Doodles animation series v2 - Budget for a producer, producing storyboards + setup of writers room

[ayhth]

tldr:

1. Setup of ‘doodleworld-writers-room’ on Doodles discord (free)
2. Budget for hiring an experienced producer (contract) to lead development of 2 to 3 storyboards. This is for content direction validation with audiences and the doodles community (stacks)
3. Budget for production of storyboard visuals including freelancer writers, sketch artists, talent required to bring storyboard pitch to life. (stacks)

Budget: Racks

Update: a wildly hypothetical roadmap for the animation project. In comic sans, so that you can see how serious this is.

First off: A huge thank you to all doodlers who have shared your feedback and support for the various animation proposals put forth as well as the discussions on discord:
Doodles Youtube Animation Series @Clout
Doodles Animation Extension @Koro
& my initial proposal Doodles animated short experiment on Doodles YouTube channel (vision: a show on Netflix)

The community has spoken and it would like to see things happen.

How do we proceed?

• While there’s a strong temptation to make this a massive collaborative project with the whole community involved in developing the content together, democratically making decisions, the odds of such an approach succeeding are dismal for content production.

• Therefore, a producer is necessary and community members with experience should be nominated to take on more responsibility + have a greater creative say over the process.

I’d like to propose an idea and community participation funnel using the existing discord and this forum, led by experienced doodlers and a producer to be hired.

1. Discord #doodler-writers-room : All verified doodlers may contribute to the discussion of characters , lore and storylines. During this process, I imagine that a few doodlers will stand out with their experience and creative clarity. Let’s call them the ‘skelly crew’ because they are rare and ironically good at fleshing things out.
   
   

• After the producer is hired, his/her/their participation and guidance in this thread would be expected.

• The Skelly crew will also be responsible for recruiting/identifying writing / content / talent present in the community and recognizing idea gems put forth by community members.

• Success means vibing, having fun as a community and imagining Doodleworld together.

2. Strong/ popular ideas from the discord channel will be filtered into forum.doodles.app in a new section underneath final proposals called ‘Doodleworld scratchpad.’ The threaded format, the ability to add topics and that the forum already exists, makes it ideal for help us stay well-organized.

• Example of: topics = ‘Significance of rainbow puke’ or ‘Main cast of characters’ or ‘Sample doodley tropes’ of 'Character voice samples"

• The Skelly crew will assist the community and producer to filter out and post content to Doodlesworld and share these threads as links back to the discord writers room > pinned messages.

• Replies to threads in Doodlebank > Doodledworld by non-skelly crew writers would be discouraged so as to allow replies to be used for organizing additional comments and production notes. They will be directed to the discord writers room instead.

3. The producer leads the development of the pitching storyboard and organizes everything with a professional/freelancer writer, vid editor and sketch artist. The producer is responsible for the hiring of any other contract talent or staff required to bring the 2-3 pitching storyboards to completion within the budget allocated.

• While the skelly crew represents the community to weigh into creative decisions, but the producer will make the final calls for each storyboard, including the intended audience its supposed to entertain. At this stage, the cost of failure is low as we’re coming up with storyboards. The pitching storyboards will not be seen by all until it’s ready though WIP hints maybe shown to engage the community.

• @Poopie has previous shared what this process can yield:
  Pitching Storyboards for Animation - Jim Mortensen pitches a HOME Act 1 - YouTube

What happens after storyboard production > storyboard validation

1. Led by the producer: validation with test audiences via focus group or industry practice. An additional stacks budget may be required for this.

2. Led by the skelly crew: validation with doodler community AND non-doodlers in discord. This could involved using polling bots with help from the moderators.

3. A potential avenue for feedback could be the doodles youtube channel , after the community round on discord has concluded.

• Views, comments from the public could be valuable indicators of what works. This is worth pursuing assuming the storyboards are onbrand and have good vibes. We could consider this approach a replacement to test audience validation in #1.
• pros: potentially viral, wide audience on YT, inclusive participation by the greater public, free compared to focus groups/test audiences
• cons: WIP content exposed to the public could be mistaken as final products by some, noise, rif raff/fud.

Proposed timeline:

• Discussion on v2 preliminary proposal (this) and refinement (days)
• After founders weigh-in, they will setup in discord #doodleworld writers room: hilarity and creativity ensues.
• Final proposal & snapshot.
• Hiring of producer, introduction of producer to the community and writers room. Doodles LLC will be responsible for the hiring of the producer. The community may offer suggestions and contacts.
• Concurrently, bubbling up of nominations for the initial skelly crew.
• Setup of Doodleworld section on Doodlebank forum.
• Timebox: 3 weeks from hiring of producer to allow community participation development of ideas.
• Timebox: 5 to 6 weeks from hiring of producer to completion of 1st pitch storyboard.
• Timebox: 8 weeks from hiring of producer to completion of initial set of 3 storyboards.
• Presentation to Doodler and non-doodler community on discord for voting.
• Optional: Listing of storyboard videos on YouTube channel. Twitter shares, twitter spaces etc.
• Outcome: 10 weeks from hiring of producer to completion of this storyboard validation.
• Preparation for next proposal on YouTube short series production or pilot for studio /network /netflix pitch follows in the next phase.

