, there are some amazing, brilliant people that Nickelodeon has shown incredible faith in. "Loud House" is going to be awesome and everyone should make sure to watch "Earmouse and Bottle" when it is released - to name a few.

Believe me, I am making sure I am surrounded by talented people. That has been my life philosophy since I was pitching color pencil drawings to Stick Stickly. I really hope to win over everyone with my silly cartoon. Which is why I wanted to post the original story I used for the bulk of my pitch. Hopefully some of you will begin to see why Nickelodeon wanted to take a chance on "Cupcakery of DOOM!"

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6200...

As you said Amid: "The challenge is to identify the handful who have shown an inclination to experiment, have something valuable to say, and possess the strength of character to carry forward on their own."

You're right; this is the challenge. One that I feel I am more than ready to tackle. I hate creative stagnation, falling into repetition and going for easy jokes. I have no interest in humor that is at other people's expense. I want to simply be funny and have fun, without being crass, cynical, or ironic. Making people laugh is serious business for me.

I really do hope you all give my short a chance when it is released so you can see the fully-realized final product. A lot of people are going to be putting a lot of time and energy into the short and I think you are going to enjoy it!

And he's not the only one saying that Amid's article was bull.

From Pedro Eboli, the co-creator of Monster Pack:

Sorry, Amid, but I have to say a couple of things on this one.
I am the co-creator of one of last years´ selected shorts for Nickelodeon International and finished the short (called "Monster Pack") last February, so I can talk about that. I can´t say anything about the Comic Con thing, which just sounds more like a way to be present at the Con than anything else.

But for the shorts program, it was a great experience overall. Nickelodeon gave us complete creative freedom in doing our short, even going so far as letting us pick how much we wanted to be involved (we decided to be 100% involved) and which animation studio could produce it (Birdo Studio in São Paulo, a damn fine one). And both me and my friend and co-creator are NOT "untrained college students". Graham (the co-creator) is an animation supervisor in Vancouver and I have years of experience in the industry doing everything from commercials, music videos and other shows.

If you take a look at the news you gave this year about the Nick Shorts program, you will notice that the people who won the Nick shorts program alongside us include the Bothers McLeod and Mel Roach, among others, all of them extremely talented and experienced people. When you make a statement like that about the winners, that they´re all pimply teenagers or fanboys, it just makes you sound uninformed about the subject you´re ranting about. Always a bad idea for a journalist.

The Nick Shorts program was especially important for me, being from a country that´s not an animation powerhouse like the US. This gave me a channel to send my idea to a network, be seen and have my idea produced the way me and Graham wanted to.

So it´s not only about the premise itself, it was also about the execution. Becuase we got to execute what we had in mind, without any of that folkloric "producer´s interference". Quite the contrary, actually, with this being our first produced pitch, they gave us all the support we asked, from talks with screenwriters on Skype, to directing our recording session over conference call, to a great talk with seasoned NICK artis Chris Savino (who, btw, won one of the spots in the US shorts program).

Of course, instead of sending my pitch to Nick, I could always go the route of making your own stuff at home, putting it online and waiting to be discovered too. It works, it really does. But it´s not everyday I have time to animate without a budget, with me being a person with rent and bills to pay. When I have the time, I love to do that stuff too. And Nick is not forcing anyone to send pitches, Nick is not promising anything it´s not ready to deliver. You get contracts, you read them, you agree or disagree. We´re all adults here. There are no amount of guns in no amount of heads. But I can already hear the cry of the pimply college students, Cartoon Brew´s actual fanbase, saying how Nick is getting a free ride, etc etc. Which is totally not true.

I can´t comment about Nick hearing pitches from the inside. But I can tell that in the US shorts program at least 3 of the creators who got shorts made were from INSIDE Nick. Of course you have to nurture talent from the inside. But it would be equally silly to simply dismiss any visions from the outside, it´s a HUGE world out there, Amid. It doesn´t stop in LA or NY. and this diversity is what makes content great.
So, Amid, I just wanted to share my first hand account of being in the shorts program. It was fantastic, we made what we wanted, I met tons of great people and I love the little short we made. Of course, you can keep guessing wildly about what you THINK it is, and maintain yourself angry at the whole thing. Your choice.

Cheers.

