How to Create a Popular Animation on YouTube in 2015 Major Research Project
TomSka is successful because from the start he's reacted to what's trending in comedy on the internet (Franklin-Wallis, 2015). Now he's reacting to what other successful "Youtubers" are doing which appeals to fans, which is creating their own book (Franklin- Wallis, 2015). He didn't sell out to become famous on TV and focused his efforts into his videos.This was a good decision as it meant he kept full control of his channel and didn't lose out on money because (Evening Standard, 2013), "Google says more than 1000 people world-wide are earning £63,000 from just YouTube advertising revenue".
He has chosen to live in London, which gives him lots of opportunities to collaborate with other "Youtubers" and be part of the community which appeals to fans.
By selling merchandise online and being a YouTube Partner it means he can earn a lot more money which he can then put back into his videos.
TomSka
"Back in 2006, I wanted to do my own comics... I wasn't good at drawing, so made the minimalist the asdf comics.
I stopped doing the comics because I'd seen so many stick figure videos on Cracked.com and The Laser Collection and thought I can make and animation of this.
I don't want to milk the asdf movies to death... they count for 10% of my content but count for 60% of my views... I wanted to make a series but would risk it... and would kill it, but it works the way it is."
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Red Carpet News TV interviewed Tom Ska at the Summer in the City event in London about his most famous set of videos on his channels called the "asdf movies,(Red Carpet News TV, 2015)
Francine Harvey
TomSka videos
asdfmovie 9
HOW TO YOUTUBE
TomSka
Thomas Ridgewell began making stick figure comics and then turned them into animations to fit the comedy. He was uploaded his videos to YouTube and then moved to London to where he lived and became TomSka. His animated comedy sketches called the "asdf movies" (TomSka, 2008) became very popular online and now leads a team of animators.
3,866,452
subscribers
Started in 2009,
Francine Harvey
Tom Ridgewell also released a video on his channel giving people tips on how to start their own Youtube channel (Tom Ska, 2014),
"You need a name for yourself... a good username needs to be memorable and easy to share.
Make a secondary channel to put updates and try new things and make mistakes on.
Rewatchability... keep it snappy... trim the credit and title sequences.
Quotability... silly voices, catchphrases... an effective way to get yourself stuck in peoples' heads.
Being relatable and relevant... keep you popping up in people's minds throughout the day.
Shareability... memorable thumbnails, titles and tags.
Make a good first impression.
Ask to subscribe and watch another video.
For money you can use advertising, merchandise and brand sponserships.
Collaborate with others... every skill you lack, someone else out there will have that skill to offer.
Be kind to your audience."
TomSka
Oliver Franklin Wallis from wired.co.uk interviewed Thomas Ridgewell about his new book "Art is Dead" which brings back the comics which started off his success, (Franklin-Wallis, 2015),
Francine Harvey
Oliver Franklin Wallis
How did the book happen?
It's all the rage to do books with YouTubers now, isn't it? So naturally I just found myself in one of those meetings. And it was sort of: what could you offer to the world of literature? The ASDF animations were originally comics, so I thought: what if I brought that back? That would be an opportunity to do something actually artistically viable, in a sense.
TomSka
The comics go back to the beginning of TomSka.
Oliver Franklin Wallis
TomSka
Yeah. It was about the turn of the millennium when I first saw a flash animation online. That was my moment of realization of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I didn't really watch TV, I didn't care about movies, I just wanted to make videos for the internet.
So I started making animations in Microsoft Powerpoint (because apparently that's how I thought it was done back then) then I started doing Flash, then video sharing kicked off around 2005. But I'd had almost a decade of prior knowledge of what kind of humour worked online, so I was equipped to take a lot of these jokes and do the first “ASDF Movie", which kicked things off.
Oliver Franklin Wallis
What does a working day look like, and how has that changed?
TomSka
I really haven't matured at all. I don't know what a working day looks like, because they're all completely different. I run my own company, so I make sure I don't start until 10. But sometimes I won't start until a couple of hours late, but I'll be working until midnight. It's madness. But the ideas come when the ideas come. The only time I've written really really bad stuff is when I've forced myself to work, when there wasn't anything there. Sometimes I'll write my most successful joke of the year on the train or on the toilet or something. I'm always on. That's the unifying factor. I don't know what relaxing is. I don't relax, I just procrastinate.