This timeline is subject to change due to holidays, professional input and all your feedback.

I can’t wait to see what’s in store for all of us!

Disclamer: I’m neither a writer nor a producer, I just have … ideas.

[M.N_wbi.5]

Sign me up. I have so many ideas. I can’t wait to share them

[Clout]

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes

I would love to be involved in anyway, would love to be in SkellyCrew!!

I think going to market on YouTube is the best possible way to reduce costs initially and also gain good exposure to the world. It will generate the hype needed for a full fledged show later on Netflix/Disney w/e. It could even get to the stage we get approached by them and granted funds to make it happen (imagine haha).

LETS GO DOODLEWOORDLE

[Bitty]

Now this is what earns you the golden verification badge, folks! What a great writeup!

I like the idea of starting on YouTube. It can be a very valuable way to get all kinds of direct feedback and an idea of the audience that is drawn to the content and what they like. Shows like Broad City, Drunk History, and Portlandia all started as web series and I think that served them well to hone their voice for when they went more mainstream.

Lookin’ forward to seeing all the creative ideas people toss around in that writers’ room channel! Sounds like a blast!

In terms of making sure everything aligns with the brand vision, I know in the end that would come from the devs and producer working together to ensure a clear idea of where they want to go with this, but do you see there being potentially a need at the outset of the writers room for some sort of general broad strokes guideline for what that vision is before people go down any given rabbit hole? Or do we just let it play out and see what happens? I know that oftentimes knowing the parameters of what you’re working with can counterintuitively boost creativity, if the team had a general idea of what they had in mind for Doodleworld, be it tone or any random specifics. I know it had been mentioned that they’d been working hard on that.

[Bitty]

I’ll add after reading @Ruggles ’ post about lore that what I was talking about above wasn’t about being strict with things or restrictive. I agree that people’s imaginations can go all kinds of fun and wild places without anything being “wrong”. I more was just thinking in a broad sense of staying on course with the dev team’s larger vision for the brand.

[ayhth]

Thanks Bitty!

My guess is that the founders wouldn’t mind some chaos and exploration. Hint being Poopie suggested the audience screen tests, which suggests they are open minded. I would think the community would be it’s best (and fun) self when we have some divergence in the beginning, even allowing for noise.

During this cambrian period (1-2 weeks), I’d be curious to see who bubbles up so that we can recognize them as the skelly crew. Once they are in place, I think we’ll start having clearer visions and plausible options that we can flesh out and converge on. One of key parameters would be likely around target audience. The community seems split on this. We’ve got both PG-13 and adult swim advocates.

This will likely coincide with some sneak peaks on the animation front from Alfie.

[Poopie]

This has my support. We can iron out details in the final proposal

[Andrewtking]

Not overly thrilled about the youtube series proposal. just feels like a bit of an unnatural way to produce a show. I like to think of quality content being created by writers who have been working and dreaming of making a show for years. not by an nft project just hiring outside producers and writers. But I could toootally be wrong and hope i am wrong! our community is pretty dope and full of creative and talented people

[Poopie]

Just to clarify, you’re talking about the next stage of this proposal?

[Andrewtking]

Yes, I think so. The one that is currently being voted on. Wasn’t sure where to comment on that proposal

[ayhth]

Thank you @Andrewtking. It’s a fair concern, after all, this hasn’t been done by any other NFT project successfully and there are currently no data points.

My initial idea was similar to yours: decent budget → professional team + production house to create a proper 15min pilot the represents the final quality, good enough for a pitch. (Years ago, I used to own a production company) Through feedback in the discord think tank and on these threads, the community and founders have guided it to the current v2.

A youtube series (or any animation series for that matter) is no small undertaking either. But if theres a place and time to try this, it’s with the Doodles community because we have something special. Ofc, there’s a risk this could flop - hence the tight budget, hiring a professional to advise on and lead this.

I appreciate your feedback on this, and keep it coming. We’ll be learning along the way, together.

[Bitty]

omg you owning a production company makes so much sense.

[Bitty]

I think both routes are probably valid. I can see the pros of both.

[Andrewtking]

Great response.
Definitely and intimidating undertaking but if you and people from the community are dedicated to making this work then I’m all for it!
Just the idea of a bunch of hired hands making something scares me, but I don’t think that’s the situation.

[ayhth]

Hi everyone! Unfortunately we missed the preliminary vote quorum requirement by 122 votes. Snapshot

Look out for the discord writers room which will like be set up since it’s non-financial. There will be a follow up vote shortly to push the producer and storyboard budget through.

Stay tuned!

Thank you for your feedback and participation

[ayhth]

Vote back on!
let’s make it happen: Snapshot

Thank you!

[AceNFT]

Vote vote vote! Let’s get a quorum!

[kasra]

Really like to make this happen Hope we reach the needed votes this time

[lord_of_vapes]

OMG! Love this idea, can’t wait for it

[JF5735]

This is so brilliant. I love it!!! Proud to be a doodle