Mike Scott of Moosebox:

I’m going to call you on this one Amid
I was part of last year’s Nickelodeon Shorts Program. It was one of the best work experiences of my 10-year animation career, Nickelodeon were some of the best clients I’ve worked with, my ‘MooseBox’ short is still unreleased but I look forward to when it is.

I’m from South Africa, we don’t have television networks that support the work I do. Nickelodeon started out by giving a voice to independent creators which gave us shows like 'Ren & Stimpy' and 'Doug' (shows I love). I pitched at Annecy last year, got back to South Africa and got word that they’d be keen for me to submit a proper pitch. I worked up a pitch for something else (that was drawn on a recycled-paper notepad but I remember having caught the eye of the person I was chatting to at Annecy and getting a remark) and sent it through. I *KNOW* that ideas are a dime-a-dozen and the by-and-large, execution is what counts. I’m SO incredibly pleased to have been a part of that program. If I was working at Nickelodeon and if allowed, I think I’d *still* pitch my idea.

To discuss something I can chat for ages about - 'Adventure Time'. I was at San Diego Comic-Con in 2006 when Pen Ward screened his Adventure Time pilot. IT BLEW MY LITTLE MIND. I was crying with laughter afterwards and was amazed that a short with such street-wise sensibility was able to work its way into a major network production. I emailed Pen over and over enthusing about his pilot and hoping it’d be made into a series. Happily CN picked it up, perhaps a missed opportunity by Nick but still they took a chance on it and that took some kahunas.

After seeing that, I came back to South Africa and quit my job of animating fairly tame kids shows for our local broadcaster (I was solely "animating" 5/6 minutes every week or two - talk about ‘enmeshed in the daily grind of creation and production’) and started with my first animated Goldfish music video, which was posted on CartoonBrew and I imagine led to someone from Nickelodeon contacting me back in 2011. We've been in email contact since it's helped get me to this point. So, thanks Amid I’ve since created 5 more Goldfish music videos, one or two have been posted here and they’ve altogether racked up around 9 million views which I think all helps when someone is looking for numbers.

Bash them all you want - I think Nick is venturing into exciting territory. I see Disney is following suite and opening themselves up to looking at pitches from others, heard it from Orion Ross, VP of Content Animation & Digital at Disney at a talk at an Annecy this year called (somewhat ostensibly) ‘The Creative Process: How to Develop and Produce a Creator-Driven Global Hit Property’.
No doubt there may be a lot of detritus to sift through when opening oneself up and it may be risky giving someone without a track record a series to oversee which is why I’d imagine the process starts off with a short pilot, and if things are looking good, further developments can be looked at. I think it’s great that Nick are initiating the conversation and I applaud them for looking for the one-in-a-million. I’m fairly certain sooner or later their initiative pays off (if it hasn’t already).

Was great to meet you at Annecy this year, I was emboldened by Pedro piping up, thought I’d share my thoughts.

If you want an unbiased, extensive point of view of that Comic-Con winner, go to this article. Also, if you want to see Trevor Reece's resume, because, you know, you want to see who the hell is this Reece guy, go to this LinkedIn page.

For that second article Amid wrote, in which he thinks that talking about a 20-day-old article is more important than the death of a famous, valuable voice actor, he wrote that Nickelodeon is changing their point of view to look for in-house talent now.

Honestly, it would be better for you to read the Variety story that Amid linked to, so you can have a better glimpse of what Geoff Berkshire was trying to say a month ago.

Also, wouldn't it kill Amidi to understand that the Variety article is talking about the Nickelodeon Artist and Writer Programs that had existed for years? Heck, you can just go onto the Facebook pages, click on "Opened" by the side, and see that Nickelodeon has been doing this for quite some time. Seriously, go to their pages here and here. You can even go to the Nickelodeon Animation Studios' Facebook and Tumblr and Twitter and even their own website. They're giving their in-house creators and animators too much love already.

And the biggest offense I've seen from them was that they plagiarized a song from Tobacco. But it's more like the artist they commissioned was the one who is the thief, because no one, not even the guy was getting ripped off, was truly aware of the situation.

Now, I respect that Paul Tibbitt is showing how much he cares for the network he's working for and wanting the best out of them. But the article he posted is basically...(now how I should put it)...bull. I can't say if the shorts or effort put in by the animation studio would be great in the final run. However, it's best for you to not consider how it would end if you follow an opinionated guy who hates the studio's efforts regardless of how good their products become.

In other words, Amid Amidi is best known to be a tool.




MOD EDIT: @acquah Let's refrain from inappropriate languages, self-censored or not. This is a family friendly forum.

 

[Russelrules44]

I say that the articles are bull. Here's why.

The first article (Why Nick's Pitch Program Doesn't Work) is basically about the news of who won at Comic-Con the chance to have their own pilot. It was Trevor Reece with Cupcakery of Doom, do you remember that? In that context, Amidi acts like the Shorts Program doesn't focus on artists in-house and instead go for the "magic bullet idea", picking up random untrained nimrods off the street. Now, I would agree that Nick should look for the talent inside... if only they haven't been doing this at all before.

I looked back at the lists of the pilots made, and about 40 percent were from those who had worked with Nick or currently working. Among the people are Derek Iversen, Laura Sreebny, Chris Savino--as we should all know, Carl Faruolo, and Chris McRobb + Will Viscardi. So, the Shorts Program is a morale killer for artists working at Nickelodeon Animation Studios because their dreams are taking away from untrained college students when they're all placed on an equal playing field?

And as for that kid getting his short, this is what he had to say about the article above and the Shorts Program:



And he's not the only one saying that Amid's article was bull.

From Pedro Eboli, the co-creator of Monster Pack:



Mike Scott of Moosebox:



If you want an unbiased, extensive point of view of that Comic-Con winner, go to this article. Also, if you want to see Trevor Reece's resume, because, you know, you want to see who the hell is this Reece guy, go to this LinkedIn page.

For that second article Amid wrote, in which he thinks that talking about a 20-day-old article is more important than the death of a famous, valuable voice actor, he wrote that Nickelodeon is changing their point of view to look for in-house talent now.

Honestly, it would be better for you to read the Variety story that Amid linked to, so you can have a better glimpse of what Geoff Berkshire was trying to say a month ago.

Also, wouldn't it kill Amidi to understand that the Variety article is talking about the Nickelodeon Artist and Writer Programs that had existed for years? Heck, you can just go onto the Facebook pages, click on "Opened" by the side, and see that Nickelodeon has been doing this for quite some time. Seriously, go to their pages here and here. You can even go to the Nickelodeon Animation Studios' Facebook and Tumblr and Twitter and even their own website. They're giving their in-house creators and animators too much love already.

And the biggest offense I've seen from them was that they plagiarized a song from Tobacco. But it's more like the artist they commissioned was the one who is the thief, because no one, not even the guy was getting ripped off, was truly aware of the situation.

Now, I respect that Paul Tibbitt is showing how much he cares for the network he's working for and wanting the best out of them. But the article he posted is basically...(now how I should put it)...bull. I can't say if the shorts or effort put in by the animation studio would be great in the final run. However, it's best for you to not consider how it would end if you follow an opinionated guy who hates the studio's efforts regardless of how good their products become.

In other words, Amid Amidi is best known to be a tool.

Every right note was hit. I absolutely agree 100%.

 

[ILDC]

Also, wouldn't it kill Amidi to understand that the Variety article is talking about the Nickelodeon Artist and Writer Programs that had existed for years? Heck, you can just go onto the Facebook pages, click on "Opened" by the side, and see that Nickelodeon has been doing this for quite some time. Seriously, go to their pages here and here. You can even go to the Nickelodeon Animation Studios' Facebook and Tumblr and Twitter and even their own website. They're giving their in-house creators and animators too much love already.

Impressive how they've highlighted all their creators (save maybe a few), even John K.

 

[acquah]

Impressive how they've highlighted all their creators (save maybe a few), even John K.

I'm not sure that even Cartoon Network or Disney Channel has done the same with their creators, posting portraits of them on walls.

Also, if this doesn't show respect for in-house animators, I don't know what will.

 

[Russelrules44]

I'm not sure that even Cartoon Network or Disney Channel has done the same with their creators, posting portraits of them on walls.

Also, if this doesn't show respect for in-house animators, I don't know what will.

That also goes to show that even will the increase of live-action shows, Nickelodeon will still always have a place in it's heart for animation. And animators in general.